Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TOWARDS REUSABILITY AND TAILORABILITY IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SYSTEMS USING IMS-LD AND GRID SERVICES

CSCL applications are complex distributed systems that pose special requirements towards achieving success in educational settings. Flexible and efficient design of collaborative activities by educators is a key precondition in order to provide CSCL tailorable systems, capable of adapting to the needs of each particular learning environment. Furthermore, some parts of those CSCL systems should be reused as often as possible in order to reduce development costs. In addition, it may be necessary to employ special hardware devices, computational resources that reside in other organizations, or even exceed the possibilities of one specific organization. Therefore, the proposal of this paper is twofold: collecting collaborative learning designs (scripting) provided by educators, based on well-known best practices (collaborative learning flow patterns) in a standard way (IMS-LD) in order to guide the tailoring of CSCL systems by selecting and integrating reusable CSCL software units; and, implementing those units in the form of grid services offered by third party providers. More specifically, this paper outlines a grid-based CSCL system having these features and illustrates its potential scope and applicability by means of a sample collaborative learning scenario.
Making Connections to Teaching Practice

Administrators, particularly those who engage in instructional leadership, play a key role in school improvement. Past research describes the types of activities instructional leaders engage in but has paid little attention to how they do it. The authors use the case of one school to unpack instructional leadership as a practice, paying close attention to the tools that constitute that practice, the contextual factors that help to define it, and how it affects teaching. The authors find that two kinds of tools—boundary practices and boundary spanners—play a significant role in constituting instructional leadership practice. Contextual factors, including student and staff composition and leaders' values and beliefs, define instructional leadership practice in important ways. Finally, policy implications are discussed.
NStreamAware: Real-Time visual analytics for data streams (VAST Challenge 2014 MC3)

To solve the VAST Challenge 2014 MC3 we use NStreamAware, which is our real-time visual analytics system to analyze data streams. We make use of various modern technologies like Apache Spark and others to provide high scalability and incorporate new technologies and show their use within visual analytics applications. Furthermore, we developed a web application, called NVisAware, to analyze and visualize data streams to help the analyst to focus on the most important time segments. We extracted so-called sliding slices, which are aggregated summaries calculated on a sliding window and represent them in a small-multiple like visualization containing various small visualizations (e.g., word clouds) to present an overview of the current time segment. We show how these techniques can be used to successfully solve the given tasks.
A Methodology to Measure the Semantic Similarity between Words based on the Formal Concept Analysis

Recently, web users feel difficult to find the desired information on the internet despite a lot of useful information since it takes more time and effort to find it. In order to solve this problem, the query expansion is considered as a new alternative. It is the process of reformulating a query to improve retrieval performance in information retrieval operations. Although there are a few techniques of query expansion, synonym identification is one of them. Therefore, this paper proposes the method to measure the semantic similarity between two words by using the keyword-based web documents. The formal concept analysis and our proposed expansion algorithm are used to estimate the similarity between two words. To evaluate the performance of our method, we conducted two experiments. As the results, the average of similarity between synonym pairs is much higher than random pairs. Also, our method shows the remarkable performance in comparison with other method. Therefore, the suggested method in this paper has the contribution to find the synonym among a lot of candidate words.
Daylight photodynamic therapy: The Southern California experience

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a safe and effective treatment for actinic keratoses (AKs) and photoactinic damage. Three elements are needed for PDT: a photosensitizer, oxygen, and a light source. Conventional PDT is performed with a variety of different laser and light sources including blue, yellow and red in addition to filtered intense pulsed lights (IPL). Daylight PDT, using ambient visible light has been reported as safe, time‐ and cost‐efficient, and more comfortable than with other light sources. We report our experience with daylight PDT in 80 patients.
Phantasmal Media: An Approach to Imagination, Computation, and Expression

In Phantasmal Media, D. Fox Harrell considers the expressive power of computational media. He argues, forcefully and persuasively, that the great expressive potential of computational media comes from the ability to construct and reveal phantasms -- blends of cultural ideas and sensory imagination. These ubiquitous and often-unseen phantasms -- cognitive phenomena that include sense of self, metaphors, social categories, narrative, and poetic thinking -- influence almost all our everyday experiences. Harrell offers an approach for understanding and designing computational systems that have the power to evoke these phantasms, paying special attention to the exposure of oppressive phantasms and the creation of empowering ones. He argues for the importance of cultural content, diverse worldviews, and social values in computing. The expressive power of phantasms is not purely aesthetic, he contends; phantasmal media can express and construct the types of meaning central to the human condition.Harrell discusses, among other topics, the phantasm as an orienting perspective for developers; expressive epistemologies, or data structures based on subjective human worldviews; morphic semiotics (building on the computer scientist Joseph Goguen's theory of algebraic semiotics); cultural phantasms that influence consensus and reveal other perspectives; computing systems based on cultural models; interaction and expression; and the ways that real-world information is mapped onto, and instantiated by, computational data structures.The concept of phantasmal media, Harrell argues, offers new possibilities for using the computer to understand and improve the human condition through the human capacity to imagine.
Intention Driven Human Aware Navigation for Assisted Mobility

