Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Use of Matching Methods in Higher Education Research: Answering Whether Attendance at a 2-Year Institution Results in Differences in Educational Attainment C. Lockwood Reynolds and Stephen L. DesJardins

Scholars of higher education in the United States have embraced the theories of cultural and social capital. Bourdieu’s writing illuminates our understanding of social structures that limit opportunity for oppressed groups but is sometimes mistranslated as a theory of social mobility. We argue that the translation of his theory of classes into one of individuals obscures the ways class structures get formed and re-formed in the United States, and how individuals, while not determined by such structures, are constrained by them. We summarize James Coleman’s articulation of social capital, and speculate whether Coleman’s theory grounds the uses of the theory of cultural and social capital in the United States as a theory of individual mobility. Coleman’s theory errs in emphasizing individual agency while ignoring the covert and “natural” functioning of oppressive structures. We critique Bourdieu’s theory as being too deterministic; a good misappropriation of Bourdieu makes room for some form of agency. Chapter 5 The Rise and Fall of Need-Based Grants: A Critical Review of Presidential Discourses on Higher Education, 1964–1984 Julie Renee Posselt Abstract Recent economic histories by Benjamin Friedman and Robert Fogel argue that America’s economic future depends on a return to policy of the 1970s, including a major reinvestment in Pell Grants, which have steadily declined as a proportion of total financial aid spending since 1978. To evaluate the adequacy of purely economic rationales for reinvesting in grants today, this review uses historiography and discourse analysis of US presidential speeches to critically review rationales for student aid policy between 1964 and 1984. Along with economic arguments based on human capital theory, presidents’ rationales for aid spending were grounded in leaders’ political ideologies and views of equity and excellence as desired sociopolitical ends of education. Economic arguments themselves varied to alternately emphasize individual and national returns on investment. More importantly for contemporary debates about a renewed federal role in supporting college opportunities, these rationales were combined in various ways throughout the period, suggesting the need today for multidimensional and balanced arguments that are relevant to the present social, economic, and political contexts. Chapter 6 A Review of Attributional Retraining Treatments: Fostering Engagement and Persistence in Vulnerable College Students Tara L. Haynes, Raymond P. Perry, Robert H. Stupnisky, and Lia M. Daniels
Feasibility of Phytoextraction to Clean Up Low-Level Uranium-Contaminated Soil

ABSTRACT The potential to phytoextract uranium (U) from a sandy soil contaminated at low levels was tested in the greenhouse. Two soils were tested: a control soil (317 Bq 238U kg-1) and the same soil washed with bicarbonate (69 Bq 238U kg-1). Ryegrass (Lolium perenne cv. Melvina), Indian mustard (Brassica juncea cv. Vitasso), and Redroot Pigweed (Amarathus retroflexus) were used as test plants. The annual removal of the soil activity with the biomass was less than 0.1%. The addition of citric acid (25 mmol kg-1) 1 week before the harvest increased U uptake up to 500-fold. With a ryegrass and mustard yield of 15000 kg ha-1 and 10000 kg ha-1, respectively, up to 3.5% and 4.6% of the soil activity could annually be removed with the biomass. With a desired activity reduction level of 1.5 and 5 for the bicarbonate washed and control soil, respectively, it would take 10 to 50 years to attain the release limit. A linear relationship between the plant 238U concentration and the 238U concentration in the soil solution of the control, bicarbonate-washed, or citric acid-treated soil points to the importance of the soil solution activity concentration in determining U uptake and hence to the importance of solubilising agents to increase plant uptake. However, citric acid addition resulted in a decreased dry weight production (all plants tested) and crop regrowth (in case of ryegrass).
Peek-through Customization: Example-Based In-Context Sharing for Learning Management Systems

