Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
"No Going Back": The Telltale Model as Thought Experiment

Since the release of The Walking Dead in 2012, the "Telltale Model" of interactive narrative has attracted a lot of criticism for providing choices that 'don't matter'. This paper is a response to this discussion taking place both in academia and popular games culture. While Telltale's choices indeed 'don't matter' this overlooks the ways in which they actually function. The Telltale Model works in a way that is analogous to the philosophical thought experiment. It presents a sequential series of moral dilemmas that all communicate a common theme. The penultimate choice in The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 5: No Going Back (2013) performs as a final lesson - testing the player to see if they have properly internalised the themes of the series. It then responds not to the accumulated memory of their choices, but to how they respond to the final 'test' that bookends the series’ many ethical dilemmas. Telltale's choices may not have any long-term consequences, but they do serve an informative pedagogical function - just don't expect Kenny to ever "remember that".
Association of Hormonal Axes Changes with Oxidative Stress in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder for Iraqi Terror Attack Victims

There is accumulating evidence for a link between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and reduced health status. The present study aimed to investigate theassociation of hormonal axes changes with oxidative stress in PTSD patients and control group. Ninety three subjects (82 males, 11 females) witnessed on explosion occurred at 10June 2010 at the exit of public employees in the State Company for Textile Industries in Hilla city of Iraq, as well as fifty subjects (35 males, 15 females) apparently healthy controls as a control groups. Participants were grouped to four groups according to PTSD Checklist (PCL) scores. Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), cortisol, thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), total thyroxine, (T4) total triiodothyronine (T3) and T3/ T4 ratio, were determined using ELISA. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), reduced glutathione (GSH), albumin and lipid peroxidation were determined using spectrophotometric methods. T3was found to be significantly increased in high PCL scores group, whereas ACTH, TSH, T4, T3, T3/ T4 ratio, SOD, GPx, and MDA, found to be insignificantly increase in the present study, whereasCAT, GSH, and albumin 232 Abdulsamie HassanAlta'ee (MSc.) et al showed an insignificant decreased in all groups of PTSD patients, when compared to control group. Cortisol levels were significantly decreased in high PCL symptoms scores groups of PTSD patients, when compared to control group. In conclusion, results may indicate an involvement of mild oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of PTSD due to the dysregulation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and active hypothalamic-pituitarythyroid (HPT) axis.
Jagged-Notch signaling ensures dorsal skeletal identity in the vertebrate face

The development of the vertebrate face relies on the regionalization of neural crest-derived skeletal precursors along the dorsoventral (DV) axis. Here we show that Jagged-Notch signaling ensures dorsal identity within the hyoid and mandibular components of the facial skeleton by repressing ventral fates. In a genetic screen in zebrafish, we identified a loss-of-function mutation in jagged 1b (jag1b) that results in dorsal expansion of ventral gene expression and partial transformation of the dorsal hyoid skeleton to a ventral morphology. Conversely, misexpression of human jagged 1 (JAG1) represses ventral gene expression and dorsalizes the ventral hyoid and mandibular skeletons. We further show that jag1b is expressed specifically in dorsal skeletal precursors, where it acts through the Notch2 receptor to activate hey1 expression. Whereas Jagged-Notch positive feedback propagates jag1b expression throughout the dorsal domain, Endothelin 1 (Edn1) inhibits jag1b and hey1 expression in the ventral domain. Strikingly, reduction of Jag1b or Notch2 function partially rescues the ventral defects of edn1 mutants, indicating that Edn1 promotes facial skeleton development in part by inhibiting Jagged-Notch signaling in ventral skeletal precursors. Together, these results indicate a novel function of Jagged-Notch signaling in ensuring dorsal identity within broad fields of facial skeletal precursors.
Real-Time Pedestrian Detection with Deep Network Cascades

We present a new real-time approach to object detection that exploits the efficiency of cascade classifiers with the accuracy of deep neural networks. Deep networks have been shown to excel at classification tasks, and their ability to operate on raw pixel input without the need to design special features is very appealing. However, deep nets are notoriously slow at inference time. In this paper, we propose an approach that cascades deep nets and fast features, that is both very fast and very accurate. We apply it to the challenging task of pedestrian detection. Our algorithm runs in real-time at 15 frames per second. The resulting approach achieves a 26.2% average miss rate on the Caltech Pedestrian detection benchmark, which is competitive with the very best reported results. It is the first work we are aware of that achieves very high accuracy while running in real-time.
The Decision-Making Process for Complex Situations in a Complex Environment

