Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Teachers Unions and Student Performance: Help or Hindrance?

Randall Eberts explores the role of teachers unions in public education. He focuses particularly on how collective bargaining agreements shape the delivery of educational services, how unions affect both student achievement and the cost of providing quality education, and how they support educational reform efforts. Eberts's synthesis of the empirical research concludes that union bargaining raises teachers' compensation, improves their working conditions, and enhances their employment security—while also raising the cost of providing public education by upwards of 15 percent. The effect of unions on student performance is mixed. Students of average ability who attend school in union districts perform better on standardized tests, whereas low-achieving and high-achieving students perform worse. However, the overall gain in achievement does not make up for the higher cost. Of late, unions have begun to be more supportive of school reform, moving from an adversarial bargaining model to a more collaborative one in which teachers and administrators share common goals and hold joint responsibility. Yet unions' desire to participate in reform does not match their fervor to organize in the 1960s and 1970s. While national union leadership has talked about reform, local affiliates have initiated most of the reform efforts, pioneering reforms such as accountability and incentive pay. In Eberts's view, one reason that unions have been slow to embrace reform efforts is the lack of consensus on their effectiveness. He argues that many reforms have been too narrowly focused; rather, effective schools result from well-designed systems and processes. In principle, adopting standards that help teachers focus on lessons they want students to learn, aligning their teaching to the lessons, and devising measurements that demonstrate that students are responding to these lessons can improve teaching as long as the public, policymakers, and school administrators acknowledge the complexity of the learning process and the broad outcomes that society desires.
Primitives and Units for Time Specification

We work in a calculus of intervals, formulated by James Allen for convex intervals, and by ourselves for unions of convex intervals [All2, Lad2]. We investigate the primitive relations and operations needed for implementing such calculi in a system which includes some set theory, and which allows the assertional definition of operators in Horn clause fashion. We indicate how standard temporal logic may be rephrased in the interval calculus, and present a formalisation of a system of time units in the interval framework. We are implementing the primitives in the REFINE™ system1.
Metal Oxide Nanoparticles Induce Unique Inflammatory Footprints in the Lung: Important Implications for Nanoparticle Testing

Background Metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) have been widely used in industry, cosmetics, and biomedicine. Objectives We examined hazards of several well-characterized high production volume NPs because of increasing concern about occupational exposure via inhalation. Methods A panel of well-characterized NPs [cerium oxide (CeO2NP), titanium dioxide (TiO2NP), carbon black (CBNP), silicon dioxide (SiO2NP), nickel oxide (NiONP), zinc oxide (ZnONP), copper oxide (CuONP), and amine-modified polystyrene beads] was instilled into lungs of rats. We evaluated the inflammation potencies of these NPs 24 hr and 4 weeks postinstillation. For NPs that caused significant inflammation at 24 hr, we then investigated the characteristics of the inflammation. All exposures were carried out at equal-surface-area doses. Results Only CeO2NP, NiONP, ZnONP, and CuONP were inflammogenic to the lungs of rats at the high doses used. Strikingly, each of these induced a unique inflammatory footprint both acutely (24 hr) and chronically (4 weeks). Acutely, patterns of neutrophil and eosinophil infiltrates differed after CeO2NP, NiONP, ZnONP, and CuONP treatment. Chronic inflammatory responses also differed after 4 weeks, with neutrophilic, neutrophilic/lymphocytic, eosinophilic/fibrotic/granulomatous, and fibrotic/granulomatous inflammation being caused respectively by CeO2NP, NiONP, ZnONP, and CuONP. Conclusion Different types of inflammation imply different hazards in terms of pathology, risks, and risk severity. In vitro testing could not have differentiated these complex hazard outcomes, and this has important implications for the global strategy for NP hazard assessment. Our results demonstrate that NPs cannot be viewed as a single hazard entity and that risk assessment should be performed separately and with caution for different NPs.
VIII. Ethnic Aspects. A Comparison of Three Matched Groups

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the sociocultural aspects of psychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia (World Health Organization, 1975; Sartorius et al, 1986). This has extended from multicentre international studies of prevalence, through national incidence or phenomenological studies in different ethnic groups (Cochrane, 1977; Teggin et al, 1985), to outcome assessments in different cultures (Sartorius et al, 1986, 1987).
Cancelling the sway motion of dynamic walking in visual servoing

