Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seminars and examinations:students' perceptions of the seminar in their examination revision strategy

Students’ performance in examinations is often weaker than in other forms of assessment. Yet it should not be assumed that examination technique is innate or skill based. Successful examination performance calls on students to synthesize information and to demonstrate academic competence. Successful academic performance is primarily concerned with articulatory principles of subject formation and appropriation. However, research into seminars, lectures and examination performances mostly seek to establish a relationship between ‘performance’ and ‘potential’, with much attention focused discretely upon either organizational considerations or the reluctant learner. By emphasizing the social construction of learning situations, this project locates the learning process within a notion of collective social experiences and mutual cooperation. In the broader sense it is interested in questions of meaning and understanding and the process by which concepts are constructed and understood. This process depends on ‘ritualization’, ‘participation frameworks’ and ‘embedding’ (Goffman, 1981). Some students experience difficulties in participating in the ritualized behaviour, which may affect their academic development. By seeking to investigate students’ perception of how they use seminars to develop their academic expertise, this project seeks to contribute to our understanding of the learning process, in particular, the relationship between students’ participation in the examination process and assessment strategies.
GSK3β Is Increased in Adipose Tissue and Skeletal Muscle from Women with Gestational Diabetes Where It Regulates the Inflammatory Response

Infection and inflammation, through their ability to increase pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines and adhesion molecules, are thought to play a central role in the pathophysiology of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Recent studies have shown that glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) plays a central role in regulating this inflammation. There are, however, no studies on the role of GSK3 in pregnancies complicated by gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Thus, the aims of this study were (i) to determine whether GSK3 is increased in adipose tissue and skeletal muscle from women with GDM; and (ii) to investigate the effect of GSK3 inhibition on inflammation in the presence of inflammation induced by bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-1β. Human omental adipose tissue and skeletal muscle were obtained from normal glucose tolerant (NGT) women and BMI-matched women with diet-control GDM at the time of Caesarean section. Western blotting was performed to determine GSK3 protein expression. Tissue explants were performed to determine the effect of the GSK3 inhibitor CHIR99021 on markers of inflammation. When compared to women with NGT, omental adipose tissue and skeletal muscle obtained from women with diet-controlled GDM had significantly higher GSK3β activity as evidenced by a decrease in the expression of GSK3β phosphorylated at serine 9. The GSK3 inhibitor CHIR99021 significantly reduced the gene expression and secretion of the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6; the pro-inflammatory chemokines IL-8 and MCP-1; and the adhesion molecules ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 in tissues stimulated with LPS or IL-1β. In conclusion, GSK3 activity is increased in GDM adipose tissue and skeletal muscle and regulates infection- and inflammation-induced pro-inflammatory mediators.
EXPERIMENTAL CONFIRMATION OF HERITABLE MORPHOLOGICAL VARIATION IN A NATURAL POPULATION OF SONG SPARROWS

An important assumption in evolutionary biology is that intraspecific variation in quantitative traits is strongly heritable (Grant et al., 1976). Selection can alter heritable phenotypes rapidly (Falconer, 1960), but acts slowly if much of the observed variation is environmental. In four wild bird populations (Garnett, 1976; Brooke, 1977; Boag and Grant, 1978; Smith and Zach, 1979), including the song sparrow Melospiza melodia, related individuals resemble each other in beak size, tarsus length, or wing length, characters with clear ecological importance (Hespenheide, 1973). Although these correlative studies strongly suggest that morphological variation is heritable, they do not eliminate the possibility that size resemblances among parents and offspring are environmental in origin (Falconer, 1960). The birds studied all provide prolonged parental care of young and large parents could provide better parental care and hence rear larger young. Other more complex environmental influences are possible (Falconer, 1960; Denenberg and Rosenburg, 1967; Leamy, 1974) and genotypeenvironment interactions (Falconer, 1960; Feldman and Lewontin, 1975) may inflate heritability estimates. A simple way to test the importance of these causes of parent-offspring resemblance is to exchange young among broods and then compare the resulting offspring to both true and foster parents (Boag and Grant, 1978; Smith and Zach, 1979). If environmental influences are strong, young
AN EXPLORATORY CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY OF INTERLANGUAGE PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT

This paper reports the results of an exploratory cross-sectional study of pragmatic development among three groups of primary school students in Hong Kong who completed a cartoon oral production task (COPT) designed to elicit requests, apologies, and compliment responses. The first two of these speech acts are among the most well represented in the pragmatics literature and are also included in the Hong Kong English language syllabus for primary schools. The latter has also been studied extensively but is not part of the syllabus. Data was collected in Cantonese using the same instrument. Although a number of developmental patterns are revealed—particularly in choice of request strategy, frequency of supportive moves, and use of adjuncts with apologies and compliment responses—there is little evidence of sensitivity to situational variation or pragmatic transfer from Cantonese. This study adds to the small, but growing, body of research on pragmatic development in a second language.
Anorexia nervosa treatment: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