An ultrasonic tube inspection system is capable of rapid changeover for inspecting tubes of different diameters for flaws of different orientations. The inspection system includes a serial arrangement of multiple separate inspection stations and a plurality of tube inspecting transducer assemblies supported at each inspection station in a predetermined configuration corresponding to the diameter size of the particular tube to be inspected at the respective inspection station without the need for readjustment. The multiple separate inspection stations includes one separate tube dimension inspection station for inspecting tubes irrespective of their different predetermined diameter sizes and a plurality of separate tube flaw inspection stations each for inspecting tubes of a given one of the different predetermined diameter sizes for flaws of different orientations so as to permit rapid changeover from one flaw inspection station to another so that the flaw inspection station will be matched to the diameter size of the tube to be inspected next.
How learning to abstract shapes neural sound representations

The transformation of acoustic signals into abstract perceptual representations is the essence of the efficient and goal-directed neural processing of sounds in complex natural environments. While the human and animal auditory system is perfectly equipped to process the spectrotemporal sound features, adequate sound identification and categorization require neural sound representations that are invariant to irrelevant stimulus parameters. Crucially, what is relevant and irrelevant is not necessarily intrinsic to the physical stimulus structure but needs to be learned over time, often through integration of information from other senses. This review discusses the main principles underlying categorical sound perception with a special focus on the role of learning and neural plasticity. We examine the role of different neural structures along the auditory processing pathway in the formation of abstract sound representations with respect to hierarchical as well as dynamic and distributed processing models. Whereas most fMRI studies on categorical sound processing employed speech sounds, the emphasis of the current review lies on the contribution of empirical studies using natural or artificial sounds that enable separating acoustic and perceptual processing levels and avoid interference with existing category representations. Finally, we discuss the opportunities of modern analyses techniques such as multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) in studying categorical sound representations. With their increased sensitivity to distributed activation changes—even in absence of changes in overall signal level—these analyses techniques provide a promising tool to reveal the neural underpinnings of perceptually invariant sound representations.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND MUTUAL FUND INVESTORS

We present evidence from questionnaire responses of mutual fund investors about recollections of past fund performance. We find that investor memories exhibit a positive bias, consistent with current psychological models. We find that the degree of bias is conditional upon previous investor choice, a phenomenon related to the well-known theory of cognitive dissonance. Psychological and economic frictions in the mutual fund industry are examined via a cross-sectional study of equity mutual funds. We find an unusually high frequency of poorly performing funds, consistent with investor "inertia. " We also examine the differential responses of investment dollars to past performance, controlling for supervisorship. These show that the effect is confined to the top quartile. We find little evidence that the response to poor performance is unusual.
Evaluating the critical determinants for adopting e‐market in Australian small‐and‐medium sized enterprises

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical investigation of the critical determinants for the adoption of e‐market in Australian small‐and‐medium sized enterprises (SMEs) within the technology‐organization‐environment (TOE) framework.Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model is proposed for better understanding the adoption of e‐market in Australian SMEs. Structural equation modelling is used for testing and validating the proposed conceptual model based on the survey data collected from Australian SMEs. A logistic regression analysis is conducted for identifying the relationship between the critical determinants and the adoption of e‐market in Australian SMEs.Findings – A positive relationship is identified between the perceived direct benefit, top management support, external pressure, trust and the adoption of e‐market in Australian SMEs. The top management support emerges as the most critical determinant. The perceived indirect benefit, size and organization readiness, howev.
Capital flows and non-performing loans: An empirical study of the European debt crisis

This study investigates the relationship between capital imports and non-performing loans (NPLs) in the context of the European debt crisis. The empirical analysis is based on a panel data set covering 22 countries in the European Union (EU) between year 2001 and 2014. All individual estimations in the empirical analysis indicate a significant and negative relationship between capital imports and NPLs. The results are robust in the sense that two different estimation techniques were used: the First-difference Arellano-Bond generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators and Ordinary least squares (OLS). The results support other studies, which emphasize the large inflow of debt-type capital in the pre-crisis period from core EU-countries, such as Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, to periphery countries, such as Greece, Ireland and Spain. This dependency on foreign interbank lending turned into severe national liquidity crises – and increased ratios of NPLs – when European banks in in the beginning of the crisis started to squeeze capital inflows to financial institutions in the periphery economies.
DUST IN HISTORIC LIBRARIES

