Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accountability in Action: A Blueprint for Learning Organizations

Author Publisher Copyright Quanity Category 101 Questions & Answers about Standards, Assessment and Accountability Douglas B Reeves, Ph.D Advanced Learning Press 2001 1 Assessment A Practioner's Handbook for Institutional Effectiveness and Student Outcomes Assessment Implementation James O. Nichols Agathon Press 1989 1 Assessment Accountability in Action: A Blueprint for Learning Orgnizations Douglas B. Reeves Advanced Learning Press 2000 1 Assessment Alternative Strategies for Evaluating Student Learning Number 100, Winter 2004 Michelle V. Achacoso, Marilla D. Svinicki Jossey-Bass 2004 1 Assessment Assessing Conditions to Enhance Educational Effectiveness: The Inventory for Student Engagement and Success George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh, Elizabeth J. Whitt Jossey-Bass 2005 1 Assessment Assessing Crtical Skills John Mueller Linworth Books 2009 1 Assessment Assessing Educational Leaders: Evaluating Performance for Improved Individual and Organizational Results Douglas B. reeves Corwin Press 2004 1 Assessment Assessing Organizational Performance in Higher Education Barbara A. Miller Jossey-Bass 2007 1 Assessment Assessing Outcomes and Improving AcheivmentTips and Tools for using Rubrics Terrel L Rhodes Association of American Colleges and Universities 2010 1 Assessment
Small Gene Networks : Finding Optimal Models Small Gene Networks : Finding Optimal Models

Genetic networks help in identifying interactions b etween genes, and provide information about the function role of individual genes in the cellular s ystem. In this thesis, we have employed a Bayesian framework to learn network structures from microarr ay data, and implemented an algorithm that uses dynamic programming to find the optimal gene n etwork model for a small number of genes. To test its performance, we applied the method to t wo distinctive synthetic datasets. ROC graphs were used to evaluate the effects of noise and a sm all number of samples, features that are known to be characteristic of gene expression datasets. Resu lts showed significant improvements when the numbers of samples in a dataset were increased. The effect of adding noise to the data gave unexpected results and requires further analysis. The method was finally applied to a real microarray dataset, and led to biologically plausib le results. Small Gene Networks: Finding Optimal Models
Predicting the region of interest for dynamic foveated streaming

The nonuniform sampling in human visual system (HVS) is used in a video compression technique called foveation in which the region of interest (ROI) is given a higher bitrate. This technique can significantly reduce the network traffic or provide higher quality with similar bitrate. ROI or fovea region can be predicted using offline algorithms with a considerable prediction error. In real-time video streaming scenario, although fovea region can be detected precisely using an eye-tracker device, accessing to this data is not possible on real-time basis due to the network latency. In this paper, we propose a prediction model which uses streaming client's gaze locations on a set of frames to predict the fovea region on future frames. With this method we achieved 10× higher prediction accuracy compared to the offline model.
Development effort and performance trade-off in high-level parallel programming

Research on high-level parallel programming approaches systematically evaluate the performance of applications written using these approaches and informally argue that high-level parallel programming languages or libraries increase the productivity of programmers. In this paper we present a methodology that allows to evaluate the trade-off between programming effort and performance of applications developed using different programming models. We apply this methodology on some implementations of a function solving the all nearest smaller values problem. The high-level implementation is based on a new version of the BSP homomorphism algorithmic skeleton.
Dynamic Forest Federalism

State and local governments have long maintained regulatory authority to manage natural resources, and most subnational governments have politically exercised that authority to some degree. Policy makers, however, have increasingly recognized that the dynamic attributes of natural resources make them difficult to manage on any one scale of government. As a result, the nation has shifted toward multilevel governance known as “dynamic federalism” for many if not most regulatory subject areas, especially in the context of the natural environment. The nation has done so both legally and politically — the constitutional validity of expanded federal regulatory authority over resources has consistently been upheld by courts in recent decades, and federal, state, and local governments have been increasingly politically engaged in addressing environmental harms. Yet, remnants of “dual federalism” — which conceives of constitutionally protected, separate spheres of governance as between the federal and state governments — impact the governance of certain resources, like subnational forests. The preservation of the nation’s forests, in turn, is critical to environmental well-being in the coming decades, especially when considering the crucial role of forests in combating climate change. The entrenchment of legal and political dualism in the forest context stymies federal inputs into subnational forest management at a time when state and local governments are unlikely, given current trends, to curb the destruction of a significant acreage of the nation’s forests over the next fifty years. This Article, first, uses forest resources as a case study to shed light on the broader constitutional debate regarding dual versus dynamic regulatory approaches in the United States. Second, the Article is the first to thoroughly detail the under-analyzed status of subnational forest management regulation on the dual-dynamic federalism spectrum and the first to make a normative argument that U.S. forest policy should become more dynamic to avoid the unmitigated destruction of resources of increasing value to the nation, and indeed the globe, in a time of climate change.
Field-SEA: A Model for Computing the Solvation Free Energies of Nonpolar, Polar, and Charged Solutes in Water

