Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regional relationships among the low vowels of U.S. English: Evidence from production and perception

Abstract The unconditioned merger of the low back vowels and the variety of realizations found for the low front vowel have been noted as leading to greater distinctiveness across U.S. English regional dialects. The extent to which the movements of these vowels are related has repeatedly been of interest to dialectology as well as phonological theory. Here, examining production and perception data from speaker-listeners across three major regions of the United States, the relationships among these low vowels within and across regions are investigated. Participants provided speech samples and took part in a vowel identification task, judging vowels along a continuum from /æ/ to /ɑ/. Results of acoustic analysis and statistical analysis of the perception results indicate that a structural relationship between /æ/ and /ɑ/ is maintained across regions and that listeners’ own degree of low back vowel merger predicts their perception of the boundary between /æ/ and /ɑ/.
The Effects of a Hyperandrogenic Prenatal Environment on Early and Later Life Social and Non-Social Behaviour

The Effects of a Hyperandrogenic Prenatal Environment on Early and Later Life Social and Non-Social Behaviour Cameron Wasson Advisor: Dr. Elena Choleris University of Guelph, 2017 Co-Advisor: Dr. Neil MacLusky Gonadal sex hormones, such as testosterone (T) and estradiol (E2), are instrumental for sexual differentiation. During development, these hormones give rise to sexually dimorphic features and behaviour. Subsequently, hormones have activational effects on sexually dimorphic behaviors throughout adulthood. Most behavioral research has focused on activational effects, leaving the developmental effects less understood. In particular, the developmental effects of T on social behaviors, such as social approach and social recognition (SR), as well as non-SR memory (object recognition (OR), are little understood. In this study, we sought to elucidate how exposure to heightened levels of prenatal T interacts with later-life activational effects to enhance or impair social and non-social cognition. We treated pregnant CD1 mice with 10μg of testosterone propionate (TP) or the oil injection vehicle, on embryonic days 12, 14 and 16. Prior to puberty (PD 34-42), mice were tested in (A) SA: measuring innate preference for sociability; (B) SR: measuring the ability for an individual to discern a novel conspecific from previously encountered mouse; and (C) OR: measuring item declarative/recognition memory. Mice were then gonadectomised (GDX) or sham operated and given hormone replacement (12.5μg E for females or T for males). Mice were re-tested in SA, SR, and OR as adults. Overall, all mice showed an innate preference for the social stimulus (measured by SA). Pre-puberty we found that increased T exposure in-utero had an enhancing effect on males in OR and in both males and females in SR. In adulthood, we found that males, but not females, who received T replacement during adulthood and were exposed to heighted levels of prenatal TP performed worse in the OR test than T-replaced males who were not prenatally TP exposed. Prenatal control T replacement males outperformed prenatal control female E replacement in OR. SR, by contrast, was impaired in males. In GDX males that did not receive T replacement, prenatal TP exposure worsened performance compared to males that did not receive prenatal T. Overall, we found that exposure to a heighted levels of TP in-utero interacts with sex hormone manipulations in adulthood to produce sexually differentiated effects on OR and SR.
Cross Layer Design for Enhanced Quality Routing in Personal Wireless Networking

With more and more consumer devices becoming capable of wireless communication, the need for good quality ad hoc networking becomes more imminent. Self-configuring and self-adapting multi-hop networking will provide an excellent solution for wireless personal area networks (WPAN) as well as wireless home networks. In such networks, scalability is rarely believed to be a real issue. Instead, the issues are related to the end-to-end quality due to wireless links with constantly and rapidly changing quality. Hence, the network layer not only needs to adapt accurately but also in time. This paper looks into the design of accurate and fast wireless link quality assessment (LQA) options. We investigate the possibility to use cross layer information to improve this process which can be used by the routing layer to adapt faster and more accurately to changing situations. Experiments are done and the result shows the importance of adapting the new LQA options.
Epidemic MRSA clone ST22-IV is more resistant to multiple host- and environment-related stresses compared with ST228-I.

