Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Working memory is not fixed-capacity: More active storage capacity for real-world objects than for simple stimuli

Significance Visual working memory is the cognitive system that holds visual information in an active state, making it available for cognitive processing and protecting it against interference. Here, we demonstrate that visual working memory has a greater capacity than previously measured. In particular, we use EEG to show that, contrary to existing theories, enhanced performance with real-world objects relative to simple stimuli in short-term memory tasks is reflected in active storage in working memory and is not entirely due to the independent usage of episodic long-term memory systems. These data demonstrate that working memory and its capacity limitations are dependent upon our knowledge. Thus, working memory is not fixed-capacity; instead, its capacity is dependent on exactly what is being remembered. Visual working memory is the cognitive system that holds visual information active to make it resistant to interference from new perceptual input. Information about simple stimuli—colors and orientations—is encoded into working memory rapidly: In under 100 ms, working memory ‟fills up,” revealing a stark capacity limit. However, for real-world objects, the same behavioral limits do not hold: With increasing encoding time, people store more real-world objects and do so with more detail. This boost in performance for real-world objects is generally assumed to reflect the use of a separate episodic long-term memory system, rather than working memory. Here we show that this behavioral increase in capacity with real-world objects is not solely due to the use of separate episodic long-term memory systems. In particular, we show that this increase is a result of active storage in working memory, as shown by directly measuring neural activity during the delay period of a working memory task using EEG. These data challenge fixed-capacity working memory models and demonstrate that working memory and its capacity limitations are dependent upon our existing knowledge.
Breach of trust in takeovers and the optimal corporate charter

This paper analyzes how takeovers, various takeover defenses, and golden parachutes affect the value of target companies using an incomplete contracts framework. The author considers a raider who can improve the efficiency of production and appropriate rents of stakeholders of the company. Anticipating the expropriation of his rents, the manager's relationship specific investments will be too small, which may offset the value increase through the takeover. The simultaneous use of poison pills and golden parachutes can solve the underinvestment problem without forgoing profitable takeovers. However, the privately optimal level and composition of takeover defenses need not be socially efficient. Copyright 1995 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Effect of Polymorphisms of Three Genes Mediating Monoamine Signalling on Brain Morphometry in Schizophrenia and Healthy Subjects

Objective We examined the effect of risk alleles of polymorphisms of three schizophrenia risk genes that mediate monoamine signalling in the brain on regional brain volumes of schizophrenia and healthy control subjects. The risk alleles and the gene polymorphisms studied were: Val allele of catechol o-methyltransferase (COMT) rs4680 polymorphism; short allele of 5-hydroxy tryptamine transporter linked polymorphic region (5HTTLPR) polymorphism; and T allele of 5-hydroxy tryptamine 2A (5HT2A) rs6314 polymorphism. Methods The study was carried out on patients with recent onset schizophrenia (n=41) recruited from the outpatient department of National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India and healthy control subjects (n=39), belonging to South Indian Dravidian ethnicity. Individual and additive effects of risk alleles of the above gene polymorphisms on brain morphometry were explored using voxel-based morphometry. Results Irrespective of phenotypes, individuals with the risk allele T of the rs6314 polymorphism of 5HT2A gene showed greater (at cluster-extent equivalent to family wise error-correction [FWEc] p<0.05) regional brain volumes in the left inferior temporal and left inferior occipital gyri. Those with the risk alleles of the other two polymorphisms showed a trend (at p<0.001, uncorrected) towards lower regional brain volumes. A trend (at p<0.001, uncorrected) towards additive effects of the above 3 risk alleles (subjects with 2 or 3 risk alleles vs. those with 1 or no risk alleles) on brain morphology was also noted. Conclusion The findings of the present study have implications in understanding the role of individual and additive effects of genetic variants in mediating regional brain morphometry in health and disease.
Entrepreneurial Entry into Foreign Markets: A Transaction Cost Perspective

The best opportunity for growth is often overseas, even for smaller entrepreneurial firms. However, resource-constrained smaller firms do not have as many available entry strategies as do larger multinational enterprises (MNEs). Smaller firms frequently must ally themselves with partners in order to make international expansion feasible (e.g. employing an export agent, licensing, joint venture, or strategic alliance strategy). The alliance of two distinct parties central to these entry strategies lends itself to a transaction costs economics (TCE) perspective. TCE illuminates the underpinnings of these relationships, in particular, highlighting problems and risks that the respective parties face when entering into the partnership. These problems arise from the threat of opportunism, specifically, adverse selection and moral hazard. The paper develops these problems within the entrepreneur/export agent realm and suggests methods for overcoming these problems.
Product Market Evidence on the Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage

We infer the employment response to a minimum wage change by calibrating a model of employment for the restaurant industry. Whereas perfect competition implies that employment falls and prices rise after a minimum wage increase, the monopsony model potentially implies the opposite. We show that estimated price responses are consistent with the competitive model. We place fairly tight bounds on the employment response, with the most plausible parameter values suggesting that a 10% increase in the minimum wage lowers low‐skill employment by 2%–4% and total restaurant employment by 1%–3%.
Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance.

