Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Local Shading Analysis

Local analysis of image shading, in the absence of prior knowledge about the viewed scene, may be used to provide information about the scene. The following has been proved. Every image point has the same image intensity and first and second derivatives as the image of some point on a Lambertian surface with principal curvatures of equal magnitude. Further, if the principal curvatures are assumed to be equal there is a unique combination of image formation parameters (up to a mirror reversal) that will produce a particular set of image intensity and first and second derivatives. A solution for the unique combination of surface orientation, etc., is presented. This solution has been extended to natural imagery by using general position and regional constraints to obtain estimates of the following: ¿ surface orientation at each image point; ¿ the qualitative type of the surface, i.e., whether the surface is planar, cylindrical, convex, concave, or saddle; ¿ the illuminant direction within a region. Algorithms to recover illuminant direction and estimate surface orientation have been evaluated on both natural and synthesized images, and have been found to produce useful information about the scene.
Attention, Preference, and Identity in Music Listening by Middle School Students of Different Linguistic Backgrounds

Monolingual (English) and bilingual (English, Spanish) sixth-grade students (N = 60) from two urban school settings in the United States listened to three versions of the same song (English, Spanish, and instrumental). While listening to each example, students tapped a computer touch pad every time they became distracted from the music. After listening, students described the nature of their distractions, and rated each song version for preference and identity. Finally, students were asked to describe the reason for their preference decisions. Analysis revealed no significant difference between monolingual and bilingual students in the number of self-reported distractions. However, there were significant differences by song version, with fewer reported distractions for the instrumental version. Qualitative and quantitative differences in distractions were noted between monolingual and bilingual students. There was a significant positive correlation between identity and preference. Bilingual students preferred and identified most closely with the Spanish version; monolingual students preferred and identified most closely with the instrumental version.
The TARES Test: Five Principles for Ethical Persuasion

Whereas professional persuasion is a means to an immediate and instrumental end (such as increased sales or enhanced corporate image), ethical persuasion must rest on or serve a deeper, morally based final (or relative last) end. Among the moral final ends of journalism, for example, are truth and freedom. There is a very real danger that advertisers and public relations practitioners will play an increasingly dysfunctional role in the communications process if means continue to be confused with ends in professional persuasive communications. Means and ends will continue to be confused unless advertisers and public relations practitioners reach some level of agreement as to the moral end toward which their efforts should be directed. In this article we advance a five-part test (the TARES test) that defines this moral end, establishes ethical boundaries that should guide persuasive practices, and serves as a set of action-guiding principles directed toward a moral consequence in professional persuasion. The TARES Test consists of five principles: Truthfulness (of the message), Authenticity (of the persuader), Respect (for the persuadee), Equity (of the persuasive appeal) and Social Responsibility (for the common good). We provide checklists to guide the practitioner in moral reflection and application of TARES Test principles.
PromDrum - Exploiting the prosody-gesture link for intuitive, fast and fine-grained prominence annotation

Most prominence annotation methods have certain drawbacks. Simple binary scales may be too coarse to capture fine-grained prominence differences, and multi-level annotation schemes have been shown to be time-consuming and difficult to use for non-expert annotators. This study proposes a novel method for fine-grained and fast prominence annotation by exploiting the prosody-gesture link. On a sentence-by-sentence basis, native German participants were instructed to listen to audio recordings and reiterate them by beating on an electronic drum pad either once per syllable (experiment 1) or once per word (experiment 2), modulating the strength of each beat according to how strongly the syllable or word stood out in the sentence. The velocity profiles of MIDI outputs were then interpreted as correlates of perceived prominence and compared with fine-grained prominence ratings by three expert annotators. While wordlevel drumming showed high correlations to conventional ratings for some of the subjects, inexperienced participants often had considerable difficulty performing the task. Syllable-level drumming, on the other hand, proved to be a time-efficient and intuitive method for experienced and naive subjects alike. Especially by pooling velocity results from several participants to create mean values, it was possible to maintain high levels of correlation with expert prominence ratings.
Can trait patterns along gradients predict plant community responses to climate change?

