Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Models of Working Memory: Mechanisms of Active Maintenance and Executive Control

Preface Acknowledgements 1. Models of working memory: an introduction Priti Shah and Akira Miyake 2. Working memory: the multiple-component model Alan D. Baddeley and Robert H. Logie 3. An embedded-processes model of working memory Nelson Cowan 4. Individual differences in working memory capacity and what they tell us about controlled attention, general fluid intelligence and functions of the prefrontal cortex Randall W. Engle, Michael J. Kane and Stephen W. Tuholski 5. Modelling working memory in a unified architecture: an ACT-R perspective Marsha C. Lovett, Lynne M. Reder and Christian Lebiere 6. Insights into working memory from the perspective of the EPIC architecture for modelling skilled perceptual-motor and cognitive human performance David E. Kieras, David E. Meyer, Shane Mueller and Travis Seymour 7. The soar cognitive architecture and human working memory Richard M. Young and Richard L. Lewis 8. Long-term working memory as an alternative to capacity models of working memory in everyday skilled performance K. Anders Ericsson and Peter F. Delaney 9. Interacting cognitive subsystems: modelling working memory phenomena within a multiprocessor architecture Philip J. Barnard 10. Working memory in a multilevel hybrid connectionist control architecture (CAP2) Walter Schneider 11. A biologically based computational model of working memory Randall C. O' Reilly, Todd S. Braver and Jonathan D. Cohen 12. Models of working memory: eight questions and some general issues Walter Kintsch, Alice F. Healy, Mary Hegarty, Bruce F. Pennington and Timothy A. Salthouse 13. Toward unified theories of working memory: emerging general consensus, unresolved theoretical issues and future research directions Akika Miyake and Priti Shah Indexes.
Target Expansion Lens: It is Not the More Visual Feedback the Better!

To enhance pointing tasks, target expansion techniques allocate larger activation areas to targets. We distinguish two basic elements of a target expansion technique: the expansion algorithm and the visual aid on the effective expanded targets. We present a systematic analysis of the relevance of the visual aid provided by (1) existing target expansion techniques and (2) Expansion Lens. The latter is a new continuous technique for acquiring targets. Expansion Lens namely, uses a round area centered on the cursor: the lens. The users can see in the lens the target expanded area boundaries that the lens is hovering over. Expansion Lens serves as a magic lens revealing the underlying expansion algorithm. The design rationale of Expansion Lens is based on a systematic analysis of the relevance of the visual aid according to the three goal-oriented phases of a pointing task namely the starting, transfer and validation phases. Expansion Lens optimizes (1) the transfer phase by providing a simple-shaped visual aid centered on the cursor, and (2) the validation phase regarding error rates, by displaying the target expanded area boundaries. The results of our controlled experiment comparing Expansion Lens with four existing target expansion techniques show that Expansion Lens highlights a good trade-off for performance by being the less-error prone technique and the second fastest technique. The experimental data for each phase of the pointing task also confirm our design approach based on the relevance of the visual aid according to the phase of the pointing task.
How the policy mix and its consistency impact innovation: Findings from company case studies on offshore wind in Germany

Transforming the energy system to one with a greater importance of renewable power generation technologies requires redirecting and accelerating technological change. In this transition, so-called policy mixes play a crucial role. Yet precisely how policy mixes affect technological innovation remains poorly understood. To remedy this, in this study we choose a qualitative company case study approach to analyze the innovation impact of the elements of a policy mix - its policy strategy and instrument mix - and their consistency. Taking offshore wind in Germany as research case, we find that the German offshore wind policy mix, its consistency and perceived high credibility have been vital innovation drivers. Specifically, its consistent policy strategy and the consistency of the policy strategy with the instrument mix appear crucial to research, development and demonstration. Still, for this emerging technology to be adopted the policy mix seems to require a consistent and comprehensive instrument mix.
Two essays on investor sentiment and the profitability of contrarian and momentum strategies

