Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Teacher career trajectories and aspirations in context: A mixed methods study of second-stage teachers in New South Wales

The aim of this thesis is to describe, interpret and explain the career trajectories and aspirations of second-stage teachers in New South Wales and to identify the key contextual factors influencing their careers. Successive government reforms targeting teacher quality and professionalism have significantly shifted the work landscape for teachers. The concept of ‘career’ provides a useful conceptual lens through which to analyse teachers’ work patterns and goals. Recent studies suggest that some teachers are redefining what it means to have a teaching career and seeking alternative trajectories that may expand their job roles (Peske, Liu, Johnson, Kauffman, & Kardos, 2001; Rinke, 2009, 2011; Rippon, 2005; Smethem, 2007). Whilst levels of teacher attrition are described as having “reached epidemic proportions” in Australia, the U.S and U.K (Gallant & Riley, 2014, p. 562), current research has given insufficient attention to the within-career issues that shape teacher career decision-making (Buchanan, 2009b; Clandinin et al., 2015; Lindqvist & Nordänger, 2016). Whereas beginning teachers have had considerable research attention, this thesis examined ‘second-stage teachers’ in their fourth to tenth year of teaching (Kirkpatrick & Johnson, 2014). Having overcome their early survival concerns, second-stage teachers shift focus to the future and contemplate how, if at all, they might develop a teaching career. This study used a convergent parallel mixed methods design, wherein both qualitative and quantitative data were collected in parallel, analysed separately and finally integrated. This study had three data sets: policy documents, workforce statistics and semi-structured interviews with twenty-four second-stage teachers representing a range of ages and school levels, sectors and locations. This cohort of teachers is the first generation for whom compulsory Standards and accreditation has applied under the New Scheme system. This thesis offers two original contributions to the knowledge base. Firstly, this thesis identifies six specific career trajectories that second-stage teachers aspire to, recognising these as different roles that teachers may shift between rather than pre-determined pathways. The model presented here offers a more nuanced understanding of teacher retention/attrition that extends beyond classifying teachers as stayers/leavers. Secondly, this thesis brings to light three key contextual factors that influence second-stage teachers’ careers: professional cultures amongst teachers, the current status of teaching and the practical implementation and enactment of policy agendas. The thesis concludes by highlighting points of convergence and divergence within the data to show how the current policy context is not well aligned with second-stage teachers’ lived career experiences.
Phase group characteristics and phase coincidence detection based phase noise measurement method

A novel phase noise measurement method is proposed based on phase group processing and phase coincidence detection. Using the regularity variation of the phase difference between frequency signals, phase group processing can be made without the normalization of the frequency signals. The phase group characteristics, such as phase group synchronization, and the regularity of phase coincidence detection between different frequency signals are revealed in this paper. Based on the phase group characteristics and phase coincidence detection, two adjacent phase coincidence points of the reference frequency signal and the measured frequency signal are used to generate the measurement gate. The fluctuation of the gate time between multiple consecutive measurement reflects the close-in phase noise. And the edge feature of phase coincidence detection fuzzy area can be used to obtain the far-out phase noise. Experiment results show that this method has the advantages in simpler structure, wider measurement band, smaller additional noise.
In-hospital Complications and Mortality After Elective Spinal Fusion Surgery in the United States: A Study of the Nationwide Inpatient Sample From 2001 to 2005

