Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Cognitive Science of Visual-Spatial Displays: Implications for Design

This paper reviews cognitive science perspectives on the design of visual-spatial displays and introduces the other papers in this topic. It begins by classifying different types of visual-spatial displays, followed by a discussion of ways in which visual-spatial displays augment cognition and an overview of the perceptual and cognitive processes involved in using displays. The paper then argues for the importance of cognitive science methods to the design of visual displays and reviews some of the main principles of display design that have emerged from these approaches to date. Cognitive scientists have had good success in characterizing the performance of well-defined tasks with relatively simple visual displays, but many challenges remain in understanding the use of complex displays for ill-defined tasks. Current research exemplified by the papers in this topic extends empirical approaches to new displays and domains, informs the development of general principles of graphic design, and addresses current challenges in display design raised by the recent explosion in availability of complex data sets and new technologies for visualizing and interacting with these data.
Exploring musical cognition in children with specific language impairment

This aim of this thesis was to investigate musical cognition in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and typical development. The studies carried out utilised a combination of standardised assessments and experimental measures to investigate low-level perceptual to higher-order musical competencies. The theoretical framework motivating the studies comes from three broad theoretical accounts that differentially accentuate the auditory processing, cognitive and linguistic deficits in children with SLI, as well as from neuroimaging and behavioural studies showing that aspects of music and language processing rely on the same cognitive and neural mechanisms. Whilst a number of studies have investigated music perception in SLI, this thesis reports the first systematic and theoretically motivated study of this topic. The results from the studies revealed deficits in auditory short-term memory and procedural processing in SLI, supporting a domain general model of deficits in SLI. On the experiments that tested musical competencies, the children with SLI showed relatively preserved processing of melodic contour, implicit processing of musical harmony and appreciation of the emotional connotations of music. Whilst music perception was strongly associated with auditory short-term memory in typical controls, this was not the case for the children with SLI, and an alternative musical information processing strategy was proposed. The findings from this thesis indicate that although children with SLI demonstrate a range of impairments in language and cognitive functions, there are aspects of musical cognition that are relatively spared, and this has important implications for the development of therapeutic interventions.
Optimal Operation of a Green Server with Bursty Traffic

To reduce the energy consumption of various information and communication systems, sleeping mechanism design is considered to be a key problem. Prior work has derived optimal single server sleeping policies only for non-bursty, memoryless Poisson arrivals. In this paper, for the first time, we derive the optimal sleep operation for a single server facing bursty traffic arrivals. Specifically, we model job arrivals as a discrete-time interrupted Bernoulli process (IBP) which models bursty traffic arrivals. Key factors including the switching and working energy consumption costs as well as a delay penalty are accounted for in our model. As the arrival process state (busy or quiet) cannot be directly observed by the server, we formulate the problem as a POMDP (partially observable Markov decision process), and show that it can be tractably solved as a belief-MDP by considering the time interval since the last observed arrival t. We prove that the optimal sleeping policy is hysteretic and the numerical results reveal that the optimal policy is a t-based two- threshold policy, where the sleeping thresholds change with t. The simulation results show that our policy outperforms the previously derived Poisson-optimal policy and that the system cost decreases with the burstiness of traffic.
Jump Processes in the Market for Crude Oil

Abstract In many commodity markets, the arrival of new information leads to unexpectedly rapid changes—or jumps—in commodity prices. Such arrivals suggest the assumption that log-return relatives are normally distributed may not hold. Combined with time-varying volatility, the possibility of jumps offers a potential explanation for fat tails in oil price returns. This article investigates the potential presence of jumps and time-varying volatility in the spot price of crude oil and in futures prices. The investigation is carried out over three data frequencies (Monthly, Weekly, Daily j, which allows for an investigation of temporal properties. Employing likelihood ratio tests to compare among four stochastic data-generating processes, we find that that allowing for both jumps and time-varying volatility improves the model’s ability to explain spot prices at each level of temporal aggregation; this combination also provides a statistically compelling improvement in model fit for futures prices at the Daily and Weekly level. At the monthly level, allowing for jumps does not provide a statistically significant increase in model fit after incorporating time-varying volatility into the model.
LMX as a negative predictor of presenteeism climate: A cross-cultural study in the financial and health sectors