Previous work describes a computational solvation model called semi-explicit assembly (SEA). The SEA water model computes the free energies of solvation of nonpolar and polar solutes in water with good efficiency and accuracy. However, SEA gives systematic errors in the solvation free energies of ions and charged solutes. Here, we describe field-SEA, an improved treatment that gives accurate solvation free energies of charged solutes, including monatomic and polyatomic ions and model dipeptides, as well as nonpolar and polar molecules. Field-SEA is computationally inexpensive for a given solute because explicit-solvent model simulations are relegated to a precomputation step and because it represents solvating waters in terms of a solute’s free-energy field. In essence, field-SEA approximates the physics of explicit-model simulations within a computationally efficient framework. A key finding is that an atom’s solvation shell inherits characteristics of a neighboring atom, especially strongly charged neighbors. Field-SEA may be useful where there is a need for solvation free-energy computations that are faster than explicit-solvent simulations and more accurate than traditional implicit-solvent simulations for a wide range of solutes.
Desegregation in a "Color-Blind" Era: Parents Navigating School Assignment and Choice in Louisville, KY

This dissertation is a qualitative study of how parents in Louisville, Kentucky navigate the marketplace of schools. The study focuses on how parents choose schools in a metropolitan area where the primary public school district, Jefferson County Public Schools, which was originally racially desegregated by court order, instituted an assignment plan that relies on a measure of race, income and education level in neighborhood clusters to assign students to schools. I argue that this assignment plan, although crafted to increase equity among students, is resisted by parental decision-making. Parents represent this resistance as "color-blind," connected to the logistical and academic needs of their children. The study uses two levels of analysis: a policy analysis that examines the strengths and weaknesses of the assignment plan, and a critical analysis of how parents both understand the plan and use their cultural capital to reproduce their own social location through the school choice process.
Reflex : Managing Sensor Data Processing in Mobile Systems

Many emerging mobile services leverage sensors available on mobile systems to acquire information regarding the physical world through sensory data processing, in order to serve human users intelligently and ubiquitously. While the sensors themselves can be quite low-power, sensor data processing has proven to be a key bottleneck in the system energy efficiency, which consequently hinders the adoption of sensor-based mobile services. In this work, we present the design and realization of Reflex, a programming and system framework to address the challenge of efficient sensor data processing. Reflex provides a programming and operating abstraction, called channel, and a runtime system that manages the execution of channels, called channel manager. Reflex allows multiple applications to share a channel in order to minimize redundancy in sensor data processing. It further allows channels to be executed in microcontrollers increasingly available on their corresponding sensors. Such a decentralized Reflex, or dReflex, improves the system efficiency by disengaging the mobile system from high duty-cycle sensor data processing. We provide a prototype of Reflex and dReflex based on Nokia N810 with both wired and wireless sensors, including accelerometer and camera. Measurement with the prototype shows that sharing sensor data processing can reduce the power consumption of N810 by up to 55%. Delegating sensor data processing to the sensors can further reduce the power consumption by up to 90%. A user study with developers also demonstrates that Reflex is easy to learn and use.
Nobuaki Egashira , Dependent Mechanism − Receptor 1 ACannabidiol Prevents Cerebral Infarction Via a Serotonergic 5-Hydroxytryptamine

Kenichi Mishima, Kazuhide Hayakawa, Kohji Abe, Tomoaki Ikeda, Nobuaki Egashira, Dependent Mechanism − Receptor 1A Cannabidiol Prevents Cerebral Infarction Via a Serotonergic 5-Hydroxytryptamine Print ISSN: 0039-2499. Online ISSN: 1524-4628 Copyright © 2005 American Heart Association, Inc. All rights reserved. is published by the American Heart Association, 7272 Greenville Avenue, Dallas, TX 75231 Stroke doi: 10.1161/01.STR. 0000163083.59201. 34 2005;36:1071-1076; originally published online April 21, 2005; Stroke. http://stroke.ahajournals. org/content/36/5/1071 World Wide Web at: The online version of this article, along with updated information and services, is located on the
Dinosaurs of Great Britain and the role of the Geological Society of London in their discovery: basal Dinosauria and Saurischia