BACKGROUND ST22-IV is a successful hospital-associated MRSA clone. Due to its known ability to replace other MRSA clones in hospitals, it became a dominant clone in Europe and beyond. So far, there are no studies investigating the relationship between the epidemiological success of MRSA clones and their capacity to withstand commonly encountered stresses. METHODS We investigated the fitness of ST22-IV in comparison with the replaced clone ST228-I, evaluating its resistance to oxidative stress, autolytic activity, growth at high osmolarity and in acid and alkaline environments and survival under desiccation and heat shock. We also compared their phenotypic characteristics and examined the impact of antibiotic consumption on epidemiological success. RESULTS Here we demonstrate that the dominance of ST22-IV is linked neither to changes in antibiotic consumption nor to acquisition of additional resistances over time. Strong α-haemolysin activity, the production of β-haemolysin and the presence of an active agr could partly explain the virulence of ST22-IV previously observed in a murine model of pneumonia. Most importantly, we show that ST22-IV compared with ST228-I, besides retaining susceptibility to most antibiotics over time, has a superior capacity to survive under all stress conditions tested, which bacteria commonly face during their life cycle. CONCLUSIONS Our results support our hypothesis that ST22-IV has a fitness advantage over ST228-I. This fitness advantage could have allowed ST22-IV to displace ST228-I without acquiring additional resistances and could help explain its epidemic success in hospital settings and its spread in Europe and beyond.
Conservative Management of Idiopathic Clubfoot: Kite versus Ponseti Method

Purpose. To compare the long-term results of the Kite and Ponseti methods of manipulation and casting for clubfoot. Methods. 42 patients (with 64 idiopathic clubfeet) were equally randomised to Kite or Ponseti treatments in the early weeks of life. 14 males and 7 females (34 clubfeet) were treated by the Kite method, whereas 13 males and 8 females (30 clubfeet) were treated by the Ponseti method. All the clubfeet were manipulated, casted, and followed up (for a mean of 3 years) by one experienced orthopaedic surgeon. The final results were compared. Results. The success rates for the Kite and Ponseti treatments were similar (79% vs 87%). With the Ponseti method, the number of casts was significantly fewer (7 vs 10); the duration of casting required to achieve full correction was significantly shorter (10 vs 13 weeks); the maximum ankle dorsiflexion achieved was significantly greater (12 vs 6 degrees); and the incidence of residual deformity and recurrence was slightly lower. Conclusion. The Ponseti method can achieve more rapid correction and ankle dorsiflexion with fewer casts, without weakening the Achilles tendon.
Surfactant protein C peptides with salt-bridges (“ion-locks”) promote high surfactant activities by mimicking the α-helix and membrane topography of the native protein

Background. Surfactant protein C (SP-C; 35 residues) in lungs has a cationic N-terminal domain with two cysteines covalently linked to palmitoyls and a C-terminal region enriched in Val, Leu and Ile. Native SP-C shows high surface activity, due to SP-C inserting in the bilayer with its cationic N-terminus binding to the polar headgroup and its hydrophobic C-terminus embedded as a tilted, transmembrane α-helix. The palmitoylcysteines in SP-C act as ‘helical adjuvants’ to maintain activity by overriding the β-sheet propensities of the native sequences. Objective. We studied SP-C peptides lacking palmitoyls, but containing glutamate and lysine at 4-residue intervals, to assess whether SP-C peptides with salt-bridges (“ion-locks”) promote surface activity by mimicking the α-helix and membrane topography of native SP-C. Methods. SP-C mimics were synthesized that reproduce native sequences, but without palmitoyls (i.e., SP-Css or SP-Cff, with serines or phenylalanines replacing the two cysteines). Ion-lock SP-C molecules were prepared by incorporating single or double Glu−–Lys+ into the parent SP-C’s. The secondary structures of SP-C mimics were studied with Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and PASTA, an algorithm that predicts β-sheet propensities based on the energies of the various β-sheet pairings. The membrane topography of SP-C mimics was investigated with orientated and hydrogen/deuterium (H/D) exchange FTIR, and also Membrane Protein Explorer (MPEx) hydropathy analysis. In vitro surface activity was determined using adsorption surface pressure isotherms and captive bubble surfactometry, and in vivo surface activity from lung function measures in a rabbit model of surfactant deficiency. Results. PASTA calculations predicted that the SP-Css and SP-Cff peptides should each form parallel β-sheet aggregates, with FTIR spectroscopy confirming high parallel β-sheet with ‘amyloid-like’ properties. The enhanced β-sheet properties for SP-Css and SP-Cff are likely responsible for their low surfactant activities in the in vitro and in vivo assays. Although standard 12C-FTIR study showed that the α-helicity of these SP-C sequences in lipids was uniformly increased with Glu−–Lys+ insertions, elevated surfactant activity was only selectively observed. Additional results from oriented and H/D exchange FTIR experiments indicated that the high surfactant activities depend on the SP-C ion-locks recapitulating both the α-helicity and the membrane topography of native SP-C. SP-Css ion-lock 1, an SP-Css with a salt-bridge for a Glu−–Lys+ ion-pair predicted from MPEx hydropathy calculations, demonstrated enhanced surfactant activity and a transmembrane helix simulating those of native SP-C. Conclusion. Highly active SP-C mimics were developed that replace the palmitoyls of SP-C with intrapeptide salt-bridges and represent a new class of synthetic surfactants with therapeutic interest.
The Impact of Cooperation Defaults on Voluntary Contributions to Public Goods

