Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Young consumers in Singapore

Describes young Singapore consumers: they are easily bored, have a wide choice of TV, music and video games, and have income from part‐time jobs as well as their parents and grandparents (the “seven pockets”), while education is an important part of growing up in Singapore. Relates all this to the need for advertisers to make memorable advertisements which entertain youngsters and induce them to talk about the product; these young consumers should not be exploited, and advertisers should think of them as affluent adult consumers in the long term. Points out that successful brands are often inclusive, for instance karaoke is popular because it is a collective fun activity, while tools like MSN Messenger make it very easy for youngsters to develop friendly contacts. Shows how the connected nature of today’s youth makes them able to check the Internet for salesmen’s claims about their products, and warns the music industry against attempting to stamp out downloads: instead, use young people’s curiosity and communicativeness to let them follow and recommend music that they have heard.
Development and evaluation of a 21-item version of the hopkins symptom checklist with New Zealand and united states respondents

Abstract The Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL) is a widely used measure of symptom distress and in particular is a valuable criterion measure in psychotherapeutic drug trials. Its reliability, validity, and sensitivity to change have been well established. However, its factor structure has been subject to much debate. In previous studies a wide range of different factor structures have been found by various researchers. The aim of the present study was to produce a short, less arduous, but acceptably reliable version of HSCL with a replicable factor structure. The factor structure which was based on a previously described, robust three-factor version of the HSCL, was established using a two-step process which began with a two-factor analysts of the largest subscales, General Feelings of Distress (GFD) and Somatic Distress (SD). This was followed by a three-factor analysis of seven items from each of three subscales. The robustness of the factor structure of the resulting scale was revealed by the factor co.
Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and cognition throughout the lifespan: A review

Abstract With increasing awareness of the effects of nutrition on physical and mental health, researchers have begun to further investigate the benefits of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) on health and the brain; however, these benefits remain unclear across different age groups. Objectives The purpose of this article is to summarize the current evidence on the cognitive effects of n-3 PUFA throughout the lifespan. Methods An exhaustive review of the literature on the effects of n-3 PUFA on various aspects of cognition, across the lifespan, was conducted. Results The research suggests that n-3 PUFA positively affect pre-natal neurodevelopment; however, this cognitive-enhancing effect might diminish post-natally with maturation, as no research on child populations has clearly tied dietary n-3 PUFA to improved cognitive skills. Overall, few studies have examined the cognitive effects of n-3 PUFA through childhood, young adulthood, and middle age. At later ages, multiple studies found evidence suggesting that n-3 PUFA can protect against neurodegeneration and possibly reduce the chance of developing cognitive impairment. Discussion Age groups central to the lifespan require further investigation into the effects that n-3 PUFA might have on their cognitive skills. The research examining the extremities of the lifespan provides evidence that n-3 PUFA are essential for neurodevelopment and cognitive maintenance in older adulthood. Future research must develop more consistent methodologies, as variable dosages, supplementation periods, and cognitive measures across different studies have led to disparate results, making the evidence less comparable and difficult to synthesize.
The Golden Section: Elusive, but Detectable

The relative significance of the "golden section" (≃ 0.618) and other notable proportions was investigated using a new unobtrusive methodology, a modified Fechnerian method of production. Fourteen professional painters each sketched under controlled conditions--"veridically, accurately, and realistically" (but without there being any mention of proportions)--27 complex stimuli presented as slides, thus producing a total of 378 sketches. The stimuli in the slides were (a) vase cutouts of various proportions placed in a mantelpiece context and (b) paintings by Kodama, Mondrian, and Whistler. The golden section and other significant and control proportions (a total of 120 occurrences) were identified beforehand by the researcher in the 27 stimuli. The 378 painters' sketches were subsequently measured by the researcher and two assistants to determine the accuracy with which the various proportions had been reproduced by the painters (a grand total of 1680--14 x 120--possible occurrences). The overall accuracy of rendering the proportions was found to be low for the vases and Kodama's paintings, but increased considerably for the Whistlers and Mondrians. As predicted, the accuracy of rendering the golden section increased from the vases to the Kodamas to the Whistlers and Mondrians. For the latter two, the golden section was in fact the most accurately rendered proportion, followed by 1.00 (found, for example, in the square and circle). The golden section is clearly important in art and to artists, but both its use and detection are subtle and must be pursued with great analytic care. The use of professional artists as informants and research participants may be of considerable help.
Augmenting the mobility of profoundly blind Web travellers