Spinal fusion surgery has increased dramatically and patients presenting for surgery are often more medically challenging. We hypothesized that advanced age and coexisting morbidities have increased in the population undergoing spinal fusion and are associated with greater risks for immediate complications and mortality. The Nationwide Inpatient Sample was retrospectively reviewed for discharges after a principal procedure code for elective spinal fusion. Total records meeting study inclusion criteria were 254,640. Coexisting morbidities were tabulated using Elixhauser comorbidities and the Charlson comorbidity index. Logistic regression identified risk factors associated with in-hospital mortality and early complications. The largest increase in spinal fusion surgery was in patients >65 years. Overall, those with at least 1 comorbidity increased (49% to 62%; P=0.002), as did mean Charlson index (0.146 to 0.202; P<0.001). In-hospital mortality was 0.13%, but 0.29%, and 0.64% for patients of 65 to 74, and those ≥75 years, respectively. Adjusted odds ratios for complications in 65-year to 74-year olds versus <65 years was 1.78 (95% confidence interval, 1.71-1.84; P<0.001), and for mortality 3.81 (95% confidence interval, 2.62-5.55; P<0.001); risks increased with the number of coexisting morbidities. Congestive heart failure, chronic pulmonary disease, coagulopathy, metastatic cancer, renal failure, and weight loss significantly correlated with in-hospital mortality, whereas hypertension or hypothyroidism had, unexpectedly, the opposite effect. Although it is known for some other forms of complex surgery, we showed that elderly and medically complex spinal fusion patients were at increased risk for in-hospital mortality and early complications. The majority of complications were operative, pulmonary, cardiovascular, or genito-urinary. Patient risk correlated with the number and nature of coexisting morbidities.
Outcomes of Antiretroviral Treatment Programs in Rural Southern Africa

Background:Data on outcomes of antiretroviral treatment (ART) programs in rural sub-Saharan African are scarce. We describe early losses and long-term outcomes in 6 rural programs in Southern Africa with limited access to viral load monitoring and second-line ART. Methods:Patients aged ≥16 years starting ART in 2 programs each in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Lesotho were included. We evaluated risk factors for no follow-up after starting ART and mortality and loss to follow-up (LTFU) over 3 years of ART, using logistic regression and competing risk models. Odds ratios and subdistribution hazard ratios, adjusted for gender, age category, CD4 category, and World Health Organization stage at start of ART are reported. Results:Among 7725 patients, 449 (5.8%) did not return after initiation of ART. During 9575 person-years, 698 (9.6%) of those with at least 1 follow-up visit died, and 1319 (18.1%) were LTFU. At 3 years, the cumulative incidence of death and LTFU were 12.5% (11.5%–13.5%) and 25.4% (24.0%–26.9%), respectively, with important differences between countries as follows: in Zimbabwe 75.1% (72.8%–77.3%) were alive and on ART at 3 years compared with 55.4% (52.8%–58.0%) in Lesotho and 51.6% (48.0%–55.2%) in Mozambique. In all settings, young age and male gender predicted LTFU, whereas advanced clinical stage and low baseline CD4 counts predicted death. Conclusions:In African ART programs with limited access to second-line treatment, mortality, and LTFU are high in the first 3 years of ART. Low retention in care is a major threat to the sustainability of ART delivery in Southern Africa, particularly in rural sites.
An Institutional Economics Approach to the Problems of Small Farmer Credit in India

This paper applies the tools of institutional economics – especially those pertaining to informational asymmetry and transaction costs - for studying the credit problems of small farmers in India, who, in spite of a vast network of credit institutions developed over a long period of time under government ownership and/or control, are alleged as not getting a share of formal sector credit commensurate with their statistical dominance. It uses data collected by the Agro-economic Research Centers and Units under the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India from a carefully selected sample of 700 borrower households across the country over a period of three years (1997-1998 to 1999-2000) to provide a preliminary explanation of the various dimensions of a credit package in terms of variation in borrower’s village, household and other loan attributes.
Cumulative Effect of Phosphorylation of pRB on Regulation of E2F Activity

ABSTRACT The product of the retinoblastoma susceptibility gene, pRB, is a nuclear phosphoprotein that controls cell growth by binding to and suppressing the activities of transcription factors such as the E2F family. Transactivation activity is inhibited when E2F is bound to hypophosphorylated pRB and released when pRB is phosphorylated by cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs). To determine which of 16 potential CDK phosphorylation sites regulated the pRB-E2F interaction, mutant pRB proteins produced by site-directed mutagenesis were tested for the ability to suppress E2F-mediated transcription in a reporter chloramphenicol acetyltransferase assay. Surprisingly, no one CDK site regulated the interaction of pRB with E2F when E2F was bound to DNA. Instead, disruption of transcriptional repression resulted from accumulation of phosphate groups on the RB molecule.
A type 2 (Th2‐like) pattern of immune response predominates in the pulmonary interstitium of patients with cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis (CFA)

