Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Uses, motivations and community attachment of social internet users

The ability of the Internet t.0 connect users across diverse locations has resulted in the use of the Internet for social purposes, such as to communicate and interact with others online. This has created the need to study the impact of the Internet on community attachment. Motivated by conflicting views relating to the impact of the Internet on community attachment, this study addresses the relationship from a social perspective, in order to investigate the motivations for social Internet usc and to assess the impact of social Internet use community attachment. A quantitative design was utilised and a self administered questionnaire employed to capture data on usage patterns, motivations for social Internet use and community attachment. Stepwise regression analysis was used within the data analysis stage of the study to determine the predictors of online community attachment, while factor analysis was performed on the motivations scale to identify underlying dimensions. T~tests and ANOVA were then used to determine the impact of social Internet activity on community attachment levels. The findings reveal that online community attachment can be predicted by seven variables. In particular, it found that motivations and type of activity performed online were the strongest predictors. In relation to community attachment and social Internet use, the study reinforces the dystopian perspective towards the impact of the Internet on community attachment and highlights the underlying motivations for social Internet use, providing depth to this finding.
Crew roles and operational protocols for rotary-wing micro-UAVs in close urban environments

A crew organization and four-step operational protocol is recommended based on a cumulative descriptive field study of teleoperated rotary-wing micro air vehicles (MAV) used for structural inspection during the response and recovery phases of Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. The use of MAVs for real civilian missions in real operating environments provides a unique opportunity to consider human-robot interaction. The analysis of the human-robot interaction during 8 days, 14 missions, and 38 flights finds that a three person crew is currently needed to perform distinct roles: Pilot, Mission Specialist, and Flight Director. The general operations procedure is driven by the need for safety of bystanders, other aircraft, the tactical team, and the MAV itself, which leads to missions being executed as a series of short, line-of-sight flights rather than a single flight. Safety concerns may limit the utility of autonomy in reducing the crew size or enabling beyond line-of-sight-operations but autonomy could lead to an increase in flights per mission and reduced Pilot training demands. This paper is expected to contribute to set a foundation for future research in HRI and MAV autonomy and to help establish regulations and acquisition guidelines for civilian operations. Additional research in autonomy, interfaces, attention, and out-of-the-loop (OOTL) control is warranted.
Urban adolescents’ cognitive responses to peer victimization: Does psychosocial adjustment play a role?

URBAN ADOLESCENTS’ COGNITIVE RESPONSES TO PEER VICTIMIZATION: DOES PSYCHOSOCIAL ADJUSTMENT PLAY A ROLE? by Amie Bettencourt, M.S. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010 Major Director: Albert Farrell, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology Peer victimization is characterized by acts of physical, relational, and verbal aggression that can contribute to maladjustment. Youths’ responses to peer victimization are guided by social information-processing (SIP) skills that impact their adjustment. Maladjustment can contribute to biases in SIP. Biased processing occurs when youth rely on existing schemas without attending to cues from the immediate social context. These processing deficits contribute to the enactment of problematic responses that may lead to further maladjustment. However, not all youth exhibit SIP deficits. A recent study identified four adjustment clusters based on differences in aggression, anxiety, depression, social acceptance, and victimization within a predominantly African American sample of adolescents (Sullivan & Farrell, 2008). These clusters included aggressive-victims, passivevictims, neglected youth, and well-adjusted youth. Data suggest that cluster membership influences SIP and responses to peer victimization. This study used latent profile analysis (LPA) and the Articulated Thoughts in Simulated Situations (ATSS) paradigm, a think-aloud approach to cognitive assessment, to examine differences in SIP between well-adjusted youth and subgroups of maladjusted youth in response to simulated peer victimization situations. Participants included a primarily African American sample of 523 sixth grade students who completed a series of self-report measures of adjustment. LPA identified a four-class solution that included: Aggressive-victims, Aggressors, Passive-victims, and Well-adjusted youth. This model closely approximated the clusters previously identified. However, the current solution includes a purely aggressive group whereas the prior solution contained a neglected group. A sub-sample of 176 students was then randomly selected to complete ATSS interviews. Logistic regression was used to examine SIP pattern differences across the groups. As hypothesized, aggressors and aggressive-victims were more likely to report intentions to engage in physical aggression compared to well-adjusted youth. In addition, aggressors were more likely to report beliefs that it is ok to fight in response to physical aggression compared to their well-adjusted peers. Further, well-adjusted youth were more likely to report intentions to behave nonviolently compared to their maladjusted peers. However, six of the ten hypotheses were not supported. Additional findings related to gender differences and situation-specific SIP patterns were identified. These findings have important implications for violence prevention interventions.
Task Structure and User Attributes as Elements of Human-Robot Interaction Design

