Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nurturing the Development of Teacher Change Agents Within a Teacher Education Program

An abstract ofthe dissertation of Barbara Jo Ruben for the Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership: Curriculum and Instruction presented April 21, 2004. Title: Nurturing the Development of Teacher Change Agents Within a Teacher Education Programs The American education system has two daunting challenges. First, citizens need to be able to function in an interdependent world. Second, public schools' demographics have changed dramatically. Schools are failing to reach many students, particularly children of color and poverty. Schools must change to meet the needs of 21 st century students. Without teachers' openness to change, effective educational reform win fail. Schools of education must prepare the next generation of teachers to be change agents who will implement school reform to meet the significantly different requirements of 21 51 century students. This study examined how one graduate teacher education program prepared teachers to be teacher change agents. The construct of teacher change agent incorporates research on successful school reform. In order for teachers to function as change agents they must (a) be competent, (b) be lifelong learners, and (c) have a sense of agency. 2 A triangulation mixed-method design was used to examine a teacher education program's development of teacher change agents from various angles. The quantitative component of the study entailed the comparison of data from a scale administered at four different stages of teacher development. Graduates self-reported their frequencies of behaviors reflective of teachers open to change. The study'S qualitative component included the examination of six professional portfolios, interviews with the portfolio's authors, and written responses to open-ended survey questions from a pool of 282 participants. Findings showed that all participants reported at least moderate levels of behaviors reflective of teacher change agents. Each of the interviewees reflected all dimensions of teacher change agents. In the larger sample, areas of strength included caring for students' emotional and academic wen-being, and reflecting on one's practice. Participants repOlted the most beneficial elements of their pre service experience to be the extensive fieldwork and the collaborative cohort model. The cohort model and working with inspiring professors who modeled deep caring for students helped sustain participants' passion for teaching. Areas of weakness included teachers' willing to give students voice, embracing ideas of colleagues and families, and using community resources to enhance their teaching. These areas need to be developed more fully in the preservice program.
Modeling and bandwidth design of resonant controller for medium frequency inverter

Output voltage of inverters with excellent output characteristic descends little as load increases. Resonant controller is an effective method for improving output characteristic of inverter. This paper analysis stability condition of inverter under light load based on the small-signal modeling of three phase four legs inverter. Considering automatic control theory, this paper proposes that self-oscillation of inverter is caused by phase shift of resonant controller. And design basis of resonant controller is developed. Simulation and experimental results prove theoretical analysis right.
Semi-supervised Learning of a Markovian Metric

The role of a distance metric in many supervised and semi-supervised learning applications is central in the success of clustering algorithms. Since existing metrics like Euclidean do not necessarily reflect the true structure (clusters or manifolds) in the data, it becomes imperative that an appropriate metric be somehow learned from training or labeled data. Metric learning has been a relatively new topic in data mining and machine learning, though most work that deals with this topic learns a suitable linear transformation of the original data. This transformation is usually learned using training data and has been shown to improve test data classification accuracy. In this paper we present a Markov random walk based semi-supervised method for metric learning. Our method differs from the aforementioned techniques in that we use minimal labeled data and we do not assume any Mahalanobis type metric structure on the data. We create a computationally efficient nearest neighbor graph representation of the data and pose a semidefinite program that learns the random walk on the associated graph. This is used to generate a distance measure between all unlabeled points and the performance is compared against other important metrics using the k-NN classification rule.
Research on vector control method of neutral-point-clamped(NPC) three-level inverter with bootstrap driver

Diode neutral-point-clamped(NPC) three-level inverter has more significant characteristics than traditional two-level inverter, such as high utilization rate on voltage of the DC side, low harmonics output, small switching stress etc. There has no mature products of three-level inverter with control system until now. The bootstrap driver circuit is adopted to reduce the number of the power supply in three-level inverter to make system compact, lighter weight and low cost. The SVPWM scheme with voltage vector compensation method based on DSP F28335 is proposed to balance neural-point voltage of DC side. The experiment results indicate that the output voltage and frequency can be adjusted consecutively, waveforms of three phase voltage are symmetric. The designed NPC three-level inverter can be applied in the field of variable frequency speed regulation of motor, active power filter and electrified railway, etc.
Effects of carrier escape and capture processes on quantum well solar cells

