Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Citizenship and inclusion in the early years: understanding and responding to children’s perspectives on ‘belonging’

This paper argues for, and demonstrates the effectiveness of, including young children in commenting on and improving their learning environments. It reports the experiences gathered from of 16 setting‐based, small‐scale, practitioner‐led projects. Taking a view of citizenship as ‘participation’ the paper shows how practitioner‐research can support the evolution of inclusive environments for all children. Following a critical review of the literature on citizenship, young children, and ‘inclusion’ the paper considers the usefulness of the participant methodology of practitioner action research and the concept of ‘voice’ in educational research and report. Examples of practitioner‐research projects involving children aged three to six years identify and illustrate key themes from the data. Thus, they demonstrate: (1) the range of factors which excited or worried the children; and (2) the ways in which children’s concerns and ideas were listened to and action for change was developed. The children’s ideas and extracts from their comments are included alongside the practitioners’ responses in the cases which are discussed. Four main points are considered in conclusion: (1) children’s views can contribute to the development of inclusive practices; (2) children’s voices are central to studies of their perspectives and the methodological challenges of listening to children’s voices in research must be addressed; (3) identity and self esteem are key to the successful promotion of young children’s positive sense of inclusivity and belonging in their early years settings; and (4) supported practitioner‐research can enhance inclusive early years practices. The paper argues that including children in the identification and exploration of issues important to them promotes a positive sense of inclusivity and that such approaches to developing pedagogies of citizenship and belonging constitute a practical enacting of ‘voice’.
Child Rearing in a Group Setting

Child care centers in Western countries are becoming increasingly culturally diverse, regarding both professional caregivers, children, and their parents. Child-rearing beliefs, which differ between cultures, are found to affect process quality and children’s developmental outcomes. The first aim of this study is to investigate cultural differences in caregivers’ cultural child-rearing beliefs through a semistructured interview. The second aim is to explore the relation between the centers’ cultural context and caregivers’ beliefs. Participants are 61 caregivers (20 Dutch, 20 Caribbean Dutch, and 21 Mediterranean Dutch) working in Dutch child care centers with 2- to 4-year-olds. Cultural differences between Dutch and immigrant caregivers are evident. Dutch caregivers mentioned independence as a socialization goal most, whereas Mediterranean Dutch caregivers stressed collectivistic child-rearing goals most. More years of experience and a positive orientation toward the Dutch society made caregivers value individualistic child-rearing goals more. Working in an ethnically diverse context made both immigrant and Dutch caregivers express collectivistic beliefs more. The results further demonstrate that all cultural groups valued dimensions of both individualism and collectivism, providing further support for the multidimensionality of child-rearing beliefs.
Design and Experimental Verification of a Power Effective Flash-SAR Subranging ADC

This brief presents the architectural concept of an optimal subranging ADC, obtained with the cascade of a Flash and a SAR, which is also explored through its practical design and experimental confirmation. The solution doubles the optimal speed of operation of the SAR ADCs at the relative low power cost of a low-resolution Flash. The digital correction method and a capacitor-based DAC ensure nondemanding requirements for the Flash. The effectiveness of the architecture is verified in a 90-nm CMOS chip whose active core area is 0.64 mm2. The ADC obtains a peak SNDR of 51.8 dB and SFDR of 63.4 dB at 90 MS/s consuming 13.5 mW from a 0.9-V supply. Measured DNL and INL are 0.87 LSB and 1.55 LSB, respectively.
Factor Analysis and Predictive Ability of a Teacher- Completed Autism Rating Scale in an Urban School Sett ing

Autism screening tools have not traditionally been developed for use in an urban setting with students of minority status or from a low SES home. Scales have also traditionally lacked a focus on school behaviors. The Social Communication Screener for Schools (SCSS) was developed in order to assist school psychologists in an urban school setting in referring students who, following a full evaluation, were most likely to qualify for an educational diagnosis of Autism. The goal of the scale was to focus on using teacher ratings of language-based behaviors in the school setting to assess behaviors linked with Autism. The SCSS was analyzed in terms of internal consistency and overall sensitivity and specificity. The scale was revised according to initial exploratory analysis. Updated scales were developed and analyzed for specificity and sensitivity according to data-based decision rules. Results of the final analysis indicate the SCSS reached high levels of sensitivity for both age groups analyzed (7 and younger; 8 and older).
Compliance, conversion and the Asch paradigm

