Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Plant Yourself Where Language Blooms: Direct Experience of Nature Changes How Parents and Children Talk about Nature

Abstract:The current study investigated the affordances of direct and indirect experience of nature on parent-child talk. Parents and children produced a wider range of nature words when exploring a park (direct experience) than when exploring a thematically matched indoor visitor center (indirect experience). Parents and children also produced more plant-related nature word types when exploring the park compared to the visitor center. Findings suggest that direct experience of nature increases the diversity and specificity of parent-child talk about nature, and mitigates the phenomenon of “plant blindness” (cf. Wandersee & Schussler, 1999). Direct experience of nature provides an optimal context for children to learn the language of nature and consequently to cultivate children's status as custodians of the natural world.
Cross-Taxa Similarities in Affect-Induced Changes of Vocal Behavior and Voice in Arboreal Monkeys

Measuring the affective state of an individual across species with comparable non-invasive methods is a current challenge in animal communication research. This study aims to explore to which extent affect intensity is conveyed in the vocal behaviours of three nonhuman primate species (Campbell's monkeys, De Brazza's monkeys, red-capped mangabeys), which vary in body size, ecological niche and social system. Similarly in the three species, we experimentally induced a change in captive social groups' affect by locking all group members together in their outside enclosure. The two experimental conditions which varied in affect intensity consisted in imposing a pre-reunion 90 mn-separation by splitting up the respective group into two subgroups (High affect condition) or not (Low affect condition). We measured call rates as well as voice features at the time of reunion in both conditions. The three studied species reacted in a very similar way. Across species, call rates changed significantly between the behaviourally defined states. Furthermore, contact call duration and, to some extent, voice pitch increased. Our results suggest, for the first time in arboreal Old World monkeys, that affect intensity is conveyed reliably in vocal behaviour and specific acoustic characteristics of voice, irrespective of body size and ecological niche differences between species. Cross-taxa similarities in acoustic cues of affect intensity point to phylogenetic constraints and inheritance from a common ancestor, whereas variations in vocal behaviour and affect intensity-related acoustic cues between species may be an adaptation to specific social requirements and depend on social systems. Our findings as well as a comparison with published works on acoustic communication in other vertebrate groups support the hypothesis that affect intensity in human voice originates from precursors already found deep inside the vertebrate phylogeny.
The use of a developmental continuum in early childhood clinical experiences: building preservice teachers’ knowledge of cognitive development

ABSTRACT The quality of early caregiving and educational environments has a significant effect on children’s later cognitive outcomes. Early childhood teachers are an important determining factor in the quality of these environments and therefore they need appropriate professional preparation. The purpose of this study was to describe the ways in which early childhood preservice teachers learn about children’s cognitive development and developmentally appropriate pedagogical practices at three select universities. Participants included preservice teachers and faculty members. The researcher collected and analysed data from interviews, documents, and surveys. Participants from this study proposed preservice teachers gained knowledge about children’s cognitive development as well as learned how to use this knowledge in their pedagogical practices by participating in clinical experiences that targeted a developmental continuum approach.
Flooding Features for the AODV Protocol under the Different Communication Distances

In ad hoc mobile networks (MANET), the mobility and traffic patterns for each node are complicated factors that significantly affects the effectiveness and performance of ad hoc routing protocols. In this paper, we focused on the flooding performance of the AODV routing protocol using ns-2 network simulator under different communication distances, and extracted propagation property of RREQ and RREP packets. Our simulation results explored the following features. Firstly, the long distance communication assists the establishment of end-to-end communication in the sparse mobile node condition, while degrading the RREQ communication performance caused by the packet collision. Secondly, the communication distance of each density has the effective range in the average propagation rate of RREP. Thirdly, the value of TCP performance could be kept highest in density under stationary condition, given the communication distances tuned. Finally, under mobile condition, maximum range generating the high TCP performance should be tunes even under the increased RREQ packets and the occurrence of packet collisions.
Applying Permutation Tests for Assessing the Statistical Significance of Wrapper Based Feature Selection

Feature selection is commonly used in bioinformatics applications, such as gene selection from DNA micro array data. Recently, wrapper methods have been proposed as an improvement over traditionally used filter based feature selection methods. In wrapper methods, the goodness of a feature set is often measured using the cross-validation performance of a machine learning method trained with the features. This can lead to over fitting, meaning that the cross-validation performance on the final selected feature set may be high even in cases when the selected features in fact are not informative. Evaluating the statistical significance of gained results is therefore of major concern. Non-parametric permutation tests have been previously used as a univariate filter for selecting individual features. In contrast, we propose using such tests to measure the statistical significance of the whole selection process, which is carried out by a wrapper method. We achieve computational efficiency by using a regularized least-squares based wrapper method, which combines a state-of-the-art classifier with matrix calculus based computational shortcuts for greedy forward feature selection. Permutation tests prove to be a practical tool for estimating the significance of gained results, as shown in simulations and experiments on two DNA micro array data sets.
When are 'Female' Occupations Paying More?

