Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Problem-Based Learning Tutorial: Cultivating Higher Order Thinking Skills

In today's information age, it is increasingly important to help learners develop higher order thinking skills as well as a flexible knowledge base. Research in cognitive science and education suggests that both of these aims can be achieved by having students learn through solving problems. Problem-based learning (PBL), with its emphasis on both strategies and content, is particularly well suited to achieving these aims. In PBL, student learning begins with a problem to be solved and includes cycles of reflection on the problem-solving experience. This paper will discuss the tutorial process in PBL and how it can be used to cultivate higher order thinking skills.
Least-Distortion Euclidean Embeddings of Graphs: Products of Cycles and Expanders

Embeddings of finite metric spaces into Euclidean space have been studied in several contexts: The local theory of Banach spaces, the design of approximation algorithms, and graph theory. The emphasis is usually on embeddings with the least possible distortion. That is, one seeks an embedding that minimizes the bi-Lipschitz constant of the mapping. This question has also been asked for embeddings into other normed spaces. However, when the host space is l2 , more can be said: The problem of finding an optimal embedding into l2 can be formulated as a semi-definite program (and can therefore be solved in polynomial time). So far, this elegant statement of the problem has not been applied to any interesting explicit instances. Here we employ this method and examine two families of graphs: (i) products of cycles, and (ii) constant-degree expander graphs. Our results in (i) extend a 30-year-old result of P. Enflo (1969, Ark. Mat.8, 103�105) on the cube. Our results in (ii) provide an alternative proof to the fact that there are n-point metric spaces whose Euclidean distortion is �(logn). Furthermore, we show that metrics in the class (ii) are �(logn) far from the class l22, namely, the square of the metrics realizable in l2. This is a well studied class which contains all l1 metrics (and therefore also all l2 metrics). Some of our methods may well apply to more general instances where semidefinite programming is used to estimate Euclidean distortions. Specifically, we develop a method for proving the optimality of an embedding. This idea is useful in those cases where it is possible to guess an optimal embedding.
A congruential identity and the 2-adic order of lacunary sums of binomial coefficients.

In this paper we obtain a universal lower bound on the 2-adic order of lacunary sums of binomial coefficients. By means of necessary and sufficient conditions, we determine the set of values for which the bound is achieved and show the periodicity of the set. We prove a congruential identity for the corresponding generating function. Our approach gives an alternative and transparent proof for some results derived recently by the second author and extends them. We also propose a conjecture that implies a recursion for calculating the 2-adic order of the lacunary sums for almost all values. A congruence in the style of Lucas is proved for the lacunary sums considered.
Is learning a family matter?: Experimental study of the influence of social environment on learning by older adults in the use of mobile phones

It is necessary to investigate the ways in which designs for the use of artifacts created by information technology (IT) can improve the quality of life of older adults who use these devices. The present research investigated how older adults learned to use mobile phones in daily life; it focused on the effects that families may exert on the acquisition of this kind of knowledge. A 3-week experiment was con- ducted with 11 users who had no previous experience using mobile phones. For half of the participants, their household comprised only a spouse; the households of the remaining participants comprised three generations, including children and grandchil- dren. The results showed that learning to use mobile phones was facilitated in participants living in households with larger families, particularly those living with younger generations. The findings suggest that differences in users' social environ- ments create differences in the levels of use of the technology. The results are discussed in terms of the effects of family structure on older adults learning new technology. jpr_434 244.255
adi as a Discourse Marker in Spoken Iraqi Arabic

The linguistic element ؟adi is extensively employed in the variety of Arabic spoken in Iraq to aid in communication and facilitate the cohesion and flow of conversation. ؟adi which roughly means no worries, okay, how dare you? , yeah I hear you, or I've gone through the same thing myself , displays properties typically displayed by discourse markers. For example, it occurs phrase-initially or phrase-finally, it is a grammatically optional lexical item, it is multi-functional and it is an essential feature of spontaneous oral discourse … oral - rather than formal written - discourse among Iraqi speakers of Arabic. The aim of this paper is to investigate the use of ؟adi , its distribution and its varied context-dependent meanings and functions. The description and investigation are based largely on speech samples which the author recorded. These recordings were then transcribed and analyzed in order to identify the functions associated with ؟adi from a discourse analytical perspective.
Do not embarrass: re-examining user concerns for online tracking and advertising