CFA is an inflammatory condition of the lungs resulting in scarring, pulmonary failure and death. The etiology of the disease is unknown, but the pathogenesis is believed to involve a persistent immunological reaction to unidentified antigen in the lung resulting in tissue damage. Recent advances in our understanding of the immune system have shown that different patterns of stimulatory cytokines are produced at sites of inflammation by a range of cell types. Patterns of cytokine production by inflammatory cells are recognized to be associated with different patterns of immunological response, and these have been described as type 1 (or Th1‐like) and type 2 (or Th2‐like) on this basis. We have studied cytokine expression in the intestinal inflammatory cell infiltrate in lung tissue from patients with CFA using mRNA in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry. Our results show that while there is evidence for both a type 1 (characterized by interferon‐gamma (IFN‐γ)) and type 2 (characterized by IL‐4 and IL‐5) response present in CFA, the type 2 (or Th2) pattern of cytokines appears to predominate. This would be consistent with a possible role for the humoral immune response in the pathogenesis of this condition. In addition, recent evidence suggests that IL‐4 and IFN‐γ may be important regulatory factors for pulmonary fibroblasts. The relative paucity of IFN‐γ may contribute to the excessive fibroblast activation, deposition of collagen and scar formation that occurs in CFA.
A comparative analysis of genetic algorithm and ant colony optimization to select attributes for an heterogeneous ensemble of classifiers

In the context of ensemble systems, feature selection methods can be used to provide different subsets of attributes for the individual classifiers, aiming to reduce redundancy among the attributes of a pattern and to increase the diversity in such systems. Among the several techniques that have been proposed in the literature, optimization methods have been used to find the optimal subset of attributes for an ensemble system. In this paper, an investigation of two optimization techniques, genetic algorithm and ant colony optimization, will be used to guide the distribution of the features among the classifiers. This analysis will be conducted in the context of heterogeneous ensembles and using different ensemble sizes.
Leukocyte Microparticles Stimulate Endothelial Cell Cytokine Release and Tissue Factor Induction in a JNK1 Signaling Pathway*

A role of membrane microparticles (MP) released by vascular cells in endothelial cell (EC) activation was investigated. Flow cytofluorimetric analysis of blood samples from normal volunteers revealed the presence of an heterogeneous MP population, which increased by ∼2-fold after inflammatory stimulation with the chemotactic peptide, N-formyl-Met-Leu-Phe (2,799 ± 360 versus 5241 ± 640, p < 0.001). Blood-derived MP stimulated release of EC cytokines interleukin (IL)-6 (377 ± 68 pg/ml) and MCP-1 (1, 282 ± 79) and up-regulatedde novo expression of tissue factor on the EC surface. This was associated with generation of a factor Xa-dependent procoagulant response (2.28 ± 0.56 nm factor Xa/min/104 cells), in a reaction inhibited by a monoclonal antibody to tissue factor. Fluorescent labeling with antibodies to platelet GPIbα or leukocyte lactoferrin demonstrated that circulating MP originated from both platelets and leukocytes. However, depletion of platelet MP with an antibody to GPIbα did not reduce EC IL-6 release, and, similarly, MP from thrombin-stimulated platelets did not induce IL-6 release from endothelium. EC stimulation with leukocyte MP did not result in activation of the transcription factor NF-κB and was not associated with tyrosine phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase, ERK1. In contrast, leukocyte MP stimulated a sustained, time-dependent increased tyrosine phosphorylation of ∼46-kDa c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK1) in EC. These findings demonstrate that circulating leukocyte MP are up-regulated by inflammatory stimulation in vivo and activate a stress signaling pathway in EC, leading to increased procoagulant and proinflammatory activity. This may provide an alternative mechanism of EC activation, potentially contributing to dysregulation of endothelial functions during vascular injury.
A Novel Miniature Transmit Reject Filter for Ku-Band VSAT Transceivers