OBJECTIVE The RTI International-University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Evidence-based Practice Center (RTI-UNC EPC) systematically reviewed evidence on efficacy of treatment for anorexia nervosa (AN), harms associated with treatments, factors associated with treatment efficacy, and differential outcome by sociodemographic characteristics. METHOD We searched six major databases for studies on the treatment of AN from 1980 to September 2005, in all languages against a priori inclusion/exclusion criteria focusing on eating, psychiatric or psychological, or biomarker outcomes. RESULTS Thirty-two treatment studies involved only medications, only behavioral interventions, and medication plus behavioral interventions for adults or adolescents. The literature on medication treatments and behavioral treatments for adults with AN is sparse and inconclusive. Cognitive behavioral therapy may reduce relapse risk for adults with AN after weight restoration, although its efficacy in the underweight state remains unknown. Variants of family therapy are efficacious in adolescents, but not in adults. CONCLUSION Evidence for AN treatment is weak; evidence for treatment-related harms and factors associated with efficacy of treatment are weak; and evidence for differential outcome by sociodemographic factors is nonexistent. Attention to sample size and statistical power, standardization of outcome measures, retention of patients in clinical trials, and developmental differences in treatment appropriateness and outcome is required.
The Space of Digital Health Games

Digital health games run increasingly on mobile devices in order to stimulate and maintain health related behavior change. Yet, they interact with their topographic, social and cultural context in various ways and to specific degrees. In this article we discuss theories on locative media, urban as well as pervasive game design and set them in relation to current health game practice. Two approaches in “mobile persuasion” are contrasted: While some research emphasizes the transfer of newly learned behavior by providing a seamless experience, others focus on the collision between game rhetoric and “real world” context. Between the two, we argue, a “Situationist” approach may highlight interaction with everyday objects and environments as key to behavior change. We construct a new typology of game locations and give an overview into what we call “locative health games”. Gaining a deeper insight to the role of space in digital health games, we claim, helps to address wider cultural implications and may well unfold new possibilities to leverage health messages. In conclusion, we present our concept for a mapping game, in which we interrogate how interacting with everyday environments may motivate young diabetic users to document their daily disease management.
QUANTILE AND PROBABILITY CURVES WITHOUT CROSSING

This paper proposes a method to address the longstanding problem of lack of monotonicity in estimation of conditional and structural quantile functions, also known as the quantile crossing problem. The method consists in sorting or monotone rearranging the original estimated non-monotone curve into a monotone rearranged curve. We show that the rearranged curve is closer to the true quantile curve in finite samples than the original curve, establish a functional delta method for rearrangement-related operators, and derive functional limit theory for the entire rearranged curve and its functionals. We also establish validity of the bootstrap for estimating the limit law of the the entire rearranged curve and its functionals. Our limit results are generic in that they apply to every estimator of a monotone econometric function, provided that the estimator satisfies a functional central limit theorem and the function satisfies some smoothness conditions. Consequently, our results apply to estimation of other econometric functions with monotonicity restrictions, such as demand, production, distribution, and structural distribution functions. We illustrate the results with an application to estimation of structural quantile functions using data on Vietnam veteran status and earnings.
Towards automatic speaker retrieval for large multimedia archives

In this paper we discuss the challenges of scaling a speaker retrieval system for small audiovisual collections towards a speaker retrieval system for large audio (visual) archives. We show that with our large scale speaker diarization approach it is possible to perform query-by-example speaker retrieval; to search for audiovisual documents in which a particular person is talking. On a selection of the ICSI meeting corpus we obtain a Mean Average Precision of 0.49 and precision-at-ten of 0.70. On a much larger archive of three months of Dutch broadcast television we obtain a precision-at-ten of 0.52.
Hydrogen exchange kinetics and internal motions in proteins and nucleic acids.