TWO ESSAYS ON INVESTOR SENTIMENT AND THE PROFITABILITY OF CONTRARIAN AND MOMENTUM STRATEGIES Changmei Zhang Old Dominion University, 2010 Director: Dr. Licheng Sun This dissertation, by employing different trading strategies, addresses the trading profitability issue in a broad scope of different markets. In the equity market, I construct a group of BUY-SELL portfolios based on prior stock returns, and find that contrarian and momentum strategies are both significantly profitable. Investor sentiment, in addition to firm-specific risks, provides behavioral explanations to the profitability. Three popular sentiment measures are used for the purpose of study: two reduced-formed sentiment indexes that are constructed by Baker and Wurgler (2006) and the survey-based University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. Several interesting findings are revealed: 1) extreme sentiment levels (either optimistic or pessimistic) tend to be followed by higher contrarian profits; 2) momentum profits appear to be negatively related with the lagged average 6-month sentiment levels; 3) former loser stocks are more important in determining the average contrarian profits, while momentum profits largely result from former winner stocks. The results are robust for all three sentiment proxies, and are consistent with the core implications of behavioral models. Specifically, contrarian profits are consistent with the overreaction hypothesis, and momentum profits can be explained by investor overconfidence and self-attribution. In the foreign exchange market, I employ a different Weighted Relative Strength Strategy (a.k.a. WRSS). The WRSS strategies uncover similar profitability: eighteen among sixty-four basic strategies generate significant trading profits, and all of them are momentum. Contrarian profits mostly emerge in the second subperiod from 1999-2007, but none of them is statistically significant. Due to the difficulty of generalizing investor sentiment in the global context, the underlying autocorrelation structure of currency returns and the cross sectional dispersion in mean returns of individual currencies are responsible for the abnormal returns. It is found that the time serial predictability plays a critical role in determining trading profits and accounting for market inefficiency. The profits remain significant even when transaction costs come into effect.
OPTIMAL CONTROL OF A TWO-STAGE TANDEM QUEUING SYSTEM WITH FLEXIBLE SERVERS

We consider the optimal control of two parallel servers in a two-stage tandem queuing system with two flexible servers. New jobs arrive at station 1, after which a series of two operations must be performed before they leave the system. Holding costs are incurred at rate h1 per unit time for each job at station 1 and at rate h2 per unit time for each job at station 2. The system is considered under two scenarios; the collaborative case and the noncollaborative case. In the prior, the servers can collaborate to work on the same job, whereas in the latter, each server can work on a unique job although they can work on separate jobs at the same station. We provide simple conditions under which it is optimal to allocate both servers to station 1 or 2 in the collaborative case. In the noncollaborative case, we show that the same condition as in the collaborative case guarantees the existence of an optimal policy that is exhaustive at station 1. However, the condition for exhaustive service at station 2 to be optimal does not carry over. This case is examined via a numerical study.
A vision based dynamic gesture recognition of Indian Sign Language on Kinect based depth images

Indian Sign Language (ISL) is a visual-spatial language which provides linguistic information using hands, arms, facial expressions, and head/body postures. Our proposed work aims at recognizing 3D dynamic signs corresponding to ISL words. With the advent of 3D sensors like Microsoft Kinect Cameras, 3D geometric processing of images has received much attention in recent researches. We have captured 3D dynamic gestures of ISL words using Kinect camera and has proposed a novel method for feature extraction of dynamic gestures of ISL words. While languages like the American sign language(ASL) are of huge popularity in the field of research and development, Indian Sign Language on the other hand has been standardized recently and hence its (ISLs) recognition is less explored. The method extracts features from the signs and convert it to the intended textual form. The proposed method integrates both local as well as global information of the dynamic sign. A new trajectory based feature extraction method using the concept of Axis of Least Inertia (ALI) is proposed for global feature extraction. An eigen distance based method using the seven 3D key points- (five corresponding to each finger tips, one corresponding to centre of the palm and another corresponding to lower part of palm), extracted using Kinect is proposed for local feature extraction. Integrating 3D local feature has improved the performance of the system as shown in the result. Apart from serving as an aid to the disabled people, other applications of the system also include serving as a sign language tutor, interpreter and also be of use in electronic systems that take gesture input from the users.
The Church vs the Mall: What Happens When Religion Faces Increased Secular Competition?

Recently economists have begun to consider the causes and consequences of religious participation. An unanswered question in this literature is the effect upon individuals of changes in the opportunity cost of religious participation. In this paper we identify a policy-driven change in the opportunity cost of religious participation based on state laws that prohibit retail activity on Sunday, known as %u201Cblue laws. %u201D Many states have repealed these laws in recent years, raising the opportunity cost of religious participation. We construct a model which predicts, under fairly general conditions, that allowing retail activity on Sundays will lower attendance levels but may increase or decrease religious donations. We then use a variety of datasets to show that when a state repeals its blue laws religious attendance falls, and that church donations and spending fall as well. These results do not seem to be driven by declines in religiosity prior to the law change, nor do we see comparable declines in membership or giving to nonreligious organizations after a state repeals its laws. We then assess the effects of changes in these laws on drinking and drug use behavior in the NLSY. We find that repealing blue laws leads to an increase in drinking and drug use, and that this increase is found only among the initially religious individuals who were affected by the blue laws. The effect is economically significant; for example, the gap in heavy drinking between religious and non religious individuals falls by about half after the laws are repealed.
AN EFFICIENT CELLULAR DEVS MODELING ENVIRONMENT