A theoretical model is proposed to study the effects of carrier escape and capture processes on the photocurrent of quantum well solar cells (QWSCs). The results show that solar cells with very deep QWs will suffer from extremely slow escape processes and their photocurrent can be inferior to their bulk counterparts. The optimal band gap energies of QW materials for achieving the maximum photocurrent are also calculated and discussed.
Identifying Factors that Influence Perceptions of Teacher Efficacy as a Means of Building Capacity for Restructuring Schools: a Case Study Approach

An abstract of the dissertation of Deborah Sommer for the Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership: Administration and Supervision presented June 8, 1995. Title: Identifying Factors that Influence Perceptions of Teacher Efficacy as a Means of Building capacity for Restructuring schools: A Case Study Approach Recent efforts to restructure schools through increased teacher involvement are likely to fail without a corresponding redesign of the underlying organizational and political structure of schools. Because the current structure of most schools actually prohibits the collaboration necessary to effect change and promotes professional isolation instead, staff members faced with the tasks of restructuring experience frustration more often than success. The changes that do occur are often superficial and cosmetic while the basic hierarchy and mechanisms of control remain intact. Allowing teachers to redesign their schools, specifically to develop new models that promote interdependence and the sharing of professional expertise, provides an opportunity to explore the reasons teachers
The Impact of Government Intervention on Corporate Investment Allocation and Efficiency: Evidence from China

It is well documented in the literature that, to pursue multiple socio-economic objectives of the government, State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in China tend to overinvest, compared to privately controlled firms. We study the effects of government intervention on the SOEs investment allocations of and the resulting investment efficiency and firm values. China local government officials focus on pursuing economic growth because it strongly affects their political promotions, regional fiscal benefits and social stability. We find that due to local officials’ strong incentives to focus on the short-term economic performance, local government controlled SOEs (local SOEs) tend to invest more heavily in assets with an immediate impact on economic performance and social objectives, such as fixed assets, equity and natural resources assets. They underinvest in R&D, which are riskier and take a longer time, if ever, to be realized. The tendency of local SOEs to invest more heavily in fixed assets, equity and nature resource assets is more significant in provincial regions with stronger government intervention. Our study sheds light on how government intervention would distort corporate investment allocations and lower investment efficiency and firm values.
A Service Oriented Approach for Integrating Metadata from Heterogeneous Digital Libraries

Metadata in today’s digital library systems are accessible through various incompatible interfaces and correspond to heterogeneous schemas. Clients that want to search over a number of distributed metadata sources require a solution that provides uniform and location transparent access to these systems without replicating the metadata stored therein. In this paper we describe a metadata integration approach that conceives these data sources as services in the sense of a service oriented architecture. Without forcing clients to adopt a pre-defined mediation schema, we want to give them the possibility to query multiple autonomous and distributed metadata services by formulating SPARQL queries.
New Insights into Smile, Mispricing, and Value at Risk: The Hyperbolic Model

The authors investigate a new basic model for asset pricing, the hyperbolic model, which allows an almost perfect statistical fit of stock return data. After a detailed introduction into the theory they use secondary market data to compare the hyperbolic model to the classical Black-Scholes model. The authors study implicit volatilities, the smile effect, and pricing performance. Exploiting the full power of the hyperbolic model, they construct an option value process from a statistical point of view by estimating the implicit risk-neutral density function from option data. Finally, the authors present some new value-at-risk calculations leading to new perspectives to cope with model risk. Copyright 1998 by University of Chicago Press.
Optimizing the performance of piezoelectric actuators for active vibration control

This paper discusses the selection process for piezoelectric transducers (PZT) used as actuator elements for suppressing vibrations in a flexible beam system. The effects of changing physical parameters such as the relative thickness of the piezoelectric ceramic with respect to the beam, the optimum location of the PZT actuator, and the length of the PZT are studied based on the singular value decomposition of the controllability Grammian of the resulting system. A model for a clamped-mass cantilevered beam is developed and its frequency response is compared with that obtained experimentally. Simulation results are given to illustrate how this method can be used to determine physical properties and location of the PZT actuator. Further experimental studies are currently being performed.
Generating Adjectives to Express the Speaker's Argumentative Intent

We address the problem of generating adjectives in a text generation system. We distinguish between usages of adjectives informing the hearer of a property of an object and usages expressing an intention of the speaker, or an argumentative orientation. For such argumentative usages, we claim that a generator cannot simply map from information in the knowledge base to adjectives. Instead, we identify various knowledge sources necessary to decide whether to use an adjective, what adjective should be selected and what syntactic function it should have. We show how these decisions interact with lexical properties of adjectives and the syntax of the clause. We propose a mechanism for adjective selection and illustrate it in the context of the explanation component of the ADVISOR expert system. We describe an implementation of adjective selection using a version of Functional Unification Grammars.
Investigation of Variable Frequency ISPWM Control Method for an Asymmetric Multilevel Inverter

