Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changes of Chinese exchange teacher candidates’ professional beliefs in the ‘reciprocal learning in teacher education and school education between Canada and China’ project

ABSTRACT This article is based on the empirical research involving Chinese exchange teacher candidates from Southwest University in China who participated in the Reciprocal Learning in Teacher Education and School Education between Canada and China (RLTESECC) project and studied at the University of Windsor. These teachers conducted classroom observation in Canadian schools from 2010 to 2016. The research study explores changes in Chinese teacher candidates’ beliefs about their professional life, which was promoted by the project, inspired by the Teachers’ Change Model proposed by F. A. J. Korthagen and based on the concept of Reciprocal Learning as collaborative partnerships between and among cultures. A two-stage research design was guided by the Grounded Theory approach (Charmaz, 2006). The findings reveal that the reciprocal learning project created an environment, which was conducive to exchange teacher candidates’ professional development and especially introduced new perspectives to teachers’ understanding of their profession in four areas: 1) teaching, 2) learning, 3) researching and academic writing and 4) professional social life.
Datafied knowledge production: Introduction to the special theme

Framing datafication as new form of knowledge production has become a trope in both academic and commercial contexts. This special theme examines and ultimately rejects the familiar grand claims of datafication, to instead pay attention to emergent conversations that seek to take a more nuanced stock of the status and nature of datafied knowledge production. The articles in this special theme thus engage with datafied knowledge production through elaborate explorations of how datafied knowledge depends on the contexts of its production and the forms of knowledge production that precede it in those contexts. Our basic argument is that while the resources, material features and analytical operations involved in datafied knowledge production may be different, many fundamental concerns about epistemology, ontology and methods remain relevant to understand what shapes it. We still need to understand and explicate the assumptions, operations and consequences of emergent forms of knowledge production. If datafied knowledge production is neither a clean revolutionary break with past forms of knowledge production nor a balloon of pure hype, the articles in this special theme ask: what does the phenomenon of datafied knowledge production look like? Which digital and datafied infrastructures support its future development? And what potentialities and limits do such forms of analysis and knowledge production contain?
Social media craving and the amount of self-disclosure: The mediating role of the dark triad

Available online: 02.09. 2019 In this study, the mediating role of the dark triad (narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathy) in the relationship between social media craving and amount of self-disclosure was investigated. The present study comprised 296 (178 females and 118 males) university students who have used social media for at least one year and have at least one social media account. The measures used included Social Media Craving Scale, Short Dark Triad Scale, Self-Disclosure Scale and Personal Information Form. Mediation analysis was performed using Hayes's Process program. The fourth model was used in the Process program. Narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathy have a partial mediating effect on the relationship between social media craving and the amount of self-disclosure. The relationship between social media craving and the amount of self-disclosure can be explained through narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathy.
A study on the subject classification of the NBA match reports

In this paper, we study the task of template building in automatically generate NBA match reports from NBA live text. As a preliminary study, we collect and process the historical reports compiled by the editors and get different kinds of sentences. Our innovative proposal is to divide the NBA match reports into 11 categories, which covering almost all cases. We use different machine learning methods to classify sentences. Each class finally constructs a template library to service the next automatic writing. By comparing different methods, we get a higher accuracy classification structure. The evaluation results show that our method does construct a template library.
Designing for GDPR - Investigating Children’s Understanding of Privacy: A Survey Approach

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) places new obligations on businesses that collect and process data from children. It goes so far as to say that privacy notices should be presented in child-friendly and age appropriate formats. Fulfilling GDPR obligations will require designers to have a better understanding of how children understand privacy issues. This research aims to investigate children’s understanding of privacy online. Thirty-two children from a UK primary school, aged between 8 years and 10 years old completed a survey to gauge their understanding of privacy. Eight different scenarios were presented to the children and they had to decide whether the information should be kept private or not and state the reason why. This work identifies that children do have an understanding of privacy, especially when related to online safety. However, children do not yet understand that their data has an inherent value, have misconceptions about data and what data should be protected. This highlights the challenges for designers of technology used by children to meet the GDPR obligations.
Working memory predictors of written mathematics in 7- to 8-year-old children