Plant functional traits vary consistently along climate gradients and are therefore potential predictors of plant community response to climate change. We test this space-for-time assumption by combining a spatial gradient study with whole-community turf transplantation along temperature and precipitation gradients in a network of 12 grassland sites in Southern Norway. Using data on eight traits for 169 species and annual vegetation censuses of 235 turfs over 5 yr, we quantify trait-based responses to climate change by comparing observed community dynamics in transplanted turfs to field-parameterized null model simulations. Three traits related to species architecture (maximum height, number of dormant meristems, and ramet-ramet connection persistence) varied consistently along spatial temperature gradients and also correlated to changes in species abundances in turfs transplanted to warmer climates. Two traits associated with resource acquisition strategy (SLA, leaf area) increased along spatial temperature gradients but did not correlate to changes in species abundances following warming. No traits correlated consistently with precipitation. Our study supports the hypothesis that spatial associations between plant traits and broad-scale climate variables can be predictive of community response to climate change, but it also suggests that not all traits with clear patterns along climate gradients will necessarily influence community response to an equal degree.
Emergency Surgical Pulmonary Embolectomy

Emergency surgical pulmonary embolectomy is a highly effective treatment for selected patients with pulmonary embolism. Rapid noninvasive diagnostic modalities allow proper patient selection based on anatomic location of the emboli, right heart function, and contraindications to thrombolysis. Operative results are a direct reflection of the preoperative hemodynamic status, the degree of underlying cardiopulmonary disease, and attention to minimizing surgical trauma and protecting the right heart. An operative mortality of 10% or less and excellent long-term outcomes can be expected if the procedure is performed prior to cardiovascular collapse as part of a multidisciplinary strategy which emphasizes careful patient selection, rapid diagnosis, triage, and transport.
Subtyping of developmental motor deficits

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether subtypes of developmental motor deficits could be identified: specifically, one with impairments in motor planning that would be characterized by deficits in gestural performance and motor sequencing and a second with impairments in the execution of motor skills that would be characterized by deficits in balance and coordination. Subjects included 102 children between the ages of 6 years and 10 years, 11 months, 51 who had been identified as displaying deficits in motor skills and 51 normal controls. Hierarchical‐agglomerative and iterative partitioning cluster analyses using measures of balance, bilateral coordination, upper limb coordination, transitive gestures, and motor sequencing revealed four subtypes. One group displayed deficits in motor sequencing, whereas another demonstrated deficits in balance, coordination, and gestural performance. In addition, a third group of children showed severe deficits in all motor skill areas, and a final group ha.
The Use of Emotions in Social Work Education

The role of emotions, although central to social work practice, has been relatively neglected in the process of teaching and learning social work. This article explores how social work educators can incorporate an understanding of the role of emotions in both the teaching and practice of social work. Attention is drawn toward evolutionary and developmental perspectives, emotional regulation, and the current treatment of emotions in the educational context. Further, the article explores the role of optimal emotional arousal in the learning and retention of social work curriculum and its concurrent relational implications for practice.
Transition pedagogy: A third generation approach to FYE - A case study of policy and practice for the higher education sector

Current research and practice related to the first year experience (FYE) of commencing higher education students are still mainly piecemeal rather than institution-wide with institutions struggling to achieve cross-institutional integration, coordination and coherence of FYE policy and practice. Drawing on a decade of FYE-related research including an ALTC Senior Fellowship and evidence at a large Australian metropolitan university, this paper explores how one institution has addressed that issue by tracing the evolution and maturation of strategies that ultimately conceptualize FYE as “everybody's business. ” It is argued that, when first generation co-curricular and second generation curricular approaches are integrated and implemented through an intentionally designed curriculum by seamless partnerships of academic and professional staff in a whole-of-institution transformation, we have a third generation approach labelled here as transition pedagogy. It is suggested that transition pedagogy provides the optimal vehicle for dealing with the increasingly diverse commencing student cohorts by facilitating a sense of engagement, support and belonging. What is presented here is an example of transition pedagogy in action.
Spatial and temporal characteristics of poloidal waves in the terrestrial plasmasphere : a CLUSTER case study

Abstract. Oscillating magnetic field lines are frequently observed by spacecraft in the terrestrial and other planetary magnetospheres. The CLUSTER mission is a very suitable tool to further study these Alfven waves as the four CLUSTER spacecraft provide for an opportunity to separate spatial and temporal structures in the terrestrial magnetosphere. Using a large scaled configuration formed by the four spacecraft we are able to detect a poloidal Ultra-Low-Frequency (ULF) pulsation of the magnetic and electric field in order to analyze its temporal and spatial structures. For this purpose the measurements are transformed into a specific field line related coordinate system to investigate their specific amplitude pattern depending on the path of the CLUSTER spacecraft across oscillating field lines. These measurements are then compared with modeled spacecraft observations across a localized poloidal wave resonator in the dayside plasmasphere. A detailed investigation of theoretically expected poloidal eigenfrequencies allows us to specify the observed 16 mHz pulsation as a third harmonic oscillation. Based on this we perform a case study providing a clear identification of wave properties such as an spatial scale structure of about 0.67 R E , the azimuthal wave number m ≈30, temporal evolution, and energy transport in the detected ULF pulsations.
Factors affecting trust in police in Turkey

