Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parental perception of sleep problems in children of normal intelligence with pervasive developmental disorders: prevalence, severity, and pattern.

OBJECTIVE This study compares parents' perceptions of the prevalence, severity, and pattern of sleep problems in children of normal intelligence with pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs) with a normative comparison group of children. METHOD A survey including the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire was mailed to a sample of parents of children (age range 5-12 years) with PDDs (diagnosed by the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised) obtained by chart review of the past 7 years and to parents of comparison children matched on age, gender, and postal code. RESULTS The response rate in the PDD group was 82.2% (37/45) and 55.8% (43/77) in the comparison group. By individually matching, 23 pairs were obtained. The prevalence of sleep problems in the PDD group was reported by parents as being significantly higher than in the comparison group (78% and 26%, respectively; p < .002), as was the severity (mean score 48.2 and 39.0, respectively; p < .001). Values for four of eight sleep subscales including sleep onset delay, sleep duration, sleep anxiety, and parasomnias were significantly higher in the PDD group. CONCLUSIONS Parents report that sleep problems are significantly more prevalent and severe in children of normal intelligence with PDDs compared with normally developing children, and the pattern appears diverse. Sleep problems in children with PDDs require further research and clinical attention.
Structural and functional analysis of SleL, a peptidoglycan lysin involved in germination of Bacillus spores

A major event in the germination of Bacillus spores concerns hydrolysis of the cortical peptidoglycan that surrounds the spore protoplast, the integrity of which is essential for maintenance of dormancy. Cortex degradation is initiated in all species of Bacillus spores by the combined activity of two semi‐redundant cortex‐lytic enzymes, SleB and CwlJ. A third enzyme, SleL, which has N‐acetylglucosaminidase activity, cleaves peptidoglycan fragments generated by SleB and CwlJ. Here we present crystal structures of B. cereus and B. megaterium SleL at 1.6 angstroms and 1.7 angstroms, respectively. The structures were determined with a view to identifying the structural basis of differences in catalytic efficiency between the respective enzymes. The catalytic (α/β)8‐barrel cores of both enzymes are highly conserved from a structural perspective, including the spatial distribution of the catalytic residues. Both enzymes are equipped with two N‐terminal peptidoglycan‐binding LysM domains, which are also structurally highly conserved. However, the topological arrangement of the respective enzymes second LysM domain is markedly different, and this may account for differences in catalytic rates by impacting upon the position of the active sites with respect to their substrates. A chimeric enzyme comprising the B. megaterium SleL catalytic domain plus B. cereus SleL LysM domains displayed enzymatic activity comparable to the native B. cereus protein, exemplifying the importance of the LysM domains to SleL function. Similarly, the reciprocal construct, comprising the B. cereus SleL catalytic domain with B. megaterium SleL LysM domains, showed reduced activity compared with native B. cereus SleL. Proteins 2015; 83:1787–1799. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
What Should Teachers Know About Technology? A Revised Look at the ISTE Foundations

AbstractThe 1989 alliance between the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) paved the way for significant changes in policies concerning the incorporation of technology within teacher education. The technology specialty programs and unit revisions adopted by NCATE have formally signaled that technology is an essential component of teacher education that must be accommodated. The cornerstone of all NCATE programs is the ISTE Foundations, which outline what every teacher should know about and be able to do with technology. By themselves, the Foundations have served as models for technology planning and infusion in teacher education across the United States. In 1996, the ISTE group completed a major review and revision of the 1992 Foundations, resulting in a structured set of competencies and performance indicators as foundational elements for all teachers. The revised Foundations are presented along with discussio.
New Estimates of Australian GDP, 1861–1948/49

This article uses recently available historical data to compile new estimates of gross domestic product by sector for Australia as an alternative to the estimates by Colin Clark and Noel Butlin. These data are then compared with Clark’s and Butlin’s series, and with historical experience, as set out by Coghlan in Labour and Industry in Australia (1918). We caution against accepting Butlin’s results, and question whether his data, even when reliable, can form the basis for a new interpretation of economic history.
EC Company Law Directives and Regulations: How Trivial are They?