This paper introduces a visual servoing scheme for humanoid walking. Though most of the existing approaches follow a perception-decision-action scheme, we close the loop so that the control is robust to model error. Our approach is based on a new reactive pattern generator which modifies, at the control level, the footsteps, the center of mass and the center of pressure trajectories for the center of mass to track a reference velocity. And, in this paper, the reference velocity is directly given by a visual servoing control law. Since, the HRP-2 walk induces a sway motion that disturbs the regulation of the visual control law, we introduce a control law allowing convergence in the image space and taking into account this sway motion.
mmdump - A tool for monitoring multimedia usage on the Internet

The Internet is being increasingly used to support streaming media applications and real-time voice telephony. Audi o and video traffic differs from that generated by traditional TCP applications, and, as its use grows, may begin to have a significant impact on network performance. This motivates the need to measure multimedia traffic growth and characteristics. Multimedia applications typically use dynamically assigned UDP ports for exchanging media data. These ports are negotiated using a control protocol such as the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). To allow measurement of multimedia traffic, we have developed a utility calledmmdump which uses parsers for RTSP and other control protocols to determine UDP ports and other application-specific information. mmdump extends the populartcpdump utility to monitor traffic on a dynamic set of UDP port numbers, extracted from TCP-based control protocol messages. This paper presents the design and implementation of themmdump utility and demonstrates its use in monitoring RTSP-related traffic on the AT&T WorldNet IP network. Keywords—multimedia, measurement, RTSP
WormShield : Collaborative Worm Signature Detection Using Distributed Aggregation Trees

Problem. Large-scale worm outbreak is one of the major security threats to today’s Internet. Network worms exploit the vulnerabilities of widely deployed homogenous software to self-propagate quickly. Moore et al [3] show that the react time of worm containment is only a few minutes and the signature-based filtering is more efficient than source-address filtering. Recent work by Earlybird [4] and Autograph [1] suggests that it is promising to automatically detect worm signatures by analyzing their content prevalence and address dispersion. However, most scanning worms will be dispersed on the whole Internet when they start to spread. In the early stage of worm spreading, it is difficult to accumulate enough payloads to generate precise signatures in individual edge networks.
An Energy Efficient Technique for Object Tracking in Wireless Sensor Networks

A wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of spatially dispersed and dedicated sensor for controlling and monitoring the physical conditions of the environment. Object-Tracking Sensor Network (OTSN) based applications are widely referred as the most interesting applications of WSNs. OTSN, is a kind of WSN, is used to track the objects in a monitored area and to report their location of objects to base station, it has many real-life applications such as wild life monitoring, security applications for buildings and international border monitoring for illegal crossings. The issues which have to be resolved in the wireless sensor networks are high energy consumption and low packet delivery rate. When compared with other Wireless Sensor Network applications OTSN provides better energy consumption. In the existing system a prediction-based Tracking Technique using Sequential Patterns (PTSPs) it provides minimum energy consumption by object tracking sensor networks and also it maintains the acceptable missing rates. The experimental result of OTSN clearly shows that, it provides more efficiency in energy consumption when compared with other basic tracking techniques (Scheduled monitoring and Continuous monitoring). But it has one drawback is prediction based tracking technique using sequential pattern deals with the object tracking even when the sensor node routing fails. It has two stages, Energy Calculation and Route finding is used to increase the network life time, Markov Decision Process or learning techniques is proposed to be predict the future location of moving objects by mathematical calculations and also to reduce the object missing rate.
Fast Target Recognition on Mobile Devices: Revisiting Gaussian Elimination for the Estimation of Planar Homographies

This work analyzes the problem of homography estimation for robust target matching in the context of real-time mobile vision. We present a device-friendly implementation of the Gaussian Elimination algorithm and show that our optimized approach can significantly improve the homography estimation step in a hypothesize-and-verify scheme. Experiments are performed on image sequences in which both speed and accuracy are evaluated and compared with conventional homography estimation schemes.
Constructions for chiral polytopes

An abstract polytope of rank n is said to be chiral if its automorphism group has two orbits on flags, with adjacent flags lying in different orbits. In this paper, we describe a method for constructing finite chiral n‐polytopes, by seeking particular normal subgroups of the orientation‐preserving subgroup of an n‐generator Coxeter group (having the property that the subgroup is not normalized by any reflection and is therefore not normal in the full Coxeter group). This technique is used to identify the smallest examples of chiral 3‐ and 4‐polytopes, in both the self‐dual and non‐self‐dual cases, and then to give the first known examples of finite chiral 5‐polytopes, again in both the self‐dual and non‐self‐dual cases.
Commuter Effects on Local Labour Markets: A German Modelling Study

