Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Off-task behavior in kindergarten: Relations to executive function and academic achievement.

Behavioral self-regulation supports young children’s learning and is a strong predictor of later academic achievement. The capacity to manage one’s attention and control one’s behavior is commonly measured via direct assessments of executive function (EF). However, to understand how EF skills contribute to academic achievement, it is helpful to investigate how EF manifests in the classroom context and in children’s overt behavior. The current study observed 172 kindergarteners for a single school day and captured the total proportion of class time children were off-task in the classroom. This behavior was further classified into specific subtypes to assess whether these categorizations differentially predicted components of EF and academic achievement in first grade. Results indicated that children with lower response inhibition spent statistically significantly more time in one type of off-task behavior (i.e., off-task actively engaging with other materials), and children with lower working memory spent significantly more time in another type of off-task behavior (i.e., off-task passively disengaged). Higher proportion of class time spent off-task passively disengaged in kindergarten further statistically significantly predicted fewer gains in reading comprehension in first grade. These findings illustrate the utility of measuring children’s EF in a classroom context, and how fine-grained observation systems can shed light on the specific classroom and child processes that influence learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
Synthesis and characterization of tribologically enhanced hydrogels

Hydrogels are a biomaterial that have potential for a variety of different biomedical applications. However, these hydrogels often have poor friction and wear properties. This document investigates the stability of a proposed method to resolve this limitation. The proposed solution is a blend of a biocompatible polymer, poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) with different concentrations of the zwitterionic polymer, polymer Poly([2-(methacryloyloxy) ethyl] dimethyl(3-sulfopropyl) ammonium hydroxide) p(MEDSAH). Previous analysis has shown that the pMEDSAH acted as a boundary lubricant, resulting in a reduction of the coefficient of friction. The pMEDSAH was successfully synthesized at three different molecular weights and a significantly higher contact modulus was seen at the lower molecular weight. As well, a hydration dehydration study and a degradation study were performed. Both of these studies resulted in an increase in the coefficient of friction, indicating that the pMEDSAH was diffusing out of the hydrogel. If this simple processing method is used in biomedical devices, a packaging method will need to be developed to prevent this. However, this approach provides a promising platform for further increasing the boundary lubricant properties of hydrogels.
Eye movements reveal learning and information-seeking in attentional template acquisition

ABSTRACT Visual attention serves to select relevant visual information. However, observers often first need to find out what is relevant. Little is known about this information-seeking process and how it affects attention. We employed a cued visual search task in combination with eye tracking to investigate which oculomotor measures reflect the acquisition of information for a subsequent task. A cue indicated as to which target to look for in a following search display. Cue-target combinations were repeated several times, enabling learning of the target. We found that reductions in cue fixation times and saccade size provided stable indices of learning. Despite the learning, participants continued to attend to repeated cues. Several factors contribute to people attending to information they already know: First, the information value provided by the cue continues to drive attention. Second, even in the absence of information value, attention continues to be directed to cue features that previously signalled relevant information. Third, the decision to attend to a known cue depends on cognitive effort. We propose that this combination of information value, previous relevance, and effort is best captured within an information-seeking framework, and that oculomotor parameters provide a useful proxy for uncovering these factors and their interactions.
Soft Magnetic Skin for Continuous Deformation Sensing

Recent progress in soft‐matter sensors has shown improved fabrication techniques, resolution, and range. However, scaling up these sensors into an information‐rich tactile skin remains largely limited by designs that require a corresponding increase in the number of wires to support each new sensing node. To address this, a soft tactile skin that can estimate force and localize contact over a continuous 15 mm2 area with a single integrated circuit and four output wires is introduced. The skin is composed of silicone elastomer loaded with randomly distributed magnetic microparticles. Upon deformation, the magnetic particles change position and orientation with respect to an embedded magnetometer, resulting in a change in the net measured magnetic field. Two experiments are reported to calibrate and estimate both location and force of surface contact. The classification algorithms can localize pressure with an accuracy of >98% on both grid and circle pattern. Regression algorithms can localize pressure to a 3 mm2 area on average. This proof‐of‐concept sensing skin addresses the increasing need for a simple‐to‐fabricate, quick‐to‐integrate, and information‐rich tactile surface for use in robotic manipulation, soft systems, and biomonitoring.
Poly Segment Monorail, a conductive method as an alternative for highway electrification.