Learning to use a learning management system (LMS) can often be complex and challenging for instructors who have little time to explore the application interface. We ran formative interviews (N=10) suggesting that instructors often prefer to consult colleagues to seek examples of customizations and their explanations. Based on our findings, we designed and developed Customizer, an in-context example-based customization sharing platform that runs atop a widely-used LMS and facilitates discovery of relevant customizations shared by peers. Customizer allows instructors to experiment with shared customizations in familiar contexts by copying their course content into on-the-fly testing environments, minimizing any risk of breaking their live course setups. Our usability evaluation (N=10) showed that most users found Customizer intuitive and useful, and that its exploratory interface was helpful in a variety of use cases. Furthermore, many participants saw potential for Customizer to improve their workflows in other applications beyond educational contexts.
Autonomic Neuroscience: Basic and Clinical Human adult cardiac autonomic innervation: Controversies in anatomical knowledge and relevance for cardiac neuromodulation ☆

Background: Cardiac sympathetic blockade is a therapeutic approach for arrhythmias and heart failure and may be a beneficial effect of high thoracic epidural anesthesia. These treatments require detailed knowledge of the spatial location and distribution of cardiac autonomic nerves, however, there are controversies on this subject in humans. Objective: To provide a systematic overview of current knowledge on human anatomy of the cardiac autonomic nervous system. Results: In contrast to the often claimed assumption that human preganglionic sympathetic cardiac neurons originate mainly from thoracic spinal segments T1–T4 or T5, there is ample evidence indicating involvement of cervical spinal segment C8 and thoracic spinal segments below T5. Whether cervical ganglia besides the stellate ganglion play a role in transmission of cardiac sympathetic signals is unclear. Similarly, there is debate on the origin of cardiac nerves from different thoracic ganglia. Most human studies report thoracic cardiac nerves emerging from the first to fourth thoracic paravertebral ganglia; others report contributions from the fifth, sixth and even the seventh thoracic ganglia. There is no agreement on the precise composition of nerve plexuses at the cardiac level. After years of debate, it is generally accepted that the vagal nerve contributes to ventricular innervation. Vagal distribution appears higher in atria, whereas adrenergic fibers exceed the number of vagal fibers in the ventricles. Conclusion: Anatomy of the human cardiac autonomic nervous system is highly variable and likely extends beyond generally assumed boundaries. This information is relevant for thoracic epidural anesthesia and procedures targeting neuronal modulation of cardiac sympathetic innervation.
Lipids and the endothelium: an update

In addition to being a major cause of morbidity, cardiovascular disease remains the dominant cause of all deaths in industrialized countries. Atherosclerosis is the principal underlying etiology for cardiovascular events and dyslipidemia, the main pathology leading to atherosclerosis. While lipid-lowering therapies, in particular the statins, have proven highly successful, monotherapy with low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol-lowering drugs appears to have reached its limit in terms of impeding cardiovascular events. Thus, other lipid-related risk factors, namely low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol, are currently targeted. The most well-defined role of HDL is cholesterol efflux, the transportation of cholesterol from the periphery to the liver where it is subsequently removed. In addition, there are many other effects of HDL which are cardioprotective, including its antioxidative effects, its inhibition of lipid oxidation and, thus, foam cell formation, and its anti-inflammatory effect.
Report from the Tri-Agency Cosmological Simulation Task Force

The Tri-Agency Cosmological Simulations (TACS) Task Force was formed when Program Managers from the Department of Energy (DOE), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) expressed an interest in receiving input into the cosmological simulations landscape related to the upcoming DOE/NSF Vera Rubin Observatory (Rubin), NASA/ESA's Euclid, and NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). The Co-Chairs of TACS, Katrin Heitmann and Alina Kiessling, invited community scientists from the USA and Europe who are each subject matter experts and are also members of one or more of the surveys to contribute. The following report represents the input from TACS that was delivered to the Agencies in December 2018.
Non-metric dental trait variation among local sites and regional groups of the Neolithic Jomon period, Japan