This paper offers an exploratory investigation of the effects of inbound commuter flows on employment in regional labour markets in Germany. For this purpose, the paper distinguishes three main channels that may transmit the effects concerned: a crowding-out mechanism and two labour demand effects—namely, an aggregate demand effect and a positive externality on vacancy creation. The results bring to light that, on the whole, commuter flows have a positive and robust effect on both employment and the number of jobs in the receiving labour market districts, but a distinctly negative effect on the share of jobs filled by resident workers. The implications of the results are interpreted and, finally, ways are suggested in which the analysis could be improved and expanded.
Posture-invariant ECG recognition with posture detection

Recently Electrocardiogram (ECG) has been proposed as a biometric modality which offers liveliness detection. The fact that ECG is a vital signal makes it challenging to work with as it is affected by physical and psychological changes. In realistic applications, this type of biometrics still needs to be verified in conditions related to the practical use. In real life our body posture changes frequently, therefore in the context of a biometric system our body posture may be different in enrolment and verification which can potentially decrease the performance of the system. In this paper we first investigate the effect of the body posture on the accuracy of ECG biometric systems. Second, a new method is presented that is able to clearly distinguish the ECG signal of different postures of an individual. Finally, we propose a posture-detection verification system in order to mitigate the effect of body posture by first detecting the posture of a subject and then identifying it.
Average case intractability of matrix and diophantine problems (extended abstract)

The theory of average case completeness initiated by Leonid Levin and further developed by others [Levin 86, Venkatesan Levin 88, Gurevich 90, Impagliazzo Levin 90, BenDavid Chor Goldreich Luby 89, Blass Gurevich 91] proposes a robust notion of hard-onaverage problems. It considers NP problems with their instances generated under samplable (generatable in polynomial time) distributions. Such a complete problem can not have a fast on average algorithm unless every NP problem under every samplable distribution has one. Showing the hardness of “typical” or “random” inst antes proves difficult since the reductions must preserve the average case complexity, and hence, the distributions. Consequently, they can not use special structures as in usual NP completeness proofs. We believe that the development
An Implementation of Multimodal User Interface using Speech, Image and EOG

There have been many recent studies on gaze recognition system in the field of HCI (Human Computer Interaction). This system will be the most natural and intuitive HCI system due to the application of gaze direction or biomedical Signals. We propose a multimodal user interface system using the nine directional gaze recognition based on image, EOG (Electrooculography) signal and speech recognition. In this paper, we use DFA (Deterministic Finite Accepter), Haar-like feature and Adaboost algorithm, SVM (Support Vector Machine) for gaze recognition based on the EOG signal and image. Furthermore, the CHMM (Continuous Hidden Markov Model) based speech recognition system has been linked for inputting speech commands. The proposed multimodal user interface system solves the problem of constraint of single modal recognition systems. As a result, the proposed system achieves higher recognition performance and more natural interface using speech commands.
Understanding the spectra of isolated Herbig stars in the frame of a passive disk model

We discuss spectral energy distributions of a sample of Herbig Ae/Be stars in the context of a passive irradiated disk model. The data have been presented earlier by Meeus et al. (2001), and preliminary interpretations ofthese data were given in that paper. While the spectra of Herbig Ae stars all show similarities, there is significant variation between the spectra, in particular in the shape of the mid-IR rise and in the presence or absence of a silicate feature. We explore the hypothesis that all these different spectra can be interpreted as pure disk spectra without additional components. Using the model of Dullemond et al. (2001) we deduce the disk parameters of a number of the sources, and find that for a large fraction of investigated sources, satisfactory fits can be obtained. The derived model parameters show that some group Ia sources can only be fit with radially increasing surface densities, indicating the presence of depleted inner disk regions. The steep-sloped SEDs of group IIa sources can be fit with very compact disks, probably representing disks with collapsed outer regions. The largest difficulties arise from sources that do not show significant silicate emission features. Our attempts to explain these objects with a pure geometric effect are only partially successful. It seems that these stars indeed require a strong depletion of small silicate grains.
Error Compensation Research for Macro/Micro Dual-drive System