We compare the importance of occupational gender segregation for the gender wage gap in East and West Germany in 1995 using a sample of social-security wage records of full-time workers. East Germany, which features a somewhat higher degree of occupational segregation, has a gender wage gap on the order of one fifth of the West German gap. Segregation is not related to the West German wage gap, but in East Germany, wages of both men and women are higher in predominantly female occupations. East German female employees apparently have better observable and unobservable characteristics than their male colleagues. These findings are in contrast to a large U.S. literature, but are consistent with the imposition of high wage levels in East Germany at the outset of reforms and the selection of only high-skill women into employment. Finally, conditioning on unobservable labor quality differences using the longitudinal dimension of the data, there is a negligible impact of segregation in both parts of Germany.
A method for 21 cm power spectrum estimation in the presence of foregrounds

The technique of 21 cm tomography promises to be a powerful tool for estimating cosmological parameters, constraining the epoch of reionization, and probing the so-called dark ages. However, realizing this promise will require the extraction of a cosmological power spectrum from beneath overwhelmingly large sources of foreground contamination. In this paper, we develop a unified matrix-based framework for foreground subtraction and power spectrum estimation, which allows us to quantify the errors and biases that arise in the power spectrum as a result of foreground subtraction. We find that existing line-of-sight foreground subtraction proposals can lead to substantial mode mixing as well as residual noise and foreground biases, whereas our proposed inverse-variance foreground subtraction eliminates noise and foreground biases, gives smaller error bars, and produces less correlated measurements of the power spectrum. We also numerically confirm the intuitive belief in the literature that 21 cm foreground subtraction is best done using frequency rather than angular information.
The First Cross-Lingual Challenge on Recognition, Normalization, and Matching of Named Entities in Slavic Languages

This paper describes the outcomes of the first challenge on multilingual named entity recognition that aimed at recognizing mentions of named entities in web documents in Slavic languages, their normalization/lemmatization, and cross-language matching. It was organised in the context of the 6th Balto-Slavic Natural Language Processing Workshop, co-located with the EACL 2017 conference. Although eleven teams signed up for the evaluation, due to the complexity of the task(s) and short time available for elaborating a solution, only two teams submitted results on time. The reported evaluation figures reflect the relatively higher level of complexity of named entity-related tasks in the context of processing texts in Slavic languages. Since the duration of the challenge goes beyond the date of the publication of this paper and updated picture of the participating systems and their corresponding performance can be found on the web page of the challenge.
Synergism of interleukin 6 and 1α,25‐dihydroxyvitamin D3 in induction of myeloid differentiation of human leukemic cell lines

Interleukin 6 (IL‐6) is a multifunctional cytokine with an important role in immunity. We analyzed the effect of recombinant human IL‐6 in combination with 1α,25‐dihydroxyvitamin D3 (Vit. D3) on differentiation of the human myeloid leukemic cell lines U937 and HL‐60 with respect to alterations in antigen expression and functional activity. Of a panel of antigens analyzed, only CD11b (the α chain of CR3), and GD14 (a cell surface protein recognizing the lipopolysaccharide‐binding protein‐lipopolysaccharide complex) had significantly increased expression. Expression of ICAM‐1 (CD54), a ligand for LFA‐1, was also found to be enhanced with a concomitant increase of ICAM‐1 mRNA levels. Enhanced nonspecific esterase levels and induction of respiratory burst activity confirmed that cell differentiation was induced. Furthermore, IL‐6 and Vit. D3 had a profound effect on functional activities, as shown by enhancement of rosetting between sheep erythrocytes, sensitized with C3bi (EAC), and either U937 or HL‐60 cells. Also, phorbol myristate acetate–induced homotypic adhesion of U937, which is ICAM‐1 dependent, was markedly induced by these agents. These results indicate an important role of IL‐6 and Vit. D3 in myeloid cell Function and development.
Front-end filtering and quantisation effects on GNSS signal processing

Traditionally, the effects of presampling filtering and of quantisation on the processing of GNSS signals have been dealt with in isolation. Analysis of the losses incurred during the quantisation process has almost invariably been based on the assumption that the signals at IF are distorted by additive white Gaussian noise. This paper, in contrast, considers the joint effect of filtering and quantisation, illustrates the need to consider these losses jointly and presents novel expressions for the total loss incurred.
Counting points of fixed degree and given height over function fields