Beginning with Buckland's 1824 description of Megalosaurus, the Geological Society of London played a leading role during the 19th century discovery of dinosaurs in Britain. Here we review the society's role and assess the current knowledge of saurischian dinosaurs in the country. Of Britain's 108 dinosaur species (excluding nomina nuda and objective synonyms), 32% have been named in the pages of Society publications. Britain has a rich and diverse dinosaur record ranging from the Rhaetian to the Cenomanian, and includes a surprising taxonomic diversity. Alleged Lower and Middle Triassic dinosaurs from Britain are suspect or erroneous. Sauropodomorphs represent all of the major clades and several have their earliest global appearances in the British record (Diplodocoidea, Rebbachisauridae and Titanosauria), implying that this region was biogeographically important for this group. The British theropod record is diverse, and includes the earliest spinosaurids, carcharodontosaurids and coelurosaurs. Although some specimens are represented by near-complete skeletons, much material is fragmentary and indeterminate, and c. 54% of British dinosaur taxa are considered nomina dubia. In part this high number results from the genesis of dinosaur science in Britain and the corresponding obsolescence of supposedly diagnostic characters.
The Eyjafjöll explosive volcanic eruption from a microwave weather radar perspective

Abstract. The sub-glacial Eyjafjoll explosive volcanic eruptions of April and May 2010 are analyzed and quantitatively interpreted by using ground-based weather radar data and the Volcanic Ash Radar Retrieval (VARR) technique. The Eyjafjoll eruptions have been continuously monitored by the Keflavik C-band weather radar, located at a distance of about 155 km from the volcano vent. Considering that the Eyjafjoll volcano is approximately 20 km from the Atlantic Ocean and that the northerly winds stretched the plume toward the mainland Europe, weather radars are the only means to provide an estimate of the total ejected tephra. The VARR methodology is summarized and applied to available radar time series to estimate the plume maximum height, ash particle category, ash volume, ash fallout and ash concentration every 5 min near the vent. Estimates of the discharge rate of eruption, based on the retrieved ash plume top height, are provided together with an evaluation of the total erupted mass and volume. Deposited ash at ground is also retrieved from radar data by empirically reconstructing the vertical profile of radar reflectivity and estimating the near-surface ash fallout. Radar-based retrieval results cannot be compared with ground measurements, due to the lack of the latter, but further demonstrate the unique contribution of these remote sensing products to the understating and modelling of explosive volcanic ash eruptions.
Tracking, feather moult and stable isotopes reveal foraging behaviour of a critically endangered seabird during the non‐breeding season

The movement patterns of marine top predators are likely to reflect responses to prey distributions, which themselves can be influenced by factors such as climate and fisheries. The critically endangered Balearic shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus has shown a recent northwards shift in non‐breeding distribution, tentatively linked to changing forage fish distribution and/or fisheries activity. Here, we provide the first information on the foraging ecology of this species during the non‐breeding period.
Do Performance-based Health Measures Reflect Differences in Frailty Among Immigrants Age 50+ in Europe?

Background Life course influences, including country of residence and country of birth, are associated with frailty index scores. We investigated these associations using performance-based health measures. Methods Among 33,745 participants age 50+ (mean age 64.8 ± 10.1; 55% women) in the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe, grip strength, delayed word recall, and semantic verbal fluency were assessed. Participants were grouped by country of residence (Northern/Western Europe or Southern/Eastern Europe), and by country of birth (native-born, immigrants born in low- and middle-income countries [LMICs], or immigrants born in high-income countries [HICs]). Results Participants in Southern/Eastern Europe had lower mean test scores than those in Northern/Western Europe, and their scores did not differ by country of birth group. In Northern/Western Europe, compared with native-born participants, LMIC-born immigrants demonstrated lower mean grip strength (32.8 ± 7.6 kg vs. 35.7 ± 7.7 kg), delayed recall (2.9 ± 1.9 vs. 3.6 ± 1.9), and verbal fluency scores (16.0 ± 6.9 vs. 20.3 ± 7.0). HIC-born immigrants had mean scores higher than LMIC-born immigrants, but lower than native-born participants (all p<.001). Conclusions Cognitive and motor performance, measured from late middle age, were associated with national income levels of both country of residence and country of birth. This was similar to previously observed differences in frailty index scores.
Physical, psychosocial, and organisational factors relative to sickness absence: a study based on Sweden Post

OBJECTIVE To analyse incidence of sickness for women and men relative to potential aetiological factors at work—physical, psychosocial, and organisational. METHODS The study group comprised 1557 female and 1913 male employees of Sweden Post. Sickness absence was measured by incidence of sickness (sick leave events and person-days at risk). Information on explanatory factors was obtained by a postal questionnaire, and incidence of sickness was based on administrative files of the company. RESULTS Complaints about heavy lifting and monotonous movements were associated with increased risk of high incidence of sickness among both women and men. For heavy lifting, an odds ratio (OR) of 1.70 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.22 to 2.39) among women, and OR 1.70 (1.20 to 2.41) among men was found. For monotonous movements the risk estimates were OR 1.42 (1.03 to 1.97) and OR 1.45 (1.08 to 1.95) for women and men, respectively. Working instead of taking sick leave when ill, was more prevalent in the group with a high incidence of sickness (OR 1.74 (1.30 to 2.33) for women, OR 1.60 (1.22 to 2.10) for men). Overtime work of more than 50 hours a year was linked with low incidence of sickness for women and men. Among women, 16% reported bullying at the workplace, which was linked with a doubled risk of high incidence of sickness (OR 1.91 (1.31 to 2.77)). For men, the strongest association was found for those reporting anxiety about reorganisation of the workplace (OR 1.93 (1.34 to 2.77)). CONCLUSIONS Certain physical, psychosocial, and organisational factors were important determinants of incidence of sickness, independently of each other. Some of the associations were sex specific.
Change of Behavior on Swarm Robotics Using Repulsion and Attraction