Law enforcement administrators generally evaluate their performance using statistics related to crime control. These statistics are important indicators for measuring performance, but it is also crucial to measure of public opinions toward the police. This study examines the determinants of public trust in the police. Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS) Round 4, for the analysis, a total sample of 2,416 persons is selected from respondents from Turkey. The study provides a snapshot of citizens’ perceptions toward law enforcement. Overall, the results of this study regarding the demographic variables, including age, gender, marital status, and education, were consistent with previous research and proved to be significantly related to trust in the police. Surprisingly, perceived victimization failed to show a significant relationship. However, important predictors included perceived fear of crime and trust in the political system, which had significant impacts on public trust in the police. Especially, fear of crime was a significant predictor of satisfaction with police. Effective crime control and lowering crime rates are considered the core functions of law enforcement by citizens. Therefore, perceived effectiveness in fighting crime can lower individual fear of crime and thus increase satisfaction with law enforcement.
Comparison Between Capillary Electrophoresis and High Performance Liquid Chromatography for Detection and Quantification of Hb Constant Spring [Hb CS; α142, Term→Gln (TAA>CAA IN α2)]

Hb Constant Spring [Hb CS; α142, Term→Gln (TAA>CAA in α2)] is often missed by routine laboratory testing since its mRNA as well as gene product are unstable and presented at a low level in peripheral blood. This study aimed to analyze the efficacy of capillary electrophoresis (CE) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for detecting and quantifying Hb CS in 19 heterozygotes and 14 homozygotes with Hb CS as well as 10 Hb H-CS disease subjects who were detected by molecular analysis. In the CE electrophoregram, Hb CS was seen at zone 2 and was observed in all samples, while the chromatogram of Hb CS peaks was found in 26.32% heterozygotes, 42.86% homozygotes and 90% Hb H-CS disease subjects, respectively. In addition, the Hb CS levels in each group of subjects quantified by CE were significantly higher than those quantified by HPLC. Based on the CE method, the lowest Hb CS level was found in the heterozygotes, whereas the highest level was found in the Hb H-CS disease patients. Therefore, the CE method was superior to the HPLC method for detecting Hb CS. Furthermore, the level of Hb CS quantified by CE proved useful in screening heterozygotes and homozygotes with Hb CS as well as Hb H-CS disease.
The Geopolitics of Migration and Mobility

Migration has long been a barometer of geopolitics, from human displacement generated by war to containment practices in particular territories or camps. When I first wrote about the “geo-politics of mobility”, I brought displaced migrants into focus with states’ attempts to contain them and prevent them from seeking asylum (Hyndman, 1997). The idea that states manage migrants, and that migrants aim to subvert such tactics, is not necessarily new. Meanings of migration and the shifts in dominant geopolitical discourses across space and over time, however, have changed dramatically. The securitisation of migration, in particular, is a defining feature of current geopolitics, and a small industry of scholarship critical of these deeply exclusionary and reactionary ‘homeland’ politics has emerged in response to it (Coleman, 2009; Cowen and Gilbert, 2008; Huysmans, 2006; Squire, 2009). Many of the papers in this issue of Geopolitics illustrate such efforts, and show how migration is the medium of geopolitics as we know it. My brief commentary on geopolitics here seeks not to create a linear story of progression or a new theory of geopolitics. Rather, I along with the authors in this issue aim to interrupt dominant thinking and practice in three main ways: first, by bringing geopolitics to bear on biopolitics in relation to migration; second, by displacing attention on borders to the crossers of borders themselves; and in a related vein, third, by shifting focus from state-defined subjects (as objects of analysis) to emerging techniques of governance and/or government(ality) (Huysmans, 2006). In particular, I eschew any particular pattern or mapping of geopolitics that effaces the multiple relations of power that produce that pattern (Sparke, 2005, p. xxix):
vanI: a novel d-Ala-d-Lac vancomycin resistance gene cluster found in Desulfitobacterium hafniense