Let k be a finite algebraic extension of the field of rational functions in one indeterminate over a finite field and let k denote an algebraic closure of k. We count points in projective space ℙn−1(k) with given height and generating an extension of fixed degree d over k. If n>2d+3, then we derive an asymptotic estimate for the number of such points as the height tends to infinity. As an application, we deduce asymptotic estimates concerning certain decomposable forms.
Histopathology of Incontinence-Associated Skin Lesions: Inner Tissue Damage Due to Invasion of Proteolytic Enzymes and Bacteria in Macerated Rat Skin

A common complication in patients with incontinence is perineal skin lesions, which are recognized as a form of dermatitis. In these patients, perineal skin is exposed to digestive enzymes and intestinal bacterial flora, as well as excessive water. The relative contributions of digestive enzymes and intestinal bacterial flora to skin lesion formation have not been fully shown. This study was conducted to reveal the process of histopathological changes caused by proteases and bacterial inoculation in skin maceration. For skin maceration, agarose gel containing proteases was applied to the dorsal skin of male Sprague-Dawley rats for 4 h, followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa inoculation for 30 min. Macroscopic changes, histological changes, bacterial distribution, inflammatory response, and keratinocyte proliferation and differentiation were examined. Proteases induced digestion in the prickle cell layer of the epidermis, and slight bleeding in the papillary dermis and around hair follicles in the macerated skin without macroscopic evidence of erosion. Bacterial inoculation of the skin macerated by proteolytic solution resulted in the formation of bacteria-rich clusters comprising numerous microorganisms and inflammatory cells within the papillary dermis, with remarkable tissue damage around the clusters. Tissue damage expanded by day 2. On day 3, the proliferative keratinocyte layer was elongated from the bulge region of the hair follicles. Application of proteases and P. aeruginosa induced skin lesion formation internally without macroscopic erosion of the overhydrated area, suggesting that the histopathology might be different from regular dermatitis. The healing process of this lesion is similar to transepidermal elimination.
The Burst Mode of Protostellar Accretion

We present new numerical simulations in the thin disk approximation that characterize the burst mode of protostellar accretion. The burst mode begins upon the formation of a centrifugally balanced disk around a newly formed protostar. It comprises prolonged quiescent periods of low accretion rate (typically ≲10-7 M☉ yr-1) that are punctuated by intense bursts of accretion (typically ≳10-4 M☉ yr-1, with duration ≲100 yr) during which most of the protostellar mass is accumulated. The accretion bursts are associated with the formation of dense protostellar/protoplanetary embryos, which are later driven onto the protostar by the gravitational torques that develop in the disk. Gravitational instability in the disk, driven by continuing infall from the envelope, is shown to be an effective means of transporting angular momentum outward and mass inward to the protostar. We show that the disk mass always remains significantly less than the central protostar's mass throughout this process. The burst phenomenon is robust enough to occur for a variety of initial values of rotation rate and frozen-in (supercritical) magnetic field and a variety of density-temperature relations. Even in cases where the bursts are nearly entirely suppressed, a moderate increase in cloud size or rotation rate can lead to vigorous burst activity. We conclude that most (if not all) protostars undergo a burst mode of evolution during their early accretion history, as inferred empirically from observations of FU Orionis variables.
Backchannel-inviting cues in task-oriented dialogue

We examine BACKCHANNEL-INVITING CUES — distinct prosodic, acoustic and lexical events in the speaker’s speech that tend to precede a short response produced by the interlocutor to convey continued attention —in theColumbiaGames Corpus, a large corpus of task-oriented dialogues. We show that the likelihood of occurrence of a backchannel increases quadratically with the number of cues conjointly displayed by the speaker. Our results are important for improving the coordination of conversational turns in interactive voice-response systems, so that systems can produce backchannels in appropriate places, and so that they can elicit backchannels from users in expected places. Index Terms: dialogue, prosody, turn-taking, backchannels.
Distributional time-domain system representations

In this paper we analyze the convergence behavior of convolution-type system representations for the Paley-Wiener space PWπ1. We completely characterize all stable linear time-invariant (LTI) systems for which we have convergence in the distributional sense by giving a necessary and sufficient condition for convergence. Furthermore, we prove that there are stable LTI systems and signals in PWπ1 for which the convolution integral and the convolution sum diverge even in a distributional sense. In signal processing, distributions are often used to show convergence. Surprisingly, here we are in a situation where distributions cannot be used to justify convergence.
Choice from Non-Choice: Predicting Consumer Preferences from Blood Oxygenation Level-Dependent Signals Obtained during Passive Viewing