Recent developments in humanoid robotics have made possible technologically advanced robots and a vision for their everyday use as assistants in the home and workplace. Nonetheless, little is known about how we should design interactions with humanoid robots. In this paper, we argue that adaptation for user attributes (in particular gender) and task structure (in particular a competitive vs. a cooperative structure) are key design elements. We experimentally demonstrate how these two elements affect the user's social perceptions of ASIMO after playing an interactive video game with him
Selective attention in the honeybee optic lobes precedes behavioral choices

Significance Attention, observed in a wide variety of animals from insects to humans, involves selectively attending to behaviorally relevant stimuli while filtering out other stimuli. We designed a paradigm that allowed us to record brain activity in tethered, walking bees selecting virtual visual objects. We found that stimulus-specific brain activity increased when the bees controlled the position of the visual objects, and that activity decreased when bees were not in control. When bees were presented with competing objects, brain activity in the optic lobes preceded behavioral choices; this suggests that in animals with tiny brains, such as bees, attention-like processes are pushed far out into the sensory periphery. This trait is likely important for efficiently navigating complex visual environments. Attention allows animals to respond selectively to competing stimuli, enabling some stimuli to evoke a behavioral response while others are ignored. How the brain does this remains mysterious, although it is increasingly evident that even animals with the smallest brains display this capacity. For example, insects respond selectively to salient visual stimuli, but it is unknown where such selectivity occurs in the insect brain, or whether neural correlates of attention might predict the visual choices made by an insect. Here, we investigate neural correlates of visual attention in behaving honeybees (Apis mellifera). Using a closed-loop paradigm that allows tethered, walking bees to actively control visual objects in a virtual reality arena, we show that behavioral fixation increases neuronal responses to flickering, frequency-tagged stimuli. Attention-like effects were reduced in the optic lobes during replay of the same visual sequences, when bees were not able to control the visual displays. When bees were presented with competing frequency-tagged visual stimuli, selectivity in the medulla (an optic ganglion) preceded behavioral selection of a stimulus, suggesting that modulation of early visual processing centers precedes eventual behavioral choices made by these insects.
Tuning Phrase-Based Segmented Translation for a Morphologically Complex Target Language

This article describes the Aalto University entry to the English-to-Finnish shared translation task in WMT 2015. The system participates in the constrained condition, but in addition we impose some further constraints, using no language-specific resources beyond those provided in the task. We use a morphological segmenter, Morfessor FlatCat, but train and tune it in an unsupervised manner. The system could thus be used for another language pair with a morphologically complex target language, without needing modification or additional resources.
Trends and issues in developmental psychology

Some people may be laughing when looking at you reading in your spare time. Some may be admired of you. And some may want be like you who have reading hobby. What about your own feel? Have you felt right? Reading is a need and a hobby at once. This condition is the on that will make you feel that you must read. If you know are looking for the book enPDFd trends and issues in developmental psychology as the choice of reading, you can find here.
Comparison of Mast Burkholderia Cepacia, Ashdown + Gentamicin, and Burkholderia Pseudomallei Selective Agar for the Selective Growth of Burkholderia Spp.

Reliable identification of pathogenic Burkholderia spp. like Burkholderia mallei and Burkholderia pseudomallei in clinical samples is desirable. Three different selective media were assessed for reliability and selectivity with various Burkholderia spp. and nontarget organisms. Mast Burkholderia cepacia agar, Ashdown + gentamicin agar, and B. pseudomallei selective agar were compared. A panel of 116 reference strains and well-characterized clinical isolates, comprising 30 B. pseudomallei, 20 B. mallei, 18 other Burkholderia spp. , and 48 nontarget organisms, was used for this assessment. While all B. pseudomallei strains grew on all three tested selective agars, the other Burkholderia spp. showed a diverse growth pattern. Nontarget organisms, i.e., nonfermentative rod-shaped bacteria, other species, and yeasts, grew on all selective agars. Colony morphology did not allow unambiguous discrimination. While the assessed selective media reliably allowed the growth of a wide range of B. pseudomallei strains, growth of other Burkholderia spp. is only partially ensured. Growth of various nontarget organisms has to be considered. Therefore, the assessed media can only be used in combination with other confirmative tests in the diagnostic procedure for the screening for melioidosis or glanders.
Generalized one-dimensional t-J models with longer-range spin exchange.

