Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is validation always valid? Cross-cultural complexities of standard-based instruments migrating out of their context

ABSTRACT The international application of standard-based measures to assess ECEC quality raises crucial questions concerning the cultural complexities and the problematic validity of instruments migrating out of their cultural cradle; nevertheless the topic has received only marginal attention in the literature. This paper, which aims to address this gap, presents the research design and first findings from the Italian data collected within the European study CARE and a national extension, developing a critical-cultural approach to the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) – a standard-based instrument to evaluate teacher–child interactions in U.S. classrooms. ECEC experts and teachers have been involved in focused discussions of CLASS recognizing elements of continuity, differences and disagreements and key-features of the teacher–child relationship not captured by the tool. Results offer interesting insights into a methodological reflection on the international use of standardized evaluation tools and into a theoretical reflection on ‘universal vs. culture-related’ views on education and quality.
Smart Health

The need for personal protective equipment, such as respirators, has been emphasized by pandemics as they provide protection against infectious diseases. Adequate protection is only possible when respirators fit properly and are worn correctly. Therefore, it is especially critical to closely monitor and ensure respirator fit, particularly during a pandemic. To ensure proper fit and continuous monitoring, we propose a new noninvasive method that uses speech signals to measure the attenuation of sound caused by the respirator. This method provides a quantitative measure of respirator Fit Factor (FF, the ratio of the concentration of a substance in ambient air to its concentration inside the respirator). This method is also cost-effective and easy to implement. By collecting limited labeled and unlabeled speech data, augmenting labeled data, extracting time and frequency domain features, we achieved up to 86.24% accuracy in respirator fit detection using semi-supervised learning model.
Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Přírodovědecká fakulta

This PhD thesis contains the results of comprehensive research into the Pravčická brána Arch and surrounding sandstone massifs with focus on gaining more knowledge about natural dynamics and evolution of this rock formation, its current level of stability and the weathering processes it displays. Non-destructive methods were used for this comprehensive study; these ranged from detailed field documentation to monitoring temperature regime of the rock and included application of a geophysical survey and control monitoring of the course of arch body deformation. Laboratory testing was carried out for strength parameters and salt efflorescences together with weathered sandstones were analysed for chemical compounds. Main operating factors were monitored simultaneously, which particularly involved changes in external temperature, degree of sunlight and chemical composition of rainfall. Conventional as well as entirely new assessment procedures were used in synthesis and interpretation of the data collected, including knowledge of nonlinear dynamics of complex systems. The survey was designed to fully respect the protective conditions of the site, to make follow-up activities possible in future and to monitor any possible negative changes in the rock massif. The main results incorporate description of the block fabric of the body and the nature of the contact zone between the arch beam and the southern pillar, discovery of relatively fresh secondary fissures and identification of zones with weakened strength within the sandstone massif. Long-term monitoring has demonstrated slow and irreversible body movements and reversible quasi-cyclical movements associated with changes in temperature at the level of days up to years. Differences in actions of the eastern and the western side of the beam were found and the fact that the beam displays curved bending was attested, the latter being additionally intensified by unequal stress via torsion and shear. Furthermore, data were obtained that clarify the development of temperatures inside the rock massif in terms of time and depth and the mode of natural drainage of the massif was determined. Particular attention was paid to the processes of salt weathering that were being studied from the aspect of describing their distribution in space and over time and from the light of geochemical characteristics of the input sources (rainwater), seepage water and end components in the form of destructive salts. The collected information was used for developing a structural deformation model of the arch body, including description of the nature of desintegration and assessment of the extent and the involvement of external factors (including anthropogenic influences). Results of this comprehensive study provide valuable information about the current condition of the rock body. Helping to identify potentially hazardous parts, these are to be used not only for modelling future development, but also to design the best possible remediation measures.
Design and Validation of a Versatile High Torque Quasidirect Drive Hip Exoskeleton

The field of wearable robotics has made significant progress toward augmenting human functions from multimodal ambulation to manual lifting tasks. However, most of these systems are designed to be task-specific and only focus on a single type of movement (e.g., ambulation). In this work, we design, fabricate, and characterize a versatile hip exoskeleton testbed for lifting and ambulation tasks. The exoskeleton testbed is actuated with custom-built quasidirect drive actuators. We produce an orthotic interface to transmit high torques and assemble a custom mechatronic control system for the exoskeleton testbed. We also detail controllers for level ground walking, incline walking, and symmetric knee to waist lifting. We quantify the actuator torque tracking performance quantified through benchtop and human experiments. During knee-to-waist cyclic lifting, the powered condition exhibited a 16.7% reduction in net metabolic cost compared to the no exoskeleton condition (three subjects). For additional tasks (inclined walking, level-walking), the device provided metabolic reductions when compared with the unpowered case (single subject). These testbed results illustrate the potential for versatile hip assistance and can be used to design future optimized devices.
Intimate Partner Violence During Pregnancy and Maternal Morbidity in South Ethiopia: A Cohort Study

