Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Context and complexity: a longitudinal study of motivational dynamics among South Korean university students

This thesis reports on a longitudinal qualitative study of the L2 motivational systems of a group of South Korean university students. The study adopts a complex dynamics system approach to the collection and analysis of data, and develops an original three-level model of context to investigate the interaction of elements within the learners’ motivational systems and to track how these interactions led to perceptible changes in these systems over the course of the research. The study highlights the complex, dynamic nature of L2 motivation and the necessity of including context as a key part of the L2 motivational system. It further calls into question traditional conceptions of autonomy in the field and the general applicability of some current concepts in L2 motivation. In addition, it emphasizes the importance of non-quantitative approaches in illuminating the motivational processes at work within individuals. On the basis of these findings, the thesis calls for the general incorporation of complexity perspectives in L2 motivation research and for language pedagogy to incorporate the insights gained from such studies to enhance the classroom environments and learners’ investment in language learning.
Integrating Models and Tools in the Context of Driving and In-vehicle Devices

The integration of cognitive models offers interesting theoretical and practical benefits to the development of complex models, but at the same time brings up new challenges that the modeling community is only beginning to address. In this paper we present our experiences integrating models and tools for modeling,. Specifically, on the modeling end, we integrated an ACT-R model of driving with an independently-built model of cell phone dialing. To do this, we integrated the driving tool (a minimal-graphics driving simulator that can be controlled by ACT-R) with a modelingby-demonstration tool, CogTool, that also used ACT-R as its cognitive engine. We found that both the models and tools required re-working because of the integration. The models required new motor movements and methods for switching between tasks. The tools required new specification techniques for placing prototyped devices in the vehicle and demonstration techniques for indicating points of taskswitching. Our experiences indicate that while the integration of cognitive models is indeed an approach worthy of pursuit, the field may not understand all the ramifications of such integration until many more integrated models and tools are
Fidelity of Uracil-initiated Base Excision DNA Repair in DNA Polymerase β-Proficient and -Deficient Mouse Embryonic Fibroblast Cell Extracts*

Uracil-initiated base excision DNA repair was conducted using homozygous mouse embryonic fibroblast DNA polymerase β (+/+) and (−/−) cells to determine the error frequency and mutational specificity associated with the completed repair process. Form I DNA substrates were constructed with site-specific uracil residues at U·A, U·G, and U·T targets contained within thelacZα gene of M13mp2 DNA. Efficient repair was observed in both DNA polymerase β (+/+) and (−/−) cell-free extracts. Repair was largely dependent on uracil-DNA glycosylase activity because addition of the PBS-2 uracil-DNA glycosylase inhibitor (Ugi) protein reduced (∼88%) the initial rate of repair in both types of cell-free extracts. In each case, the DNA repair patch size was primarily distributed between 1 and 8 nucleotides in length with 1 nucleotide repair patch constituting ∼20% of the repair events. Addition of p21 peptide or protein to DNA polymerase β (+/+) cell-free extracts increased the frequency of short-patch (1 nucleotide) repair by ∼2-fold. The base substitution reversion frequency associated with uracil-DNA repair of M13mp2op14 (U·T) DNA was determined to be 5.7–7.2 × 10−4 when using DNA polymerase β (+/+) and (−/−) cell-free extracts. In these two cases, the error frequency was very similar, but the mutational spectrum was noticeably different. The presence or absence of Ugi did not dramatically influence either the error rate or mutational specificity. In contrast, the combination of Ugi and p21 protein promoted an increase in the mutation frequency associated with repair of M13mp2 (U·G) DNA. Examination of the mutational spectra generated by a forward mutation assay revealed that errors in DNA repair synthesis occurred predominantly at the position of the U·G target and frequently involved a 1-base deletion or incorporation of dTMP.
A scene model of exosolar systems for use in planetary detection and characterisation simulations

Context. Instrumental projects that will improve the direct optical finding and characterisation of exoplanets have advanced sufficiently to trigger organized investigation and development of corresponding signal processing algorithms. The first step is the availability of field-of-view (FOV) models. These can then be submitted to various instrumental models, which in turn produce simulated data, enabling the testing of processing algorithms. Aims. We aim to set the specifications of a physical model for typical FOVs of these instruments. Methods. The dynamic in resolution and flux between the various sources present in such a FOV imposes a multiscale, independent layer approach. From review of current literature and through extrapolations from currently available data and models, we derive the features of each source-type in the field of view likely to pass the instrumental filter at exo-Earth level. Results. Stellar limb darkening is shown to cause bias in leakage calibration if unaccounted for. Occurrence of perturbing background stars or galaxies in the typical FOV is unlikely. We extract galactic interstellar medium background emissions for current target lists. Galactic background can be considered uniform over the FOV, and it should show no significant drift with parallax. Our model specifications have been embedded into a Java simulator, soon to be made open-source. We have also designed an associated FITS input/output format standard that we present here.
Loquendo - Politecnico di Torino's 2010 NIST speaker recognition evaluation system

