Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Financial Aid and Student Enrollment

Most high school students cannot afford college, according to standard assessments of financial need. Yet a great many attend. To make this possible families scrimp and students work and, since this is often insufficient, colleges and other agencies give or lend students money for college. There is little question financial aid helps a needy student fulfill an aspiration for college: at the very least, it reduces the amount of money he or she must raise elsewhere. There is, however, less evidence what needy students will do in the absence of aid, or how the availability of aid will affect the aspiration of a potential student, needy or not. This research seeks such evidence. Certainly all high school seniors would not attend college even if there were no financial barriers. Some students presumably feel-or are made to feel-unable to cope with more schooling. Others wish to enter occupations requiring none. Still others find their peers do not plan further education, or that their parents oppose it, and they decide to conform to these social pressures. Conversely, there are myriad inducements to attend college: college graduates earn more than nongraduates, some occupations require postsecondary education, not doing so might stigmatize one socially, and so on. Originally financial aid for college students served two purposes: to reward students for academic achievement or some other action, such as military service, or to enable needy students to attend college if they
Pushing Forward SME CSR Through a Network: An Account from the Catalan Model

This paper presents the results of a Catalan project in which an academic institution acted as a practitioner to promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The project involved the establishment of a working network with intermediate organisations and the creation of specific tools for the purpose. The paper is set up as a case study, emphasising inclusion, representativity and legitimacy as key elements for the successful construction of a network to promote CSR in SMEs. It underlines the assumptions behind the functioning of this network and the learning findings from this public private initiative. Presented from a public policy perspective, the paper emphasises the need for coordination in terms of the growing number of initiatives fostering CSR in SMEs. It presents a brief account of the material results, focusing on the process of creating a consensus within the network. It opens up a path for future research, exploring how network management and leadership can be seen as key issues when talking about corporate social responsibility (CSR) promotion in SMEs.
Student Retention in Higher Education: Some Conceptual and Programmatic Perspectives

Over the past two decades the attrition of students in higher education has raised grave concerns. These concerns were raised initially over the higher rates of attrition of minority students in the early 1980s following a decade of record rates of minority enrollment in higher education institutions during the 1970s. However, by the mid-1980s the rates of high attrition of African-American and Hispanic students had grabbed the attention of the academic community across the country. When scholars and higher education administrators began to take notice of the higher rates of attrition of minority students they found out that student dropout and attrition in higher education institutions was a problem with all students, not just students of color. This article summarizes and presents perspectives on the causes of attrition and the problems of the retention of students in higher education. These ideas and perspectives are based on what has been learned from research on student retention over the past two decades. Also, programmatic strategies that have been implemented at institutions are summarized as examples of student retention initiatives that have had significant impacts.
Hypercaloric Diet Establishes Erectile Dysfunction in Rat: Mechanisms Underlying the Endothelial Damage

Obesity is characterized by an excessive increase in body mass, leading to endothelial damage that may favor the development of erectile dysfunction (ED). ED is defined as the inability to achieve or maintain a penile erection long enough to have a sexual intercourse. In this context, different ED models were developed, however the high price of special animals or the long period to establish the disease has limited studies in this field. Therefore, this study proposed to establish and characterize a novel model of ED in rats associated to a hypercaloric diet consumption. Animals were randomly divided into control group (CG), which received a standard diet, and obese group (OG), fed with a hypercaloric diet during 8 weeks. Rat's erectile function was evaluated in vivo and in vitro. Food and caloric intake of OG were reduced compared to CG, due to an increased diet energy efficiency. However, OG presented an increased body mass, inguinal, retroperitoneal and epididymal adipose tissues, as well as body adiposity index at the end of experimental protocol. In erectile function analysis, there was a decrease in the number and the latency of penile erections in OG. Additionally, the contractile reactivity of corpus cavernosum was increased in OG, favoring penile detumescence and related to a reduced nitric oxide bioavailability and an increased in contractile prostaglandins levels as a consequence of endothelial damage. Moreover, the endothelium-relaxation reactivity of corpus cavernosum was attenuated in OG associated to the oxidative stress. Thus, it was provided a model for advances in sexual dysfunction field and drug discovery for ED treatment.
Clinical implications of interferon‐γ genetic and epigenetic variants

Interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ) is an integral and critical molecule of the immune system, with multiple functions, mostly related to the T helper type 1 (Th1) response to infection. It is critical for defence against mycobacterial infection and is of increasing interest in defence against fungi. In this article, we review the genetic and epigenetic variants affecting IFN‐γ expression and investigate its role in disease, with an emphasis on fungal diseases such as invasive and chronic pulmonary aspergillosis. Over 347 IFN‐γ gene variants have been described, in multiple ethnic populations. Many appear to confer a susceptibility to disease, especially tuberculosis (TB) and hepatitis, but also some non‐infectious conditions such as aplastic anaemia, cervical cancer and psoriasis. Several epigenetic modifications are also described, increasing IFN‐γ expression in Th1 lymphocytes and reducing IFN‐γ expression in Th2 lymphocytes. Recombinant IFN‐γ administration is licensed for the prophylaxis of infection (bacterial and fungal) in patients with the phagocyte functional deficiency syndrome chronic granulomatous disease, although the benefits appear limited. Interferon‐γ therapy is given to patients with profound defects in IFN‐γ and interleukin‐12 production and appears to be beneficial for patients with invasive aspergillosis and cryptococcal meningitis, but the studies are not definitive. A high proportion of patients with chronic pulmonary aspergillosis are poor producers of IFN‐γ in response to multiple stimuli and could also benefit from IFN‐γ administration. The investigation and management of patients with possible or demonstrated IFN‐γ deficiency in adulthood is poorly studied and could be greatly enhanced with the integration of genetic data.
Towards a Crystal Ball for Data Retrieval

Information Systems { both databases and textsearch programs { are typically architected as \black boxes": a user submits a request, the system performs an unknown sequences of operations, and after some time an answer set is returned. Two trends are conspiring to make such architectures undesirable. First, users of these systems are often quite naive, and unsure of what they are doing. Second, the queries submitted to these systems are taking increasing amounts of time to complete. These trends together lead to a frustrating experience for users: they are unsure if their inputs are appropriate, and the cost of an inappropriate input is often a long wait followed by a useless or misleading result. In this paper we propose changing the black-box model to one of a \crystal ball", in which users are given feedback on their queries as they run, so that they can predict the utility of their query results, control the behavior of the queries on the y, and better understand the operation of the system. We highlight some initial work in this vein, and describe opportunities for similar e orts in new applications.
Stability of Constrained Model Predictive Control for Networked Control Systems with Data Packet Dropout

A constrained model predictive control (MPC) strategy for networked control systems with data packet dropout is proposed in this paper. A buffer is designed to store the predicted control sequence between controller and actuator. If data packet dropout doesn't happen, new control sequence will be obtained by MPC to substitute old control sequence in buffer and the first control action will be enforced to the actuator, or the control action in old control sequence corresponding to current sample time will be applied. It is also shown that if the control horizon of MPC is not less than maximal continuous data packet dropout number, feasibility of MPC at initial time implies asymptotical stability of the closed loop system. A simulation example illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Thematic Review Series: Lipid Droplet Synthesis and Metabolism: from Yeast to Man Seipin: from human disease to molecular mechanism

The most-severe form of congenital generalized lipodystrophy (CGL) is caused by mutations in BSCL2/seipin. Seipin is a homo-oligomeric integral membrane protein in the endoplasmic reticulum that concentrates at junctions with cytoplasmic lipid droplets (LDs). While null mutations in seipin are responsible for lipodystrophy, dominant mutations cause peripheral neuropathy and other nervous system pathologies. We first review the clinical aspects of CGL and the discovery of the responsible genetic loci. The structure of seipin, its normal isoforms, and mutations found in patients are then presented. While the function of seipin is not clear, seipin gene manipulation in yeast, flies, mice, and human cells has recently yielded a trove of information that suggests roles in lipid metabolism and LD assembly and maintenance. A model is presented that attempts to bridge these new data to understand the role of this fascinating protein.
COPROLOGIC EVIDENCE OF GASTROINTESTINAL HELMINTHS OF FOREST BABOONS, PAPIO ANUBIS, IN KIBALE NATIONAL PARK, UGANDA