Use the word ‘accessibility’ in the presence of any HCI1 Human Computer Interaction or Computer Human Interaction (CHI). specialist and they will immediately think of creating open interfaces that can be accessed both visually and audibly. Further, mention ‘accessability’ to any forward thinking group of Web developers and they will start to quote the Web Accessability Initiative Guidelines (WAI) and extol the virtues of accessability checking tools like ‘Bobby’. Either way, both groups will focus on the obviously important area of ‘sensory translation’ but will miss one fundamental truth; profoundly blind people interact with their environment in a markedly different way from that of sighted individuals. We have realized that the ease of movement (mobility) around systems and information space (the hypertext/Web docuverse) is central to good accessibility; and that to achieve this we require additional mobility semantics within systems and information as a way of enhancing the user experience. By adding small amounts of information to existing Web pages (semi-) automatically, we can show significant improvements in the amount of information profoundly blind users are able to access in a given time; in effect ‘levelling the playing field’ with sighted users. This paper discusses our work and demonstrates how we can make such a claim.
Prototypes as an Indirect Measure of Attitudes Toward Disability Groups

A prototype is an ongoing, cognitive representation of common attributes and distinct characteristics that define an object or person. This mixed-method study applies the robust concept of prototype to examine perceptions of disability groups. Core, secondary, and tertiary prototype characteristics are described for six disabilities: schizophrenia, mental retardation, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, spinal cord injury, visual impairment, and hearing impairment. Similarities and differences among disability group prototypes are identified. The potential relationship between prototypes, attitudes, and subsequent judgment biases is explored. Examining prototypes might be an effective method for indirectly measuring attitudes toward disability groups. Implications for rehabilitation counseling practice and education are discussed.
Packaging methods of fiber-Bragg grating sensors in civil structure applications

Fiber-Bragg grating (FBG) sensors made on bare fibers are easily damaged when handled improperly during and after fabrication. As a protection from such damage, a novel technique for protecting and packaging FBG sensors has been developed and is presented in this paper. To characterize the strain transmission efficiency of the packaged FBG sensors, an analytical finite-element method is used, and the results are compared with the experiments. It is observed that the thickness and Young's moduli of glues have little influence on the strain transmission, especially when the thickness of the glue is less than the diameter of an optical fiber. However, recoating and steel-tube packaging will markedly affect the strain transmission rate. The strain transmission rates decrease with the increase in thickness of the packaging material. Also, the aging problem of the polymide or acrylate coating and epoxy glue must be considered, since the service life of most structures is usually designed for more than 50 years. The metallic recoated FBG sensor developed in this research uses different approaches, such as low-temperature solder welding, which shows no aging problem, to install the sensors in the structures. Based on the simulated and experimental results, the nickel recoating method is shown to have good strain transmission efficiency compared with other packaging methods.
Geographies of the veil: violent encounters in urban public spaces in Malmö, Sweden

Encounters between strangers, as different users of public spaces, are one of the core subjects for discussion in relation to orders in the public space. The empirical material presented in this article illustrates power relations in public spaces of Sweden, which gives a specific national and nationalist framing. This article is based on interviews with 19 Muslim women, all of whom wear the hijab. The aim of this article was to illuminate the neglected violence Muslim women are exposed to and to investigate violent public encounters from the point of view of female Muslim citizens. This recounting of encounters strives to understand the ‘lived experiences of pain’ [Ahmed, S. (2001). The organisation of hate. Law and Critique, 12, 360] and what hate is doing in terms of the effects of hate crimes. First, the concept of affect and economy of hate is elaborated on, after which the meaning of violence is developed in relation to place and space. By showing how frequent such gendered and Islamophobic violence is, in its different forms, while at the same time being largely an overlooked form of violence, the empirical material implicates that such acts of everyday violence work to establish and maintain a hegemonic social, spatial and political order.
Can educational experiments both test a theory and inform practice

This article feeds into debate about the feasibility and usefulness of educational experiments by discussing methodological issues arising out of a study which sought causal links between teaching and learning of one aspect of French as a foreign language. The study involved two small-scale experiments which tested a hypothesis regarding the learning of second language grammar within a particular theoretical, and its related pedagogical, framework (Input Processing and Processing Instruction respectively), and has been described in full elsewhere. The current article uses that example to suggest some circumstances (contextual, methodological and theoretical) within which educational experiments may be able to both test a learning theory and inform educational practice. It is argued that despite the complexities and limits of small-scale educational experiments, an experimental design which combined a range of methods was able to generate new and useful (in a range of senses) substantive knowledge.
Comparative review of functional complexity assessment methods for effort estimation