Ensuring proper living conditions for an ever growing number of elderly people is an important challenge for many countries. The difficulty and cost of hiring and training specialized personnel has fostered research in assistive robotics as a viable alternative. In particular, this paper studies the case of a robotic wheelchair, specifically its autonomous navigation and user adapted control. Integration of a technique to interpret user intention using head movements and a human aware motion planner is presented. Test results exhibit emerging behavior showing a robotic wheelchair interpreting gesture commands and taking the user to his desired goal, respecting social conventions during its navigation.
Multiple model predictive control of nonlinear pH neutralization system

In this paper the control of nonlinear systems using linear models is studied. The control strategy utilizes a piecewise linear description of the process, considered the model bank. The model bank is then combined at each sampling interval, through the application of a Bayesian weight calculator, to render a single linear model describing the system. The linear model is used in a model predictive control (MPC) setting to render the optimal control move. The performance of the setup is simulated for a pH neutralization process, which demonstrates a good following of setpoint changes and quick reduction of oscillations.
Multi-view Learning for Semi-supervised Sentiment Classification

Standard supervised approach to sentiment classification requires a large amount of manually labeled data which is costly and time-consuming to obtain. To tackle this problem, we propose a novel semi-supervised learning method based on multi-view learning. The main idea of our approach is generate multiple views by exploiting both feature partition and language translation strategies and then standard co-training algorithm is applied to perform multi-view learning for semi-supervised sentiment classification. Empirical study across four domains demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach.
Concise Review: Endothelial Stem and Progenitor Cells and Their Habitats

Recent studies on the stem cell origins of regenerating tissues have provided solid evidence in support of the role of the resident cells, rather than bone marrow‐derived or transplanted stem cells, in restoring tissue architecture after an injury. This is also true for endothelial stem and progenitor cells: local pools exist in the vascular wall, and those cells are the primary drivers of vascular regeneration. This paradigm shift offers an opportunity to rethink and refine our understanding of the multiple therapeutic effects of transplanted endothelial progenitor cells, focusing on their secretome, sheddome, intercellular communicational routes, and other potential ways to rejuvenate and replenish the pool of resident cells. The dynamics of vascular wall resident cells, at least in the adipose tissue, may shed light on the origins of other cells present in the vascular wall—pericytes and mesenchymal stem cells. The fate of these cells in aging and disease awaits elucidation.
Probing cancer cell responses via using physically-modified chitosan nanosponges

This paper describes the development of physically-modified chitosan nanosponges to probe cellular behaviors and molecular-level structural responses of MDA-MB-231 cells (human breast cancer cells) adhered onto these modified nanosponges. After 4 and 12 hours culture, MDA-MB-231 cells were investigated to decipher the cellular responses on these chitosan nanosponges through using scanning electron microscopy and fluorescence microscopy. We found that MDA-MB-231 cells exhibited distinct structurally based responses attributable to chitosan nanosponges that we demonstrate as possibly applicable, for drug screening applications. In addition, we developed a chitosan-based micropatterning procedure that allowed us to re-arrange mammalian cells (i.e., HeLa cells in this study, for cancer drug screening) at the desired locations (with a single-cell array format). We believe that this study would provide further understanding of naturally derived biomaterials and facilitate the development of new biomedical devices with unique cell-material interface properties and characteristics, such as in-vitro cell culture and diagnostic platforms.
Potential future exposure, modelling and accelerating on GPU and FPGA

Counterparty Credit Risk is of top concern among financial institutions, as the over-the-counter derivative market has been growing rapidly for the last two decades. Potential Future Exposure (PFE) provides assessment of the safety of a bank's asset portfolio and its adequacy by evaluating whether it is resilient under severely stressing market movements. This paper proposes a PFE model that fits specific business requirements, as well as a GPU and a FPGA implementation of such model. The FPGA implementation has been optimised in terms of the performance to support a fully pipelined design. Experimental results show that the GPU implementation can achieve up to 25 times speedup over CPU solution, and the FPGA implementation can achieve up to 120 times speedup.
Negotiating Policy in an Age of Globalization: Exploring Educational “Policyscapes” in Denmark, Nepal, and China