Inter-populational heterogeneity of the Neolithic Jomon hunter-gatherers of Japan was examined via 21 non-metric dental traits. Skeletal samples from nine local sites and five regional groups of the middle to final stages of the Jomon period were analyzed, and inter-site comparisons were made among five representative sites (Ubayama, Nakazuma, Ikawazu, Yoshiko, and Tsukumo). Statistically significant differences were found in 4/21 traits in the inter-site comparisons, and in 5/21 traits in the inter-regional comparisons between the Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Tokai, and Sanyo groups. Smith’s distances suggest that the inter-regional differences within the Jomon assemblages are minor when compared with differences from the non-Jomon samples such as the Yayoi immigrants, Kofun, and modern Japanese. Furthermore, examination of the wider geographical variation of the Jomon people (eastern versus western) revealed significant differences in only 2/21 traits. Distance analysis showed that the eastern and western Jomon groups clustered together, and exhibited the greatest affinities with present-day Southeast Asians among comparable East Asian and Pacific population samples. The Jomon people can be collectively regarded as relatively homogeneous, within the broader context of East Asian and Pacific intra-population variation.
Cardy's Conjecture and the Spectrum of Infrared Strongly-Coupled Quantum Field Theories

Cardy's conjecture about the evolution of the trace anomaly under renormalization group (RG) flows is re-interpreted as an exact, non-perturbative statement about the scaling dimension of terms in the Lagrangian of the theory. When viewed in this way, the conjecture implies that field theories which are strongly coupled in the infrared (IR) may generically host states that are not manifest as solutions to the ultraviolet (UV) complete theory's equations of motion. In particular, the scaling dimension of operators in the Hamiltonian may deviate from their classical values by $\mathcal{O}(1)$ corrections in the IR, circumventing an old argument by Derrick about the non-existence of such states. We show that this framework provides a natural way to estimate the masses of these states using perturbation theory, and suggests a preferred reorganization of the degrees of freedom in the IR.
Sequences, q-multinomial Identities, Integer Partitions with Kinds, and Generalized Galois Numbers

Using sequences of finite length with positive integer entries and the inversion statistic on such sequences, a collection of binomial and multinomial identities are extended to their q-analog form via combinatorial proofs. Using the major index statistic on sequences, a connection between finite differences of the coefficients of generalized Galois numbers and integer partitions with kinds is established.
Close eclipsing binary BD And: a triple system

BD And is a fairly bright (V = 10.8), active and close (P = 0.9258 days) eclipsing binary. The cyclic variability of the apparent orbital period as well as third light in the light curves indicate the presence of an additional late-type component. The principal aim is the spectroscopic testing of the third-body hypothesis and determination of absolute stellar parameters for both components of the eclipsing binary. First medium and high-resolution spectroscopy of the system was obtained. The broadening-function technique appropriate for heavily-broadened spectra of close binaries was used. The radial velocities were determined fitting the Gaussian functions and rotational profiles to the broadening functions. A limited amount of photometric data has also been obtained. Although the photometric observations were focused on the obtaining the timing information, a cursory light-curve analysis was also performed. Extracted broadening functions clearly show the presence of a third, slowly-rotating component. Its radial velocity is within error of the systemic velocity of the eclipsing pair, strongly supporting the physical bond. The observed systemic radial-velocity and third-component changes do not support the 9 year orbit found from the timing variability. Masses of the components of the eclipsing pair are determined with about 0.5% precision. Further characterization of the system would require long-term photometric and spectroscopic monitoring.
Success in creative careers depends little on product quality