Vehicles driven on alternative fuels, such as electric vehicles (EVs), are becoming more common while awareness of a diminishing oil supply, oil prices and environmental pollution are increasing. Despite technical breakthroughs, the low energy density in the battery is a problem that limits long distance travel, especially for heavy-duty vehicles (HDV). The low energy density combined with the high cost and the uncertain predictable lifetime of the battery could be estimated to hamper the expansion of the long distance EVs. Electrified highways connecting cities could be one solution to reduce the battery and fuel dependency by supplying electricity continuously to the vehicles. Different technical solutions of electric roads, both conductive and inductive, have been proven functional but are today mainly used in the tram and train industry. Despite the inductive system’s major benefit of not relying on a physical contact, an inductive system is not necessarily the best option due to high costs and questionable efficiency. This said, also a conductive system intended for highway transport, despite the mature technology used, is far from problem free. This paper presents the new concept Poly segment monorail (PSM), intended to reduce the drawbacks of the general conductive system for highways. PSM utilizes segments alternating each other at road level, in contrast to traditionally being parallel and sometimes partially buried. With the new design and segments that are galvanically insulated, reduced losses and increase safety could be achieved. The paper also highlights the complexity for the new technology, involving several stakeholder markets, to achieve an international standard, which could be estimated a requirement for such a system to be beneficial and reasonable.
Perception inspired stereoscopic image and video quality assessment.

Recent developments in 3D media technology have brought to life numerous applications of interactive entertainment such as 3D cinema, 3DTV and gaming. Due to the data intensive nature of 3D visual content, Quality of Experience (QoE) has become a major driving factor to optimise the end-to-end content delivery process. However, to ensure the QoE, there is a need to develop more robust and accurate objective metrics for stereoscopic image and video quality assessment. Existing stereoscopic QoE metrics tend to lack in accuracy and robustness compared to its 2D counterparts as they are either extensions of 2D metrics or are based on simple perceptual models. However, measuring stereoscopic QoE requires more perceptually inspired metrics. This research introduces full-reference stereoscopic image and video quality metrics based on a Human Visual System (HVS) model incorporating important physiological findings on binocular vision. Firstly, a novel HVS model extending existing models in the literature is proposed to include the phenomena of binocular suppression and recurrent excitation towards stereoscopic image quality assessment. Secondly the research is extended to the temporal domain using temporal pooling of the HVS model outputs for individual frames and using a spatio-temporal model in the HVS model towards two distinct temporally inspired stereoscopic video quality metrics. Finally, motion sensitivity is introduced to the HVS model towards a perception inspired stereoscopic video quality metric. The proposed QoE metrics are trained, verified and tested using four publicly available stereoscopic image databases and two stereoscopic video datasets. They indicate an increase of average correlation index from 0.66 (baseline method) to 0.86 for the stereoscopic images and a maximum increase of average correlation index from 0.57 (baseline method) to 0.93 for stereoscopic videos. These results demonstrate the benefits of using a perceptually inspired approach in this research.
Cognitive Maps of Participants in Joint Mental Activity

Functional roles are of considerable interest in research of joint mental activity. For many years it has been the purpose of investigating to classify functional roles. Few researchers have considered the problem from the point of internal cognitive processes. Most of the research has been focused only on the exposed side of the process. This paper considers functional roles in joint mental activity by using cognitive maps of its participants. The results allow describing internal thinking process of participants in the joint activity who perform various functional roles. The obtained data can be used to analyze the reasons for success and failure in joint mental activity. Keywords-functional roles, joint thought activity, cognitive
Evidence for a non-linear carbon accumulation pattern along an Alpine glacier retreat chronosequence in Northern Italy