Discrete EVent System specification (DEVS) supports object oriented modeling and simulation environments. DEVS is a sound mathematical formalism for representing complex dynamic systems such as cellular space models. This paper presents a new cellular DEVS environment that employs multilayer modeling technique in order to improve model development and testing processes. In addition, it assures simulation efficiency of the developed models by replacing inter-cell communication messages by direct state access. Using the DEVS formal framework, the new development tool was designed to have automated specification and code generation. Applications to landslide models demonstrated the speedup and scalability attained by the new tool.
The Private Life of Public Health: Managing Chronic Disease in an Era of Neoliberal Governmentality

Title: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF PUBLIC HEALTH: MANAGING CHRONIC DISEASE IN AN ERA OF NEOLIBERAL GOVERNMENTALITY Sara Mae Glasgow, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Directed By: Professor Dennis Pirages Department of Government and Politics Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease and cancer account for over half of the global mortality burden, and are the leading cause of death in every region of the world except Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite this, they remain off the analytical radarscope in political science. This silence has been coupled with the tendency of public health researchers to frame NCDs as apolitical—largely a product of an individual’s risk behaviors. Such an accounting depoliticizes NCDs, as well as public health approaches to their analysis and prevention. This project’s central aim is to introduce a political analysis of chronic disease, demonstrating that public health approaches to NCDs exhibit political rationality. To that end, I explore several questions. How are NCDs accounted in behavioral terms, and how are their risks constructed as apolitical in the public health discourse? Additionally, if public health is presented as a domain of neutral science, how is it that its practices increasingly display market values, including a limited role for the state, a preoccupation with cost efficiency and choice, and the cultivation of the entrepreneurial self who sees her health as a site of investment? To answer these, I employ a discursive approach, specifically Foucault’s framework of government rationality, or “governmentality. ” It is through the deployment of neoliberal governmentality in three spheres – knowledge, power, and subjectivity – that public health reveals itself not a neutral science, but rather one brimming with the values and logic of the private sector. I develop this argument through a critique of the discipline and practices of public health in three cases: the United States, United Kingdom, and Sweden. Despite exhibiting historically different approaches to health and social welfare, all three show a marked manifestation of neoliberal rationality in public health approaches to chronic disease. The consistency of these findings, in addition to the more general features of the public health discourse, thus allow a conclusion that public health approaches to NCDs are not value-neutral, and are indeed a political phenomenon. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF PUBLIC HEALTH: MANAGING CHRONIC DISEASE IN AN ERA OF NEOLIBERAL GOVERNMENTALITY
Evidence for control of Atlantic subtropical humidity by large scale advection

The interplay between large scale dynamics and tropospheric moisture is investigated. A simple conceptual model of the sources and sinks of humidity is used to reconstruct, using a backward Lagrangian trajectory technique, the water vapor distribution in the tropical and subtropical free troposphere. Satellite data in the water vapor channel from both Meteosat‐3 and Meteosat‐4 satellites are then used to validate the model following a model‐to‐satellite approach over the whole Atlantic ocean. There is excellent agreement between simulations and observations in the drier regions, but the simulated brightness temperature exhibits a warm bias within and near moist, convective regions. This bias is most probably due to the neglect of cloud effects in reconstructing the simulated brightness temperature, rather than to a dry bias in the simulation. A second advective simulation, performed with monthly mean rather than full transient winds, led to a substantially drier subtropics. This calculation demonstrates the importance of synoptic scale transient eddies in determining the humidity of the subtropical dry zones. It is speculated on this basis that discontinuous changes in synoptic eddy activity could provide a mechanism for rapid global climate changes.
Expanded study of efn2 thermodynamic model performance on RnaPredict, an evolutionary algorithm for RNA folding