The peptide NH protons of unstructured polypeptides exchange readily with aqueous solvent protons. Proton exchange rates of native proteins are retarded by many orders of magnitude compared to exchange rates of the unfolded forms. Nevertheless, most of the interior backbone protons of folded proteins have measurable accessibility to solvent. Since the static structures of proteins obtained from X-ray crystallography do not indicate any obvious pathways for penetration of solvent (136), the general implica­ tion of hydrogen exchange kinetics is that the solution structure of proteins undergoes internal motions that render buried peptide protons accessible to solvent. The protein apparently fluctuates rapidly between numerous, closely related conformational states; hydrogen exchange samples the sol­ vent accessibility of the interconverting ensemble. The dynamic nature of protein structure is confirmed by several other methods (38, 50, 57, 60, 84, 142, 151, 169), most importantly, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and fluorescence spectroscopic techniques, but hydrogen exchange is the only method that monitors long-time motion in proteins. It is expected that internal motions of proteins are fundamental to conformational interactions with ligands during protein functional pro­ cesses. The mechanism(s) of these protein internal motions, an area of intense current interest (28, 54, 75, 68, 93, 94, 103, 164, 186), will include the conformational fluctuations governing hydrogen exchange.
SERUM S-100B CONCENTRATION PROVIDES ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOT THE INDICATION OF COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY IN PATIENTS AFTER MINOR HEAD INJURY: A PROSPECTIVE MULTICENTER STUDY

ABSTRACT Ninety percent of patients with minor head injury (MHI) who have cranial computed tomography (CCT) under the present clinical decision rules have normal scans. Serum concentrations of the astroglial protein S-100B were recently found to provide useful information, but these studies were too small to provide a statistically safe basis for changing the present rule. We have investigated whether S-100B concentrations in patients with MHI can provide additional information to improve indication of the need for an initial CCT scan. One thousand three hundred nine patients with MHI were enrolled in this prospective, multicenter study. All had a CCT scan to confirm diagnosis in accordance with the present clinical decision rules. S-100B was measured in serum samples obtained upon admission. Data were analyzed using contingency table and receiver operating characteristic curve and compared with those for healthy donors (n = 540) and with those for patients with moderate to severe head injury (n = 55). Of the 1309 patients studied, 93 exhibited trauma-relevant intracerebral lesions on the CCT scan (CCT+). With a cutoff limit of 0.10-&mgr;g/L S-100B (95th percentile of values in healthy volunteers), CCT+ patients were identified with a sensitivity level of 99% (95% confidence interval, 96% - 100%) and a specificity level of 30% (95% confidence interval, 29% - 31%). Adding the measurement of S-100B concentration to the clinical decision rules for a CCT scan in patients with MHI could allow a 30% reduction in scans. A prospective study of the clinical value of S-100B measurement in such patients is now under way.
Managing Chinese Bureaucrats: An Institutional Economics Perspective

Conventional analysis of government typically focuses on ‘politics’, that is, interests, conflicts or personalities. But governing a country is not only a task of successfully governing its people but also an administrative task of managing subordinate officials. This is a very relevant issue in a country such as China, with a massive bureaucracy. The top ‘managers’ of the country – some 30 national leaders – make policies but also manage a large number of bureaucratic personnel. As in business organizations, control problems occur when subordinates have different interests from those of the organization and when the behavior of subordinates is imperfectly monitored. Control mechanisms are designed to minimize such problems by either aligning interests or improving information. This article uses this framework to explain a wide variety of administrative phenomena in Chinese government organizations.
Regenerating Articular Tissue by Converging Technologies

Scaffolds for osteochondral tissue engineering should provide mechanical stability, while offering specific signals for chondral and bone regeneration with a completely interconnected porous network for cell migration, attachment, and proliferation. Composites of polymers and ceramics are often considered to satisfy these requirements. As such methods largely rely on interfacial bonding between the ceramic and polymer phase, they may often compromise the use of the interface as an instrument to direct cell fate. Alternatively, here, we have designed hybrid 3D scaffolds using a novel concept based on biomaterial assembly, thereby omitting the drawbacks of interfacial bonding. Rapid prototyped ceramic particles were integrated into the pores of polymeric 3D fiber-deposited (3DF) matrices and infused with demineralized bone matrix (DBM) to obtain constructs that display the mechanical robustness of ceramics and the flexibility of polymers, mimicking bone tissue properties. Ostechondral scaffolds were then fabricated by directly depositing a 3DF structure optimized for cartilage regeneration adjacent to the bone scaffold. Stem cell seeded scaffolds regenerated both cartilage and bone in vivo.
Predicting human intention in visual observations of hand/object interactions

The main contribution of this paper is a probabilistic method for predicting human manipulation intention from image sequences of human-object interaction. Predicting intention amounts to inferring the imminent manipulation task when human hand is observed to have stably grasped the object. Inference is performed by means of a probabilistic graphical model that encodes object grasping tasks over the 3D state of the observed scene. The 3D state is extracted from RGB-D image sequences by a novel vision-based, markerless hand-object 3D tracking framework. To deal with the high-dimensional state-space and mixed data types (discrete and continuous) involved in grasping tasks, we introduce a generative vector quantization method using mixture models and self-organizing maps. This yields a compact model for encoding of grasping actions, able of handling uncertain and partial sensory data. Experimentation showed that the model trained on simulated data can provide a potent basis for accurate goal-inference with partial and noisy observations of actual real-world demonstrations. We also show a grasp selection process, guided by the inferred human intention, to illustrate the use of the system for goal-directed grasp imitation.
The accumulation of person-environment congruences and well-being