Recent studies have highlighted user concerns with respect to third-party tracking and online behavioral advertising (OBA) and the need for better consumer choice mechanisms to address these phenomena. We re-investigate the question of perceptions of third-party tracking while situating it in the larger context of how online ads, in general, are perceived by users. Via in-depth interviews with 53 Web users in India, we find that although concerns for third-party tracking and OBA remain noticeable amongst this population, other aspects of online advertising---like the possibility of being shown ads with embarrassing and suggestive content---are voiced as greater concerns than the concern of being tracked. Current-day blocking tools are insufficient to redress the situation: users demand selective filtering of ad content (as opposed to blocking out all ads) and are not satisfied with mechanisms that only control tracking and OBA. We conclude with design recommendations for enduser tools to control online ad consumption keeping in mind the concerns brought forth by our study.
Efficient Oblivious Branching Programs for Threshold and Mod Functions

In his survey paper on branching programs, Razborov asked the following question: Does every rectifier-switching network computing the majority ofnbits have sizen1+? (1)? We answer this question in the negative by constructing a simple oblivious branching program of sizeOnlog3n/loglognlogloglogn for computing any threshold function. This improves the previously best known upper bound ofO(n3/2) due to Lupanov. We also construct oblivious branching programs of sizeo(nlog4n) for computing general mod functions. All previously known constructions for computing general mod functions have size? (n3/2).
Quantum Private Telecommunications: A project at Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal

QuantPrivTel — Quantum Private Telecommunications is an ongoing research project that joins the theoretical expertise of the Security and Quantum Information Group (SQIG) at Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT) in Lisbon, Portugal, and the skills in quantum optics experiments of the Optical Communications group (OC-Av) at IT Aveiro, Portugal, to tackle new challenges in the emergent and multidisciplinary area of quantum private telecommunications. After a brief introduction to quantum information and quantum telecommunication, we will present the main results achieved by the project team so far, namely a quantum-enhanced message authentication protocol and a quantum contract signing protocol, as well as the implementation of quantum channels with optical fibers.
Learning with Trade Unions: A Contemporary Agenda in Employment Relations

Contents: Foreword, Brendan Barber Section I Union Learning: Setting the Scene: Introduction, Steve Shelley and Moira Calveley An historical overview of trade union involvement in education and learning, Moira Calveley Trade union learning in the international context, Moira Calveley Tackling the UK skills problem: can unions make a difference? , Caroline Lloyd and Jonathan Payne. Section II Union Learning: Actions and Outcomes: A beneficial combination? Learning opportunities from union involvement in career and pay progression, Anne McBride and Stephen Mustchin Have laptop, will travel: case studies in union learning, David Wray The outcomes and usefulness of union learning, Steve Shelley Becoming visible? Notes on work, union learning and education, Keith Forrester. Section III Union Learning and Union Renewal: Integrating learning into workplace bargaining. Case studies of evolving trade union learning agreements, Mark Stuart and Emma Wallis The longer-term influence of women-only trade union schools, Gill Kirton Multiple partnerships in trade union learning, Steve Shelley. Section IV Developing a Future Agenda: Globalisation and trade union education, John Stirling New developments in union learning, Liz Rees Towards a future agenda in union learning: developing a sustainable distinctiveness, Steve Shelley and Moira Calveley Index.
Hand gesture modelling and tracking using a Self-Organising Network

The Self-Organising Artificial Neural Network Models, of which we have used the Growing Neural Gas (GNG) can be applied to preserve the topology of an input distribution. Traditionally these models neither do include local adaptation of the nodes nor colour information. In this paper, we extend GNG by presenting an improvement to the network that has both global and local properties and can track in cluttered backgrounds. The method performs continuously mapping over a distribution that changes over time and works with both smooth and abrupt changes. The central mechanism relies on the addition of global and local attributes, and skin colour information to the network which allow us to automatically model and track 2D gestures. Application to hand gesture video tracking is presented.
Racial Segregation and the American Foreclosure Crisis

The rise in subprime lending and the ensuing wave of foreclosures was partly a result of market forces that have been well-identified in the literature, but it was also a highly racialized process. We argue that residential segregation created a unique niche of minority clients who were differentially marketed risky subprime loans that were in great demand for use in mortgage-backed securities that could be sold on secondary markets. We test this argument by regressing foreclosure actions in the top 100 U.S. metropolitan areas on measures of black, Hispanic, and Asian segregation while controlling for a variety of housing market conditions, including average creditworthiness, the extent of coverage under the Community Reinvestment Act, the degree of zoning regulation, and the overall rate of subprime lending. We find that black residential dissimilarity and spatial isolation are powerful predictors of foreclosures across U.S. metropolitan areas. To isolate subprime lending as the causal mechanism through which segregation influences foreclosures, we estimate a two-stage least squares model that confirms the causal effect of black segregation on the number and rate of foreclosures across metropolitan areas. We thus conclude that segregation was an important contributing cause of the foreclosure crisis, along with overbuilding, risky lending practices, lax regulation, and the bursting of the housing price bubble.
Coccoid Form of Helicobacter pylori as a Morphological Manifestation of Cell Adaptation to the Environment