The shape that organic molecules such as biopolymers form within organic systems largely determines the function said molecules perform. RNA is a biopolymer that plays a central part in several stages of protein synthesis, and also has structural, functional, and regulatory roles in the cell. In an ab initio case most common structure prediction techniques employ minimization of the free energy of a given RNA molecule via a thermodynamic model. RnaPredict is an evolutionary algorithm for RNA folding. This paper compares the performance of an advanced thermodynamic model, efn2, against the stacking-energy thermodynamic models INN and INN-HB on a test set containing 24 sequences from 4 rRNA subtypes. The prediction accuracy of efn2 is demonstrated on a majority of test sequences. A comparison is also made with the mfold prediction algorithm which demonstrated RnaPredict's comparable performance.
Relationship between use of general practice and healthcare costs at the end of life: a data linkage study in New South Wales, Australia

Objective This analysis investigated the relationships between healthcare expenditures in the last 6 months of life and use of general practitioner (GP) services in the preceding 12-month period among older residents of New South Wales, Australia. Methods Questionnaire data (2006–2009) for more than 260 000 people aged 45 years and over were linked to individual hospital and death records and cost data. For 14 819 participants who died during follow-up, generalised linear mixed models were used to explore the relationships between costs of hospital, emergency department (ED) and Medicare-funded outpatient and pharmaceutical services in the last 6 months of life, and quintile of GP use in the 18–7 months before death. Analyses were adjusted for age at death, sex, educational level, language, private health insurance, household income, self-reported health status, functional limitation, psychological distress, number of comorbidities and geographic clustering. Results Almost 85% of decedents had at least one hospitalisation in the last 6 months, and the mean (median) of total cost for each person in this period was $A20 453 (14 835). There was no significant difference in the hospital cost, including cost for preventable hospitalisations in the last 6 months of life, across quintiles of GP use in the 18–7 months before death. Participants in the lowest quintile of GP use incurred more ED costs, but ED costs were similar across the other quintiles of GP use. Costs for Medicare-funded outpatient services and pharmaceuticals increased steeply according to quintile of GP use. Conclusions In the Australian setting, there was no association between use of GP services in the 18–7 months before death and hospital costs in the last 6 months, but there was significant association with higher costs for outpatient services and pharmaceuticals. However, there was some indication that limited GP access might be associated with increased ED use at end of life.
Assessment of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education: A Comparative Review of Selected Practices. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 15.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have experienced increasing pressures to provide accountability data and consumer information on the quality of teaching and learning. But existing ratings and rankings of HEIs tend to neglect information on student learning outcomes. Instead, they focus on inputs, activities and research outputs, such as resources used, classes taught, and articles published. Such indicators provide no indication of the degree to which HEIs actually develop the knowledge and skills of their students. In most countries, hardly any comparable information is available on the educational quality of different programmes and institutions. In some countries, approaches to assess higher education learning outcomes have been developed, but little cross-country information is available on the characteristics of the instruments used. This paper provides an overview of experience gained in this domain across OECD and partner countries. Based on illustrative evidence collected for 18 assessment instruments, it examines conceptual, organizational and methodological aspects of existing assessments. It proposes a typology of higher education learning outcomes and reviews the ways in which these have been assessed across countries. Examples are drawn from Australia, Brazil, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. Les institutions d'enseignement superieur sont de plus en plus amenees a rendre des comptes sur la qualite de leurs enseignements et les resultats de leurs etudiants. Mais les methodologies de notation et de classement des universites considerent rarement dans leurs criteres l'information sur les « resultats de l’enseignement », a savoir ce que les etudiants ont vraiment appris au sein de ces institutions. Elles se concentrent plutot sur les inputs, activites, et outputs, tels que les ressources mobilisees, les cours enseignes et le nombre d'articles publies. Cependant, ces indicateurs ne permettent pas de determiner dans quelle mesure les universites contribuent au developpement des connaissances et des competences de leurs etudiants. Dans la plupart des pays, il y a peu d'information disponible pour comparer la qualite educative des differents programmes et institutions. Dans certains pays, des approches ont ete developpees pour mesurer la qualite de l'enseignement dans les universites, mais peu d'etudes offrent une comparaison internationale des differents instruments utilises. Ce papier presente un apercu des experiences dans ce domaine au sein de l'OCDE et des pays partenaires. A partir de donnees illustratives concernant 18 tests, il examine des aspects conceptuels, organisationnels et methodologiques des instruments d'evaluation existants. Le papier identifie differents types de resultats de l’enseignement et etudie la facon dont ceux-ci sont evalues dans les differents pays. Cette etude s'appuie sur des exemples provenant de l’Australie, du Bresil, du Mexique, du Royaume-Uni et des Etats-Unis.