There is extensive evidence for the involvement of working memory in mathematical attainment. This study aims to identify the relative contributions of verbal, spatial-simultaneous, and spatial-sequential working memory measures in written mathematics. Year 3 children (7–8 years of age, n = 214) in the United Kingdom were administered a battery of working memory tasks alongside a standardised test of mathematics. Confirmatory factor analyses and variance partitioning were then performed on the data to identify the unique variance accounted for by verbal, spatial-simultaneous, and spatial-sequential measures. Results revealed the largest individual contribution was that of verbal working memory, followed by spatial-simultaneous factors. This suggests the components of working memory underpinning mathematical performance at this age are those concerning verbal-numeric and spatial-simultaneous working memory. Implications for educators and further research are discussed.
Automated classification of demographics from face images: A tutorial and validation

Examining disparities in social outcomes as a function of gender, age, or race has a long tradition in psychology and other social sciences. With an increasing availability of large naturalistic data sets, researchers are afforded the opportunity to study the effects of demographic characteristics with real-world data and high statistical power. However, since traditional studies rely on human raters to asses demographic characteristics, limits in participant pools can hinder researchers from analyzing large data sets. Automated procedures offer a new solution to the classification of face images. Here, we present a tutorial on how to use two face classification algorithms, Face++ and Kairos. We also test and compare their accuracy under varying conditions and provide practical recommendations for their use. Drawing on two face databases (n = 2,805 images), we find that classification accuracy is (a) relatively high, with Kairos generally outperforming Face++ (b) similar for standardized and more variable images, and (c) dependent on target demographics. For example, accuracy was lower for Hispanic and Asian (vs. Black and White) targets. In sum, we propose that automated face classification can be a useful tool for researchers interested in studying the effects of demographic characteristics in large naturalistic data sets.
Dynamic impacts of a financial reform of the CAP on regional land use, income and overall growth

In this paper we investigate the impacts of abolishing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the post-2013 European Union (EU) financial perspective and the impacts of re-investing the released funds on research and development (R&D). We apply a linked system of models to analyze the impacts for the EU member states. The linked system consists of five land-use sector models (agriculture, forestry, urban area, tourism and transport infrastructure), which are connected to a macro-econometric model. Additionally, a land cover model is used to disaggregate land use countries to a 1 km² grid. Three scenarios are analysed. In the “baseline” currently decided policies are assumed to be continued until 2025. In the “tax rebate” scenario agricultural support (first pillar) is removed, and the member states’ contributions to EU lowered. In the “R&D investments” scenario agricultural support is also removed, and the released funds are used to increase general R&D efforts in the EU. We find that in both liberalization scenarios, agricultural producer prices drop compared to the baseline. Agricultural production drops too, but less so in the “R&D investment” scenario due to productivity gains resulting from the increased R&D spending. In some countries, the productivity gains totally offset the negative impact of liberalisation on agricultural production. Smaller agricultural production implies less agricultural land use, and the more so in the “R&D Investment” scenario where productivity increases. The fall in agricultural production and prices negatively affects economic activity and households’ purchasing power, but the reduced direct taxation compensates this effect and results in a GDP gain of 0.53% and 0.8 million additional jobs. In “R&D investment” GDP gain reaches 2.57% and yields 2.95 million additional jobs in EU in 2025. The GDP, consumption and employment gains in the “R&D Investment” scenario widely exceed the losses in the agriculture sectors. The analysis indicates that if no external effects of agriculture are considered, then the CAP is an inefficient use of tax money, and that a considerable contribution to reaching the goals of the Lisbon agenda would be achieved if the same amount of money was instead invested in R&D.
An Attribute np Control Chart for Monitoring Mean Life Using Multiple Deferred State Sampling Based on Truncated Life Tests

In this paper, we design an attribute [Formula: see text] control chart for monitoring the mean life of the product where the lifetime follows the Pareto distribution of the second kind. The lifetime of the product is determined by time truncated life test and the multiple deferred state sampling is used to declare the status of the manufacturing process. Control limit coefficients and multiple deferred state sampling parameters such as sample size and number of successive subgroups required to declare the state of the process are determined such that the in-control average run length is as near as possible to the target average run length. Out-of-control average run lengths are calculated for the determined parameters using various shift constants. The performance of the chart is compared with other existing chart in terms of average run length.
A Crowdsource-Based Sensing System for Monitoring Fine-Grained Air Quality in Urban Environments