Budgetary constraints are placing increasing pressure on project managers to effectively estimate development effort requirements at the earliest opportunity. With the rising impact of automation on commercial software development, the attention of researchers developing effort estimation models has recently been focused on functional representations of systems, in response to the assertion that development effort is a function of specification content. A number of such models exist; several, however, have received almost no research or industry attention. Project managers wishing to implement a functional assessment and estimation programme are therefore unlikely to be aware of the various methods or how they compare. This paper therefore provides this information, as well as forming a basis for the development and improvement of new methods. >
Reverse Linguistic Stereotyping: Measuring the Effect of Listener Expectations on Speech Evaluation

The linguistic stereotyping hypothesis holds that even brief samples of speech varieties associated with low-prestige groups can cue negative attributions regarding individual speakers. The converse phenomenon is reverse linguistic stereotyping (RLS). In RLS, attributions of a speaker’s group membership trigger distorted evaluations of that person’s speech. The present study established a procedure for ascertaining a proclivity to RLS for individual listeners. In addition to RLS, variables reflecting degree of multicultural involvement (e.g., proportion of friends who are nonnative speakers, amount of language study) predicted speech evaluations. Although the RLS measurement procedure outlined here requires more demanding administration than mere paper-and-pencil self-reports, it has the advantage of reflecting authentic RLS processes. Measuring individuals’ RLS levels can help screen teachers, job interviewers, immigration officials, and others who are called on to make judgments about the oral proficiency of speakers of nonprestige language varieties.
A New Statistical Max Operation for Propagating Skewness in Statistical Timing Analysis

Statistical static timing analysis (SSTA) is emerging as a solution for predicting the timing characteristics of digital circuits under process variability. For computing the statistical max of two arrival time probability distributions, existing analytical SSTA approaches use the results given by Clark (1961). These analytical results are exact when the two operand arrival time distributions have jointly Gaussian distributions. Due to the nonlinear max operation, arrival time distributions are typically skewed. Furthermore, nonlinear dependence of gate delays and non-Gaussian process parameters also make the arrival time distributions asymmetric. Therefore, for computing the max accurately, a new approach is required that accounts for the inherent skewness in arrival time distributions. In this work, we present analytical solution for computing the statistical max operation. First, the skewness in arrival time distribution is modeled by matching its first three moments to a so-called skewed normal distribution. Then by extending Clark's work to handle skewed normal distributions we derive analytical expressions for computing the moments of the max. We then show using initial simulations results that using a skewness based max operation has a significant potential to improve the accuracy of the statistical max operation in SSTA while retaining its computational efficiency
How Valid are Product Descriptions and Protocols in Choice Experiments

This paper examines the effects of two increasingly common elements of laboratory choice experiment construction—the substitution of product descriptions for products and the employment of protocols—on four classes of variables: cognitive states, attribute use, eye movements, and protocol content. Product descriptions were found to produce different thought processes than the products themselves. The use of protocols, however, did not alter results.
Creating the CIPRES Science Gateway for inference of large phylogenetic trees

Understanding the evolutionary history of living organisms is a central problem in biology. Until recently the ability to infer evolutionary relationships was limited by the amount of DNA sequence data available, but new DNA sequencing technologies have largely removed this limitation. As a result, DNA sequence data are readily available or obtainable for a wide spectrum of organisms, thus creating an unprecedented opportunity to explore evolutionary relationships broadly and deeply across the Tree of Life. Unfortunately, the algorithms used to infer evolutionary relationships are NP-hard, so the dramatic increase in available DNA sequence data has created a commensurate increase in the need for access to powerful computational resources. Local laptop or desktop machines are no longer viable for analysis of the larger data sets available today, and progress in the field relies upon access to large, scalable high-performance computing resources. This paper describes development of the CIPRES Science Gateway, a web portal designed to provide researchers with transparent access to the fastest available community codes for inference of phylogenetic relationships, and implementation of these codes on scalable computational resources. Meeting the needs of the community has included developing infrastructure to provide access, working with the community to improve existing community codes, developing infrastructure to insure the portal is scalable to the entire systematics community, and adopting strategies that make the project sustainable by the community. The CIPRES Science Gateway has allowed more than 1800 unique users to run jobs that required 2.5 million Service Units since its release in December 2009. (A Service Unit is a CPU-hour at unit priority).
Escaping From Saddle Points - Online Stochastic Gradient for Tensor Decomposition