In this paper is presented a form to govern a swarm of robots using only two parameters for repulsion and attraction. Behavior of the swarm is first simulated using kinematic models of differential vehicles then an implementation of a pack of five robots is made. As a results, it is evident in simulations and implementations that changing repulsion and attraction parameters can change the behavior of the swarm of robots.
A Molecular Mucosal Adjuvant To Enhance Immunity Against Pneumococcal Infection In The Elderly

Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) causes a major upper respiratory tract infection often leading to severe illness and death in the elderly. Thus, it is important to induce safe and effective mucosal immunity against this pathogen in order to prevent pnuemocaccal infection. However, this is a very difficult task to elicit protective mucosal IgA antibody responses in older individuals. A combind nasal adjuvant consisting of a plasmid encoding the Flt3 ligand cDNA (pFL) and CpG oligonucleotide (CpG ODN) successfully enhanced S. pneumoniae-specific mucosal immunity in aged mice. In particular, a pneumococcal surface protein A-based nasal vaccine given with pFL and CpG ODN induced complete protection from S. pneumoniae infection. These results show that nasal delivery of a combined DNA adjuvant offers an attractive potential for protection against the pneumococcus in the elderly.
Time optimal scheduling of automated vehicle arrivals at urban intersections

Optimal Arrival Time Scheduling (OATS) is a strategy for intersection control in an environment of highly or fully automated vehicles previously developed by the authors. It schedules vehicle arrivals at the intersection with a Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP). OATS goal is to minimize vehicle delay at the intersection and its approaches while avoiding collisions. This goal is achieved by decomposing the coordination problem into the aforementioned MILP and three other subproblems. In this work, we extend the OATS strategy allowing for the modeling of any intersection layout and arbitrary speed profiles inside the intersection. Simulation results confirm that the strategy is able to perform adequately in realistic traffic intersections.
Active transit signal priority considering overlapping phase in artery progression

Current active transit signal priority (TSP) methods are based on real-time detection of information, often with the green extension and early green to make bus pass through the intersection as soon as possible. In this paper, according to domestic environment, applying active transit signal priority in artery coordination system, using related transit priority principle and parameter, can not only guarantee to execute transit priority, but also make the impact of transit signal priority on coordination system minimum. Moreover, the active transit signal priority in artery coordination system should consider the intersection with irregular phase, such as overlapping phase to ensure traffic flow smoothly proceed. So this paper provides active transit signal priority considering overlapping phase in artery progression (TSPOP), and this new green decision model including green of overlapping phase, green of priority transit phase considers green of overlapping phase in early green strategy can keep the same and in green extension strategy can change as flow needs and transit priority request. Finally based on effect of the green extension and early green on general traffic and bus traffic by simulation analysis, using delay of the intersection, this thesis shows the result: TSPOP can reduce bus delay to transit priority and better than transit signal priority without considering overlapping phase in the degree of transit priority, and also can keep the delay of intersection little increase. Therefore, TSPOP in artery progression is effective, which can provide a theoretical foundation and application experience in practice.1
The Key Characteristics of Financial Reporting in the European System of Central Banks

Against the backdrop of the financial crisis, operations of central banks and their balance sheets are in particular focus. Thus, the effective communication on the results of the central banks’ actions is of particular importance. This is due to at least two reasons. First, central banks are accountable to the society for the use of the entrusted resources. However, financial performance of central banks is not always a good indicator of effective striving to achieve defined goals. The so-called “accounting returns” or realized income, as well as risks in the balance sheets of central banks may be associated with the operations undertaken by central banks. Actual losses or benefits for society do not derive only from these results, but depend on the effective or non-effective achievement of defined goals. The other reason why the external communication of central banks is very important is associated with the effectiveness of taken activities because it is less likely that any taken action will be successful unless it is combined with appropriate channels of communication that will enable stakeholders to understand the nature, objectives and results of this operation. Financial reporting of central banks is an important channel of communication. The European Central Bank (ECB) has developed its own set of accounting rules specific to the operations of the central banks. These rules and operations have changed over time, while analytical work and continuing intention to improve these rules contributed to their harmonization and implementation in all Eurosystem central banks.