Multilevel inverter is an effective and practical solution for increasing power and reducing harmonics of ac waveforms. Several multilevel topologies are reported and the most popular topology is Cascaded Multilevel Inverter (CMLI). This paper focuses on asymmetric cascaded multilevel inverter employing variable frequency inverted sine PWM technique (VFISPWM). This technique combines the advantage of inverted rectified sine wave and variable frequency carriers for a seven level inverter for balancing the switch utilization. A detailed study of the technique was carried out through MATLAB/SIMULINK for switching losses and THD. Furthermore, a PI controller is used to control the MLI using the proposed PWM technique. The results were verified experimentally and FPGA processor is used for PWM. It was noticed that the proposed modulation strategy results in lower switching losses for a chosen THD as compared to the conventional strategies. Index Term-Asymmetric Multilevel Inverter, Variable frequency ISPWM, Switching Loss.
Temperature Compensation of Circadian Period Length in Clock Mutants of Neurospora crassa.

Temperature compensation of circadian period length in 12 clock mutants of Neurospora crassa has been examined at temperatures between 16 and 34 degrees C. In the wild-type strain, below 30 degrees C (the "breakpoint" temperature), the clock is well-compensated (Q(10) = 1), while above 30 degrees C, the clock is less well-compensated (Q(10) = 1.3). For mutants at the frq locus, mutations that shorten the circadian period length (frq-1, frq-2, frq-4, and frq-6) do not alter this temperature compensation response. In long period frq mutants (frq-3, frq-7, frq-8), however, the breakpoint temperature is lowered, and the longer the period length of the mutants the lower the breakpoint temperature. Long period mutants at other loci exhibit other types of alterations in temperature compensation-e.g. chr is well-compensated even above 30 degrees C, while prd-3 has a Q(10) significantly less than 1 below 30 degrees C. Prd-4, a short period mutant, has several breakpoint temperatures. Among four double mutants examined, the only unusual interaction between the individual mutations occurred with chr prd, which had an unusually low Q(10) value of 0.86 below 27 degrees C. There was no correlation between circadian period length and growth rate. These strains should be useful tools to test models for the temperature compensation mechanism.
Provision of a Public Good with Altruistic Overlapping Generations and Many Tribes

Intergenerational altruism and contemporaneous cooperation are both important to the provision of long-lived public goods. Equilibrium climate protection may depend more sensitively on either of these considerations, depending on the type of policy rule one examines. This conclusion is based on a model with n tribes, each with a sequence of overlapping generations. Tribal members discount their and their descendants’ utility at different rates. Agents in the resulting game are indexed by tribal affiliation and the time at which they act. The Markov Perfect equilibrium is found by solving a control problem with a constant discount rate and an endogenous annuity.
Integrated Microfluidic Card with TaqMan Probes and High-Resolution Melt Analysis To Detect Tuberculosis Drug Resistance Mutations across 10 Genes

ABSTRACT Genotypic methods for drug susceptibility testing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are desirable to speed the diagnosis and proper therapy of tuberculosis (TB). However, the numbers of genes and polymorphisms implicated in resistance have proliferated, challenging diagnostic design. We developed a microfluidic TaqMan array card (TAC) that utilizes both sequence-specific probes and high-resolution melt analysis (HRM), providing two layers of detection of mutations. Twenty-seven primer pairs and 40 probes were designed to interrogate 3,200 base pairs of critical regions of the inhA, katG, rpoB, embB, rpsL, rrs, eis, gyrA, gyrB, and pncA genes. The method was evaluated on 230 clinical M. tuberculosis isolates from around the world, and it yielded 96.1% accuracy (2,431/2,530) in comparison to that of Sanger sequencing and 87% accuracy in comparison to that of the slow culture-based susceptibility testing. This TAC-HRM method integrates assays for 10 genes to yield fast, comprehensive, and accurate drug susceptibility results for the 9 major antibiotics used to treat TB and could be deployed to improve treatment outcomes. IMPORTANCE Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis threatens global tuberculosis control efforts. Optimal therapy utilizes susceptibility test results to guide individualized treatment regimens; however, the susceptibility testing methods in use are technically difficult and slow. We developed an integrated TaqMan array card method with high-resolution melt analysis that interrogates 10 genes to yield a fast, comprehensive, and accurate drug susceptibility result for the 9 major antituberculosis antibiotics. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis threatens global tuberculosis control efforts. Optimal therapy utilizes susceptibility test results to guide individualized treatment regimens; however, the susceptibility testing methods in use are technically difficult and slow. We developed an integrated TaqMan array card method with high-resolution melt analysis that interrogates 10 genes to yield a fast, comprehensive, and accurate drug susceptibility result for the 9 major antituberculosis antibiotics.
An Overview of Alternative Education