Dust poses a particular challenge for historic libraries, where the quantity of fragile books makes the task of cleaning them labour-intensive, time-consuming and potentially damaging. This project investigates the frequency of cleaning appropriate in historic libraries, by monitoring the distribution of dust across shelves, the risks of high humidity causing cementation, and the usefulness of traditional dust falls (cloth or leather flap covering the gap between book and shelf above). The results enable book-cleaning teams and their managers to understand the relationship between visitors, dust and cementation, and to refine their cleaning regimes.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae , Schizosaccharomyces pombe , Paramecium tetraurelia , Dictyostelium discoideum , and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation and is, therefore, central to evolutionary change. Previous work on the ciliate Paramecium tetraurelia concluded that the presence of a transcriptionally silent germline genome has caused the evolution of a low base-substitution mutation rate in the germline genome of that ciliate. Here, we use mutation accumulation (MA) lines of the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila to test the generality of this result. We find that both ciliates have similar base-substitution mutation rates in their germline genomes. The estimated base-substitution mutation rate cannot account for the observed fitness decline of the MA lines of T. thermophila, suggesting that the fitness decline may be caused by other factors.
Growth performance, hematological and serum characteristics of rabbit fed Moringa oleifera leaves pellets as substitute to commercial concentrate.

A seventy day feeding trial was carried out to determine the effect of Moringa oleifera leaves pellets (PML) on weight gain, production cost and blood profile of weaned rabbits. The PML was substituted to a commercial feed at level of 0, 10 and 15% to obtain respective diets PML0 (control), PML10 and PML15. Forty five weaned rabbits, 35-55 days of age, were allocated to three treatment groups with five replicates in a completely randomized design. Blood was collected from rabbits at different ages. Pellets of M. oleifera were totally consumed. Average daily weigh gains were higher in rabbits fed PML10 and PML15 diets. Feed conversion ratios were better for rabbits fed PML10 and PML15 diets (4.2: 1 and 4.0: 1, respectively). Increasing PML level from 0 to 10% in commercial feed resulted in 17.71% reduction in feed cost, while at 15% of substitution, the cost reduction was about 21.99%. But, serum parameters varied significantly with the age of rabbits. Pellets of M. oleifera can help in the production of cheaper meat of rabbits in developing countries.
Motivations of Diasporans to Become Entrepreneurs

This paper examines diasporans’ motivations to become entrepreneurs. Prior research mostly focuses on elaborating motivations of just one type of diaspora entrepreneur at once. This complicates direct comparisons of motivations between the different types of diaspora entrepreneurs. Thus, this paper aims to provide an overview of their motivational factors differentiated by four different types of diaspora entrepreneurs. Furthermore, previous works treat motivation as a merely qualitative factor, which impedes researchers to measure and process motivational data analytically. Therefore, this paper intends to create numeric relations between those motivational factors by quantifying them. As a result, this article abstracts motivational factors from existing literature and differentiates them according to diaspora entrepreneur type in a synoptical table. Concerning the quantification of motivation, this work suggests to let interviewees rank their motivations according to their importance on a pre-defined scale and to later visualize the preserved results in a bubble table.
When to Use a Cct versus a Ct Approach?

Following initiation of Progresa in Mexico in 1997, there has been an extraordinary proliferation of conditional cash transfers (CCT) programs oriented at social protection across the world. At the Third International Conference on CCT, the World Bank identified programs in progress in 20 countries, with a total annual budget of US$8.25 billion (World Bank, 2006). Many other countries are showing interest in using the approach, as adapted to their particular objectives and circumstances. In spite of this, there remains considerable debate, and some confusion, over when the approach should best be used over competing methodologies. Most particularly, a key aspect of the debate is whether cash transfers (CT) to poor households with children should be made conditional upon a pre-specified behavior by beneficiaries, thus becoming a conditional cash transfer (CCT). To derive maximum benefit from a transfer program, while avoiding disillusions with misplaced expectations about what it can achieve, it is important to clarify what is the true objective of the transfers, and to assess what are the benefits and costs of each approach.
DISSECTING THE RED SEQUENCE. II. STAR FORMATION HISTORIES OF EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES THROUGHOUT THE FUNDAMENTAL PLANE

This analysis uses spectra of ∼16,000 nearby Sloan Digital Sky Survey quiescent galaxies to track variations in galaxy star formation histories (SFHs) along and perpendicular to the fundamental plane (FP). We sort galaxies by their FP properties (σ, Re, and Ie) and construct high signal-to-noise ratio mean galaxy spectra that span the breadth and thickness of the FP. From these spectra, we determine mean luminosity-weighted ages, [Fe/H], [Mg/H], and [Mg/Fe] based on single stellar population models using the method described in Graves and Schiavon. In agreement with previous work, the SFHs of early-type galaxies are found to form a two-parameter family. The major trend is that mean age, [Fe/H], [Mg/H], and [Mg/Fe] all increase with σ. However, no stellar population property shows any dependence on Re at fixed σ, suggesting that σ and not dynamical mass (Mdyn ∝ σ2Re) is the better predictor of past SFH. In addition to the main trend with σ, galaxies also show a range of population properties at fixed σ that are strongly correlated with surface brightness residuals from the FP (Δlog Ie), such that higher surface brightness galaxies have younger mean ages, higher [Fe/H], higher [Mg/H], and lower [Mg/Fe] than lower surface brightness galaxies. These latter trends are a major new constraint on SFHs.
Adverse Effects of Patent Pooling on Product Development and Commercialization