Purpose Intimate partner violence during pregnancy is a universal public health problem. However, its link with maternal morbidity is not well understood in Ethiopia. Thus, the study assessed its effect on maternal morbidity during delivery and postpartum in South Ethiopia. Methods A prospective cohort study was conducted among 1535 pregnant women. Pregnant women with intimate partner violence during pregnancy were enrolled as the “exposed group”, and pregnant women without intimate partner violence were registered as the “unexposed group”. A total of 711 exposed and 774 unexposed women were included in the analysis of this study. Data were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Data entry and analysis were done in STATA Version 14. A generalized linear model with a log link function using the binreg command was applied to examine the effect of intimate partner violence on maternal morbidity. Results The level of maternal morbidity during delivery and postpartum was higher among women with intimate partner violence than women without intimate partner violence (34.0% vs 26.6%). After adjusting for confounders, women with intimate partner violence during pregnancy were more likely to experience maternal morbidity than women without intimate partner violence (aRR=4.45; 95% CI: 3.15, 6.28). Psychological violence was also identified as a risk factor for maternal morbidity (aRR=2.17; 95% CI: 1.76, 2.67). Likewise, women with physical violence were more likely to experience maternal morbidity than those without physical violence (aRR=1.31; 95% CI: 1.12, 1.53). Conclusion The current study demonstrated a higher level of maternal morbidity among women with intimate partner violence. Psychological violence, physical violence, and intimate partner violence during pregnancy were found to increase the risk of maternal morbidity. Strengthening the prevention and prompt management of intimate partner violence during pregnancy may significantly reduce the incidence of maternal morbidity.
Betapapillomavirus natural history and co‐detection with alphapapillomavirus in cervical samples of adult women

Human papillomaviruses (HPV) of the genus Betapapillomavirus can infect both cutaneous and mucosal sites, but research on their natural history at mucosal sites remains scarce. We examined the risk factors and co‐detection patterns of HPVs of the Betapapillomavirus and Alphapapillomavirus genera in cervical samples of the Ludwig‐McGill cohort study. We assessed a subset of 505 women from the Ludwig‐McGill cohort study from São Paulo, Brazil. Cervical samples over the first year of follow‐up were tested for DNA of over 40 alphapapillomavirus types and 43 betapapillomavirus types using a type‐specific multiplex genotyping polymerase chain reaction assay. We assessed the risk factors for prevalent and incident betapapillomavirus type detection, and whether types were detected more frequently together than expected assuming independence using permutation tests, logistic regression, and Cox regression. We observed significant within‐genus clustering but not cross‐genus clustering. Multiple betapapillomavirus types were co‐detected in the same sample 2.24 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.65–3.29) times more frequently than expected. Conversely, co‐detections of alphapapillomavirus and betapapillomavirus types in the same sample occurred only 0.64 (95% CI: 0.51–0.83) times as often as expected under independence. In prospective analyses, positivity to one HPV genus was associated with a nonsignificant lower incidence of detection of types in the other genus. Lifetime number of sex partners and new sex partner acquisition were associated with lower risks of prevalent and incident betapapillomavirus detection. Betapapillomaviruses are commonly found in the cervicovaginal tract. Results suggest potentially different mechanisms of transmission for betapapillomavirus genital infections other than vaginal sex.
ONGOING OPERATIONAL AND REGULATORY ISSUES AT WIPP

Even though the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) has been receiving Contact-Handled transuranic (CH-TRU) wastes since March 1999 there are many ongoing issues that need to be resolved. Two major proposed modifications are expected soon involving waste characterization at WIPP and permitting of Remote-Handled transuranic (RH-TRU) waste disposal. There are also transportation and facility issues as well as effluent and ambient monitoring activities. The Environmental Evaluation Group (EEG) is the independent state-oversight group.
Quantifying evaporation and transpiration in field lysimeters using the soil water balance