Background The glaciers in the Alps, as in other high mountain ranges and boreal zones, are generally retreating and leaving a wide surface of bare ground free from ice cover. This early stage soil is then colonized by microbes and vegetation in a process of primary succession. It is rarely experimentally examined whether this colonization process is linear or not at the ecosystem scale. Thus, to improve our understanding of the variables involved in the carbon accumulation in the different stages of primary succession, we conducted this research in three transects on the Matsch glacier forefield (Alps, N Italy) at an altitude between 2,350 and 2,800 m a.s. l. Methods In three field campaigns (July, August and September 2014) a closed transparent chamber was used to quantify the net ecosystem exchange (NEE) between the natural vegetation and the atmosphere. On the five plots established in each of the three transects, shading nets were used to determine ecosystem response function to variable light conditions. Ecosystem respiration (Reco) and gross ecosystem exchange (GEE) was partitioned from NEE. Following the final flux measurements, biometric sampling was conducted to establish soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) content and the biomass components for each transect. Results A clear difference was found between the earlier and the later successional stage. The older successional stages in the lower altitudes acted as a stronger C sink, where NEE, GEE and Reco were significantly higher than in the earlier successional stage. Of the two lower transects, the sink capacity of intermediate-succession plots exceeded that of the plots of older formation, in spite of the more developed soil. Total biomass (above- and belowground) approached its maximum value in the intermediate ecosystem, whilst the later stage of succession predominated in the corresponding belowground organic mass (biomass, N and C). Outlook We found that the process of carbon accumulation along a glacier retreat chronosequence is not linear, and after a quite rapid increase in carbon accumulation capacity in the first 150 years, in average 9 g C m−2 year−1, it slows down, taking place mainly in the belowground biomass components. Concurrently, the photosynthetic capacity peaks in the intermediate stage of ecosystem development. If confirmed by further studies on a larger scale, this study would provide evidence for a predominant effect of plant physiology over soil physical characteristics in the green-up phase after glacier retreat, which has to be taken into account in the creation of scenarios related to climate change and future land use.
THE USE OF NARRATIVE AS A MEANS TO INVESTIGATE FIRST YEAR STUDENT IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION

Commencing university is a bewildering process for many students who are being labelled in various ways depending on how they fare academically and socially. Studies on student transition into higher education focus on the challenges students encounter, how they make sense of their new environments and the importance of integrating new students successfully to prevent early departure. Sfard and Prusak (2005:14) state that the traditional parameters of identity deal mostly with character, nature and personality and how these are connected with aspects of belief, attitudes and conceptions. They further clarify that although the term ‘identity’ previously emanated from mostly psychological discourses, it now inhabits the research spaces in many social and humanistic sciences. This is due to the sociocultural turn in the human sciences. They equate identities with stories about persons, indicating that identities do not find their expression in stories, but rather that identity is stories (Sfard & Prusak, 2005). In this study identity is viewed as socially constructed and constantly created and recreated in interactions between people. In acknowledging stories as identity, this study focusses on student stories as lenses of sense-making of the transition to higher education and adds to discourse in South African and international research. The purpose of the study was to explore the role of story in the emergence of student identity as a reflective tool for learning. Employing the methodological approach of storytelling, data was collected from student drawings and reflections of personal experiences, photographs of first year experiences and in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Narrative analysis was used to gain a deeper understanding of the identity positioning of students. Analysis of field text sets acted as a springboard to discover how student identity emerges through story. Student respondents revealed inner strengths that they capitalised on to make sense and meaning of their transition to higher education as well as learning and lessons gained by having the opportunity to share stories of their first year experiences with peers.
A new way of Rich Image Representation (VectorPixels)

Generating images on computer systems happens for decades on the basis of the same technologies. On the one hand you have bitmap and on the other hand vector technology. Bitmap or pixel technology is mostly used for the representation of rich color images. The other available imaging technology, vectors is mainly used to present logos and drawings without photo realistic details. As known both have their disadvantages and advantages. In recent years a lot of research has been done to combine the advantages of both techniques in a comprehensive solution. Much research focuses on giving a vector illustration a realistic picture look. These studies usually use bitmap technology on top of vector technology or vice versa. There was no development from scratch and that is exactly what this paper wants to propose, an algorithm to invent the pixel again. By always applying new developments on existing technologies generating images became a mix of various techniques and a rather complex matter. With the use of VectorPixels (VP) the concept of a pixel will be redefined. In contrast with a pixel (Picture Element) a VectorPixel will be defined by a mathematical description and resolution independent.
Federalism, Government Liberalism, and Union Weakness in America

Unlike most other countries, in the United States, subnational governments (states) have substantial authority over collective bargaining and union organization laws. Because states compete for business investment and union (dis)organization likely has spillover effects beyond state borders, weak unions in one state may affect union organization in other states. We examine how union decline in one state is associated with union decline in neighboring states, and whether the presence of prounion (left-leaning) governments may limit the spread of union decline. Examining a period of major union decline (1983–2014), we find that union weakness in one state is associated with union weakness in nearby states. We observe that Democratic power in Congress is associated with higher unionization rates, but that liberal state governments have been relatively powerless to stop union decline in this period. These findings have important implications for understanding the historical and contemporary weakness of American unions and for the future of union strength in the United States.
A Disparity Analysis of Health Determinants and Outcomes in 500 Cities in the United States