This article aims to explore processes of policy implementation with respect to an ongoing empirical study in three very different sites: Denmark, Nepal, and China. Rather than treat these investigations in the traditional manner of separate and contained national case studies, I attempt to create a “policyscape” around processes of what Roger Dale (2000) has called hyperliberalism in education, and I do so by working across different levels of the education systems within these three countries. My argument is that nationstate and system studies of education must be informed by understandings of the nature of globalization and especially the new imaginative regimes that it makes possible. Educational phenomena in one country case must thus be understood in ongoing relation to other such cases. In this sense, I am attempting to operationalize as a research program a new approach to comparison, one that has been alluded to in the literature but only conceptually (e.g., Cowen 2000; Marginson and Mollis 2001; Welch 2001). This new approach has its own problems, however. If we accept that educational phenomena are increasingly interconnected to the extent that they can be conceptualized as part of some meaningful single site, how then do we understand the role of states in reform? More broadly, how are we to work with locality and the situated history, politics, and culture of distinct places while acknowledging the ways in which these phenomena are themselves products of international dynamics? Further, and perhaps of greatest interest, if such policyscapes exist, how then are acts of negotiation, resistance, and opposition interconnected in the ways that theorists such as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000) have hypothesized? Perhaps their notion of an interconnected multitude overestimates the capacity of global reform to bring coherence of any type (Balakrishnan 2003), but what, then, are the connected possibilities for action in contemporary educational reforms, and how can these opportunities be understood?
Nocturnal Frontal Lobe Epilepsy Presenting as Obstructive Type Sleep Apnea

A 20-year-old man presented with sleep apnea. Polysomnography was performed and it revealed nine apneas and two hypopneas. Contrary to typical apnea, however, rhythmic epileptiform discharges appeared at bifrontal area on EEG just before the start of apnoea. Video-EEG monitoring was performed to classify these events, and to evaluate the relationship of apnoea and ictal discharge. Ictal EEG revealed paroxysmal fast activity over the bifrontal area. Ictal SPECT showed hyperperfusion in right frontal area. Given these findings, we concluded that these events were epileptic seizures presenting as obstructive sleep apnea. Antiepileptic medication was initiated, and the events were decreased. This case demonstrates that nocturnal frontal love epilepsy may be the potential cause of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
DECONSTRUCTING "MY SWEET LORD": PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF AN ARGUMENT

Adopting a pragmatic approach to discourse analysis, I undertake an analysis of one argument between two men using a constructionist framework. I select three interactional features for analysis: self-reference, other-reference, and metaphorical language. I demonstrate how the two men agree to cooperate “as a kind of rationality” (Mey 1993, p.71) in order to co-produce meaningful interaction, while simultaneously advancing their own agendas and weakening each other‟s positions. From my analysis, four highly-intertwined themes emerge for discussion: constructions of the identity of the self, constructions of the identity of the other, affiliation, and disaffiliation.
Triangular Decoupling with simultaneous Disturbance Rejection for general linear time delay systems via measurement output feedback

Simple algebraic criteria are derived for the solvability of the combined problem of Triangular Decoupling and Disturbance Rejection (TDDR) for general neutral multi-delay systems with measurable and non-measurable disturbances, via proportional measurable disturbance feedback and measurement output feedback. Additionally, the necessary and sufficient conditions, for the problem to admit a realizable solution, are established and the general analytical expression of the realizable controller matrices solving the problem are determined.
Dyspnea Measures in Patients With Obstructive Lung Disease

Dyspnea, the clinical term for shortness of breath, is tile primary symptom and an important outcome measure in evaluations of patients with lung disease. It is a subjective symptom:that has proved difficult to quantify. Many dyspnea measures are available, yet it is difficult, based on the existing literature, to determine the most reliable and valid. In this study, we evaluated 6 measures of dyspnea for reliability and Validity: (a) Baseline Dyspnea Index (BDI) and Transition Dyspnea Index, (b) UCSD Shortness of Breath Questionnaire (SOBQ), (c) American Thoracic Society Dyspnea Scale, (d) Oxygen Cost Diagram, (e) Visual Analog Scale, and (0 Borg Scale. Subjects were 143 patients (74 women and 69 men) with obstructive lung disease, ages 40 to 86, FEVI. _ 0.36 to 3.53 L, FVC'I.07 to 5.74 L. Dyspnea.measures were assessed for test-retest reliability, internal consistency, interrater reliability, and construct validity (i.e., correlations among dyspnea measures and correlations of dyspnea measures with exercise tolerance, health-related quality of life, lung function, anxiety, and depression). Results suggest that the SOBQ and BDI demonstrated the highest levels of reliability and validity among the dyspnea measures examined.
Utopian Enterprise: Articulating the Meanings of Star Trek’s Culture of Consumption