The gastrointestinal parasites of baboons have been well characterized from savannah and desert habitats, but little is known about their gastrointestinal parasites in forest habitats. From May to June 2004, we collected 41 fecal samples from free-ranging olive baboons (Papio anubis) within the forested Kibale National Park, Uganda. Samples were examined to determine the prevalence of gastrointestinal helminths in this forest dwelling population of olive baboons. The prevalence of nematodes identified from fecal flotation was Oesophagostomum sp. (85%), Trichostrongylus sp. (22%), Trichuris sp. (46%), Strongyloides sp. (44%), Ternidens sp. (5%), Abbreviata sp. (2%), and Molineus sp. (2%). Flotation techniques also recovered unidentified eggs, probably of hookworm origin (22%). No parasite eggs were recovered by sedimentation of eight samples. Coproculture techniques using 13 of the 41 samples recovered larvae from Oesophagostomum sp. , Strongyloides sp. , and Trichostrongylus sp. The high prevalence of nematodes recovered in this study seems to support previous theories of high nematode infections in forested habits.
Fine granular scalability for H.26L-based video streaming

MPEG-4 and H.26L have reached or neared 'international standard' status and applications are being developed based on these standards. The new H.26L standard has been proven to be an attractive choice for videostreaming over MPEG-4. However, just as in single layer MPEG-4, it lacks adaptability to bandwidth variations. This paper examines FGS-like systems for H.26L.
Low-power field-programmable VLSI processor using dynamic circuits

This paper proposes a low-power field-programmable VLSI processor (FPVLSI) to overcome the problem of large power consumption in field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Bit-serial pipeline architecture is used in the FPVLSI to reduce the complexity of interconnection blocks. Moreover, a dual-supply voltage scheme is effectively used to scale down the supply voltage along non-critical paths to obtain low power consumption without degrading the over-all speed performance. Its main drawback is the additional hardware cost of level converters to connect a low-supply-voltage module with a high-supply-voltage one. To solve this problem, a level-converter-less look-up table based on dynamic circuits is presented. The dynamic circuits are also useful to reduce glitch power that is one of the significant portions of the total power in FPGAs. The FPVLSI is designed based on a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS design rule. The power consumption of the FPVLSI is reduced to 40% compared to that of the FPGA.
Individual trajectories of substance use in lesbian, gay and bisexual youth and heterosexual youth.

AIMS Several decades of research have shown that lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) adults are at high risk for substance use and substance use disorders, and a recent meta-analysis shows that these disparities most probably begin in adolescence; however, no studies to date have examined longitudinal growth in substance use in LGB youth and heterosexual youth to determine if they follow different trajectories into young adulthood. The primary aims of this paper were to estimate individual trajectories of substance use in youth and examine differences between self-identified LGB and heterosexual subsamples. METHOD A school-based, longitudinal study of health-related behaviors of adolescents and their outcomes in young adulthood was used to test our hypotheses (The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health). Participants were included if they were interviewed at all three waves and were not missing information regarding self-identified sexual orientation (n = 10,670). RESULTS Latent curve models (LCMs) showed that LGB identity was associated significantly with individual variability in substance use intercepts and slopes, above and beyond age, race and gender. Self-identified LGB youth reported higher initial rates of substance use and on average their substance use increased over time more rapidly than did substance use by heterosexual youth. Two other indicators of sexual orientation (same-sex romantic attraction and same-sex sexual behavior) were also associated with substance use trajectories, and differential results were found for youth who identified as 'mostly heterosexual' and bisexual compared with youth who identified as completely heterosexual or homosexual. CONCLUSIONS Sexual orientation is an important risk marker for growth in adolescent substance use, and the disparity between LGB and heterosexual adolescents increases as they transition into young adulthood. More research is needed in order to examine: causal mechanisms, protective factors, important age-related trends (using a cohort-sequential design), the influence of gay-related developmental milestones, curvilinear effects over time and long-term health outcomes.
The Study of Early Temperament: Measurement and Conceptual Issues.

HUBERT, NANCY C. ; WACHS, THEODORE D. ; PETERS-MARTIN, PATRICIA; and GANDOUR, MARY JANE. The Study of Early Temperament: Measurement and Conceptual Issues. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 571-600. 26 temperament instruments, developed to assess temperament at the infant, preschool, and school-age levels, were reviewed. Particular attention is given to instrument content, standardization samples, reliability, and validity. Psychometrically, most current temperament instruments approached high interjudge reliability, moderate internal consistency, and test-retest reliability; however, stability data are inconsistent and interparent agreement coefficients were low. Validity data which were available showed little convergence between instruments and inconsistent findings regarding concurrent and predictive validity. At present, no single psychometrically adequate instrument is available. Specific instruments may be useful for certain situations. Suggestions are made for future approaches to instrument development in this area.
Mandi: A Market Exchange for Trading Utility Computing Services

