Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Précis of The Number Sense

‘Number sense’ is a short-hand for our ability to quickly understand, approximate, and manipulate numerical quantities. My hypothesis is that number sense rests on cerebral circuits that have evolved specifically for the purpose of representing basic arithmetic knowledge. Four lines of evidence suggesting that number sense constitutes a domain-specific, biologically-determined ability are reviewed: the presence of evolutionary precursors of arithmetic in animals; the early emergence of arithmetic competence in infants independently of other abilities, including language; the existence of a homology between the animal, infant, and human adult abilities for number processing; and the existence of a dedicated cerebral substrate. In adults of all cultures, lesions to the inferior parietal region can specifically impair number sense while leaving the knowledge of other cognitive domains intact. Furthermore, this region is demonstrably activated during number processing. I postulate that higher–level cultural devel-opments in arithmetic emerge through the establishment of linkages between this core analogical representation (the ‘number line’ ) and other verbal and visual representations of number notations. The neural and cognitive organization of those representations can explain why some mathematical concepts are intuitive, while others are so difficult to grasp. Thus, the ultimate foundations of mathematics rests on core representations that have been internalized in our brains through evolution.
The Changing Economic Advantage from Private School

Despite its relatively small size, the private school sector plays a prominent role in British society. This paper focuses on changing wage and education differentials between privately educated and state educated individuals in Britain. It reports evidence that the private/state school wage differential has risen significantly over time, despite the rising cost of sending children to private school. A significant factor underpinning this result has been faster rising educational attainment for privately educated individuals. Despite these patterns of change, the proportion attending private school has not altered much, nor have the characteristics of those children (and their parents) attending private school. Taken together, our findings are consistent with the idea that the private school sector has been successful in transforming its ability to generate the academic outputs that are most in demand in the modern economy. Because of the increased earnings advantage, private school remains a good investment for parents who want to opt out, but this increase has also contributed to rising wage inequality and falling social mobility.
The Free State University integrated reporting: a critical consideration

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the integrated report (IR) of a South African public university (UFS), by comparing it with the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) framework, to verify whether UFS IR matches the IIRC framework main aims, which is integrating IC and non-IC information into a single report for stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs the case study approach, which is appropriate when a researcher needs to conduct a holistic and in-depth analysis of a complex phenomenon in its real-life context. As such, this method is particularly suitable for exploring intellectual and social capitals, which is complex and context-dependent by nature. Findings – UFS IR includes the content elements of the IIRC framework as labels, but it does not deepen their meaning. As regards the IIRC guidelines principles, the analysis of the UFS IR shows that it does not seem to follow them. Briefly, the data do not have an outlook orientation, the information is no.
Personal Knowledge Mapping with Semantic Web Technologies

: Semantic Web technologies promise great beneﬁts for Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) and Knowledge Management (KM) in general when data needs to be exchanged or integrated. However, the Semantic Web also introduces new issues rooted in its distributed nature as multiple ontologies exist to encode data in the Personal Information Management (PIM) domain. This poses problems for applications processing this data as they would need to support all current and future PIM ontologies. In this paper, we introduce an approach that decouples applications from the data representation by providing a mapping service which translates Semantic Web data between different vocabularies. Our approach consists of the RDF Data Transformation Language (RDTL) to deﬁne mappings between different but related ontologies and the prototype implementation RDFTransformer to apply mappings. This allows the deﬁnition of mappings that are more complex than simple one-to-one matches.
Electrospun Scaffolds for Corneal Tissue Engineering: A Review

Corneal diseases constitute the second leading cause of vision loss and affect more than 10 million people globally. As there is a severe shortage of fresh donated corneas and an unknown risk of immune rejection with traditional heterografts, it is very important and urgent to construct a corneal equivalent to replace pathologic corneal tissue. Corneal tissue engineering has emerged as a practical strategy to develop corneal tissue substitutes, and the design of a scaffold with mechanical properties and transparency similar to that of natural cornea is paramount for the regeneration of corneal tissues. Nanofibrous scaffolds produced by electrospinning have high surface area–to-volume ratios and porosity that simulate the structure of protein fibers in native extra cellular matrix (ECM). The versatilities of electrospinning of polymer components, fiber structures, and functionalization have made the fabrication of nanofibrous scaffolds with suitable mechanical strength, transparency and biological properties for corneal tissue engineering feasible. In this paper, we review the recent developments of electrospun scaffolds for engineering corneal tissues, mainly including electrospun materials (single and blended polymers), fiber structures (isotropic or anisotropic), functionalization (improved mechanical properties and transparency), applications (corneal cell survival, maintenance of phenotype and formation of corneal tissue) and future development perspectives.
Active user authentication for smartphones: A challenge data set and benchmark results