This paper describes the improvement introduced in the Loquendo-Politecnico di Torino (LPT) speaker recognition system submitted to the NIST SRE10 evaluation campaign. This system combines the results of eight core acoustic systems all based on Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs). We illustrate the key factors, in the selection of the development data and in engineering state-of-the art technology, which contributed to the very good performance and calibration of our system in all the test conditions proposed in this evaluation.
Superficial Tableaux for Contextual Reasoning

This paper presents a tableaux calculus for the Propositional Logic of Contexts with the ist(c,¢) modality. This approach has a twofold advantage: from the user viewpoint it presents rules which intuitively reflect epistemic properties (lifting, use of assumptions etc.); from a computational perspective it allows local and incremental computation, satisfies strong confluence and can therefore be adapted efficiently to different search heuristics. The modelling of contexts as partial objects is obtained by using superficial assignments. We can define meaningful and meaningless sentences and reason about formulae containing both kind of sentences. Superficial valuations provide us with a sound and incremental approximation of classical logic and make it possible to present a simplified semantics based on layered models.
Using String Distances for Test Case Prioritisation

Test case prioritisation aims at finding an ordering which enhances a certain property of an ordered test suite. Traditional techniques rely on the availability of code or a specification of the program under test. In this paper, we propose to use string distances on the text of test cases for their comparison and elaborate a prioritisation algorithm. Such a prioritisation does not require code and can be useful for initial testing and in cases when code is difficult to instrument. We also briefly report on preliminary results of an experiment where the proposed prioritisation technique was compared with random permutations and four classical string distance metrics were evaluated.
Differential Neural Responses to Food Images in Women with Bulimia versus Anorexia Nervosa

Background Previous fMRI studies show that women with eating disorders (ED) have differential neural activation to viewing food images. However, despite clinical differences in their responses to food, differential neural activation to thinking about eating food, between women with anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) is not known. Methods We compare 50 women (8 with BN, 18 with AN and 24 age-matched healthy controls [HC]) while they view food images during functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Results In response to food (vs non-food) images, women with BN showed greater neural activation in the visual cortex, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right insular cortex and precentral gyrus, women with AN showed greater activation in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, cerebellum and right precuneus. HC women activated the cerebellum, right insular cortex, right medial temporal lobe and left caudate. Direct comparisons revealed that compared to HC, the BN group showed relative deactivation in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus/insula, and visual cortex, and compared to AN had relative deactivation in the parietal lobe and dorsal posterior cingulate cortex, but greater activation in the caudate, superior temporal gyrus, right insula and supplementary motor area. Conclusions Women with AN and BN activate top-down cognitive control in response to food images, yet women with BN have increased activation in reward and somatosensory regions, which might impinge on cognitive control over food consumption and binge eating.
The Effects of User Partnering and User Non-Support on Project Performance

Information system software development projects suffer from a high failure rate. One of many obstacles faced by project managers is non-supportive users, those not actively sharing in development responsibilities. The coordination activity of early partnering has been proposed in the literature to promote collaboration and enhance user support. The extent of partnering is considered in a model that relates partnering to the risks of user non-support and eventual project success. The model is developed from contingency theory, with residual performance risk as an intermediary variable. A survey of IS project membership provides the data, which indicates that partnering significantly relates to higher user support, less residual risk, and better project performance. Researchers may use variations on the model to examine other barriers to success and the techniques applied to lower the barriers. Practitioners should consider applying partnering techniques to improve software development project performance.
Attempted suicides in Penang--preliminary observations.

The characteristics of 74 patients who attempted suicide in Penang are described. Differences in the incidence and reasons for and methods of attempting were observed among the ethnic groups. There was a higher incidence in females and patients of single status. The majordy of patients did not suffer from severe psychiatric disorders, but did encounter chronic inter-personal and intra-familial conflicts. Conflicts with elders were more frequent among female patients, and this finding suggested that young females were faced with a greater degree of role conflicts. Rural to urban shift among the Chinese patients was observed to be associated with a high incidence of attempts. Dwellers of high-rise flat complexes were not over-represented. In view of antecedent social factors, professionals and others besides psychiatrists have a role in the prevention and management ofpara-suicidal behaviours.
Job Displacement and Health Outcomes: A Representative Panel Study