Purpose – Some underlying mechanisms regarding presenteeism still remain unclear, namely, the construct of “presenteeism climate” and the importance of “leadership” Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) for presenteeism. In order to shed some light into this phenomenon, the purpose of this paper is to develop and apply a new scale of presenteeism climate. Design/methodology/approach – In Study 1, the authors identified a pool of items from the literature and, in Study 2 (n=147) the authors tested 26 items that were pilot studied with exploratory factor analysis. In Study 3 (n=293) the authors tested a three-factor model – extra-time valuation, supervision distrust and co-workers competitiveness – with confirmatory factor analysis. Findings – Results showed that LMX has a negative correlation with presenteeism climate. Study 3 also showed that this structure remained invariant with additional samples from employees working in hospitals from Ecuador (n=90) and China (n=237). Finally, the authors included suggestions.
Decreased insulin secretion in pregnant rats fed a low protein diet†

ABSTRACT Low protein (LP) diet during pregnancy leads to reduced plasma insulin levels in rodents, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Glucose is the primary insulin secretagogue, and enhanced glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) in beta cells contributes to compensation for insulin resistance and maintenance of glucose homeostasis during pregnancy. In this study, we hypothesized that plasma insulin levels in pregnant rats fed LP diet are reduced due to disrupted GSIS of pancreatic islets. We first confirmed reduced plasma insulin levels, then investigated in vivo insulin secretion by glucose tolerance test and ex vivo GSIS of pancreatic islets in the presence of glucose at different doses, and KCl, glibenclamide, and L-arginine. Main findings include (1) plasma insulin levels were unaltered on day 10, but significantly reduced on days 14–22 of pregnancy in rats fed LP diet compared to those of control (CT) rats; (2) insulin sensitivity was unchanged, but glucose intolerance was more severe in pregnant rats fed LP diet; (3) GSIS in pancreatic islets was lower in LP rats compared to CT rats in the presence of glucose, KCl, and glibenclamide, and the response to L-arginine was abolished in LP rats; and (4) the total insulin content in pancreatic islets and expression of Ins2 were reduced in LP rats, but expression of Gcg was unaltered. These studies demonstrate that decreased GSIS in beta cells of LP rats contributes to reduced plasma insulin levels, which may lead to placental and fetal growth restriction and programs hypertension and other metabolic diseases in offspring. Summary Sentence Decreased glucose-stimulated insulin secretion of pancreatic islets in pregnant rats fed a low diet is responsible for the reduced plasma insulin levels and consequently enhanced glucose intolerance.
Differential scanning calorimetric approach to study the effect of melting region upon transcription initiation by T7 RNA polymerase and role of high affinity GTP binding

Transcription initiation by T7 RNA polymerase is a multistep process consisting of the transition from closed to open complex. The promoters of bacteriophage T7 share a consensus sequence of 23 base pairs, from −17 to +6, relative to transcription start site (+1). In the present study, we have characterized T7 RNA polymerase-promoter complexes by means of fluorescence spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. We have examined the effect of high affinity GTP binding upon the equilibrium of the transition from closed to open complex. We have employed the promoter containing 23 base pair consensus sequence and two variants containing Adenine-Thymine and Guanine-Cytosine stretches in the melting region of the promoter sequence. Variation in the nucleotide sequence of melting region does not have any effect upon the affinity of promoter-T7 RNAP complex. On the other hand, alteration of the base sequence in the melting region of the promoter affects the isomerization process among the closed and open complexes. When the initiating nucleotide GTP is prebound to T7 RNA Polymerase, the isomerization process is affected only in case of the promoter with consensus sequence.
Differentially expressed genes in metastatic advanced Egyptian bladder cancer.

BACKGROUND Bladder cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide. Gene expression profiling using microarray technologies improves the understanding of cancer biology. The aim of this study was to determine the gene expression profile in Egyptian bladder cancer patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS Samples from 29 human bladder cancers and adjacent non-neoplastic tissues were analyzed by cDNA microarray, with hierarchical clustering and multidimensional analysis. RESULTS Five hundred and sixteen genes were differentially expressed of which SOS1, HDAC2, PLXNC1, GTSE1, ULK2, IRS2, ABCA12, TOP3A, HES1, and SRP68 genes were involved in 33 different pathways. The most frequently detected genes were: SOS1 in 20 different pathways; HDAC2 in 5 different pathways; IRS2 in 3 different pathways. There were 388 down-regulated genes. PLCB2 was involved in 11 different pathways, MDM2 in 9 pathways, FZD4 in 5 pathways, p15 and FGF12 in 4 pathways, POLE2 in 3 pathways, and MCM4 and POLR2E in 2 pathways. Thirty genes showed significant differences between transitional cell cancer (TCC) and squamous cell cancer (SCC) samples. Unsupervised cluster analysis of DNA microarray data revealed a clear distinction between low and high grade tumors. In addition 26 genes showed significant differences between low and high tumor stages, including fragile histidine triad, Ras and sialyltransferase 8 (alpha) and 16 showed significant differences between low and high tumor grades, like methionine adenosyl transferase II, beta. CONCLUSIONS The present study identified some genes, that can be used as molecular biomarkers or target genes in Egyptian bladder cancer patients.
Validation of the emotional stability scale of the South African personality inventory