What role does EC legislation in the corporate law area play within the EU? How much does it shape Member States' corporate laws? And how relevant is it for the corporate governance of EU companies and their management? At first sight, the EC appears to have played and to be playing a central role in shaping EC corporate law, with the high number of directives and regulations covering a wide range of corporate law issues. One might then think that EC institutions have a strong influence upon Member States' corporate laws, whether because they have intervened in the area or because they may do so. Quite to the opposite, EC company law directives and regulations appear to have had thus far very little impact on national company laws and, more to the point, on EU businesses' governance and management. First, EC corporate law does not cover core corporate law areas such as e.g. fiduciary duties and shareholder remedies. Second, EC corporate law rules are underenforced. Third, in the presence of very sporadic judiciary interpretation by the European Court of Justice, EC corporate law tends to be implemented and construed differently in each Member State, i.e. according to local legal culture and consistently with prior corporate law provisions. Fourth, when it has introduced new rules, it has done so with respect to issues on which Member States would have most probably legislated even in the absence of an EC mandate. Last but not least, most EC corporate law rules can be categorized as optional, market mimicking, unimportant or avoidable. To the contrary, national corporate laws contain core corporate law rules, which do have an impact upon EU companies' governance and management. There are, of course, due qualifications to the triviality thesis. First of all, a few rules or sets of rules indeed have had or are bound to have a meaningful impact upon companies and their operations. Second, EC corporate law has increased the regulatory burden of corporate laws across the EU, correspondingly securing higher rents for certain interest groups. Third, secondary EC corporate law has had and will continue to have an impact on the evolution of European corporate laws and the dynamics of regulatory competition. Finally, its production has become an industry itself, employing many EC and national functionaires and lobbyists, and creating occasions for rent extraction by politicians.
Quality Teaching and the Capability Approach: Evaluating the work and governance of women teachers in rural Sub-Saharan Africa

This book provides an analytical exploration of the condition of teachers working in expanding school systems across the world, with a particular focus on the lives of women teachers in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing from award-winning research, it looks beyond the official portrayals of teachers’ lives in order to better understand the reality of the contexts in which teachers live and work. Positioning Amartya Sen’s capability approach at the heart of the study, each chapter considers documentary evidence alongside ethnographic research from rural, remote and under-resourced schools in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Sudan. Interweaving rich narratives from teachers in a variety of contexts, the book proposes a concept of professional capability and examines female teachers’ agency to pursue and achieve this in their classrooms. This key examination challenges existing notions of ‘quality education’ and reveals insights into the broader purpose of schooling for rural communities. Quality Teaching and the Capability Approach will be of value to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in education, particularly those concerned with gender, development and teaching, as well as educationalists and policy makers concerned with education and development.
An adaptive penalty function with meta-modeling for constrained problems

Constraints can make a hard optimization problem even harder. We consider the blackbox scenario of unknown fitness and constraint functions. Evolution strategies with their self-adaptive step size control fail on simple problems like the sphere with one linear constraint (tangent problem). In this paper, we introduce an adaptive penalty function oriented to Rechenberg's 1/5th success rule: if less than 1/5th of the candidate population is feasible, the penalty is increased, otherwise, it is decreased. Experimental analyses on the tangent problem demonstrate that this simple strategy leads to very successful results for the high-dimensional constrained sphere function. We accelerate the approach with two regression meta-models, one for the constraint and one for the fitness function.
TRP-ML1 Is a Lysosomal Monovalent Cation Channel That Undergoes Proteolytic Cleavage*

Mutations in the gene MCOLN1 coding for the TRP (transient receptor potential) family ion channel TRP-ML1 lead to the lipid storage disorder mucolipidosis type IV (MLIV). The function and role of TRP-ML1 are not well understood. We report here that TRP-ML1 is a lysosomal monovalent cation channel. Both native and recombinant TRP-ML1 are cleaved resulting in two products. Recombinant TRP-ML1 is detected as the full-length form and as short N- and C-terminal forms, whereas in native cells mainly the cleaved N and C termini are detected. The N- and C-terminal fragments of TRP-ML1 were co-immunoprecipitated from cell lysates and co-eluted from a Ni2+ column. TRP-ML1 undergoes proteolytic cleavage that is inhibited by inhibitors of cathepsin B (CatB) and is altered when TRP-ML1 is expressed in CatB-/- cells. N-terminal sequencing of purified C-terminal fragment of TRP-ML1 expressed in Sf9 cells indicates a cleavage site at Arg200 ↓ Pro201. Consequently, the conserved R200H mutation changed the cleavage pattern of TRP-ML1. The cleavage inhibited TRP-ML1 channel activity. This work provides the first example of inactivation by cleavage of a TRP channel. The significance of the cleavage to the function of TRP-ML1 is under investigation.
Estimating the influence of transport on house prices: evidence from Hong Kong