Much is reported on the agronomical aspects of canola (Brassica napus L.) but there is a distinct lack of information on the crop’s transpiration and the efficiency of this process. The objective of this chapter was to evaluate the influence of soils and growth periods on the transpiration (T), transpiration efficiency (TE) and transpiration efficiency coefficient (TEC) of canola under irrigation. Thirty lysimeters (2.5 m) were used for the study, half of them filled with a sandy soil and the other half with a sandy loam soil. The experiment was laid out as a split plot design with two soil forms and four growth periods (GP) during the reproductive stage as treatments viz. 84 – 98 days after planting (GP1), 98 – 112 DAP (GP2), 112 126 DAP (GP3) and 126 – 140 DAP (GP4). Treatments were all replicated three times. Canola was planted 14 June and harvested 2 November 2006. Irrigation was applied weekly through a surface drip system and daily through a sub irrigation system to maintain a constant water table at 1200 mm from the surface. Soil water content was measured three times a week using a neutron soil water meter. TE was calculated as total biomass per unit transpiration and ranged between 2.84 and 2.88 g m mm. TEC was obtained by normalizing TE to the vapour pressure deficit and resulted in values of 4.21 and 4.30 g kPa mm. These efficiencies for canola were consistent with other C3 crops such as sugar beet, groundnut and common bean. Both TE and TEC were significantly different between growth periods and not amongst soils. During the reproductive stage of canola its efficiency of transpiration increased to 126 DAP and declined thereafter. This phenomenon was observed when the pods developed and fills the upper part of the canopy. Future work should focus on whether physiological changes are responsible for this trend in transpiration efficiency during the reproductive growth stage of the crop.
STUDY AND ANALYSIS OF TIME SERIES MODEL FOR ANNUAL PRECIPITATION (A CASE STUDY ON BAM- AS A CITY OF IRAN)

Different climatic factors are volatile and various over period of time. It is supposed to carry out a study on these variations. Some of these variations follow a specific pattern and some of them do not have a regular pattern. These irregular patterns are called random change. In this research firstly, characteristics and variability of Bam precipitation are studied; then time series analysis model for annual precipitation of the weather station is analyzed and estimated. In order to reach the research objectives, statistic methods (descriptive and deductive) were used and concluded that mentioned series had irregular random change and average is the best criteria to predict the random change of this series.
A Method of Cryptographically Strong Pseudorandom Sequences Generation Based on the Blender

The paper deals with a method for generating cryptographic pseudorandom sequences (PRSs) applicable in data security tasks in cyber-physical systems. The following methods were used in the study: PRS generation based on cryptographic algorithms in accordance with the recommendations of NIST SP 800-90; PRS testing methods (NIST 800-22 and NIST 800-90B tests); methods and tools for evaluating the quality of pseudorandom sequences using min-entropy, Pearson criterion and linear complexity. A method for generating cryptographically strong PRSs that consists of arbitrary length blocks is proposed. The key component of the proposed method is a special randomness extractor function called blender. In addition, elements of the key expansion mechanism of “Kuznyechik” cipher (Russian GOST R 34.12-2015) are embedded in the generation scheme. A number of modifications to the original algorithm were made. An increase in cryptographic strength is achieved with the help of individual keys during the output PRS blocks formation. Additional randomness is introduced due to a special structure of iterative constants that use key information. Evaluation of the output sequences quality confirms the operability and efficiency of the proposed generation method.
Mechanisms and mitigation of food web change in stream ecosystems

Freshwater ecosystems reflect the condition of their surrounding landscape, and thus are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic stressors associated with human land-use. One of the most prevalent stressors on stream ecosystems in agricultural regions, such as the Canterbury Plains of New Zealand, is eutrophication, or increased primary productivity. e aim of this thesis was to investigate effects of eutrophication on stream communities, specifically food web structure and ecosystem function. Froma foodwebperspective, eutrophication is a shi in the formand amount of available energy from externally-produced (allochthonous) to internal (autochthonous) basal resources. Such shis are frequently associated with land-use intensification, due to riparian vegetation removal and increased nutrient inputs, both of which enhance autochthonous production. A field survey across a gradient of eutrophication showed that eutrophic stream food webs are largely autochthonously-based and oen contain large numbers of defended primary consumers, which form trophic bottlenecks and prevent energy from reaching higher trophic levels. Consequently, while there is more total energy available, less of that energy is in a usable form for stream food webs. Moreover, I found that eutrophic streams are largely composed of generalist consumers, which shi their diets to refocus on autochthonous resources with increasing productivity. Given that eutrophication causes food web resources to become more homogenous and was a primary driver of food web change, I tested whether reintroducing allochthonous subsidies would alter or reverse the negative effects of eutrophication. To do this I conducted a shortterm community assembly experiment and a year-long population biomass accrual study. I found that the simplified, generalist-dominated communities in eutrophic streams did not respond to changes in resource diversity as predicted by food web theories, which are based on more diverse food webs. Aer restoration of allochthonous subsidies, defended generalist taxa continued to dominate the invertebrate communities. However, while restoring allochthonous subsidies did not mitigate the numerical dominance of defended consumers, the biomass accrual of other, previously excluded desirable taxa, such as mayflies and predatory invertebrates, increased following resource additions. is indicates that more energy reached the top of the food web, suggesting that resource additions alleviated trophic bottlenecks. Overall, my findings have advanced current knowledge about key mechanisms driving food web responses to both anthropogenic stress and to restoration efforts, which can be applied to improvemanagement and restoration of stream ecosystems.
Intelligent Aerospace Terminologies Recognition based on Spectrogram using Machine Learning