In this paper, a novel miniature waveguide low-pass transmit reject filter (TRF) with a sharp cutoff frequency response is proposed for Ku-band VSAT (very small aperture terminal) transceiver. By introducing parallel resonators in a rectangular waveguide using short-circuited stubs, a compact low-pass filter with a very sharp out-of-band rejection is realized. An eleven-element Ku-band low-pass filter is designed and fabricated using a WR-75 waveguide. The measurement results show it has a low insertion loss of less than 0.3 dB at the pass band and a high attenuation slope of 70 dB/GHz. Moreover, the miniature size of the filter is only 38 mm times 38 mm times 42 mm (WR-75 flange size is 38 mm times 38 mm).
Acute effects of exposure to cold on blood pressure, platelet function and sympathetic nervous activity in humans.

To clarify the mechanism for cold-related thrombosis, we evaluated responses of blood pressure, platelet function, and sympathetic nervous activity after cold exposure in ten healthy male volunteers (33 +/- 2 years old). Mean blood pressure, beta-thromboglobulin, platelet factor 4, and plasma noradrenaline were increased after cold exposure associated with significant falls in skin, oral, and urine temperature. The increase in plasma noradrenaline significantly correlated with the change in platelet aggregation (3 microM ADP: r = 0.73, P less than .02, 3.0 micrograms/mL epinephrine: r = 0.65, P less than .05), and with mean blood pressure in the warn environment (r = 0.76, P less than .02). These results suggest that the cold-related increase in sympathetic nervous activity may contribute to enhancement of platelet function. This provides a possible explanation for the risk of thrombosis in cold weather in essential hypertension.
Extracting the international markets of a tourist destination from inlinks

So far, the markets of a tourist destination are determined mainly by questionnaire survey. Based on our previous work, a hyperlink-based GIS model called the “bulb” model is proposed to extract the international potential markets of a tourist destination from inlinks to its websites. In this paper, the principle and implementation of the “bulb” model are introduced in detail. In addition, a case study using the “bulb” model to extract the international potential markets of the Imperial Palace from hyperlinks linking to its website is provided to show how the “bulb” model may be applied.
Testing Determinants of Growth in Heterogeneous Panel

The study investigates the relationship between economic growth, government size, private consumption, private investment, exports and imports, using data from ten Asian countries for the period 1970 to 2001. Country-by-country and panel results based on ADF, Johansen, Panel Unit Root (IPS), and Panel co-integration [Larsson et al. (2001) tests are presented. ADF and Panel Unit Root (IPS) test results show that all the series are integrated of order one. After establishing that the series are integrated of order one, the study then tested the long run implications of the model with the help of the Johansen Co-integration technique. A long run relationship among the variables using the panel co-integration test over the entire period for the sampled countries was detected. The study concluded that in the long-run government size is an important determinant of economic growth in Asian countries included in the sample. The findings also indicate that in countries like India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines, an increase in the size of the government promotes the growth process, while in countries such as Bangladesh, Korea, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand growth in the size of the government retards economic growth in the long run.
Temperature-Insensitive Composite Micromechanical Resonators

Utilizing silicon and silicon dioxide's opposing temperature coefficients of Young's modulus, composite resonators with zero linear temperature coefficient of frequency are fabricated and characterized. The resulting resonators have a quadratic temperature coefficient of frequency of approximately -20 ppb/degC2 and a tunable turnover temperature in the -55degC to 125degC range. Reduction of the temperature dependence of frequency is shown in flexural-mode resonators (700 kHz-1.3 MHz) and extensional-mode ring resonators (20 MHz). The linear temperature coefficient of Young's modulus of silicon dioxide is extracted from measurements to be +179 ppm/degC. The composite resonators are fabricated and packaged in a CMOS-compatible wafer-scale hermetic encapsulation process. The long-term stability of the resonators is monitored for longer than six months. Although most devices exhibit less than 2 ppm frequency drift, there is evidence of dielectric charging in the silicon dioxide.
Melatonin Reduces 3H-Nitrendipine Binding in the Heart