We investigate whether job loss as the result of displacement causes ill health. In doing this we use much better data than any previous investigators. Our data are a random 10% sample of the adult population of Denmark for the years 1981-1999. For this large representative panel we have very full records on demographics, health and work status for each person throughout the data period. As well as this we can link every person to a firm (if they are working) and can identify all workers who are displaced in any year, using a variety of definitions of displacement. We focus on one very precise health outcome, hospitalisation for stress related disease, since this is a grave condition and is widely thought to be likely to be associated with unemployment. We use the method of ‘matching on observables’ to estimate the counter-factual of what would have happened to the health of a particular group of displaced workers if they had not in fact been displaced. Our results indicate unequivocally that being displaced in Denmark does not cause hospitalisation for stress related disease. An analysis of the power of our test suggests that even though we are looking for a relatively rare outcome, our data set is large enough to show even quite small an effect if there were any. Supplementary analyses do not show any causal link from displacement or unemployment to our health outcomes for particular groups that might be thought to be more susceptible.
Online Supplement : Achieving Rapid Recovery In An Overload Control for Large-Scale Service Systems

This is an online supplement to the main paper, which considers an automatic overload control for two large service systems modeled as multi-server queues, such as call centers. We assume that the two systems are designed to operate independently, but want to help each other respond to unexpected overloads. The proposed overload control automatically activates sharing (sending some customers from one system to the other) once a ratio of the queue lengths in the two systems crosses an activation threshold (with ratio and activation threshold parameters for each direction). The paper is primarily concerned with ensuring that the system recovers rapidly after the overload is over, either (i) because the two systems return to normal loading or (ii) because the direction of the overload suddenly shifts in the opposite direction. To achieve rapid recovery, we introduce lower thresholds for the queue ratios, below which one-way sharing is released. As a basis for studying the complex dynamics, we develop a new six-dimensional fluid approximation for a system with time-varying arrival rates, extending a previous fluid approximation involving a stochastic averaging principle. We conduct simulations to confirm that the new algorithm is effective for predicting the system performance and choosing effective control parameters. The simulation and the algorithm both show that the system can experience an inefficient nearly-periodic behavior, corresponding to an oscillating equilibrium (congestion collapse), if the sharing is strongly inefficient and the control parameters are set inappropriately.
Role of Lipopolysaccharide-Binding Protein in Early Alcohol-Induced Liver Injury in Mice1

Cellular responses to endotoxins are enhanced markedly by LPS-binding protein (LBP). Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that endotoxins and proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α participate in early alcohol-induced liver injury. Therefore, in this study, a long-term intragastric ethanol feeding model was used to test the hypothesis that LBP is involved in alcoholic hepatitis by comparing LBP knockout and wild-type mice. Two-month-old female mice were fed a high-fat liquid diet with either ethanol or isocaloric maltose-dextrin as control continuously for 4 wk. There was no difference in mean urine alcohol concentrations between the groups fed ethanol. Dietary alcohol significantly increased liver to body weight ratios and serum alanine aminotransferase levels in wild-type mice (189 ± 31 U/L) over high-fat controls (24 ± 7 U/L), effects which were blunted significantly in LBP knockout mice (60 ± 17 U/L). Although no significant pathological changes were observed in high-fat controls, 4 wk of dietary ethanol caused steatosis, mild inflammation, and focal necrosis in wild-type animals as expected (pathology score, 5.9 ± 0.5). These pathological changes were reduced significantly in LBP knockout mice fed ethanol (score, 2.6 ± 0.5). Endotoxin levels in the portal vein were increased significantly after 4 wk in both groups fed ethanol. Moreover, ethanol increased TNF-α mRNA expression in wild-type, but not in LBP knockout mice. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that LBP plays an important role in early alcohol-induced liver injury by enhancing LPS-induced signal transduction, most likely in Kupffer cells.
Genetic Imprints of Pleistocene Origin of Indian Populations: A Comprehensive Phylogeographic Sketch of Indian Y-Chromosomes

Abstract Paleoanthropological evidence indicates that modern humans reached South Asia in one of the first dispersals out of Africa, which were later followed by migrations from different parts of the world. The variation of 20 microsatellite and 38 binary polymorphisms on the non-recombining part of the uniparental, hapliod Y-chromosome was examined in 1434 male individual of 87 different populations of India to investigate various hypothesis of migration and peopling of South Asia Sub-continent. This study revealed a total of 24 paternal lineages, of which haplogroups H, R1a1, O2a and R2 portrayed for approximately 70% of the Indian Y-Chromosomes. The high NRY diversity value (0.893) and coalescence age of approx. 45-50 KYA for H and C haplogroups signified an early settlement of the subcontinent by modern humans. Haplogroup frequency and AMOVA results provide similar evidence in support of a common Pleistocene origin of Indian populations, with partial influence of Indo-European gene pool on the Indian society. The differential Y-chromosome and mt DNA pattern in the two Austric speakers of India signaled that an earlier male–mediated exodus from South East Asia largely involved the Austro-Asiatic tribes, while the Tibeto-Burman males migrated with females through two different routes; one from Burma most likely brought the Naga-Kuki-Chin language and O3e Y-chromosomes and the other from Himalayas, which carried the YAP lineages into northern regions of subcontinent. Based on distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroups (H, C, O2a, and R2) and deep coalescing time depths for these paternal lineages, we propose that the present day Dravidian speaking populations of South India are the descendants of earliest Pleistocene settlers while Austro-Asiatic speakers came from SE Asia in a later migration event.
Initial highlights of the HOBYS key program, the Herschel imaging survey of OB young stellar objects