The impact of the additivity of three aspects of person-environment congruence — vocational, avocational and skill utilization — to well-being was assessed by four measures: occupational satisfaction, work satisfaction, somatic complaints and anxiety. Subjects were 74 female teachers. Findings showed: (a) the three congruence aspects were not interrelated; (b) all congruence aspects were correlated with all well-being measures in the expected direction; and (c) combinations of the three congruence aspects had an additive effect: the higher the number of congruence aspects the higher the well-being. The implications of congruence additivity to stress research and to vocational counselling was discussed.
Timed Petri nets in modeling and analysis of cluster tools

Timed Petri nets are used as models of cluster tools representing the flow of wafers through the chambers of the tool as well as sequences of actions performed by the robotic transporter. Since the durations of all activities are also represented in the model, performance characteristics can be derived from the model for steady-state, as well as transient behaviors. The performance of single-blade tools is compared with that of dual-blade tools. The effects of multiple loadlocks, redundant chambers and multiple robots are discussed and, analyzed. Modeling of wafer routings with chamber revisiting and processing of wafers of multiple types is also briefly discussed.
BSK-WBSN: Biometric Symmetric Keys to Secure Wireless Body Sensors Networks

The Wireless Sensors Network (WSN) is an emergent technology resulting from progress of various fields. Many applications of networks WSN are born. One of the applications which have an operational effectiveness relates to the field of health and allows a medical remote support. Miniature wireless sensors, strategically placed on the human body, create a Wireless Body Sensor Network (WBSN) which allows supervising various essential biological signals (rate of heartbeat, pressure, etc). The sensitivity of medical information requires mechanisms of safety. This performance constitutes a challenge for WBSN because of their limitation in resources energy and data-processing. In this paper we propose a new approach to symmetric cryptographic key establishment, based on biometrics physiology. This approach takes into account WBSN constraints and its topology.
A Fast Algorithm for Computing the Deceptive Degree of an Objective Function

In this paper we present a fast algorithm for computing the deceptive degree of an objective function. We discuss theoretical foundations of the fast algorithm and how to get the polynomial representation of a function quickly under the condition of that the function value of every input is known. We prove a fast decision theorem of whether a monomial has deception about a variable in it, which makes computing the deceptive degree of a function easier. In the final, we describes the fast algorithm and analyses its complexity.
Spontaneous sharp bending of DNA: role of melting bubbles

The role of centrally located and distributed base pair mismatches (‘melting bubbles’) on localized bending and stiffness of short dsDNA fragments is evaluated using time-dependent fluorescence lifetime measurements. Distributed melting bubbles are found to induce larger bending angles and decreased levels of stiffness in DNA than centrally located ones of comparable overall size. Our results indicate that spontaneous local opening-up of the DNA duplex could facilitate sharp bending of short DNA strands even in the absence of DNA binding proteins. We also find that the occurrence of two closely spaced melting bubbles will generally be favored when a large energetic barrier must be overcome in forming the desired bent DNA structure.
Research Productivity in Academia: A Comparative Study of the Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities.

Though a significant number of studies of scholarly productivity have accumulated in the past decade, the majority have focused on limited samples of specialists in one or only a few scientific disciplines, making it difficult to generalize findings across dissimilar academic disciplines. This paper tests a model incorporating both academic and nonacademic factors as determinants of productivity with samples of physical and biological scientists, social scientists, and humanists taken from the 1972-73 American Council on Education survey of J'aculty at U.S. institutions of higher learning. We find considerable variation in the process determining productivity both across the broad disciplinary categories as well as within categories when article and book productivity are compared. We also examine the relative influence of the disciplinary context and attributes of scholars on productivity. Our evidence suggests that the decisive edge that physical and biological scientists enjoy over social scientists and humanists in article productivity is largely the result of the nature of work or a favorable disciplinary milieu, while the lower rate of productivity among humanists is more heavily determined by their attributes.
A Case Study of Four IT Companies Developing Usable Public Digital Self-Service Solutions

This paper presents a case study of implementing a user-centred approach in four software companies that, by supporting the development process, provide the municipalities with various self-service solutions for their citizens. This study outlines the process of how four companies develop their solution, including their customer involvement, end-user involvement, and product. The findings are compared to the number of usability problems identified in the four self-service applications developed by the software companies. This shows a mismatch between the usability and utility in these four solutions. Keywords-Case Study; Self-Service Applications; Usability; Utility; Development Process; User-Centred