The behavior of holes in the one-dimensional (1D) t-J model differs substantially from the one in planar correlated systems. We show that within the 1D model one can recover some essential properties of 2D systems by including longer-range spin exchange. Be means of analytical calculations for the anisotropic exchange and the exact diagonalization of small systems, it is established that this generalization leads to the large mass enhancement for a single hole, to the hole binding at strongly reduced J/t, and to substantial changes in the phase diagram at electron densities n≤1
Common-acoustical-pole and zero modeling of head-related transfer functions

Use of a common-acoustical-pole and zero model is proposed for modeling head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) for various directions of sound incidence. The HRTFs are expressed using the common acoustical poles, which do not depend on the source directions, and the zeros, which do. The common acoustical poles are estimated as they are common to HRTFs for various source directions; the estimated values of the poles agree well with the resonance frequencies of the ear canal. Because this model uses only the zeros to express the HRTF variations due to changes in source direction, it requires fewer parameters (the order of the zeros) that depend on the source direction than do the conventional all-zero or pole/zero models. Furthermore, the proposed model can extract the zeros that are missed in the conventional models because of pole-zero cancellation. As a result, the directional dependence of the zeros can be traced well. Analysis of the zeros for HRTFs on the horizontal plane showed that the nonminimum-phase zero variation was well formulated using a simple pinna-reflection model. The common-acoustical-pole and zero (CAPZ) model is thus effective for modeling and analyzing HRTF's.
The relation of hubs to the Doddington zoo in speaker verification

In speaker verification systems there exists the well-known phenomenon of speakers which are very problematic to verify and have been given various metaphoric animal names. Our work connects this so-called `Doddington zoo' and the animals of the whole `biometric menagerie' to the problem of `hubs' in high dimensional data spaces, which was recently the topic of a number of publications in the machine learning literature. Due to a general problem of measuring distances in high dimensional data spaces, hub objects emerge which have a high similarity to a large number of data items. This is a novel aspect of the `curse of dimensionality' which adversely affects classification and identification performance. In a series of experiments we try to understand the `Doddington zoo' problem with respect to the notions of hubs and anti-hubs.
Fabrication and Properties of Alkaline Lignin / Poly (Vinyl Alcohol) Blend Membranes

Membranes were prepared from alkaline lignin and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) by a film casting method, and their properties were evaluated. These blend membranes can aptly be termed as green by nature as they are totally non-toxic and eco-friendly. The optimal mass ratio was determined based on the mechanical properties of membranes. The microstructure, mechanical properties, oxygen and carbon dioxide transmission, light transmittance, and thermal stability of the membranes were investigated. The blend membrane exhibited better thermal stability and barrier performance to oxygen and carbon dioxide than a PVA membrane due to the incorporation of alkaline lignin. Both tensile strength and elongation at break were increased with increasing mass fraction of alkaline lignin up to 15%, at which point the maximum of tensile strength and elongation at break were 43.65 MPa and 211.6%, respectively. The blockage of visible light at 600 nm was 62.36%, which was an improvement of 314.90% compared with the PVA membrane (13.36%). Based on this result, we suggest that the mechanical properties of blend membrane containing 15% alkaline lignin are excellent and better than PVA membrane (40.26 MPa, 179.37%). Thus, an alkaline lignin/PVA blend membrane was judged to be potentially suitable as an eco-friendly packing material.
Expression of VEGF, iNOS, and eNOS is increased in cochlea of diabetic rat

Conclusion. The results of this study indicate that diabetes causes up-regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS), which may be involved in the pathogenesis of cochlea functional loss. Objective. To investigate the underlying mechanisms that may be responsible for diabetic microangiopathy in the inner ear, we studied the expression of VEGF, iNOS, and eNOS in the streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rat cochlea. Materials and methods. The immunofluorescence studies were performed by using FITC-labelled specific antibodies to VEGF, iNOS, and eNOS on paraffin sections of the cochlea. The expression levels of VEGF, iNOS, and eNOS were quantified by means of Western blot analysis of cochlea protein extracts. Evans blue (EB) was used to investigate blood–labyrinth barrier (BLB) permeability in the cochlea. Results. Increased cochlear expression of VEGF, iNOS, and eNOS was detected in the diabetic rat. Furthermore, increased permeability of BLB was evidenced by increased cochlear EB extravasation in the diabetic rat.
Morbidity and mortality in sickle cell pregnancies in Lagos, Nigeria: A case control study