120 subjects took part in an Asch type experiment, using a material which was suitable for the measurement of indirect influence. The subjects were given the consistent incorrect response of a source which was either a majority (the response given by 88 per cent of a parent population of college students) or a minority (12 per cent). Part of the subjects were told that the experiment was investigating perceptual illusions and an example of such illusions was given. An authority condition was also introduced: the experimenter himself gave the incorrect response. A control condition did not involve any influence or illusion. The results show that direct influence increases when there is a stronger symbolic social pressure. They also show that an indirect influence may be induced by a numerical majority (provided that the subjects believe that there is an illusion) as well as a numerical minority (provided that an illusion does not invalidate its response). These results underline how important it is to control the exact significance of experimental situations that are supposed to represent the psychological conditions of majority or minority influence. 120 sujets ont participe a une experience du type Asch, avec un mateiel adapte pour permettre aussi une mesure d'influence indirecte. Ils ont ete soumis a la reponse consistante incorrecte d'une source numeriquement majoritaire (reponse attribuee a 88 per cent des individus d'une population parente, des collegiens) ou numeriquement minoritaire (12 pour cent). Soit ils ne recevaient aucune information complementaire, soit ils etaient informes, exemple a l'appui, que l'etude portait sur des illusions perceptives de type optico-geometrique. Une condition d'autorite (l'experimentateur donnait lui-měme la reponse incorrecte) avec illusion a egalement ete consideree, ainsi qu'une condition de contrǒle sans influence ni illusion. Les resultats montrent que plus la pression sociale symbolique est forte, et plus I'influence directe est elevee. Ils indiquent egalement qu'une influence indirecte est possible aussi bien pour une majorite numerique (a la condition que les sujets croient a une illusion) que pour une minorite numerique (a la condition qu'aucune illusion n'invalide sa reponse). Ces resultats soulignent l'importance qu'il y a a mieux maitriser les significations exactes que prennent les mises en situation experimentale censees representer les conditions psychosociologiques d'une influence majoritaire ou minoritaire.
Sibling relationship quality in early adolescence: child and maternal perceptions and daily interactions

Correspondence between child and maternal perceptions of sibling relationship quality (standards, actual ratings, problems) and children's reports of daily interactions were assessed in 40 early adolescent children (M age=11.5 yrs) and their mothers (n=32). Children completed the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985. Child Development, 56, 448–461) and Daily Checklist ratings of sibling interactions for 14 days. Mothers completed the Parental Expectations and Perceptions of Children's Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (Kramer & Baron, 1995. Family Relations, 44, 95–103). Overall, findings revealed correspondence between child perceptions of sibling warmth and maternal ratings of standards, actual ratings, and problems in sibling warmth but not conflict and rivalry. Maternal and child perceptions of sibling relationship qualities were positively associated with children's reports of ongoing interactions. Finally, regression analyses identified unique maternal and child correlates for both happy and prosocial daily interactions. Findings are discussed in light of recent research and theory on family dynamics. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Sense‐making of employment: on whether and why people read employment advertising

This paper suggests a process of sense-making of “employment“ and identifies employment ads to be useful agents in this process. It is suggested that individuals read ads in surveillance of the employment market in addition to reading them to search for employment vacancies. Employment ads are suggested to be a forum for organizational self-presentation that offers current information about the employment exchange as it is viewed by employers. Two exploratory studies are presented to support the thesis. Study 1 is an inductive survey of people's reading of employment ads, showing that people read ads even if they are not looking for a job because they view ads as a source of insight about the employment environment. Study 2 reviews the content of employment ads, showing them to convey prevailing elements of the idea of employment, namely that employment is an exchange of employee skills and responsibilities for organizational intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Recognizing the individual need for sense-making of employment, and identifying employment ads as a source of information about employment, opens up a new area for research and practice on recruiting, organizational self-presentation, and sense-making. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Improving Emotional Communication in Music Performance through Cognitive Feedback

This study investigates whether cognitive feedback (CFB) can improve the expressive skills of music performers. CFB involves providing performers with information about how their use of cues in the performance compares to an optimal model for emotional communication based on listeners' judgments. Eight guitar players were asked to perform short pieces of music so as to communicate different emotions to listeners. Their performances were judged by fifty listeners. Multiple regression was used to model the cue utilization of both performers and listeners, and the two systems were related by means of the Lens Model Equation (Tucker, 1964). Then, the performers were given CFB and were asked to change their cue utilization on the basis of this feedback. The results indicated that (a) CFB yielded a fifty percent increase in communication accuracy after a single feedback session, (b) the performers reacted positively to the CFB, and (c) the performers showed limited insight with regard to their cue utilization prior to the CFB.
INCREMENTAL BAYESIAN ADAPTATION

Adaptive training is a powerful technique to build system on non-homogeneous training data. A canonical model, representing " pure " speech variability and a set of transforms representing unwanted acoustic variabilities are trained. It is necessary to have transforms in order to deal with the testing acoustic conditions. One problem here is to robustly estimate the transforms parameters where there is limited or even no adaptation data. Recently, Lower bound based Bayesian approaches have been used to solve this problem in batch adaptation mode, of which point estimates, MAP or ML, and variational Bayes are two main approximation forms. This paper extends the Bayesian adaptation framework to incremental mode. Strict Bayesian inference and various approximated information propagation strategies during adaptation are discussed in detail. The techniques are examined for both ML and discrim-inative systems. The experiments on a large vocabulary speech recognition task showed that the incremental Bayesian adaptation can lead to robust performance with limited data at the start and gradually improve with more data available.
Risk implications of the new CKD Epidemiology Collaboration (CKD-EPI) equation compared with the MDRD Study equation for estimated GFR: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study.