We analyze stochastic gradient descent for optimizing non-convex functions. In many cases for non-convex functions the goal is to find a reasonable local minimum, and the main concern is that gradient updates are trapped in saddle points. In this paper we identify strict saddle property for non-convex problem that allows for efficient optimization. Using this property we show that stochastic gradient descent converges to a local minimum in a polynomial number of iterations. To the best of our knowledge this is the first work that gives global convergence guarantees for stochastic gradient descent on non-convex functions with exponentially many local minima and saddle points. Our analysis can be applied to orthogonal tensor decomposition, which is widely used in learning a rich class of latent variable models. We propose a new optimization formulation for the tensor decomposition problem that has strict saddle property. As a result we get the first online algorithm for orthogonal tensor decomposition with global convergence guarantee.
A Depth Video Sensor-Based Life-Logging Human Activity Recognition System for Elderly Care in Smart Indoor Environments

Recent advancements in depth video sensors technologies have made human activity recognition (HAR) realizable for elderly monitoring applications. Although conventional HAR utilizes RGB video sensors, HAR could be greatly improved with depth video sensors which produce depth or distance information. In this paper, a depth-based life logging HAR system is designed to recognize the daily activities of elderly people and turn these environments into an intelligent living space. Initially, a depth imaging sensor is used to capture depth silhouettes. Based on these silhouettes, human skeletons with joint information are produced which are further used for activity recognition and generating their life logs. The life-logging system is divided into two processes. Firstly, the training system includes data collection using a depth camera, feature extraction and training for each activity via Hidden Markov Models. Secondly, after training, the recognition engine starts to recognize the learned activities and produces life logs. The system was evaluated using life logging features against principal component and independent component features and achieved satisfactory recognition rates against the conventional approaches. Experiments conducted on the smart indoor activity datasets and the MSRDailyActivity3D dataset show promising results. The proposed system is directly applicable to any elderly monitoring system, such as monitoring healthcare problems for elderly people, or examining the indoor activities of people at home, office or hospital.
Poverty, Maternal Depression, Family Status and Children's Cognitive and Behavioural Development in Early Childhood: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract Improving children's lives is high on the UK policy agenda. In this study for a recent birth cohort of UK children we examine how three aspects of parental resources – income, mother's mental well-being and family status – in early childhood enhance or compromise their children's cognitive and behavioural development. As well as examining how these three aspects of parental resources separately and jointly affect children's well-being, we also enquire whether persistent poverty or persistent maternal depression are more deleterious for children's current well-being than periodic episodes of poverty and depression. We find strong associations between poverty and young children's intellectual and behavioural development, and persistent poverty was found to be particularly important in relation to children's cognitive development. Maternal depression (net of other factors) was more weakly related to cognitive development but strongly related to whether children were exhibiting behaviour problems, and persistent depression amplified the situation. Family status, net of other factors (most noticeably poverty), was only weakly associated with children's development.
Orthogonal Packings in Two Dimensions

We consider problems of packing an arbitrary collection of rectangular pieces into an open-ended, rectangular bin so as to minimize the height achieved by any piece. This problem has numerous applications in operations research and studies of computer operation. We devise efficient approximation algorithms, study their limitations, and derive worst-case bounds on the performance of the packings they produce.
Unmasking the "Polite Smile"

It was predicted that rapid onset and offset times of smiles are indicators of strategic or managed positive affect. Women (N = 96) were videotaped interacting with elementary-aged boys whose behavior (responsive, cooperative versus unresponsive, resistant) was likely to elicit positive versus negative affect. Adult smiles were found to fade faster when directed to unresponsive than to responsive children. Onset time of adult smiles, on the other hand, were found to vary as a function of caregiver attributions, that is, faster onset times were shown by "luck" than "ability" attributors. Fast offset time was interpreted as an indicator of unreciprocated positive affect (situational influence on smiling). Fast onset time of smiles was interpreted as reflecting an ingratiating self-presentation strategy (personal influence on smiling). Trends were observed indicating that slow onset and offset times of smiles acted to increase child responsiveness.