The recent development in Cloud computing has enabled the realization of delivering computing as an utility. Many industries such as Amazon and Google have started oﬀering Cloud services on a “pay as you go” basis. These advances have led to the evolution of the market infrastructure in the form of a Market Exchange (ME) that facilitates the trading between consumers and Cloud providers. Such market environment eases the trading process by aggregating IT services from a variety of sources, and allows consumers to easily select them. In this paper we propose a light weight and platform independent ME framework called “Mandi”, which allows consumers and providers to trade computing resources according to their requirements. The novelty of Mandi is that it not only gives its users the ﬂexibility in terms of negotiation protocol, but also allows the simultaneous co-existence of multiple trading negotiations. In this paper, we ﬁrst present the requirements that motivated our design and discuss how these facilitate the trading of compute resources using multiple market models (also called negotiation protocols). Finally, we evaluate the performance of the ﬁrst prototype of “Mandi” in terms of its scalability.
A dynamic approach to learning vector quantization

Learning vector quantization networks are generally considered a powerful pattern recognition tool. Their main drawback, however, is the competitive learning algorithm they are based upon, that suffers of the so called underutilized or dead unit problem. To solve this problem, algorithms substantially based on a modified distance calculation, such as the frequency sensitive competitive learning (FSCL), have been proposed, but their attainable performance strongly depends on the selection of an appropriate number of neurons. This choice generally require knowledge about the number of clusters in the feature space. We propose a new supervised training algorithm for LVQ neural networks, which provide the optimal number of neurons for each class by dynamically adding or removing neurons on the basis of a measure of their performance. The experimental results, performed on different databases of synthetic data, confirmed the effectiveness of our approach.
Factors Associated with Community Adjustment of Young Adults with Serious Emotional Disturbance

Rates of change in strength- and deficit-based behaviors in relation to community adjustment were examined for 292 participants in the 7-year longitudinal National Adolescent and Child Treatment Study (NACTS; Greenbaum et al., 1996) as they transitioned from adolescence to the adult world. Scores from 6 domains including education, employment, residence, social support network, self-reported and caretaker-reported satisfaction were combined to form the Index of Community Adjustment (ICA). Participants with higher social-adaptive behavior upon entry into NACTS and whose social-adaptive behavior improved over time attained higher ICA scores.These results underscore the need to provide comprehensive and integrated services that promote development of social-adaptive skills associated with successful transition to adulthood for individuals with emotional challenges.
The Surprise of Candour: Employee Cynicism and technological Change in Late Modernity Work

As an attitude characterized by frustration, hopelessness, betrayal and disillusionment (Andersson, 1996; Wanous et al. 1994) employee cynicism or organizational cynicism could be considered a specific attitude of interest to the research of information system (IS) implementations. Today a broad literature body has emerged within the IS research community investigating the organizational consequences of IS implementations breaking with the technical/rational tradition of the IS field. This article explores the relationship between employee cynicism and technological change and is based on a longitudinal case study of a Swedish customer service centre. The article reveals the challenges, criticism and cynicism among highly educated customer service centre employees going through a IS implementation process. We found two groups of users with distinct features: one group which had strong IS literacy yet expressed modest motivation and commitment towards work; another group which had strong work competence yet significant antipathy towards technological and organizational change. We conclude that cynicism represents an important but neglected aspect of IS implementation outcomes. More so, cynics may be important players in successfully implementing new IS. (Less)
Studying designers using a tabletop system for 3D design with a focus on the impact on spatial cognition

Tabletop systems provide a platform for developing novel interaction systems, including tangible user interfaces (TUIs). This paper presents a study of the effects of a tabletop system with tangible user interfaces on designers' spatial cognition and design communication in collaborative design. In devising an experiment that can highlight the impact on spatial cognition while using TUIs, we compared designers using a tangible user interface (TUI) on a tabletop system to designers using a graphical user interface (GUI) on a typical desktop computer with mouse and keyboard. The designers were given a configuration design task in which they manipulated 3D objects to meet design specifications. Our preliminary findings are that designers using the tabletop system with TUIs reasoned about spatial relationships among 3D objects and discovered unexpected spatial relationships, while the designers using the traditional keyboard and mouse interfaces reasoned about individual 3D objects.