In the recent article Janosov, Battiston, & Sinatra report that they separated the inputs of talent and luck in creative careers. They build on the previous work of Sinatra et al which introduced the Q-model. Under the model the popularity of different elements of culture is a product of two factors: a random factor and a Qfactor, or talent. The latter is fixed for an individual but randomly distributed among different people. This way they explain how some individuals can consistently produce high-impact work. They extract the Q-factors for different scientists, writers, and movie makers from statistical data on popularity of their work. However, in their article they reluctantly state that there is little correlation between popularity and quality ratings of of books and movies (correlation coefficients 0.022 and 0.15). I analyzed the data of the original Q-factor article and obtained a correlation between the citation-based Q-factor and Nobel Prize winning of merely 0.19. I also briefly review few other experiments that found a meager, sometimes even negative, correlation between popularity and quality of cultural products. I conclude that, if there is an ability associated with a high Q-factor it should be more of a marketing ability than an ability to produce a higher quality product. Janosov,
Collective Risk Minimization via a Bayesian Model for Statistical Software Testing

In the last four years, the number of distinct autonomous vehicles platforms deployed in the streets of California increased 6-fold, while the reported accidents increased 12-fold. This can become a trend with no signs of subsiding as it is fueled by a constant stream of innovations in hardware sensors and machine learning software. Meanwhile, if we expect the public and regulators to trust the autonomous vehicle platforms, we need to find better ways to solve the problem of adding technological complexity without increasing the risk of accidents. We studied this problem from the perspective of reliability engineering in which a given risk of an accident has severity and probability of occurring. Timely information on accidents is important for engineers to anticipate and reuse previous failures to approximate the risk of accidents in a new city. However, this is challenging in the context of autonomous vehicles because of the sparse nature of data on the operational scenarios (driving trajectories in a new city). Our approach was to mitigate data sparsity by reducing the state space through monitoring of multiple-vehicles operations. We then minimized the risk of accidents by determining proper allocation of tests for each equivalence class. Our contributions comprise (1) a set of strategies to monitor the operational data of multiple autonomous vehicles, (2) a Bayesian model that estimates changes in the risk of accidents, and (3) a feedback control-loop that minimizes these risks by reallocating test effort. Our results are promising in the sense that we were able to measure and control risk for a diversity of changes in the operational scenarios. We evaluated our models with data from two real cities with distinct traffic patterns and made the data available for the community.
Nonanoic acid, other alkanoic acids, and related compounds as antifeedants in Hylobius abietis pine weevils

A medium‐length, straight‐chain alkanoic acid, nonanoic acid, is known from laboratory microassays to be an antifeedant in adults of the large pine weevil, Hylobius abietis (L.) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). Our hypothesis was that we could find new, less volatile alkanoic acids or related compounds suitable for field application and with improved long‐term duration. Alkanoic acids of varying chain lengths (C6–C13) were tested for antifeedant activity in H. abietis adults. Microassay choice tests showed that straight‐chain (C6–C11) alkanoic acids were active. However, high activities were restricted to the (C6–C10) acids, with the C9 (nonanoic acid) at 4 µmol cm−2 being the most active one. In a no‐choice test on pine twigs, the antifeedant effect of C10 acid was lower than that of the C8 and C9 acids. In microassays, less volatile methyl‐branched alkanoic acids exhibited lower antifeedant activities than did the corresponding straight‐chain ones. However, the most active of the methyl‐branched acids, 2‐methyldecanoic acid, had an activity similar to that of nonanoic acid. Compounds related to nonanoic acid were either active (1‐nonanol), weakly active (nonanoic anhydride), or inactive (nonanal, sodium nonanoate). The anhydride was highly active in the microassay, but less active on twigs. The antifeedant effects of the straight chain (C8–C10) alkanoic acids against pine weevil feeding were tested in the field. In contrast to the results from the twig tests, the less volatile C10 acid was more active in the field for the protection of transplants on fresh clear cuts over a 3‐month period than both the C8 and C9 acids. Phytotoxic effects of the alkanoic acids were observed both in the field and in laboratory studies. If a protective layer of paraffin was applied to the stem prior to application of the alkanoic acids, these undesired side effects were reduced.
Limit theorems for a random walk with memory perturbed by a dynamical system