BACKGROUND The Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration (CKD-EPI) recently published an equation for estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) using the same variables (serum creatinine level, age, sex, and race) as the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) Study equation. Although the CKD-EPI equation estimates GFR more precisely compared with the MDRD Study equation, whether this equation improves risk prediction is unknown. STUDY DESIGN Prospective cohort study, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study. SETTING & PARTICIPANTS 13,905 middle-aged participants without a history of cardiovascular disease with median follow-up of 16.9 years. PREDICTOR eGFR. OUTCOMES & MEASUREMENTS We compared the association of eGFR in categories (>or=120, 90-119, 60-89, 30-59, and <30 mL/min/1.73 m(2)) using the CKD-EPI and MDRD Study equations with risk of incident end-stage renal disease, all-cause mortality, coronary heart disease, and stroke. RESULTS The median value for eGFR(CKD-EPI) was higher than that for eGFR(MDRD) (97.6 vs 88.8 mL/min/1.73 m(2); P < 0.001). The CKD-EPI equation reclassified 44.9% (n = 3,079) and 43.5% (n = 151) of participants with eGFR(MDRD) of 60-89 and 30-59 mL/min/1.73 m(2), respectively, upward to a higher eGFR category, but reclassified no one with eGFR(MDRD) of 90-119 or <30 mL/min/1.73 m(2), decreasing the prevalence of CKD stages 3-5 from 2.7% to 1.6%. Participants with eGFR(MDRD) of 30-59 mL/min/1.73 m(2) who were reclassified upward had lower risk compared with those who were not reclassified (end-stage renal disease incidence rate ratio, 0.10 [95% CI, 0.03-0.33]; all-cause mortality, 0.30 [95% CI, 0.19-0.48]; coronary heart disease, 0.36 [95% CI, 0.21-0.61]; and stroke, 0.50 [95% CI, 0.24-1.02]). Similar results were observed for participants with eGFR(MDRD) of 60-89 mL/min/1.73 m(2). More frequent reclassification of younger, female, and white participants explained some of these trends. Net reclassification improvement in participants with eGFR < 120 mL/min/1.73 m(2) was positive for all outcomes (P < 0.001). LIMITATIONS Limited number of cases with eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and no measurement of albuminuria. CONCLUSIONS The CKD-EPI equation more appropriately categorized individuals with respect to long-term clinical risk compared with the MDRD Study equation, suggesting improved clinical usefulness in this middle-aged population.
The Shared Imagination: Creative Collaboration in Augmented Virtuality

Abstract In creative collaboration, the primary focus of participants is creating “what if” scenarios that must be jointly imagined. Collaboration in strictly Physical Reality (PR) is constrained because of the limitations the real world places on shared imagination. As dynamic as Virtual Reality (VR) environments can be, subtle human-to-human interaction is severely limited in these totally synthetic environments, which provide such poor support for the physical expression of passion and personality. Augmented Reality (AR) can add virtual assets to the physical world, yet creative interaction cries out to escape the context of the physical world. With interpersonal imaginative interaction, Augmented Virtuality (AV), the augmentation of a virtual setting with real objects, provides a means to merge a richly layered, multi-modal, 3D real experience into a virtual environment. This class of Mixed Reality (MR), which represents a reversal of the more common AR concept, provides a change in paradigm that offers unique opportunities and novel tools for collaboration, the impact of which we will explore in this paper. The Mixed Simulation “Demo Dome,” an innovative application of MR Head Mounted Displays (HMD) and unidirectional retro-reflective material, provides the next generation of immersive environment, one that is an easily deployable means of multi-modal AV collaboration. The technology associated with this environment will be discussed, along with the Mixed Reality Software Suite (MRSS), a system that supports the creation and delivery of nonlinear interactive experiences within such a dome. Examples of the use of this system and concept in team performance training, emergency planning, collaborative design, experience modeling, scientific virtualization and entertainment will be presented.
Pay-Cloak: A Biometric Back Cover for Smartphones: Facilitating secure contactless payments and identity virtualization at low cost to end users.