In this paper, automated user verification techniques for smartphones are investigated. A unique non-commercial dataset, the University of Maryland Active Authentication Dataset 02 (UMDAA-02) for multi-modal user authentication research is introduced. This paper focuses on three sensors - front camera, touch sensor and location service while providing a general description for other modalities. Benchmark results for face detection, face verification, touch-based user identification and location-based next-place prediction are presented, which indicate that more robust methods fine-tuned to the mobile platform are needed to achieve satisfactory verification accuracy. The dataset will be made available to the research community for promoting additional research.
498 Prosody , Speech Synthesis and Cognitive Linguistics

The current paper discusses a way to employ methods and utilities provided by computational cognitive linguistics in speech technology research. First, the currently predominant methodologies are briefly discussed. It is shown that some problems regarding the naturalness of synthetic voices, such as prosody, are intractable within the ruling framework. Therefore, a special case of Construction Grammar (CxG) – Embodied Construction Grammar is proposed as a method to investigate spoken language holistically. It is suggested that this approach might show some prosodic dependencies which can hardly be studied in another way. At the end of the article some intuitions about the anticipated results are covered.
The rate of force generation by the myocardium is not influenced by afterload.

The influence of afterload on the rate of force generation by the myocardium was investigated using two types of preparations: the in situ dog heart (dP/dt) and isolated papillary muscle of rats (dT/dt). Thirteen anesthetized, mechanically ventilated and thoracotomized dogs were submitted to pharmacological autonomic blockade (3.0 mg/kg oxprenolol plus 0.5 mg/kg atropine). A reservoir connected to the left atrium permitted the control of left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP). A mechanical constriction of the descending thoracic aorta allowed to increase the systolic pressure in two steps of 20 mmHg (conditions H1 and H2) above control values (condition C). After arterial pressure elevations (systolic pressure C: 119 +/- 8.1; H1: 142 +/- 7.9; H2: 166 +/- 7.7 mmHg; P < 0.01), there were no significant differences in heart rate (C: 125 +/- 13.9; H1: 125 +/- 13.5; H2: 123 +/- 14.1 bpm; P > 0.05) or LVEDP (C: 6.2 +/- 2.48; H1: 6.3 +/- 2.43; H2: 6.1 +/- 2.51 mmHg; P > 0.05). The values of dP/dt did not change after each elevation of arterial pressure (C: 3,068 +/- 1,057; H1: 3,112 +/- 996; H2: 3,086 +/- 980 mmHg/s; P > 0.05). In isolated rat papillary muscle, an afterload corresponding to 50% and 75% of the maximal developed tension did not alter the values of the maximum rate of tension development (100%: 78 +/- 13; 75%: 80 +/- 13; 50%: 79 +/- 11 g mm-2 s-1, P > 0.05). The results show that the rise in afterload per se does not cause changes in dP/dt or dT/dt.
Parkmaster: an in-vehicle, edge-based video analytics service for detecting open parking spaces in urban environments

We present the design and implementation of ParkMaster, a system that leverages the ubiquitous smartphone to help drivers find parking spaces in the urban environment. ParkMaster estimates parking space availability using video gleaned from drivers' dash-mounted smartphones on the network's edge, uploading analytics about the street to the cloud in real time as participants drive. Novel lightweight parked-car localization algorithms enable the system to estimate each parked car's approximate location by fusing information from phone's camera, GPS, and inertial sensors, tracking and counting parked cars as they move through the driving car's camera frame of view. To visually calibrate the system, ParkMaster relies only on the size of well-known objects in the urban environment for on-the-go calibration. We implement and deploy ParkMaster on Android smartphones, uploading parking analytics to the Azure cloud. On-the-road experiments in three different environments comprising Los Angeles, Paris and an Italian village measure the end-to-end accuracy of the system's parking estimates (close to 90%) as well as the amount of cellular data usage the system requires (less than one mega-byte per hour). Drill-down microbenchmarks then analyze the factors contributing to this end-to-end performance, as video resolution, vision algorithm parameters, and CPU resources.
The ontogeny of human pulmonary angiotensin‐converting enzyme and its aberrant expression may contribute to the pathobiology of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD)

The mammalian lung possesses the highest level of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) amongst all the organs. ACE is known to generate angiotensin (AT)‐II from AT‐I and to regulate serum bradykinin level, thereby controlling blood pressure. Recent data, however, indicate a role for ACE derived AT‐II in angiogenesis, pulmonary hypertension, and neonatal lung disease. The ontogeny of ACE in humans has not been investigated. We studied pulmonary ACE expression during human lung development and in human bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD).
Interleaved TC 8DPSK/OFDM with decision-directed channel estimation on frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channels