We present the initial highlights of the HOBYS key program, which are based on Herschel images of the Rosette molecular complex and maps of the RCW120 H ii region. Using both SPIRE at 250/350/500 μm and PACS at 70/160 μm or 100/160 μm, the HOBYS survey provides an unbiased and complete census of intermediate- to high-mass young stellar objects, some of which are not detected by Spitzer. Key core properties, such as bolometric luminosity and mass (as derived from spectral energy distributions), are used to constrain their evolutionary stages. We identify a handful of high-mass prestellar cores and show that their lifetimes could be shorter in the Rosette molecular complex than in nearby low-mass star-forming regions. We also quantify the impact of expanding H ii regions on the star formation process acting in both Rosette and RCW 120.
Trans-Membrane Area Asymmetry Controls the Shape of Cellular Organelles

Membrane organelles often have complicated shapes and differ in their volume, surface area and membrane curvature. The ratio between the surface area of the cytosolic and luminal leaflets (trans-membrane area asymmetry (TAA)) determines the membrane curvature within different sites of the organelle. Thus, the shape of the organelle could be critically dependent on TAA. Here, using mathematical modeling and stereological measurements of TAA during fast transformation of organelle shapes, we present evidence that suggests that when organelle volume and surface area are constant, TAA can regulate transformation of the shape of the Golgi apparatus, endosomal multivesicular bodies, and microvilli of brush borders of kidney epithelial cells. Extraction of membrane curvature by small spheres, such as COPI-dependent vesicles within the Golgi (extraction of positive curvature), or by intraluminal vesicles within endosomes (extraction of negative curvature) controls the shape of these organelles. For instance, Golgi tubulation is critically dependent on the fusion of COPI vesicles with Golgi cisternae, and vice versa, for the extraction of membrane curvature into 50–60 nm vesicles, to induce transformation of Golgi tubules into cisternae. Also, formation of intraluminal ultra-small vesicles after fusion of endosomes allows equilibration of their TAA, volume and surface area. Finally, when microvilli of the brush border are broken into vesicles and microvilli fragments, TAA of these membranes remains the same as TAA of the microvilli. Thus, TAA has a significant role in transformation of organelle shape when other factors remain constant.
A new multidimensional adaptive mesh refinement hydro + gravity cosmological code

A new cosmological multidimensional hydrodynamic and N-body code based on an adaptive mesh refinement scheme is described and tested. The hydro part is based on modern high-resolution shock-capturing techniques, whereas the N-body approach is based on the particle mesh method. The code has been specifically designed for cosmological applications. Tests including shocks, strong gradients and gravity have been considered. A cosmological test based on the Santa Barbara cluster is also presented. The usefulness of the code is discussed. In particular, this powerful tool is expected to be appropriate to describe the evolution of the hot gas component located inside asymmetric cosmological structures.
Relationship among Psychological Capital,Emotional Labor Strategies and Job Burnout of Primary and Secondary School Teachers

This study examines the moderating effect of psychological capital(PsyCap)on the relationship between the emotional labor strategy and job burnout of primary and secondary school teachers.Data were collected from some schools in Hunan provinces.A total of 629 teachers participated in the survey.The result shows that job burnout scores were negatively correlated with deep acting,expression of natural emotion;while they were positively correlated with surface acting.PsyCap scores were positively correlated with deep acting,expression of natural emotion;while guanxi-oriented psychological capital(GOPC)were negatively correlated with surface acting.Surface action predicted positively all dimensions of job burnout and deep action predicted negatively emotional exhaustion,cynicism and automatic action predicted negatively inefficacy.GOPC predicted negatively all dimensions of job burnout and task-oriented psychological capital(TOPC)predicted cynicism,inefficacy.TOPC moderated the relationship between deep action and emotional exhaustion,cynicism and moderated the relationship between automatic action,surface action and inefficacy.GOPC moderated the relationship between automatic action and inefficacy.Conclusion:PsyCap moderated the relationship between emotional labor strategies and job burnout.