Attempts to analyse the importance of transportation in determining house prices in Hong Kong. Residential property is sold as a package of inherent attributes that are valued by consumers and this analysis classifies them into the following categories: structural, physical and environmental. Specifically, these determinants of housing price include structural attributes such as size, age and floor level of the housing units; amenities such as accessibility to various means of transport; and factors determining the quality of the environment such as availability of recreational facilities. In this study, data were obtained from a large residential area in Hong Kong. Uses a Hedonic price model for estimating the importance of each of the defined utility‐bearing attributes on house prices.
On the road to sustainability entrepreneurship: Filipino case

Purpose – There is a desire to improve economies as a way to solve social inequities while simultaneously addressing the issue of sustainability. Young and Tilley developed a model that describes a sustainability entrepreneur. The purpose of this paper is to apply the model in the Philippine setting to determine if there exists a special entrepreneur who looks beyond profit motivations, considers social inequities, and looks towards future generations. Design/methodology/approach – The paper used the narrative approach in learning more about the motivations and sustainability practices of two Filipino entrepreneurs. The objective was not to compare the practices of both but to match it with the 12 elements of the sustainability entrepreneur model of Young and Tilley. Findings – The concept of sustainability entrepreneurship is unknown to the two entrepreneurs. Yet, both engaged in sustainable business practices, meant to improve living conditions of marginalized groups. However, while they have actually h.
Asset Allocation and Portfolio Optimization Problems with Metaheuristics: A Literature Survey

The main objective of Markowitz work is seeking optimal allocation of wealth on a defined number of assets while minimizing risk and maximizing returns of expected portfolio. At the beginning, proposed models in this issue are resolved basing on quadratic programming. Unfortunately, the real state of financial markets makes these problems too complex. Metaheuristics are stochastic methods which aim to solve a large panel of NPhard problems without intervention of users. These methods are inspired from analogies with other fields such as physics, genetics, or ethologic. Already various Metaheuristics approaches have been proposed to solve asset allocation and portfolio optimization problems. In a first time, we survey some approaches on the topic, by categorizing them, describing results and involved techniques. Second part of this paper aims providing a good guide to the application of Metaheuristics to portfolio optimization and asset allocation problems.
Características da adoção de software de código aberto: Um estudo sobre o setor de tecnologia da informação de Minas Gerais

Apesar da crescente importância estrategica das tecnologias envolvendo software de codigo aberto (SCA), as empresas enfrentam dificuldades e desafios no desenvolvimento de estrategias para adocao de uma nova tecnologia. Sao diversos fatores que devem ser tratados. O uso de SCA e realidade nas empresas de tecnologia da informacao, porem ha pouca pesquisa academica que aborda esse assunto. O objetivo deste trabalho foi analisar o impacto dos fatores nas formas de adocao de SCA e nos modelos de negocio praticados pelas empresas. O arcabouco Tecnologia, Organizacao e Ambiente (TOE-Technology, Organization and Environment) foi utilizado na elaboracao de um modelo para estudar a influencia dos fatores (Tecnologicos, Organizacionais e Ambientais) considerados pelas empresas de TI de Minas Gerais na adocao de SCA, especificamente na forma de adocao e modelo de negocio. A coleta dos dados foi feita por questionario, aplicado como survey eletronico junto aos profissionais de empresas de TI em Minas Gerais. O modelo proposto para determinar a influencia dos fatores na forma de adocao de SCA e no modelo de negocio praticado pelas empresas de TI foi avaliado com auxilio da modelagem de equacoes estruturais. O resultado indicou que os tres grupos de fatores exercem influencia significativa na forma de adocao, sendo que os organizacionais e tecnologicos apresentaram maior efeito. Para os modelos de negocio, somente os fatores ambientais apresentaram influencia. O fator tecnologico apontado como maior influenciador foi “Reducao de custos de hardware e software com a implantacao da tecnologia”. Ja entre os fatores organizacionais, o maior influenciador foi “Flexibilidade da atual infraestrutura de TI”. Por fim, entre os fatores ambientais o item que exerce maior influencia foi “Relatos de historias de sucesso do uso da tecnologia”. No cenario das empresas de TI de MG, verificou-se a adocao de SCA para o desenvolvimento de softwares, seja pelo uso de componentes de SCA em produtos de software ou pelo uso de ferramentas de desenvolvimento que sao SCA.
Administering Targeted Social Programs in Latin America: From Platitudes to Practice