Trellis-coded modulation (TCM) is a power and bandwidth efficient signaling scheme. In this letter, we propose interleaved trellis-coded (TC) 8DPSK/OFDM combined with decision-directed (DD) channel estimation on frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channels. We use a subchannel block interleaver in an OFDM symbol interval to randomize the burst errors due to the correlated dispersive fading channel. We also use DD channel estimation using the previous detected 8DPSK symbols in the temporal direction to improve the performance at fast fading. Computer simulations show that the proposed technique has good performance at fast fading.
Challenges and Opportunities in Consolidation at High Resource Utilization: Non-monotonic Response Time Variations in n-Tier Applications

A central goal of cloud computing is high resource utilization through hardware sharing; however, utilization often remains modest in practice due to the challenges in predicting consolidated application performance accurately. We present a thorough experimental study of consolidated n-tier application performance at high utilization to address this issue through reproducible measurements. Our experimental method illustrates opportunities for increasing operational efficiency by making consolidated application performance more predictable in high utilization scenarios. The main focus of this paper are non-trivial dependencies between SLA-critical response time degradation effects and software configurations (i.e., readily available tuning knobs). Methodologically, we directly measure and analyze the resource utilizations, request rates, and performance of two consolidated n-tier application benchmark systems (RUBBoS) in an enterprise-level computer virtualization environment. We find that monotonically increasing the workload of an n-tier application system may unexpectedly spike the overall response time of another co-located system by 300 percent despite stable throughput. Based on these findings, we derive a software configuration best-practice to mitigate such non-monotonic response time variations by enabling higher request-processing concurrency (e.g., more threads) in all tiers. More generally, this experimental study increases our quantitative understanding of the challenges and opportunities in the widely used (but seldom supported, quantified, or even mentioned) hypothesis that applications consolidate with linear performance in cloud environments.
Red Light, Purple Light: Findings From a Randomized Trial Using Circle Time Games to Improve Behavioral Self-Regulation in Preschool

Research Findings: The present study examined the efficacy of a self-regulation intervention with 65 preschool children. Using circle time games, the study examined whether participating in a treatment group significantly improved behavioral self-regulation and early academic outcomes. Half of the children were randomly assigned to participate in 16 playgroups during the winter of the school year. Behavioral aspects of self-regulation and early achievement were assessed in the fall and spring. Although there was no treatment effect in the overall sample, post hoc analyses revealed that participation in the treatment group was significantly related to self-regulation gains in children who started the year with low levels of these skills. Children in the treatment group also demonstrated significant letter-word identification gains compared to children in the control group. Practice or Policy: The findings from this study provide preliminary evidence for the efficacy of the intervention in terms of improving preschoolers’ behavioral self-regulation for children low in these skills and improving letter-word identification. Although preliminary, these results have the potential to inform preschool curricula that emphasize behavioral self-regulation as a means of facilitating school readiness.
Body Sensor Networks: Infrastructure for Life Science Sensing Research

The recent advances in biosensor design, wireless communication and computer architecture have enabled the realization of integrated, miniature wireless biosensors. Based on these technologies, the concept of body sensor network (BSN) has recently been proposed to provide intelligent, context aware sensing. The BSN outlines the basic infrastructure for pervasive sensing. In addition to healthcare applications, it also has important value for life science research and enables large-scale, continuous monitoring of drug response and epidemic studies. This paper introduces the basic concept of BSN, outlines its major components and highlights several key applications for life science research
ATK: Enabling Ten-Finger Freehand Typing in Air Based on 3D Hand Tracking Data

Ten-finger freehand mid-air typing is a potential solution for post-desktop interaction. However, the absence of tactile feedback as well as the inability to accurately distinguish tapping finger or target keys exists as the major challenge for mid-air typing. In this paper, we present ATK, a novel interaction technique that enables freehand ten-finger typing in the air based on 3D hand tracking data. Our hypothesis is that expert typists are able to transfer their typing ability from physical keyboards to mid-air typing. We followed an iterative approach in designing ATK. We first empirically investigated users' mid-air typing behavior, and examined fingertip kinematics during tapping, correlated movement among fingers and 3D distribution of tapping endpoints. Based on the findings, we proposed a probabilistic tap detection algorithm, and augmented Goodman's input correction model to account for the ambiguity in distinguishing tapping finger. We finally evaluated the performance of ATK with a 4-block study. Participants typed 23.0 WPM with an uncorrected word-level error rate of 0.3% in the first block, and later achieved 29.2 WPM in the last block without sacrificing accuracy.
Diet selection and milk production and composition in Girgentana goats with different αs1-casein genotype