Decision-making is often viewed as a two-stage process, where subjective values are first assigned to each option and then the option of the highest value is selected. Converging evidence suggests that these subjective values are represented in the striatum and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). A separate line of evidence suggests that activation in the same areas represents the values of rewards even when choice is not required, as in classical conditioning tasks. However, it is unclear whether the same neural mechanism is engaged in both cases. To address this question we measured brain activation with functional magnetic resonance imaging while human subjects passively viewed individual consumer goods. We then sampled activation from predefined regions of interest and used it to predict subsequent choices between the same items made outside of the scanner. Our results show that activation in the striatum and MPFC in the absence of choice predicts subsequent choices, suggesting that these brain areas represent value in a similar manner whether or not choice is required.
Far-Ultraviolet Absorption Lines in the Remnant of SN 1006

We have obtained a far-ultraviolet spectrum (1150-1600 Å) of a hot subdwarf star behind the remnant of supernova 1006 with the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS) on the Hubble Space Telescope. The high-quality spectrum is used to test previous identifications of the strong absorption features discovered with the International Ultraviolet Explorer. These features have FWHM = 4000 (±300) km s-1 and are not at the rest wavelengths of known interstellar lines, as opposed to the broader (~8000 km s-1 FWHM) Fe II lines from the remnant centered at 0 km s-1 in near-UV FOS spectra. We confirm that the broad absorption features are principally due to redshifted Si II, Si III, and Si IV lines, which are centered at a radial velocity of 5100 (±200) km s-1. The Si II λ1260. 4 profile is asymmetric, with a nearly flat core and sharp red wing, unlike the Si II λ1526. 7 and Si IV λλ1393. 8, 1402.8 profiles. One possible explanation is additional absorption from another species. Previous work has suggested that S II λλ1250. 6, 1253.8, 1259.5 at a radial velocity of ~6000 km s-1 is responsible, but this would require a sulfur-to-silicon abundance ratio that is at least a factor of 10 higher than expected. Another possible explanation is that the Si II and Si IV profiles are intrinsically different, but this does not explain the symmetric (albeit weaker) Si II λ1526. 7 profile.
Inhibitory Control During Sentence Reading in Dyslexic Children

The present study focused on the nature of the reading disability of children with the guessing subtype of dyslexia (who read fast and inaccurately). The objective was to separate the excitatory account of their reading disturbance (i.e., in guessers the words’ resting levels of activation are oversensitive to semantic context) from the inhibitory account (i.e., guessers tend to react prematurely to (false) candidate words that are activated in the lexicon). To disentangle the above accounts, guessers and normal readers were presented with a sentential priming task (SPT). In the SPT, subjects had to determine whether the final word of a sentence was semantically congruent or incongruent with the sentence, but had to inhibit their ‘congruent’ or ‘incongruent’ response in case of an occasionally presented pseudoword. To evoke guessing, each pseudoword closely resembled either a valid congruent or incongruent word. Guessing referred to prematurely accepting a pseudoword as a word that either appropriately or inappropriately completed the sentence. The extent to which subjects guessed at word meaning was evidenced by the false recognition rates (FRR) of the misspelled terminal words. Analyses on the FRRs of the pseudowords showed that guessers had significantly more difficulty in suppressing the ‘go tendency’ triggered by the pseudowords. It was concluded that the impulsive reading style of guessers should be ascribed to a less efficient suppression mechanism rather than to excessive reliance on contextual information. Specifically, the data were explained by assuming that the availability of the pseudoword’s candidate meaning activated the hand to respond with, and that guessers found difficulty in suspending this response until they analyzed all letters in the stimulus and they could be sure of its spelling.
Pneumatic artificial muscles: Actuators for robotics and automation

This article is intended as an introduction to and an overview of Pneumatic Artificial Muscles (PAMs). These are pneumatic actuators made mainly of a flexible and inflatable membrane. First, their concept and way of operation are explained. Next, the properties of these actuators are given, the most important of which are the compliant behavior and extremely low weight. A classification and review is following this section. Typical applications are dealt with in the last but one section and, finally, some concluding remarks are made.
A lower bound to the action dimension of a group

The action dimension of a discrete group , actdim(), is defined to be the smallest integer m such that admits a properly dis- continuous action on a contractible m-manifold. If no such m exists, we define actdim() ≡ ∞. Bestvina, Kapovich, and Kleiner used Van Kam- pen's theory of embedding obstruction to provide a lower bound to the action dimension of a group. In this article, another lower bound to the action dimension of a group is obtained by extending their work, and the action dimensions of the fundamental groups of certain manifolds are found by computing this new lower bound. AMS Classification 20F65; 57M60