The conceptual issues of targeting are well understood. Whether, how and how much to target social services or subsidies to the poor depends on balancing the benefits and costs in a given set of circumstances. The benefit of targeting is that it can concentrate expenditures allocated to poverty alleviation or social programs on those who need them most. This saves money and improves programs efficiency. The costs are the administrative cost of identifying potential beneficiaries, possible economic losses due to disincentive effects and any loss of political support for the programs. It is often assumed that, as the accuracy of targeting and hence the benefits increase, the associated costs will increase as well. Knowledge of the size of the tradeoffs faced in real programs, however, is scarce. Latin American governments have recently become markedly more interested in targeting their social expenditures than they were in past decades. Now that serious attempts are being made to target social expenditures, practical questions are arising about how best to do so. Which targeting mechanisms provide the best targeting outcomes? What are their administrative costs? What are their administrative options and requirements? These, and a host of subsidiary questions, are the focus of this study. It is designed to fill the gaps in our knowledge of the practicalities of administering targeted programs. It should also help to determine whether expectations of targeting success or administrative failure are realistic and what it takes to make targeting work. This book synthesizes information drawn from 23 case studies commissioned for this comparative work and from other sources on seven additional programs. The study focuses on the targeting outcomes and the administrative costs, options and requirements of targeting mechanisms in a variety of social programs in Latin America. This study assumes that all the programs were aimed generally at the poor and that targeting a food supplement program is much the same as targeting the cast transfer program or and education program.
Trade Liberalization: Export-Market Participation, Productivity Growth and Innovation

The paper examines how Canadian manufacturing plants have responded to reductions in tariff barriers between Canada and the rest of world over the past two decades. Three main conclusions emerge from the analysis. First, trade liberalization was a significant factor behind the strong export growth of the Canadian manufacturing sector. As trade barriers fell, more Canadian plants entered the export market and existing exporters increased their share of shipments sold abroad. Second, export-market participation was associated with increases in a plant's productivity growth. Third, our analysis identified the presence of three main mechanisms through which export-market participation raises productivity growth among plants: learning by exporting; exposure to international competition; and increases in product specialization that allowed for exploitation of scale economies. Our evidence also shows that plants that move into export markets increase investments in R&D and training to develop capacities for absorbing foreign technologies and international best practices. Finally, entering export markets leads to increases in the number of advanced technologies being used, increases in foreign sourcing for advanced technologies, and improvements in the information available to firms about advanced technologies. It is also associated with improvements in the novelty of the innovations that are introduced. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.
The Determinants of Part-Time Work in EU Countries: Empirical Investigations with Macro-Panel Data

This paper aims to identify the contribution of the business cycle and structural factors to the development of part-time employment in the EU-15 countries, through the exploitation of both cross-sectional and time series variations over the past two decades. This analysis is used to comment on whether part-time jobs have been used as a flexible work arrangement by firms in the EU-15 over this period.Key results include that the business cycle, as measured by either the output gap or real GDP growth, is found to exert a negative effect on part-time employment developments. This is consistent with firms utilising part-time employment as a means of adjusting their labour force to economic conditions. Correspondingly, involuntary part-time employment is found to be countercyclical, being higher in troughs of economic activity. Splitting our sample by age and gender groups reveals a very significant effect of the business cycle on the rate of part-time work for young and male prime-age workers. Conversely, the effect is very weak for women and insignificant for older workers.
The Image of the Accountant in a German Context

This study introduces content analysis as a method of examining the accountant's role. The empirical study is based on 73 advertisements, which are directed primarily at employees who are affected by the management accountant's work. The findings of the study indicate that the subject of accountancy is used particularly in connection with promises of “cost reduction. ” Consequently, the majority of advertisements use the accountant stereotype of “savings personified. ” In a professional context, the work ethic of the management accountant is given particular emphasis in the advertisements. He/she identifies him/herself with his/her task to the maximum degree, is regarded as loyal to his/her company and, for the most part, is well organized in his/her work. However, the characterization of the management accountant as a well disciplined company‐person conflicts with the negative portrayal of his/her professional qualities. In advertisements, the management accountant is portrayed as a rather inflexible, pass.
Rating the Rating: An Analysis of the National Research Council's Appraisal of Political Science Ph.D. Programs

Not surprisingly, the ratings of doctoral programs in the United States by the National Research Council (NRC 1995) are controversial. Some interpret the ratings as an indicator of relative program quality; others view them as little more than a gauge of the size and age of graduate programs, and still others deem them to be simply a popularity barometer. Employing data assembled in the NRC report, we examine whether the political science program ratings reflect two general sets of characteristics—the size and the productivity of faculty. All other things equal, program quality should vary directly with faculty size, and indeed size is emphasized as a key explanatory factor in the NRC report. The logic is straightforward. Very small departments lack the means to field a range of graduate courses of sufficient breadth to form the basis of a serious program. Larger departments enjoy the increased resources that allow for greater program depth and breadth. In addition, holding quality concerns constant, larger programs should on average receive higher ratings simply because they include more faculty.