The equivalent cross-cultural assessment of personality has long been a debatable subject in psychological research. Personologists remain divided as to the universality of personality traits, and as such, their cross-cultural applicability. This argument remains valid within the South African multicultural and multilingual context. In addition to the applicability of various imported personality measures, South Africa’s past misuse of psychological assessments for unfair discriminatory purposes has created many negative perceptions of their utility. This was further corroborated with the promulgation of the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998 that stipulates that all psychological assessments used in South Africa need to meet the criteria of: a) being scientifically shown to be valid and reliable; b) can be applied fairly to all employees; and c) not biased against any employee or group (Government Gazette, 1998). Currently no validated indigenous model and measure of personality exists in South Africa. Psychological assessments are mainly imported from the United States of America (US) and United Kingdom (UK) and normed to the South African population. Foxcroft, Roodt and Abrahams (2005) acknowledge that many of these assessments, in addition to many locally developed measures, have not been tested for bias nor have they been cross-culturally validated. Furthermore, the theories, models and taxonomies on which these measures are based were developed within a Western context and as such, have not incorporated the unique intricacies of the South African context and its array of cultures and languages. Therefore, the accurate and appropriate measure of personality within South Africa has been impeded.
The trap of complacency in predicting the maximum.

„where t⁄ 2 [0;T) and the functions t 7! b1(t) and t 7! b2(t) are continuous on [t⁄;T] with b1(T)=0 and b2(T)=1=2„ . If „ > 0 then b1 is decreasing and b2 is increasing on [t⁄;T] with b1(t⁄) = b2(t⁄) when t⁄ 6 0 . Using local time-space calculus we derive a coupled system of nonlinear Volterra integral equations of the second kind and show that the pair of optimal boundaries b1 and b2 can be characterized as the unique solution to this system. This also leads to an explicit formula for V in terms of b1 and b2 . If „ • 0 then t⁄ = 0 and b2 · +1 so that ? ⁄ is expressed in terms of b1 only. In this case b1 is decreasing on [z⁄;T] and increasing on [0;z⁄) for some z⁄ 2 [0;T) with z⁄ = 0 if „ = 0 , and the system of two Volterra equations reduces to one Volterra equation. If „ = 0 then there is a closed form expression for b1 . This problem was solved in [6] using the method of time change (i.e. change of variables). The method of time change cannot be extended to the case when „ 6 0 and the present paper settles the remaining cases using a difierent approach.
A Cross-Study Analysis of Covariation Judgments.

Abstract : Literature on covariation judgments has suggested that such judgments are effected by task, data, and subject characteristics. However, as a general rule, research studies have been confined to only one or two situations or sets of traits. In this paper data from several studies are pooled in order to mitigate the effects of specific characteristics, and a lens model analysis is done. It is found that subject achievement is high in the covariation task as opposed to tasks used in other lens model studies. However, subjects did not use all of the available information to the extent specified in the statistical covariation model. The normativeness of this model is questioned. (Author)
Protecting the Innocence of Youth: Moral Sanctity Values Underlie Censorship From Young Children

Three studies examined the relationship between people’s moral values (drawing on moral foundations theory) and their willingness to censor immoral acts from children. Results revealed that diverse moral values did not predict censorship judgments. It was not the case that participants who valued loyalty and authority, respectively, sought to censor depictions of disloyal and disobedient acts. Rather, censorship intentions were predicted by a single moral value—sanctity. The more people valued sanctity, the more willing they were to censor from children, regardless of the types of violations depicted (impurity, disloyalty, disobedience, etc.). Furthermore, people who valued sanctity objected to indecent exposure only to apparently innocent and pure children—those who were relatively young and who had not been previously exposed to immoral acts. These data suggest that sanctity, purity, and the preservation of innocence underlie intentions to censor from young children.
Influence of Facebook Addiction on Study Habits of College Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent of college students’ addiction in using Facebook, the extent of their study habits (time management, test-taking, note-taking, reading, and writing), and if significant relationship exists between the two. The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS), reflecting the six core elements of addiction (salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse) and the Study Habits Questionnaire (SHQ) were administered to 400 students from an institution of higher learning in Padada, Davao del Sur, with a 70.5% response rate (n=252). Pearson Product Moment Correlation coefficient was used to establish the relationship of the elements of addiction with study habits, while linear regression analysis was utilized to estimate the degree of causation of Facebook addiction to study habits. College students have predominantly low extent of addiction in Facebook. On the other way around, they are found to exhibit high extent of practicing study habits. Correlation analysis revealed significant yet negative coefficient values of the six Facebook addiction elements with overall study habits. Regression estimation revealed that higher Facebook addiction tendencies of college students decrease the extent of studying, yet the degree of the relationship (R2 = 0.053) was found to be negligible. Findings can be utilized by guidance facilitators and educators by integrating it in classroom instruction. Likewise, further studies with bigger scope/population and inclusion of demographic variables in estimating Facebook addiction (or generally, social network or online addiction) are recommended.
Illumination Estimation via Thin-Plate Spline Interpolation