Health disparity is an issue of global concern necessitating diverse studies. This study thus, investigated intra city and inter-city health disparity for the 500 largest cities in the United States using the health determinant and outcome data at census tract level from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Urban Health Index (UHI) approach for small area assessment was used to compute for the UHI and disparity ratios for all 500 cities. Data for socioeconomic status was obtained from 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-year estimate data. Urban sprawl data was collected from National Cancer Institute. Cities were ranked based on their disparity ratios from best to worst. OLS regression analysis was employed to research the driving factors of disparities. This research found that larger cities recorded higher health disparities than smaller cities. Greater disparities were present in cities in higher residential segregation for African Americans and less availability of cars, but in lower residential segregation for Hispanics. Because the regression residuals in the OLS model were not independent, more advanced models such as spatial regression models are necessary to investigate the influential factors. INDEX WORDS: Health disparities, GIS, Cities, Census Tracts
Wearable Device Validity in Determining Step Count During Hiking and Trail Running

Because wearable technology is ubiquitous, it is important to determine validity and reliability not only in a laboratory setting, but applied environments where the general population utilizes the devices. The purpose of this study was to 1) determine intra-rater reliability of visual step count outdoors, 2) determine validity of commercially available wearable technology devices in this setting, and 3) report test-retest reliability of commercial devices during hiking and trail running. Individuals (N = 20) completed 5-min hikes and trail runs on a 200-m section of trail while wearing the following devices: Fitbit Surge 2, Garmin Vivosmart HR+, Leaf Health Tracker, Polar A360, Samsung Gear 2, Spire Activity Tracker, and Stryd Power Meter. Intra-rater reliability and test-retest reliability was determined through Intraclass Correlation (ICC), while validity was determined via Bland-Altman analysis (limits of agreement; LoA), mean average percentage error (MAPE), and ICC. Significance was accepted at thep < . 05 level. Steps determined by two independent counters were significantly reliable for the hike (ICC = 0.993, p < 0.001) and trail run (ICC = 0.991,p < 0.001). Three devices were valid across both exercise types and all methods of validity: Garmin Vivosmart HR+ (MAPE = 5.4%, ICC = 0.815, LoA = −58.1 to 50.4), Leaf Health Tracker (MAPE = 8.4%, ICC = 0.816, LoA = −78.8 to 39.4), and Stryd Power Meter (MAPE = 4.7%, ICC = 0.799, LoA = −34.3 to 78.9). As only certain devices returned valid step measurements, continued testing in applied environments are needed to have confidence in utilizing technology to track health and activity goals.
Import demand in heterogeneous panel data with cross-sectional dependence

ABSTRACT We investigate the long-run income and price elasticity of import demand functions with a heterogeneous unbalanced panel of 34 countries over the period 1985:q1-2018:q3. To estimate world elasticities the model is tested with the activity variables derived from the theoretical and empirical literature: GDP, GDP minus exports, Private Demand, Aggregate Domestic Demand, National Cash Flow, and Import intensity-Adjusted Demand (IAD). First, we evaluate time series properties using second generation panel unit root and cointegration tests. Second, we rely on the dynamic common correlated effects mean groups (CCEMG) estimator to deal with cross-sectional dependence (CSD). We find that the IAD, whose world elasticity is close to one, is the best performing specification. Our results confirm that the most appropriate activity variable to assess import demand should encompass intermediate goods as suggested by the recent literature on global supply chains. Moreover, we partially solve the puzzle of the recent trade slowdown since, taking stock of the role of intermediates, the time needed to resort to the long run equilibrium in the aftermath of a global turmoil is greater than that predicted by previous studies.
Terrorism, Civil War, and Insurgency

Much of the terrorism occurring worldwide is domestic terrorism carried out by rebel groups fighting in civil wars. However, many are reluctant to categorize domestic insurgencies as terrorist groups or to identify the tactics used by domestic insurgencies as terrorist tactics. Through a survey of the literature addressing the relationship between terrorism and civil war, I contend that research on the dynamics of violence in civil war would benefit from a more standardized definition of the concept of terrorism as well as greater consensus on how the concept of terrorism ought to be used in relation to the concept of civilian targeting. The lack of conceptual clarity in distinguishing between terrorism and civilian targeting makes it difficult to compare research findings, and thus to make progress as a field in our understanding of the causes of violence and its consequences. Despite the challenges associated with making comparisons across studies, this chapter attempts to do precisely this, drawing on research on terrorism as well as research on civilian targeting to develop insights on the causes and consequences of terrorist violence employed in the context of civil war.