This paper reports evidence from an experiment that was conducted to test the influence of non-binding default rules on voluntary cooperation. We find that contributions to a public good increase significantly when a cooperative default is implemented. Non-binding defaults particularly influence contribution decisions of participants with lower levels of cognitive reflection whereas contributions of participants with high CRT scores are virtually unaffected. Compared to an environment with uncooperative contribution default, cooperative default options increase subjects’ earnings independent of their individual levels of contribution. This suggests that cooperation defaults can effectively be used as a welfare-enhancing policy in the spirit of “libertarian paternalism”.
The "instructed-teacher": a computer science online learning pedagogical pattern

This paper describes a computer science specific pedagogical pattern that has emerged from conducting a three semester design-research project investigating teaching computing online. The "Instructed-Teacher" pedagogical pattern distinguished itself as an effective interactive strategy for eliciting and developing students' mental models. The pattern is presented and key observations regarding its implementation are shared. The teaching and research context is described in order to assist transferability and inform validity.
CEACAM5-Targeted Therapy of Human Colonic and Pancreatic Cancer Xenografts with Potent Labetuzumab-SN-38 Immunoconjugates

Purpose: To improve the efficacy and reduce the gastrointestinal toxicity of the cancer prodrug, CPT-11, we have developed immunoconjugates of its active form, SN-38, and an anti-CEACAM5 antibody for targeted chemotherapy. Experimental Design: SN-38 conjugates of the anti-CEACAM5 monoclonal antibody, labetuzumab (hMN-14), varying in the nature of the cross-linker attachment at the drug's 20-hydroxyl position, were evaluated in vitro, in metastatic and/or s.c. human colonic and pancreatic cancer xenografts in nude mice using appropriate controls, and in a CEACAM5-negative tumor model. Results: A pilot study in a s.c. LS174T model of human colonic carcinoma established the relative effectiveness of different conjugates. In the lung metastatic model of GW-39 human colonic carcinoma in nude mice, therapy with two specific labetuzumab-SN-38 conjugates, using 0.25 mg SN-38 equivalent/kg, q4d × 8, significantly extended median survival time versus controls (P < 0.002). In an expanded evaluation in the s.c. LS174T xenograft model, specific SN-38 conjugates produced significant tumor growth control and increases in median survival time versus other controls, including CPT-11 at a 33-fold greater cumulative dose (P < 0.01). An improvement was also observed in the therapy of a s.c. human pancreatic tumor xenograft. In a CEACAM5-negative systemic lymphoma xenograft, one labetuzumab-SN-38 conjugate examined was ineffective, whereas the conjugate specific for the tumor model produced 100% survival. Conclusions: The promising labetuzumab-SN-38 conjugates developed showed selective therapeutic efficacy in human tumor models at nontoxic doses that were a fraction of the CPT-11 doses used. (Clin Cancer Res 2009;15(19):6052–61)
Being a “Good” Son and a “Good” Daughter: Voices of Muslim Immigrant Adolescents