Thin-plate spline interpolation is used to interpolate the chromaticity of the color of the incident scene illumination across a training set of images. Given the image of a scene under unknown illumination, the chromaticity of the scene illumination can be found from the interpolated function. The resulting illumination-estimation method can be used to provide color constancy under changing illumination conditions and automatic white balancing for digital cameras. A thin-plate spline interpolates over a nonuniformly sampled input space, which in this case is a training set of image thumbnails and associated illumination chromaticities. To reduce the size of the training set, incremental k medians are applied. Tests on real images demonstrate that the thin-plate spline method can estimate the color of the incident illumination quite accurately, and the proposed training set pruning significantly decreases the computation.
Chondrodysplasia Punctata and Maternal Autoimmune Disease: A New Case and Review of the Literature

Classic rhizomelic chondrodysplasia punctata is a rare, autosomal, recessively inherited disorder that is characterized by proximal shortening of the limbs, punctuate calcifications of the epiphyses, cataracts, developmental delay, and early lethality. A distinctive biochemical profile is characteristic for each of the several defects of peroxisomal metabolism. Recently, cases have been described that were not associated with peroxisomal dysfunction. These cases were found to be secondary to teratogen exposure or maternal conditions. Since 1993, there have been 9 reported cases of neonates with rhizomelic chondrodysplasia punctata who were born to mothers with connective tissue disease. We followed a newborn boy with features suggestive of rhizomelic chondrodysplasia punctata whose biochemical studies failed to demonstrate a defect in either plasmalogen or cholesterol biosynthesis. His mother developed systemic lupus erythematosus 8 months after delivery. This case is compared with the previously reported 9 cases from the literature and is instructive in demonstrating a lesser known effect of maternal autoantibodies on the fetus.
Use of the glycophorin A somatic mutation assay for rapid, unambiguous identification of Fanconi anemia homozygotes regardless of GPA genotype

A 7‐year‐old girl was hospitalized with pancytopenia requiring blood transfusion. She and an older brother with suspicious symptoms were referred for laboratory testing to confirm a clinical diagnosis of Fanconi anemia (FA). Blood samples from these two children and one parent were examined with the GPA somatic mutation assay. The patient's total GPA somatic mutation frequency of 1.4 × 10−4 was determined despite the confounding effects of her recent transfusion, and was greater than 10‐fold higher than that of a population of pediatric controls, consistent with the known FA phenotype. Her brother was not informative for the standard GPA assay, which requires heterozygosity for the MN blood group, but was analyzed with a modified assay that measured only allele loss mutation. His mutation frequency, 6.8 × 10−4 was also supportive of a diagnosis of FA. Both analyses also showed evidence of ongoing mutation through terminal erythroblast differentiation, a characteristic of patients with DNA repair syndromes which further confirmed the diagnoses. These conclusions were confirmed with traditional DEB‐induced chromosome breakage studies. The quantitative and qualitative aspects of the GPA assay relevant for applying this test for FA diagnosis, and perhaps for carrier detection, are discussed. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc., A Wiley Company
Traffic- and Thermal-Aware Run-Time Thermal Management Scheme for 3D NoC Systems

Three-dimensional network-on-chip (3D NoC), the combination of NoC and die-stacking 3D IC technology, is motivated to achieve lower latency, lower power consumption, and higher network bandwidth. However, the length of heat conduction path and power density per unit area increase as more dies stack vertically. Routers of NoC have comparable thermal impact as processors and contributes significant to overall chip temperature. High temperature increases the vulnerability of the system in performance, power, reliability, and cost. To ensure both thermal safety and less performance impact from temperature regulation, we propose a traffic- and thermal-aware run-time thermal management (RTM) scheme. The scheme is composed of a proactive downward routing and a reactive vertical throttling. Based on a validated traffic-thermal mutual-coupling co-simulator, our experiments show the proposed scheme is effective. The proposed RTM can be combined with thermal-aware mapping techniques to have potential for higher run-time thermal safety.