A speech recognition system is an application to recognize spoken words through audio inputs. On the other hand, spectrograms are visual representations of audio signals and effectively represent words numerically. In this research, we developed a spectrogram-based speech recognition system using machine learning’s K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) method to recognize aerospace terminologies, some uncommon for ordinary people. We used 300 audio signal data consisting of two categories, namely 15 spectrogram data for aerospace terminologies and 15 spectrogram data for non-aerospace ones, each taken ten times. By conducting a 70:30 training and testing scheme, strengthened by k-fold cross-validation, the optimum K for KNN is 13. With such value of K, our developed Intelligent system for aerospace terminologies recognition based on spectrogram can achieve an accuracy of 75.56% with a precision of 75.56%, recall of 75.56%, and F-1 score of 75.56%. With that accuracy, our developed intelligent system is considered as a good system.
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL: EXTERNAL VALIDITY IN A FERTILITY NATURAL EXPERIMENT

Empirical evidence from microeconomic studies using experimental or quasiexperimental methods to study a wide range of interventions throughout the world is accumulating rapidly. Is it possible to extrapolate from a well-identified evidence base to other locations of policy interest (from “reference” to “target” sites)? And which factors determine the accuracy of such an extrapolation? We investigate applying the Angrist and Evans (1998) natural experiment (the effect of boy-boy or girl-girl as the first two children on incremental fertility and mothers’ labor force participation) to data from International IPUMS on 166 country-year censuses. We define the external validity function with extrapolation error depending on covariate differences between reference and target locations, and find that smaller differences in geography, education, calendar year, and mothers’ labor force participation lead to lower extrapolation error. As evidence accumulates, out-of-sample extrapolation error does not systematically approach zero if the available evidence base is naïvely extrapolated, but does if the external validity function is used to select the most appropriate reference context for a given target (although absolute error remains meaningful relative to the magnitude of the treatment effect). We also investigate where to locate experiments and the decision problem associated with extrapolating from existing evidence rather than running a new experiment at a target site. Rajeev Dehejia Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service New York University 295 Lafayette Street, 2nd floor New York, NY 10012 and NBER rajeev@dehejia.net Cristian Pop-Eleches The School of International and Public Affairs Columbia University 1401A International Affairs Building, MC 3308 420 West 118th Street New York, NY 10027 and NBER cp2124@columbia.edu Cyrus Samii Department of Political Science New York University 19 West 4th Street, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10012 cds2083@nyu.edu
Cardiological Functional Assessment of National Olympic Team of Kazakhstan

Athletes carry an increased risk of cardiovascular (CV) conditions. Due to the relatively high loads and intensity of the training process, athletes’ CV systems undergo various adaptations, which can combine in the future and provoke unexpected outcomes. Most CV screening protocols have several successive steps. The aim of our study was to perform a cardiological functional assessment of the National Olympic Team of Kazakhstan via several noninvasive protocols to close the gaps between the approaches and collect solid data for the prevention of sudden cardiac death (SCD) incidence among Kazakhstani athletes. Methods: The methods used in this study were 12-lead resting electrocardiography (ECG), echocardiography, cardiointervalography, cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET), and HyperQ stress testing. Results: One case was detected via 12-lead resting ECG. Another case of the slowdown of the heart rate (HR) recovery was detected via cardiointervalography with no clinical signs and normal ECG. The HyperQ stress testing of the women’s basketball team detected a positive result in four leads in one athlete. Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that the CV systems of athletes require the implementation of several diagnostic methods in rest and stress conditions for more precise evaluation, with each of the methods fulfilling the whole picture for the prevention of such tragic events as sudden cardiac death and sudden cardiac arrest.
A 76-84 GHz SiGe Power Amplifier Array Employing Low-Loss 4-Way Differential Combining Transformer

This paper presents holistic design of a novel 4-way differential power-combining transformer for use in mm-wave power-amplifier (PA). The combiner with an inner radius of 25 um exhibits a record low insertion loss of 1.25 dB at 83.5 GHz. It is designed to simultaneously act as a balanced-to-unbalanced converter, removing the need for additional BALUNs typically required in differential circuits. A complete circuit comprised of a power splitter, two-stage differential cascode PA array, a power combiner as well as input and output matching elements was designed and realized in SiGe technology with fT/fmax 170/250 GHz. Measured small-signal gain of at least 16.8 dB was obtained from 76.4 GHz to 85.3 GHz with a peak 19.5 dB at 83 GHz. The prototype delivered 12.5 dBm output referred 1 dB compression point and 14 dBm saturated output power when operated from a 3.2 V DC supply voltage at 78 GHz.