Summary Women with sickle cell disorder are historically known to have significant maternal and perinatal complications but recent studies from developed countries show a change in this trend. This study was a retrospective, case-controlled study of 75 women with haemoglobin SS (HbSS) and 150 with haemoglobin AA (HbAA). Data were analysed using χ2-test and independent t-test as appropriate. There were more perinatal (18.7 vs 8.8, p < 0.05) and maternal (5.3% vs 0, p < 0.05) deaths in HbSS women compared with HbAA. Birth weight, gestational age at delivery and 1 and 5 min Apgar scores were also significantly lower in the HbSS women. There was no significant difference in the incidence of pre-eclampsia and urinary tract infection between the two groups. Pregnancy in HbSS women is still fraught with maternal and fetal complications. Prospective studies may help clarify the relationship between SCD and specific maternal complications.
Face, Harmony, and Social Structure: An Analysis of Organizational Behavior Across Cultures

Face, Harmony, and Social Structure continues author P. Christopher Earley's investigations of the differences among people within organizations in different cultures. The concept of "face," as set forth by Earley, is a reflection of the individual's struggle for self-definition and understanding, of which a key component is a positioning of self relative to others is a social setting. Face is at the heart of social behavior and provides a consistent linking mechanism to understand behavior across cultures. Earley uses this concept of face as a basis for examination of cross-cultural organizational behavior from an individual's personal perspective. In this work, he develops a mid-range theory of individual behavior, self-concept, and interpersonal process in an effort to explain cultural differences in organizational settings. He sets up a cross-level model, and then attempts to provide a single coherent force--"face"--as an engine driving the entire system that can be used to integrate various social and organizational mechanisms in predicting people's behavior. This understanding of how and why people behave certain ways is a critical tool for studying the impact of individual behavior on the functioning of organizations. Earley's work represents a new theory of self-presentation and face within a cross-cultural context, integrating a cross-level approach ranging from the individual to the organization and to the societal levels of discussion. Face, Harmony, and Social Structure is a truly interdisciplinary work that brings elements of psychology, sociology, and anthropology to organizational studies. It will be illuminating reading for professionals and scholars of management and organizational behavior, as well as to academics in cross-cultural psychology and anthropology.
The Making of High Performance Athletes: Discipline, Diversity, and Ethics

Highly skilled athletes are produced by technologies of training which seek to create the athlete as a singular identity. Yet the disciplinary model of modern sport is consistently disrupted by the diversity and hybridity of the participants. Using Foucault's work on disciplinary power as a theoretical framework, Debra Shogan, an academic in sports ethics and a coach of high performance athletes, examines the ways in which athletes are produced through technologies of training and the ethical issues which emerge when demands to improve performance envelopes athletes, coaches, administrators and sports scientists in decisions about how far to push the limits of performance. Making the case for a new, postmodern sports ethic, Shogan shows how the juxtaposition of hybrid athletes with the homogenizing technologies of sport discipline opens up spaces for questioning, refusing, and perhaps creating new ways of participating in sport.
SARS Coronavirus E Protein in Phospholipid Bilayers: An X-Ray Study

Abstract We investigated the structure of the hydrophobic domain of the severe acute respiratory syndrome E protein in model lipid membranes by x-ray reflectivity and x-ray scattering. In particular, we used x-ray reflectivity to study the location of an iodine-labeled residue within the lipid bilayer. The label imposes spatial constraints on the protein topology. Experimental data taken as a function of protein/lipid ratio P/L and different swelling states support the hairpin conformation of severe acute respiratory syndrome E protein reported previously. Changes in the bilayer thickness and acyl-chain ordering are presented as a function of P/L, and discussed in view of different structural models.
Private Information and the Option to Not Sue: A Reevaluation of Contract Remedies

In this paper, we study contracts with two-sided incomplete information. Prior literature on contract remedies does not formally account for the nonbreaching party's option to not sue for damages upon breach, when her expected payoff from suing is negative, given the contractual terms and her private information about her post-breach loss. With this option incorporated into the analysis, we show that: First, courts should commit to awarding fixed damages, because awarding flexible damages based on ex post information will distort the incentives to breach. This result is not driven by the information-forcing effect of basing damages on ex ante expectations, a la Hadley vs. Baxendale, rather it is driven by the endogenous decision to litigate breach. Second, the option of acquiescing to the breach expands the breach set under specific performance, which can be more efficient than other remedies. Third, the efficiency advantage of ex ante expectation damages over ex post actual damages is further enhanced when we account for the possibility of renegotiation. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Yale University. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.