Nowadays more and more urban residents are aware of the importance of the air quality to their health, especially who are living in the large cities that are seriously threatened by air pollution. Meanwhile, being limited by the spare sense nodes, the air quality information is very coarse in resolution, which brings urgent demands for high-resolution air quality data acquisition. In this paper, we refer the real-time and fine-gained air quality data in city-scale by employing the crowdsource automobiles as well as their built-in sensors, which significantly improves the sensing system’s feasibility and practicability. The main idea of this paper is motivated by that the air component concentration within a vehicle is very similar to that of its nearby environment when the vehicle’s windows are open, given the fact that the air will exchange between the inside and outside of the vehicle though the opening window. Therefore, this paper first develops an intelligent algorithm to detect vehicular air exchange state, then extracts the concentration of pollutant in the condition that the concentration trend is convergent after opening the windows, finally, the sensed convergent value is denoted as the equivalent air quality level of the surrounding environment. Based on our Internet of Things cloud platform, real-time air quality data streams from all over the city are collected and analyzed in our data center, and then a fine-gained city level air quality map can be exhibited elaborately. In order to demonstrate the effective- ness of the proposed method, experiments crowdsourcing 500 floating vehicles are conducted in Beijing city for three months to ubiquitously sample the air quality data. Evaluations of the algorithm’s performance in comparison with the ground truth indicate the proposed system is practical for collecting air quality data in urban environments.
Capital Asset Pricing Model: Evidence from the Stock Exchange of Mauritius

The aim of this paper is to examine whether the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is able to explain the stock returns in the Mauritian stock market. The sample in the present study consists of all securities listed on the official market of the Stock Exchange of Mauritius (SEM). Using data from 1998 to 2007, the study provides minor support for the three-moment CAPM, with no significant support for either the two-moment or the four-moment CAPM in the case of SEM.
THE VOLATILITY OF THE FINANCIAL MARKET - A QUANTITATIVE APPROACH

During the last years, the financial markets have been subject to significant fluctuations of their financial actives. These spectacular movements have revived the interest, in the academic circles and policy makers and regulation and control authorities as well, for the financial market volatility. The analysis of these phenomena is justified by the fact that the stock exchange chocks have significant effects on the financial stability and they can lead to serious consequences in the real economy.
Peak Load Reduction in a Smart Building Integrating Microgrid and V2B-Based Demand Response Scheme

In this paper, we study the peak load reduction in a smart building integrating microgrid and present a comprehensive finite-horizon optimization problem formulated as a dual tracking control problem subject to the quadratic cost function. The smart building integrates a microgrid consisting of photovoltaic modules, battery bank, and plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). The objective of the microgrid is to satisfy the PEVs load as well as to reduce the peak load of the building. The control strategy aims to take advantages of the microgrid to pay the minimum billing demand to the main grid according to the subscribed power rating. These objectives can be reached through exploiting power generated onsite, local energy storage system, and the operational flexibilities of the PEVs via the vehicle-to-building alternative. In this paper, we focus on the fundamental issue of exploring smart charge and discharge scheduling of PEVs to reduce the peak load of the building. The proposed model has been extensively simulated and tested through case studies using measured solar and load data under the Quebec electricity pricing.
The Diversity of Neighborhood Transitions

Long-term observers of urban communities know that the housing quality distributions of communities and the changes of these distributions over time encompass not one but a variety of patterns. The equilibrium outcome derived from the housing market literature explains one pattern of change. Using Rust's stochastic equilibrium model of durable goods (Econometrica, 1985), we determine that the market can generate a set of patterns depending upon the degree of heterogeneity of homeowners, the underlying technology of the structures and the developer's demand for land. The paper presents a dynamic model of homeowner choice, given a market with new and existing structures of varying quality and a renewal process that describes the deterioration and replacement rates of these structures. There is a continuum of homeowners that differ by taste. Given the developer's price for new construction, the scrap price for sub-quality structures, and equilibrium bids of homeowner types in the market, heterogeneous homeowners sort along a holding distribution of homes. This paper describes the conditions for the existence and stability of stochastic equilibrium outcome. We find that long-run demand/bid function is the upper envelope of the bid functions of the individual types of homeowners in the market. The heterogeneous population (or diversity of preferences) leads to variations in the range of quality demanded for residential services and variations in optimal holding times for homes. Diversity also lead to utility gains for all homeowners.
The Handbook of Fixed Income Securities