The glycopeptide vancomycin was until recently considered a drug of last resort against Gram‐positive bacteria. Increasing numbers of bacteria, however, are found to carry genes that confer resistance to this antibiotic. So far, 10 different vancomycin resistance clusters have been described. A chromosomal vancomycin resistance gene cluster was previously described for the anaerobic Desulfitobacterium hafniense Y51. We demonstrate that this gene cluster, characterized by its d‐Ala‐d‐Lac ligase‐encoding vanI gene, is present in all strains of D. hafniense, D. chlororespirans and some strains of Desulfosporosinus spp. This gene cluster was not found in vancomycin‐sensitive Desulfitobacterium or Desulfosporosinus spp. , and we show that this antibiotic resistance can be exploited as an intrinsic selection marker for Desulfitobacterium hafniense and D. chlororespirans. The gene cluster containing vanI is phylogenetically only distantly related with those described from soil and gut bacteria, but clusters instead with vancomycin resistance genes found within the phylum Actinobacteria that include several vancomycin‐producing bacteria. It lacks a vanH homologue, encoding a D‐lactate dehydrogenase, previously thought to always be present within vancomycin resistance gene clusters. The location of vanH outside the resistance gene cluster likely hinders horizontal gene transfer. Hence, the vancomycin resistance cluster in D. hafniense should be regarded a novel one that we here designated vanI after its unique d‐Ala‐d‐Lac ligase.
Parental Origin of Interstitial Duplications at 15q11.2-q13.3 in Schizophrenia and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Duplications at 15q11.2-q13.3 overlapping the Prader-Willi/Angelman syndrome (PWS/AS) region have been associated with developmental delay (DD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia (SZ). Due to presence of imprinted genes within the region, the parental origin of these duplications may be key to the pathogenicity. Duplications of maternal origin are associated with disease, whereas the pathogenicity of paternal ones is unclear. To clarify the role of maternal and paternal duplications, we conducted the largest and most detailed study to date of parental origin of 15q11.2-q13.3 interstitial duplications in DD, ASD and SZ cohorts. We show, for the first time, that paternal duplications lead to an increased risk of developing DD/ASD/multiple congenital anomalies (MCA), but do not appear to increase risk for SZ. The importance of the epigenetic status of 15q11.2-q13.3 duplications was further underlined by analysis of a number of families, in which the duplication was paternally derived in the mother, who was unaffected, whereas her offspring, who inherited a maternally derived duplication, suffered from psychotic illness. Interestingly, the most consistent clinical characteristics of SZ patients with 15q11.2-q13.3 duplications were learning or developmental problems, found in 76% of carriers. Despite their lower pathogenicity, paternal duplications are less frequent in the general population with a general population prevalence of 0.0033% compared to 0.0069% for maternal duplications. This may be due to lower fecundity of male carriers and differential survival of embryos, something echoed in the findings that both types of duplications are de novo in just over 50% of cases. Isodicentric chromosome 15 (idic15) or interstitial triplications were not observed in SZ patients or in controls. Overall, this study refines the distinct roles of maternal and paternal interstitial duplications at 15q11.2-q13.3, underlining the critical importance of maternally expressed imprinted genes in the contribution of Copy Number Variants (CNVs) at this interval to the incidence of psychotic illness. This work will have tangible benefits for patients with 15q11.2-q13.3 duplications by aiding genetic counseling.
Cultural Differences of Service Quality and Behavioral Intention in Tourist Hotels

ABSTRACT There is very little experimental evidence about whether or not tourists' perceptions of service quality and behavioral intention are alike regardless of culture. To investigate this issue, 282 tourists were administered a questionnaire soliciting their opinions on service quality and behavioral intentions from 26 countries. The results of this empirical study suggested that there was a significant perceived difference toward all dimensions of service quality among three cultural groups. The English Heritage group perceived better service quality than the Asian and European groups. The behavioral intentions on which the significantly different perceptions turned up included “loyalty,” “pay more,” and “external response. ” Differences in the behavioral intention variables of “switch” and “internal response,” were not significant across cultures. Then, the relationship between service quality and behavioral intention among three cultural groups was tested by LISREL. The results indicated that tourists from English heritage cultures perceived better service quality than either the Asian and European groups in the dimensions of tangibles, reliability, and empathy, but only perceived better than the Asian group in the dimensions of responsiveness and assurance. Managerial implications of these findings, and recommendations for practitioners and marketers, could be used to allocate managerial resources and develop marketing strategies for dealing with culturally diverse clientele populations.
Speaker adaptive training for deep neural networks embedding linear transformation networks

Recently, a novel speaker adaptation method was proposed that applied the Speaker Adaptive Training (SAT) concept to a speech recognizer consisting of a Deep Neural Network (DNN) and a Hidden Markov Model (HMM), and its utility was demonstrated. This method implements the SAT scheme by allocating one Speaker Dependent (SD) module for each training speaker to one of the intermediate layers of the front-end DNN. It then jointly optimizes the SD modules and the other part of network, which is shared by all the speakers. In this paper, we propose an improved version of the above SAT-based adaptation scheme for a DNN-HMM recognizer. Our new training adopts a Linear Transformation Network (LTN) for the SD module, and such LTN employment leads to more appropriate regularization in both the SAT and adaptation stages by replacing an empirically selected anchorage of a network for regularization in the preceding SAT-DNN-HMM with a SAT-optimized anchorage. We elaborate the effectiveness of our proposed method over TED Talks corpus data. Our experimental results show that a speaker-adapted recognizer using our method achieves a significant word error rate reduction of 9.2 points from a baseline SI-DNN recognizer and also steadily outperforms speaker-adapted recognizers, each of which originates from the preceding SAT-based DNN-HMM.