Abstract The conventional wisdom is that the formation of patent pools is welfare enhancing when patents are complementary, since the pool avoids a double-marginalization problem associated with independent licensing. This conventional wisdom relies on the effects that pooling has on downstream prices. However, it does not account for the potentially significant role of the effect of pooling on downstream product development and commercialization. We consider development technologies that entail spillovers between rivals and assume that final-demand products are imperfect substitutes. When pool formation facilitates information sharing and spillovers in development, then decreases in the degree of product differentiation can adversely affect welfare by reducing the incentives towards product development and product market competition – even with perfectly complementary patents. The analysis modifies and even negates the conventional wisdom for some settings and suggests why patent pools are uncommon in science-based industries such as biotech and pharmaceuticals that are characterized by tacit knowledge and incomplete patents.
Implementation issues in the hierarchical composition of performance models of analog circuits

Emerging hierarchical design methodologies based on the use of Pareto-optimal fronts (PoFs) are promising candidates to reduce the bottleneck in the design of analog circuits. However, little work has been reported about how to transmit the information provided by the PoFs of low hierarchical level blocks through the hierarchy to compose the performance models of higher-level blocks. This composition actually poses several problems such as the dependence of the PoF performances on the surrounding circuitry and the complexity of dealing with multi-dimensional PoFs in order to explore more efficiently the design space. To deal with these problems, this paper proposes new mechanisms to represent and select candidate solutions from multi-dimensional PoFs that are transformed to the changing operating conditions enforced by the surrounding circuitry. These mechanisms are demonstrated with the generation of the performance model of an active filter by composing previously generated PoFs of operational amplifiers.
Vitamin D status and pain: analysis from the Health Survey for England among English adults aged 65 years and over

Poor vitamin D status is common in older people and results in osteoporosis; osteomalacia is associated with a wide range of non-communicable diseases and has potential effects on poor health outcomes. Pain is also common in older people and can be substantially disabling. The aim of the present analysis is to investigate associations between serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25(OH)D) and self-reported current symptoms of pain in a cross-sectional, nationally representative sample of 2070 adults aged ≥ 65 years living in the community in England in 2005. Measurements included serum 25(OH)D, pain status and covariates, namely, age, sex, social class, season of examination, use of vitamin supplements and physical health status. Results show that the symptoms of moderate/extreme pain (present in 53 % of the sample) were associated with poor vitamin D status, independent of other covariates. Particular advantages of the present study were the presence of directly measured vitamin D levels and a large and nationally representative sample. Poor vitamin D status is common and an associated risk factor for pain in older people living in northern latitudes. The direction of causation cannot be inferred from a cross-sectional study and further prospective research is required to clarify this. Regardless of the direction of causation, the relationship is potentially of high public health importance because of the adverse impact of both states on well-being. It is important that older people in pain are screened for vitamin D status and provided with appropriate interventions.
Application of Chimera grid concept to simulation of the free-surface boundary condition

Due to the highly oscillatory behavior of the time domain transient Green function, it proves intricate to apply directly the Time Domain Green Function method (TDGF) to seakeeping problems of floating bodies. Though some improved numerical scheme for the fundamental problem has been developed in recent time , no significant development of this approach could be noted. On the other hand, hybrid-type methods were more widely studied and successfully applied to many free surface problems . Commonly used hybrid methods are a combination of a time-domain transient Green function method [10] for the outer domain and a Rankine source method for the inner domain of the fluid. Herein, the quite robust Rankine source method is applied in the inner domain to find the dominant velocity potential equation, while the transient Green function method is used in the outer domain to obtain matching relationships for the velocity potential and its normal derivative between the inner and outer domain solution. In this approach, the free surface needs to be numerically simulated, whereas the captured free surface area needs to be very large for specific problems and the panel size needs to be adjusted to the specific demands of numerical stability. Thus, there is an inherent need for efficient numerical schemes for the treatment of the free surface condition. In this paper, we introduce the Chimera grid concept to efficiently simulate the free surface and to demonstrate its application by use of a hybrid method to the wave resistance problem of a ship-like hull form.