In the last decade, a growing empirical work has focused on adaptation processes of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries who live in the West, particularly Muslim youth born and/or educated in Western countries. The current study explored how Muslim boys and girls immigrated from Morocco, Egypt and Pakistan negotiate their identity on the base of interiorized social and cultural in-group norms associated to the representation of a “good” son and a “good” daughter within the resettlement society. Participants were 45 Muslim immigrant adolescents (30 females, 15 males) coming from Morocco, Egypt and Pakistan, who were interviewed through an in-depth semi-structured interview. Thematic analysis carried out on the interview transcripts permitted to identify four themes and thirteen subthemes, revealing interesting differences based on participants’ gender and country of origin. The quality of being obedient and respectful of parents’ desires was a significant common topic among all participants, although it was differently articulated by girls and boys. For girls, norms and expectations were strictly modeled around staying at home and preserving heritage culture. For boys, a heavy mandate—that is, gaining educational success in order to become the breadwinner—weights on them. Implications of these gender-based challenges are discussed in relation to specific vulnerabilities experienced by young Muslims living in Western society.
Introduction to the Special Issue with some reflections on the role of self-control in Situational Action Theory

In recent years, Per-Olof Wikström’s Situational Action Theory (SAT) (for example, Wikström, 2010; Wikström et al., 2012) has become one of the most-examined crime theories among European criminologists interested in crime causation. Although devised as a tool to explain rule-breaking behaviour in general, most contemporary applications deal with its potential to account for the formation of criminal or delinquent conduct. The theory’s key argument is that the interaction between an individual with a certain crime propensity and a setting with a certain criminogeneity triggers a perception–choice process that immediately governs action. Therewith SAT represents both a broad and a deep theory.1 It is broad in the sense that it successfully integrates person-oriented and environment-oriented explanations of criminal conduct. It is deep in the sense that it illuminates the mechanism that brings about criminal behaviour. A distinct feature is the theory’s focus on the interactive interplay of the various factors and processes involved in crime causation. ‘It’s all about interactions’ (Wikström et al., 2012) excellently describes the theory’s central credo. This implies a shift from the study of the unconditional effects of various influencing entities to their conditional effects, which runs through all articles included in this Special Issue of the European Journal of Criminology. In the first contribution to this issue, Wikström and colleagues provide a thorough introduction to SAT and preferred ways of testing it. Then they employ neural network
The moderating role of top management support on employees’ attitudes in response to human resource development efforts

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships among human resource development (HRD) efforts, top management support, and employees’ attitudes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) in the Korean context. Based on the Korean Human Capital Corporate Panel survey data, 3,899 responses from 159 large companies were analyzed by adopting hierarchical multiple regression analysis and a regression-based path analysis. The results indicated that HRD efforts positively affected organizational commitment through job satisfaction. In addition, job satisfaction had a moderated mediation effect on the interaction of HRD efforts and top management support on organization commitment. Finally, top management support moderates the relationship between HRD efforts and employees’ attitudes such that increased top management support for HRD efforts improves employees’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
Evapotranspiration Measurement and Crop Coefficient Estimation over a Spring Wheat Farmland Ecosystem in the Loess Plateau

Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important component of the surface energy balance and hydrological cycle. In this study, the eddy covariance technique was used to measure ET of the semi-arid farmland ecosystem in the Loess Plateau during 2010 growing season (April to September). The characteristics and environmental regulations of ET and crop coefficient (Kc) were investigated. The results showed that the diurnal variation of latent heat flux (LE) was similar to single-peak shape for each month, with the largest peak value of LE occurring in August (151.4 W m−2). The daily ET rate of the semi-arid farmland in the Loess Plateau also showed clear seasonal variation, with the maximum daily ET rate of 4.69 mm day−1. Cumulative ET during 2010 growing season was 252.4 mm, and lower than precipitation. Radiation was the main driver of farmland ET in the Loess Plateau, which explained 88% of the variances in daily ET (p<0.001). The farmland Kc values showed the obvious seasonal fluctuation, with the average of 0.46. The correlation analysis between daily Kc and its major environmental factors indicated that wind speed (Ws), relative humidity (RH), soil water content (SWC), and atmospheric vapor pressure deficit (VPD) were the major environmental regulations of daily Kc. The regression analysis results showed that Kc exponentially decreased with Ws increase, an exponentially increased with RH, SWC increase, and a linearly decreased with VPD increase. An experiential Kc model for the semi-arid farmland in the Loess Plateau, driven by Ws, RH, SWC and VPD, was developed, showing a good consistency between the simulated and the measured Kc values.
In vivo Insufficient to Promote Tumor Growth , but Is In vitro Invasion and Anchorage-Independent Growth FRA-1 Proto-Oncogene Induces Lung Epithelial Cell

FRA-1 forms activator protein-1 complexes in association with members of the JUN family and drives gene transcription. FRA-1 has been implicated in the development of airway squamous metaplasia and is frequently overexpressed in squamous cell carcinomas of the esophagus and stomach. We and others have shown a high level of persistent induction of FRA-1 by lung carcinogens, such as cigarette smoke and asbestos, in pulmonary epithelial cells. However, the exact roles of FRA-1 in regulating lung epithelial cell growth and invasion are poorly understood. To examine this aspect, we have stably overexpressed FRA-1 in human type-II–like alveolar malignant cell line (A549) and a nonmalignant bronchial epithelial cell line (BEAS-2B). FRA-1 greatly enhanced the rate of proliferation, motility, and invasion of A549 and BEAS-2B cells. In athymic nude mice, FRA-1, but not the control vector, rapidly enhanced tumor formation and metastasis by A549 cells. In contrast, FRA-1 failed to promote tumor formation by BEAS-2B. We suggest that FRA-1 can promote motility, invasion, and anchorage-independent growth of lung epithelial cells in vitro , but is insufficient for tumor formation. [Cancer Res 2007;67(13):6204–11]
The Empirical Base of Linguistics: Grammaticality Judgments and Linguistic Methodology

Though judgments of gfammaticality have played a central role in linguistic research, particularly from the beginning of the generative era, no consensus has emerged as to how these judgments arise, what relevance they have to core features of the human linguistic system, or how they are best collected. Disagreements notwithstanding, Schiitze's book demonstrates that there exists a surprisingly large literature on grammaticality judgments and shows that this literature provides a great deal of quite helpful data and analysis. From his review he derives many insights and suggestions for those researchers who wish to use judgment data with due care for its limitations, and provides a sound framework for further investigations that might make grammaticality judgment data more useful still. Schiitze's work is thorough, even-handed, and insightful. It provides an excellent beginning point for any serious work in this area. Schiitze sets out to show that for all their conspicuous and apparently unshakable centrality in modem linguistic research there are many very real, demonstrable problems with conventional means of collecting and using judgment data. Via a thoroughgoing review of the existing literature he also aims to construct a preliminary account of the nature of the judgment process. This account is intended to go some way towards explaining the vexing instability in judgment data that various writers have noticed, and to serve as the foundation for a set of suggestions on better methods for collecting and analyzing judgment data. One of Schiitze's central concerns is to address the idea that making grammaticality judgments is a cognitive oddity, a peculiar capacity that relies on at least somewhat different resources than does ordinary language use in comprehension and production. As a Lvorking hypothesis he makes the suggestion that all of the variables that confound judgments of grammaticality have parallel effects in some nonlinguistic domain. If true, this would suggest that all of the confounding factors are extralinguistic and that judgments are determined only by ordinary linguistic processes plus general cognitive mechanisms. Some of the stiffer challenges this hypothesis faces come from phonetic and pragmatic phenomena. In auditory presentations, subtle differences in vowel quality that might signal dialect distinctions can almost certainly affect judgments given to sentences. Similarly, it does not seem farfetched to suggest that various pragmatic manipulations bearing on communicative