Continuous improvements in technology and quality of life have had a strong impact on the development of payment techniques. With the evolution of near-field communication (NFC) technology, contactless payment has received recent attention because of its short-range, conducive nature. As mobile computing made great leaps due to enormous development in the smartphone platform, companies like Google, Samsung, and Apple embedded NFC in smartphones to provide on-the-go payment capabilities, eliminating the need for payment cards. But due to interoperability and high cost, these technologies are not available to everyone.
Psychological Well-Being in the Early Life Course: Variations by Socioeconomic Status, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity

Our analysis focuses on the implications of social status characteristics for children's psychological well-being. Drawing on social evaluation theories and stress-based explanations, we hypothesized that disadvantage cumulates across statuses (the double jeopardy hypothesis) and over time as children move into the adolescent years. To test this hypothesis, we estimated the independent and interactive effects of socioeconomic status, gender, and race/ethnicity on the latent growth curves for four outcomes, from preadolescence to early adolescence, using data from the Children of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth data set. Our results were consistent with the double jeopardy hypothesis for the interaction of race/ethnicity and poverty, but not for the other interactions we estimated. In the case of gender and poverty, the strength of the evidence for the double jeopardy hypothesis varied by outcome: evidence was more consistent for scholastic competence and self-esteem than for depression and hyperactivity. In the case of gender and race/ethnicity, our results consistently refuted the double jeopardy hypothesis.
Measure Exchange Rate Risk Using GARCH Model and Extreme Value Theory

Risk measurement is an important prerequisite in modern finance. This paper aims to measure exchange rate risk of Chinese exchange market. We firstly examine the heteroscedasticity of the return series of USD/CNY and EUR/CNY data, the results suggest that there is obvious heteroscedasticity. Secondly, we choose the best GARCH model to filter the return series to i.i. d residual series and employ extreme value theory to estimate the tails of those i.i. d series, we find the degree of fitting of GPD is very high. Finally, we calculate corresponding VaR estimates, which can help investor to measure exchange risk accurately.
Ole Jija : Rethinking theft in the Yoruba ethical system

The paper rethinks the moral controversies surrounding theft within the Yoruba ethical paradigms. It argues that the concept of theft has a broader theoretical perspective amongst the Yoruba people of south-west Nigeria than its narrow conception of taking without the consent of the owner to do so, prevalent especially in the Western legal frameworks. Since it is generally considered a shameful act, the paper posits that theft is morally forbidden in the Yoruba ethical system, even with a full recognition of the possibility of its being supernaturally imposed on the erring agent either by his/ her primordial choice of a faulty ori or by other inimical spiritual means, such as spells or curses. Hence, while it acknowledges the role of propitiative sacrifice as a mollifying antidote for a curse-caused act of theft, the paper dispels theft due to a bad ori, and instead prescribes modification of character through social self-rebirth, something akin to the Christian concept of being born again. In conclusion, the paper holds that a morally good person should not indulge in dishonesty in any form, should be hard-working and be ready at all times to extend a hand of alms to others who do not have, as these are the foundations upon which the Yoruba ethical system cum social code of conduct are made manifest.
A date dropouts feedback scheduling policy of networked control systems

Deadband based control can reduce the consumption of the network resource greatly without seriously affecting the control performance. This paper introduces optimal theory into the deadband based control in the circumstance of multiple control loops to share one network. Optimal deadbands allocation can be achieved through studying the cost function and the utilization function and a data dropout policy is proposed. Optimal performance of control and network can be achieved based on the optimal allocation of deadbands.
Natural Environments—Healthy Environments? An Exploratory Analysis of the Relationship between Greenspace and Health

Are people living in greener areas healthier than people living in less green areas? This hypothesis was empirically tested by combining Dutch data on the self-reported health of over 10 000 people with land-use data on the amount of greenspace in their living environment. In the multilevel analysis we controlled for socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, as well as urbanity. Living in a green environment was positively related to all three available health indicators, even stronger than urbanity at the municipal level. Analyses on subgroups showed that the relationship between greenspace and one of the health indicators was somewhat stronger for housewives and the elderly, two groups that are assumed to be more dependent on, and therefore exposed to, the local environment. Furthermore, for all three health indicators the relationship with greenspace was somewhat stronger for lower educated people. Implications for policymaking and spatial planning are discussed briefly.
Noise Reduction of Mobile Sensors Data in the Prediction of Demographic Attributes

In this paper we attempt demonstrate how we can use smartphone sensor data effectively for predicting gender. We specifically focus on sensor data that is assumed to inflict minimal risk to other applications, the system, or the user: Installed Applications, Network Traffic Amount, and Accelerometer readings. We propose several simple heuristics for pre-processing the data and for noise reduction which eventually results in improved accuracy in predicting gender.