The Macro/Micro Dual-drive experiment system with numerical control working platform is built. The ball screw drives the working platform macroscopic motion. The giant magnetostrictive actuator (GMA) is used to compensate the microcosmic motion error. It is proposed that the transfer function of the GMA cascaded the rate-independent hysteresis model to structure GMA system model. The variable structure control based on the decomposition is proposed, and the adaptive control law for the variable structure control is deduced from the Lyapunov stability theorem. The experiment results show that the motion error of ball screw is compensated after a dynamic compensation control is operated to the GMA, and the motion precision of the working platform is markedly improved.
Combined in silico and experimental identification of the Pyrococcus abyssi H/ACA sRNAs and their target sites in ribosomal RNAs

How far do H/ACA sRNPs contribute to rRNA pseudouridylation in Archaea was still an open question. Hence here, by computational search in three Pyrococcus genomes, we identified seven H/ACA sRNAs and predicted their target sites in rRNAs. In parallel, we experimentally identified 17 Ψ residues in P. abyssi rRNAs. By in vitro reconstitution of H/ACA sRNPs, we assigned 15 out of the 17 Ψ residues to the 7 identified H/ACA sRNAs: one H/ACA motif can guide up to three distinct pseudouridylations. Interestingly, by using a 23S rRNA fragment as the substrate, one of the two remaining Ψ residues could be formed in vitro by the aCBF5/aNOP10/aGAR1 complex without guide sRNA. Our results shed light on structural constraints in archaeal H/ACA sRNPs: the length of helix H2 is of 5 or 6 bps, the distance between the ANA motif and the targeted U residue is of 14 or 15 nts, and the stability of the interaction formed by the substrate rRNA and the 3′-guide sequence is more important than that formed with the 5′-guide sequence. Surprisingly, we showed that a sRNA–rRNA interaction with the targeted uridine in a single-stranded 5′-UNN-3′ trinucleotide instead of the canonical 5′-UN-3′ dinucleotide is functional.
Dynamics of the Trade Balance and the Terms of Trade: the S-Curve

The authors provide a theoretical interpretation of two features of international data: the countercyclical movements in net exports and the tendency for the trade balance to be negatively correlated with current and future movements in terms of trade but positively correlated with past movements. They document the same properties in a two-country stochastic growth model in which trade fluctuations reflect, in large part, the dynamics of capital formation. The authors find that their general-equilibrium perspective is essential: the relation between the trade balance and the terms of trade depends critically on the source of fluctuations. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
Fast Fourier Descriptor Method of the Shape Feature in Low Resolution Images

one of main tasks in machine vision is able to provide understandable descriptions of objects. A method described here is based on fast Fourier descriptors, which initially incorporated with classic image processing operation can describe shape information in feature space. Fourier descriptor based on chain code and Fourier Transform method is discussed and related invariant property is derived. Experimental results verify good performance of fast Fourier descriptors for shape recognition applications.
On-line adaptive learning of the continuous density hidden Markov model based on approximate recursive Bayes estimate

We present a framework of quasi-Bayes (QB) learning of the parameters of the continuous density hidden Markov model (CDHMM) with Gaussian mixture state observation densities. The QB formulation is based on the theory of recursive Bayesian inference. The QB algorithm is designed to incrementally update the hyperparameters of the approximate posterior distribution and the CDHMM parameters simultaneously. By further introducing a simple forgetting mechanism to adjust the contribution of previously observed sample utterances, the algorithm is adaptive in nature and capable of performing an online adaptive learning using only the current sample utterance. It can, thus, be used to cope with the time-varying nature of some acoustic and environmental variabilities, including mismatches caused by changing speakers, channels, and transducers. As an example, the QB learning framework is applied to on-line speaker adaptation and its viability is confirmed in a series of comparative experiments using a 26-letter English alphabet vocabulary.
The technology of intelligent information retrieval based on the semantic web

Traditional information retrieval systems lack a uniform semantic description for information, so it is hard for users to find more relevant information and to realize the semantic share in information resource. There are many challenging tasks for information retrieval, such as how to make the managed resource have a machine understandable meaning so as to find what users really need and how to realize the semantic searching by means of the domain knowledge. A framework of intelligent retrieve based on semantic Web is proposed in this paper through researching the Semantic Web and analyzing the feature of traditional retrievals in Web. The design idea and process of the intelligent information retrieval system in detail are also described. It is provided in this framework that the unique identifier for every resource on World Wide Web and various types of links among resources which can be handled by computers. The retrieval system is intelligent and humanistic, which can not only improve the recall rate and precision rate, but also allows users to search information with natural language, so it provides more convenient and more accurate search service for users.