In this article, I examine the cultural and subcultural construction of consumption meanings and practices as they are negotiated from mass media images and objects. Field notes and artifacts from 20 months of fieldwork at Star Trek fan clubs, at conventions, and in Internet groups, and 67 interviews with Star Trek fans are used as data. Star Trek’s subculture of consumption is found to be constructed as a powerful utopian refuge. Stigma, social situation, and the need for legitimacy shape the diverse subcultures’ consumption meanings and practices. Legitimizing articulations of Star Trek as a religion or myth underscore fans’ heavy investment of self in the text. These sacralizing articulations are used to distance the text from its superficial status as a commercial product. The findings emphasize and describe how consumption often fulfills the contemporary hunger for a conceptual space in which to construct a sense of self and what matters in life. They also reveal broader cultural tensions between the.
Identification of a Novel DNA Probe for Strain Typing Mycobacterium bovis by Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis

ABSTRACT Bovine tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium bovisremains a significant disease of farmed cattle in many countries despite ongoing tuberculosis eradication programs. Molecular typing methods such as restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis and spoligotyping have been used to identify related herd breakdowns in an attempt to identify more precisely the route of infection into cattle herds and to trace the transmission of bovine tuberculosis. A recent geographical survey of Irish M. bovis isolates demonstrated that a significant proportion of isolates (∼20%) exhibit a common strain type, limiting the value of current strain typing methods as an epidemiological tool. We have identified and cloned a region of the M. bovis genome, pUCD, which generates a clear, highly polymorphic banding pattern when used as an RFLP probe on AluI restriction-digested M. bovis genomic DNA and which effectively subdivides this common strain type. When used to type 60 Irish M. bovis isolates, pUCD exhibited greater discriminatory power than the commonly used mycobacterial RFLP probes IS6110, PGRS, and DR and detected an equivalent number of strain types to a combination of these three probes. pUCD also detected significantly more strain types than the spoligotyping technique, while maintaining a high level of concordance between epidemiologically related and unrelated herd breakdowns. The polymorphic element within pUCD remains to be fully characterized, however the potential for this probe to greatly decrease the workload necessary to genotype M. bovis by RFLP analysis is compelling.
Greed and Grievance: Methodological and Epistemological Underpinnings of the Debate†

The great contribution of the ‘Greed and Grievance’ debate has been to get economists to recognise political causes of conflict by calling them economic. After all, all conflicts are about resources, just as all conflicts are about identity and all conflicts are about power. To deny any of these is simply blind and hence uninteresting, and to claim an exclusive causal element in these overlapping Weberian categories is to confuse contribution with exclusivity. It is also to waste great time and useful intellect in proprietary claims on the causal field, where useful effort could be put into addressing the multicausal effect with social
The Politics of District Instructional Policy Formation

This qualitative case study extends the literature on urban district instructional policymaking by analyzing the ways in which normative and political pressures shaped district leaders’ instructional policy decisions. Drawing on concepts from the politics of education, it shows how teachers and principals repeatedly nullified policies that aimed for equity-oriented, rigorous changes in one urban district when leaders opted to pacify constituents, rather than uphold controversial policies. It complements present explanations of how district instructional policies come to be by comparing the consistency between the values and ideologies of district leaders, principals, and teachers and those implicit in district policies.
Akademisyenlerin Örgütsel Bağlilik Düzeyleri Üzerine Bir Araştirma

Like all organizations in order to achieve further success in universities high level of organizational commitment of workers is needed. There is no doubt that this situation will improve the academicians contributions to their Universities. Within this work questionnaires had been applied to 366 academicians by using “Organizational Commitment Scale” defined by Meyer and Allen in order to determine the organizational commitment of the academicians to their departments and to the University in general working in Gazi University. Within this scope the organizational commitment levels of the academicians had been examined in three dimensions i.e. emotional commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. Furthermore, the possible differentiations of the academicians’ commitment levels with regard to gender, martial status, age, title, working period and department had been tested using t-test and ANOVA test. After these analysis a statistical significance differences had been determined between the personal qualities of the academicians and their organizational commitment levels.
Re-Evaluation of Imaging Methods of Reactive Oxygen and Nitrogen Species in Plants and Fungi: Influence of Cell Wall Composition

Developmental transitions and stress reactions in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes are tightly linked with fast and localized modifications in concentrations of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS and RNS). Fluorescent microscopic analyses are widely applied to detect localized production of ROS and RNS in vivo. In this mini-review we discuss the biological characteristics of studied material (cell wall, extracellular matrix, and tissue complexity) and its handling (concentration of probes, effect of pressure, and higher temperature) which influence results of histochemical staining with “classical” fluorochromes. Future perspectives of ROS and RNS imaging with newly designed probes are briefly outlined.