ABSTRACT After characterization of preferred conditions for Helicobacter pylori survival in the sessile state, it was observed that the bacterium transforms from spiral to coccoid under mild circumstances, whereas under extreme ones it is unable to undergo shape modification. This strongly supports the view that transformation into the coccoid form is an active, biologically led process, switched on by the bacterium as a protection mechanism.
Optimal precoder design for mimo systems using decision feedback receivers

For precoder design problems in a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) communication system, perfect knowledge of the channel state information (CSI) at both the transmitter and the receiver is usually required. However, it is often difficult to provide sufficiently timely and accurate feedback of CSI from the receiver to the transmitter for such designs to be practically viable. In this paper, we consider the optimum design of a precoder for a wireless communication link having M transmitter antennas and N receiver antennas (M < N), in which the channels are assumed to be flat fading and may be correlated. We assume that full CSI is known at the receiver, but only the first- and second-order statistics of the channels are available at the transmitter. Our goal is to come up with an efficient design of the optimal precoder for such a MIMO system by minimizing the average arithmetic mean-squared error (MSE) of zero-forcing decision feedback (ZF-DF) detection subject to a constraint on the total transmitting power. We transform this non-convex optimization problem into a convex geometrical programming problem, which can then be efficiently solved using an interior point method. For the case when the transmission channels are uncorrelated, a closed-form solution of the optimum precoder has been obtained. The superior performance of our MIMO system equipped with the optimum precoder is verified by computer simulations.
Giving patients access to their medical records via the internet: the PCASSO experience.

OBJECTIVE The Patient-Centered Access to Secure Systems Online (PCASSO) project is designed to apply state-of-the-art-security to the communication of clinical information over the Internet. DESIGN The authors report the legal and regulatory issues associated with deploying the system, and results of its use by providers and patients. Human subject protection concerns raised by the Institutional Review Board focused on three areas-unauthorized access to information by persons other than the patient; the effect of startling or poorly understood information; and the effect of patient access to records on the record-keeping behavior of providers. MEASUREMENTS Objective and subjective measures of security and usability were obtained. RESULTS During its initial deployment phase, the project enrolled 216 physicians and 41 patients; of these, 68 physicians and 26 patients used the system one or more times. The system performed as designed, with no unauthorized information access or intrusions detected. Providers rated the usability of the system low because of the complexity of the secure login and other security features and restrictions limiting their access to those patients with whom they had a professional relationship. In contrast, patients rated the usability and functionality of the system favorably. CONCLUSION High-assurance systems that serve both patients and providers will need to address differing expectations regarding security and ease of use.
Receptor tyrosine kinase-like orphan receptor 2 (ROR2) and Indian hedgehog regulate digit outgrowth mediated by the phalanx-forming region

Elongation of the digit rays resulting in the formation of a defined number of phalanges is a process poorly understood in mammals, whereas in the chicken distal mesenchymal bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling in the so-called phalanx-forming region (PFR) or digit crescent (DC) seems to be involved. The human brachydactylies (BDs) are inheritable conditions characterized by variable degrees of digit shortening, thus providing an ideal model to analyze the development and elongation of phalanges. We used a mouse model for BDB1 (Ror2W749X/W749X) lacking middle phalanges and show that a signaling center corresponding to the chick PFR exists in the mouse, which is diminished in BDB1 mice. This resulted in a strongly impaired elongation of the digit condensations due to reduced chondrogenic commitment of undifferentiated distal mesenchymal cells. We further show that a similar BMP-based mechanism accounts for digit shortening in a mouse model for the closely related condition BDA1 (IhhE95K/E95K), altogether indicating the functional significance of the PFR in mammals. Genetic interaction experiments as well as pathway analysis in BDB1 mice suggest that Indian hedgehog and WNT/β-catenin signaling, which we show is inhibited by receptor tyrosine kinase-like orphan receptor 2 (ROR2) in distal limb mesenchyme, are acting upstream of BMP signaling in the PFR.
Development of a lightweight power-assist suit using pneumatic artificial muscles and balloon-amplification mechanism

Low back pain of workers is increased in workplaces that involve hard work. It is caused by excessive loading of the waist joint and muscle fatigue. Therefore, power-assist suits have been developed to decrease the load on the waist joint. However, previous power-assist suits have had problems such as low output or heaviness. Thus, we have developed an assist suit that is lightweight and exerts a large force. A balloon actuator and pneumatic artificial muscles are attached to assist suit as the actuators. The assist suit has various desirable features: lightweight, flexibility, and high output. First, human motion is analyzed for the development of the assist suit. The assist suit is developed to assist the waist joint torque. The assist suit is modeled, and the theoretical values of its generation force are estimated using an assist-suit model. Finally, the assist suit is evaluated by measuring the surface electromyography (EMG). The EMG of the wearer is compared with that without the suit. The effectiveness of the assist suit is confirmed by a decrease in EMG.
Charter School Accountability