The definitive guide to fixed income investing--revised and updated for the new era of investing The Handbook of Fixed Income Securities is the investing industry's most trusted, widely followed fixed income reference. For nearly three decades, investors have been drawn to its unparalleled scope, detail, and expertise. Now, the world's most authoritative fixed income resource has been updated with facts and formulas to help you better analyze, value, and manage fixed income instruments and their derivatives in today's evolving marketplace. This thoroughly revised eighth edition includes detailed discussions of: Types, features, and uses of fixed income securities Active and structured portfolio management strategies Basics of fixed income analytics, from bond pricing to price volatility measures Risks and risk control strategies Interest rate and credit derivatives and their portfolio management applications Asset-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and innovative fixed income applications The Handbook of Fixed Income Securities is the most all-inclusive, up-to-date source available for fixed income facts and analyses. Its valuable perspective and insights will help you enhance investment returns and avoid poor performance in the fixed income market.
Designing Distributed SDN C-Plane Considering Large-Scale Disruption and Restoration

Software-defined networking (SDN) technology enables us to flexibly configure switches in a network. Previously, distributed SDN control methods have been discussed to improve their scalability and robustness. Distributed placement of controllers and backing up each other enhance robustness. However, these techniques do not include an emergency measure against large-scale failures such as network separation induced by disasters. In this study, we first propose a network partitioning method to create a robust control plane (C-Plane) against large-scale failures. In our approach, networks are partitioned into multiple sub-networks based on robust topology coefficient (RTC). RTC denotes the probability that nodes in a sub-network isolate from controllers when a large-scale failure occurs. By placing a local controller onto each sub-network, 6%–10% of larger controller-switch connections will be retained after failure as compared to other approaches. Furthermore, we discuss reactive emergency reconstruction of a distributed SDN C-plane. Each node detects a disconnection to its controller. Then, C-plane will be reconstructed by isolated switches and managed by the other substitute controller. Meanwhile, our approach reconstructs C-plane when network connectivity recovers. The main and substitute controllers detect network restoration and merge their C-planes without conflict. Simulation results reveal that our proposed method recovers C-plane logical connectivity with a probability of approximately 90% when failure occurs in 100 node networks. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the convergence time of our reconstruction mechanism is proportional to the network size. key words: software-defined networking (SDN), distributed SDN control, failure recovery, control plane
How We Hear and Experience Classical, Computer, and Virtual Music

This chapter examines occurrences and events associated with the experience of composing, playing, or listening to music. Discussion of popular music and computer music begins the chapter, including issues pertaining the tuning systems, digital interfaces, and software for music. It then recounts an experiment on the nature of pitch and psychoacoustics of resultant tones.
Screen Space: Navigation and Interactivity

This paper considers the introduction of both human-computer inteface and interactive multimedia design in the architectural education and practice. The development of information and communication technologies offers to architects new tools of design as well as new areas of architectural practice. What is more decisive is the change of mentality in the way of conceiving space and of the design procedure itself. The question posed is if drawing conventions are changing and in what way. The paper attempts to establish analogies between the recent introduction into architectural thought of notions such as the human body movement, events and scenarios with the development of navigation and interaction principles and conventions in the computer world. The study of human-computer interface contributes in the understanding of the major role of the computer screen as a point of convergence of different representational forms and the emergence of new ones proper to the digital culture.
Democracy's Fourth Wave?: Digital Media and the Arab Spring

List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgements Dedication Introduction Chapter 1: Digital Media and the Arab Spring Chapter 2: The Recent History of Digital Media and Dissent Chapter 3: Information Infrastructure and the Organization of Protest Chapter 4: Authoritarian Responses and Consequences Chapter 5: Al Jazeera, Social Media, and Digital Journalism Conclusion: Digital Media and the Rhythms of Social Change References Endnotes Index
Reform of Governance in Higher Education Sector as a factor enhancing international mobility of students - the case of Poland

Reform of Governance in Higher Education Sector as a factor enhancing international mobility of students - the case of Poland The aim of the paper is the presentation of main directions and programmes enhancing international mobility of students in Europe and outside Europe and some results of this programmes in the case of Poland. The paper examines also the main decisions of the European Commission related to the reform of the Higher Education Sector in the EU as one of the most important factors stimulating mobility in the tertiary education schools.