1 An Overview of Alternative Education " …there is another more pressing challenge before us…that has the potential to damage our ability to compete and succeed in a global economy. That challenge is the deterioration of our education system…graduation rates are hovering only around seventy percent nationwide…Not enough of America's next generation are learning the skills required in the 21st Century and will soon be looking to us to provide them job training. Eighty percent of the fastest growing jobs require education and training beyond high school. These are the jobs that will drive innovation in the world economy and determine which country will lead that economy. " Assistant Secretary Emily Stover DeRocco In a speech to the National Association of Workforce Boards March 4, 2005 Washington, D.C. INTRODUCTION Since the publication of A Nation At Risk in 1983 that sounded alarms about the quality of the nation's schools, the United States has been on a path toward restructuring its education system. In 1990, the bipartisan Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce led by two former Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Labor noted in its report, America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages! , that the United States, unlike all the other countries that it competes with economically, does not have a system of education standards identifying what all students need to know and do to succeed in the 21st century economy. Since then, states and school districts have been focusing their efforts on adopting high academic standards, improving accountability, and achieving excellence. The No Child Left Behind Act, proposed by President Bush and passed by the Congress in 2001, has continued to push to strengthen our nation's schools through a system of state standards, tests and a national accountability system, and a targeted effort to help low-performing schools and students. Current estimates put the number of youth who are not in school, do not have a diploma, and not working at 3.8 million (Aron et al. 2003, p. 5); however, " little attention is being paid to the need for scaled efforts to reconnect these dropouts to education options that prepare them for success in the economy of the future " (Harris 2005, p. 2). These youth need access to high quality alternative education and training opportunities to equip them to compete in today's labor market. High school completion rates peaked in 1969 at 77.1 percent and …
A new Android application for blind and visually impaired people

This article describes a new Android application supporting blind and partially sighted people in smartphone use. It enables them to call, send and receive text messages, make use of a “phone book” as well as of additional options such as positioning or battery monitoring, through voice commands. The software concept together of the structure of the respective application has been presented in detail.
The Canadian Traveller Problem

Suppose that a road map is given in which each road is associated with the time it takes to traverse it. However, this road map is unreliable; some of the roads might be unsuitable for travel at certain times, and such blockage would be revealed only upon reaching an adjacent site. The Canadian Traveller Problem is to devise a travel strategy that would guarantee a good path between two sites given this uncertainty. l? apadirnitriou and Yannakakis proved that if the number of roads that might be blocked is not fixed, then devising a strategy that guarantees a given competitive ratio is PSPACEcompIete. In this paper, we study several variations of this problem.
THE STRUCTURE AND FORMATION OF CILIA AND FILAMENTS IN RUMEN PROTOZOA

The large oligotrich rumen protozoa Diplodinium ecaudatum and Ophryoscolex caudatus have been studied by electron microscopy during interphase and division. The structure of mature cilia is contrasted with that seen during their formation particularly in a tuft where development lags and is arrested. Here the shaft is only a few micra long and is composed of filaments that have circular cross-sections not in the typical circular arrangement. In their diameter and appearance the filaments are similar to filaments associated with the nuclei during division. The macronucleus has within it randomly directed filaments, while the micronucleus contains well aligned filaments and other arrangements typical of an intranuclear mitotic process. An extranuclear filament system is also present and is elaborated during division. The infraciliary filament system is particularly elaborate in these organisms. Filaments ranging from 14 to 22 mµ have been observed with some tendency for a bimodal distribution in diameters of 15 and 21 mµ. Formation of such filaments has been observed and consists of an initial orientation of very fine elements followed by filament formation. The observations are discussed in relation to filament involvements in cell movements. The concepts are discussed that filaments are metastable structures and that the transitions from one state to another are functionally significant.
Are Sunspots Inevitable

This paper examines the welfare of consumers in an incomplete markets economy with extrinsic uncertainty. It is shown that the utility of one consumer may be minimized at the Walrasian allocation relative to all other equilibrium allocations for a given security structure. Thus, this consumer will have no incentive to trade the new securities if they complete the insurance markets.