Abstract The effect of melatonin on cardiac and brain voltage-sensitive calcium channels, as measured by 3H-nitrendipine binding, was examined in rats 3 hr after melatonin administration (either 0.5 or 1.0 mg/kg given subcutaneously). Scatchard analysis of the data on specific binding of 3H-nitrendipine with crude cardiac membranes from melatonin treated rats revealed significant decreases (P < 0.05 and P < 0.01 for the 0.5 and 1.0 mg/kg melatonin doses, respectively) in the density of Ca2+ channels without a change in their affinity for the ligand. At doses of 0.5 and 1.0 mg/kg of melatonin, Bmax values were 157 and 142 fmoles/mg protein, respectively, compared with a control value of 199 fmoles/mg protein in crude cardiac membranes. In brain, melatonin treatment did not statistically significantly influence either 3H-nitrendipine binding or its affinity when compared with control animals. These results suggest that melatonin modulates the functional status of voltage sensitive calcium channels in the heart, changes that may have implications for normal cardiac physiology and for the pharmacological manipulation of the heart.
Are pre-service Primary School teachers prepared to teach science by inquiry?

Inquiry-based science education (IBSE) focuses on the development of science process skills. This teaching methodology has been shown to be especially effective during Primary School as it allows children to explore and confront their own ideas about Nature. Also, a methodology based on process skills is coherent with the main purpose of this educational stage where children need to learn to do things. In order to implement a methodology based on science process skills Primary teachers need to know to use science process skills, and how to teach them. In this paper we address whether Spanish pre-service teachers are able to implement IBSE. We focus on pre-service Primary School teachers and compare our results with inservice teachers and a random sample of non-teachers. We explore their level of knowledge about science process skills and if pre-service teachers know how to develop an inquiry-based learning sequence. An overview of the situation of science education and teaching of scientific skills among the degrees on Primary Education in Spain is also presented. Our results show that pre-service teachers have a lack of knowledge on science process skills and fail when they attempting to build a learning sequence based on inquiry.
Deep Context with a Sense-of-Self

Introduction There is a trend in information retrieval to an increased involvement of context. The success of recent workshops at SIGIR [8] and the subsequent 2006 IIiX Symposium, the SIGIR exploratory search workshop, and the outcome of the 2004 SWIRL workshop [21] are indicators that elements of user context are both sort and becoming available. “The provision of tools.can yield great rewards for users, especially when contextual factors such as user emotion, task constraints, and dynamism of information needs are considered” [26]. Recent weblog workshops reflect a strong interest in the discovery of context about the user in the form of the blogger’s age [2, 24], gender [23, 24], opinions, sentiments and opinions expressed [9, 19, 22], mood levels [1, 20], happiness [18], residential area [28] and social network(s) [6, 7, 11-13, 25]. The research concentrated on particular forms of identifying or extracting the information, providing fertile ground for TREC-style comparisons of the approaches. Considerable interest has been shown in the analysis of sentiment in weblogs ([1, 4, 1820, 22]). This broad umbrella encompasses notions of mood, opinion, emotion and happiness. Sentiment is only one aspect of user context. Indeed, many of the published notions of sentiment derive from reflection of authorship. That is, determination of the mood, opinion or emotion comes through analysis of the artefacts of communication, the blog entry, and is deemed a reflection of the sentiment of the author at the time. Of course, the assumption is that a person’s writing reflects their inner state of being. Although it is tempting to, repeating history, ignore the author and concentrate on the blog entry itself, the focus should remain on determining more about the user. To this end, more information about the user is required apart from the emphasis on the (usually) explicit manifestations of their selves. Figure 1 presents this difference by separating what we know about the document (e.g. style), what we know about the user from the document at a particular point in time (e.g. sentiment), and the more implicit and meta-information which is derived from the sentiment and which captures deeper context about the user. An example of such information is a computational manifestation of a person’s sense-of-self. This has been investigated previously using mailing list records in an online health setting ([15]) and this paper uses it as an exemplar of deeper user context, showing how to apply the ideas and techniques to blog data in a TREC setting.