We introduce a new random walk with unbounded memory obtained as a mixture of the Elephant Random Walk and the Dynamic Random Walk which we call the Dynamic Elephant Random Walk (DERW). As a consequence of this mixture the distribution of the increments of the resulting random process is time dependent. We prove a strong law of large numbers for the DERW and, in a particular case, we provide an explicit expression for its speed. Finally, we give sufficient conditions for the central limit theorem and the law of the iterated logarithm to hold.
PrimiTect: Fast Continuous Hough Voting for Primitive Detection

This paper tackles the problem of data abstraction in the context of 3D point sets. Our method classifies points into different geometric primitives, such as planes and cones, leading to a compact representation of the data. Being based on a semi-global Hough voting scheme, the method does not need initialization and is robust, accurate, and efficient. We use a local, low-dimensional parameterization of primitives to determine type, shape and pose of the object that a point belongs to. This makes our algorithm suitable to run on devices with low computational power, as often required in robotics applications. The evaluation shows that our method outperforms state-of-the-art methods both in terms of accuracy and robustness.
Neural Entity Linking on Technical Service Tickets

Entity linking, the task of mapping textual mentions to known entities, has recently been tackled using contextualized neural networks. We address the question whether these results — reported for large, high-quality datasets such as Wikipedia — transfer to practical business use cases, where labels are scarce, text is low-quality, and terminology is highly domain-specific.Using an entity linking model based on BERT, a popular transformer network in natural language processing, we show that a neural approach outperforms and complements hand-coded heuristics, with improvements of about 20% top-1 accuracy. Also, the benefits of transfer learning on a large corpus are demonstrated, while fine-tuning proves difficult. Finally, we compare different BERT-based architectures and show that a simple sentence-wise encoding (Bi-Encoder) offers a fast yet efficient search in practice.
Grounding Language in Play

Natural language is perhaps the most versatile and intuitive way for humans to communicate tasks to a robot. Prior work on Learning from Play (LfP) [Lynch et al, 2019] provides a simple approach for learning a wide variety of robotic behaviors from general sensors. However, each task must be specified with a goal image---something that is not practical in open-world environments. In this work we present a simple and scalable way to condition policies on human language instead. We extend LfP by pairing short robot experiences from play with relevant human language after-the-fact. To make this efficient, we introduce multicontext imitation, which allows us to train a single agent to follow image or language goals, then use just language conditioning at test time. This reduces the cost of language pairing to less than 1% of collected robot experience, with the majority of control still learned via self-supervised imitation. At test time, a single agent trained in this manner can perform many different robotic manipulation skills in a row in a 3D environment, directly from images, and specified only with natural language (e.g. "open the drawer.now pick up the block.now press the green button."). Finally, we introduce a simple technique that transfers knowledge from large unlabeled text corpora to robotic learning. We find that transfer significantly improves downstream robotic manipulation. It also allows our agent to follow thousands of novel instructions at test time in zero shot, in 16 different languages. See videos of our experiments at this http URL
Formation of the large nearby galaxies

Observations of the nearby large galaxies that can be examined in particularly close detail suggest that many have small stellar luminosity fractions in bulges and haloes. Simulations of galaxy formation tend to produce considerably larger fractions of the star particles in model bulges, stellar haloes, and more generally in orbits seriously different from circular. The situation might be improved by a prescription for non-Gaussian initial conditions on the scale of galaxies.
A Peer-to-Peer Distributed Secured Sustainable Large Scale Identity Document Verification System With BitTorrent Network And Hash Function

Verifying identity documents from a large Central Identity Database (CIDB) is always challenging and it get more challenging when we need to verify a large number of documents at the same time. Usually most of the time we setup a gateway server connected to the CIDB and it serve all the identity document verification requests. Though it work well, there are still chances that this model will collapse in high traffic. We obviously can tune the system to be sustainable, but the process is economically expensive. In this paper we propose an economically cheaper way to verify ID documents with private BitTorrent network and hash function.