ABSTRACT Stakeholder surveys conducted as part of the development of an accountability and assessment system for five charter schools in Miami-Dade County and Broward County, Florida, revealed high positive response regarding high expectations, school climate, basic skills instruction, and monitoring student progress. The lowest overall rating revealed dissatisfaction with charter school resources. Five researchers distributed questionnaires to stakeholders, defined as parents, pupils, teachers, administrators, special program teachers, and auxiliary personnel. Survey results were generally positive in assessing the schools, programs, teachers, administrators, and relationships between the various stakeholder groups. This study provided the quantitative data needed to form the framework for the development and implementation of an accountability system.
A low cost rapid prototype platform for a three phase PFC rectifier application

In this paper the design and development of a low cost rapid prototype platform for a Three Phase PFC rectifier application is presented. The active rectifier consists of a SiC-MOSFET based PWM converter and a low cost rapid prototype platform for simulating and implementing the digital control algorithm. The digital controller is based on a for motor and power control widely used DSP/MCU platform from Texas Instruments. The design and simulation of the PFC controller is performed using the data flow driven graphical programming language MATLAB/SIMULINK. The actual programming of the processor is then performed using automatic code generation for embedded targets, which provided a close link between simulation and implementation of the PFC controller. The paper shows how this rapid prototype platform developed and how it was used for the design and implementation of the controller for a high efficient SiC based PFC application.
Latent Cytomegalovirus Infection in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Increased Frequencies of Cytolytic LIR‐1+CD8+ T Cells

Leukocyte immunoglobulin‐like receptor 1 (LIR‐1) is up‐regulated by cytomegalovirus (CMV), which in turn, has been associated with premature aging and more severe joint disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The aim of this study was to investigate the expression and functional significance of LIR‐1 in CMV‐positive RA patients.
Critical pedagogy: What might it look like and why does it matter?

I first heard the term ‘critical pedagogy’ when I returned to university to undertake an honours degree after teaching health and physical education for four years. Several academic staff and postgraduate students met regularly to discuss the concept in a basement room that was cold and windowless. The meetings I attended spoke of hegemonic capitalism, patriarchy, domination, inequality, alienation, democracy and empowerment. To identify with a critical pedagogy seemed a serious, gloomy and somewhat confrontational business. This was in 1986 and it was the early days of scholarship in critical pedagogy in Australian health and physical education. It took me several years not to fear it, to understand its significance, digest its strengths and weaknesses and find a way of working with it that I felt was practical and positive. The aim of this chapter is to de-mystify critical pedagogy and introduce a range of contexts and practices where critical pedagogy can be used to engage more people in physically active, healthy lifestyles.
Recovering Legacy Requirements

It is common for organisations to introduce substantial changes to their structure and operations in order to adapt to new business environments. This often confers legacy status on their software systems because they can’t adequately support the new business processes. In this paper, we argue that it is necessary to recover the requirements of in-service legacy software to ensure that its evolution or replacement is properly informed by an understanding of what is redundant, what must be retained and what can be reused. Much of this information is often contained in documents. However, retrieval of the information is often difficult due to problems of completeness, quality and sheer volume. In the REVERE project we are integrating a number of techniques to provide a set of tools to help requirements engineers explore the documentation and reconstruct conceptual models of the software and business processes. At the core of this work is the exploitation of probabilistic NLP tools to provide a ‘quick way in’ to large, complex and imperfectly structured documents, saving much painstaking and error-prone manual effort.
Smac mimetics as new cancer therapeutics

The recent discovery of Smac and the elucidation of its structure and function have led to the rapid development of Smac mimetics, comprising Smac derivative and mimicking molecules, for use in cancer treatment. Smac is an endogenous proapoptotic protein that resides in the mitochondria and is released when a cell is triggered to undergo programmed cell death. One of the mechanisms by which Smac promotes apoptosis is through its ability to inhibit inhibitors of apoptosis (IAPs), by direct inhibition and/or proteasomal degradation of some members of the IAP family, and therefore disinhibit caspases. Thus, the use of Smac mimetics as anticancer agents follows a rational approach in cancer therapeutics. This approach directly targets dysregulated, neoplastic cells that overexpress IAPs or underexpress Smac. Although Smac mimetics are able to elicit an anticancer response when used alone, these molecules can also function effectively and synergistically when combined with other therapeutic agents. A variety of Smac mimetic types comprising peptides, polynucleotides, and compounds have been studied both in vitro and in vivo. This discussion addresses the current status of Smac mimetics in cancer research.