In goats, αs1-casein polymorphism is related to different rates of protein synthesis. Two genetic variants, A and F, have been identified as strong and weak alleles based on a production of 3·5 and 0·45 g/l of αs1-casein per allele. The aim of the trial was to test whether goats can select their diet as a function of their genetic aptitude to produce milk at different casein levels and whether this selection can influence milk production or composition. Two groups of 8 animals, homozygous for strong (AA) or weak (FF) alleles were housed in individual pens. Using a manger subdivided into five separate containers, the goats were offered daily for 3 weeks: 1·5 kg of alfalfa pelleted hay, 0·7 kg of whole barley, 0·7 kg of whole maize, 0·7 kg of whole faba bean and 0·7 kg of pelleted sunflower cake. Total dry matter intake was similar between groups and resulted in nutrient inputs much higher than requirements. On average, goats selected 86% of maize plus barley and only 46% of faba bean plus sunflower. Indeed, AA goats selected less faba bean compared with FF goats (37·2 v. 56·7% of the available amount; P=0·01); during week 2 and week 3 they significantly increased maize selection (respectively for week 2 and week 3: 94·9 and 99·1% v. 85·3 and 87·3%) thus increasing the ratio between the high-energy feeds and the high-protein feeds (2·41 v. 1·81, P=0·023). As for true protein, the high soluble fraction (B1) and the indigestible fraction (C) were lower in the diet selected by AA goats (respectively in AA and FF groups: B1, 7·85 v. 9·23% CP, P<0·01; C, 6·07 v. 6·30% CP, P<0·001); these diet characteristics can be associated with lower losses of protein. Milk production, being similar in AA and FF groups when goats were fed with a mixed diet, significantly increased in AA group, when free-choice feeding was given (mean productions: 1198 v. 800 g/d, P<0·01). Casein content was higher in AA group than in FF group (2·70 v. 2·40%, P<0·01) whereas milk urea was higher in FF group (59·7 v. 48·8 mg/dl, P<0·01). In conclusion, when the animals were free to select their diet, their higher genetic aptitude to produce casein seemed to adjust their energy and protein dietary input in qualitative terms, thus leading to an increase in milk production and a decrease in milk urea. These results seem to demonstrate that interactions probably occurred between genetic polymorphism at the αs1-casein locus, diet selection and the efficiency of nutrient transformation into milk.
The distinctive nature of adenocarcinoma of the lung

In recent years, many personalized treatments have been developed for NSCLC (non-small-cell lung cancer) patients. Among these, gefitinib, erlotinib, and afatinib are selective epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors for patients with EGFR gene mutations, while crizotinib and ceritinib are two new tyrosine kinase inhibitors directed against the echinoderm microtubule-like protein 4-anaplastic lymphoma kinase translocation. The possibility of these new molecules being used to treat patients without adenocarcinoma histology is notably small. For example, EGFR mutations and anaplastic lymphoma kinase fusion gene rearrangement are rare in patients with squamous cell carcinoma (generally <1%). Additionally, the benefit of targeted treatment approaches in patients with small-cell lung cancer histology is limited. All of these findings highlight the distinctive nature of adenocarcinoma of the lung among all lung cancer subtypes. Unfortunately, to date, less than 15% of patients with adenocarcinoma of the lung are ideal candidates for these targeted therapies.
Concentration and Detection of Cryptosporidium Oocysts in Surface Water Samples by Method 1622 Using Ultrafiltration and Capsule Filtration

ABSTRACT The protozoan parasite Cryptosporidium parvumis known to occur widely in both source and drinking water and has caused waterborne outbreaks of gastroenteritis. To improve monitoring, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency developed method 1622 for isolation and detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts in water. Method 1622 is performance based and involves filtration, concentration, immunomagnetic separation, fluorescent-antibody staining and 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) counterstaining, and microscopic evaluation. The capsule filter system currently recommended for method 1622 was compared to a hollow-fiber ultrafilter system for primary concentration of C. parvum oocysts in seeded reagent water and untreated surface waters. Samples were otherwise processed according to method 1622. Rates of C. parvumoocyst recovery from seeded 10-liter volumes of reagent water in precision and recovery experiments with filter pairs were 42% (standard deviation [SD], 24%) and 46% (SD, 18%) for hollow-fiber ultrafilters and capsule filters, respectively. Mean oocyst recovery rates in experiments testing both filters on seeded surface water samples were 42% (SD, 27%) and 15% (SD, 12%) for hollow-fiber ultrafilters and capsule filters, respectively. Although C. parvum oocysts were recovered from surface waters by using the approved filter of method 1622, the recovery rates were significantly lower and more variable than those from reagent grade water. In contrast, the disposable hollow-fiber ultrafilter system was compatible with subsequent method 1622 processing steps, and it recovered C. parvum oocysts from seeded surface waters with significantly greater efficiency and reliability than the filter suggested for use in the version of method 1622 tested.