A correlational study examined relationships between motivational orientation, self-regulated learning, and classroom academic performance for 173 seventh graders from eight science and seven English classes. A self-report measure of student self-efficacy, intrinsic value, test anxiety, self-regulation, and use of learning strategies was administered, and performance data were obtained from work on classroom assignments. Self-efficacy and intrinsic value were positively related to cognitive engagement and performance. Regression analyses revealed that, depending on the outcome measure, self-regulation, self-efficacy, and test anxiety emerged as the best predictors of performance. Intrinsic value did not have a direct influence on performance but was strongly related to self-regulation and cognitive strategy use, regardless of prior achievement level. The implications of individual differences in motivational orientation for cognitive engagement and self-regulation in the classroom are discussed. Self-regulation of cognition and behavior is an important aspect of student learning and academic performance in the classroom context (Corno & Mandinach, 1983; Corno & Rohrkemper, 1985). There are a variety of definitions of selfregulated learning, but three components seem especially important for classroom performance. First, self-regulated learning includes students' metacognitive strategies for planning, monitoring, and modifying their cognition (e.g., Brown, Bransford, Campione, & Ferrara, 1983; Corno, 1986; Zim
An analysis of spatiotemporal variations of soil and vegetation moisture from a 29‐year satellite‐derived data set over mainland Australia

The spatiotemporal behavior of soil and vegetation moisture over mainland Australia was analyzed using passive microwave observations by four satellites going back to late 1978. Differences in measurement specifications prevented merging the data directly. A continuous product was developed for Australia by scaling percentiles of the cumulative moisture distribution within each grid cell to the percentiles of a reference sensor. The coefficient of correlation and root‐mean‐square error between rescaled values and the reference generally suggest good agreement. Using the merged data product, a strong El Niño–Southern Oscillation signal in near‐surface hydrology across Australia was confirmed. Spatial patterns of trends in annual averages show that western and northwestern Australia have experienced an increase in vegetation moisture content, while the east and southeast experienced a decrease. Soil moisture showed a similar spatial pattern but with larger regions experiencing a decrease. This could be explained by decreasing rainfall and increasing potential evapotranspiration during the extended winter period (May–September). The results give us reasonable confidence in the time series of soil and vegetation moisture derived by the scaling method developed in this study. Development of a global data set along these lines should enable better estimation of hydrological variables and should increase understanding of the impacts of ocean circulations on terrestrial hydrology and vegetation dynamics.
Ecophysiological responses of almond (Prunus dulcis) seedlings to cadmium stress

Almond (Prunus dulcis L.) seedlings were exposed to 0, 25, 50, 100 and 150 μM of CdCl2 in a solution culture under controlled conditions. The effects of cadmium (Cd) exposure on almond seedlings growth, stomatal architecture, gas exchange and physiological parameters were investigated.Under cadmium stress conditions, significant decrease in fresh and dry weight, length of shoot and chlorophyll content were observed. Stomatal conductance, transpiration and net photosynthetic rates were generally depressed by Cd stress, despite stomatal frequency values and stomatal pore size remained unchanged. Exposure to Cd severely restricted the starch content and increased soluble sugars.
Behavior‐based personalization in web search

Personalized search approaches tailor search results to users' current interests, so as to help improve the likelihood of a user finding relevant documents for their query. Previous work on personalized search focuses on using the content of the user's query and of the documents clicked to model the user's preference. In this paper we focus on a different type of signal: We investigate the use of behavioral information for the purpose of search personalization. That is, we consider clicks and dwell time for reranking an initially retrieved list of documents. In particular, we (i) investigate the impact of distributions of users and queries on document reranking; (ii) estimate the relevance of a document for a query at 2 levels, at the query‐level and at the word‐level, to alleviate the problem of sparseness; and (iii) perform an experimental evaluation both for users seen during the training period and for users not seen during training. For the latter, we explore the use of information from similar users who have been seen during the training period. We use the dwell time on clicked documents to estimate a document's relevance to a query, and perform Bayesian probabilistic matrix factorization to generate a relevance distribution of a document over queries. Our experiments show that: (i) for personalized ranking, behavioral information helps to improve retrieval effectiveness; and (ii) given a query, merging information inferred from behavior of a particular user and from behaviors of other users with a user‐dependent adaptive weight outperforms any combination with a fixed weight.
Enhanced Differential Evolution With Adaptive Strategies for Numerical Optimization

Differential evolution (DE) is a simple, yet efficient, evolutionary algorithm for global numerical optimization, which has been widely used in many areas. However, the choice of the best mutation strategy is difficult for a specific problem. To alleviate this drawback and enhance the performance of DE, in this paper, we present a family of improved DE that attempts to adaptively choose a more suitable strategy for a problem at hand. In addition, in our proposed strategy adaptation mechanism (SaM), different parameter adaptation methods of DE can be used for different strategies. In order to test the efficiency of our approach, we combine our proposed SaM with JADE, which is a recently proposed DE variant, for numerical optimization. Twenty widely used scalable benchmark problems are chosen from the literature as the test suit. Experimental results verify our expectation that the SaM is able to adaptively determine a more suitable strategy for a specific problem. Compared with other state-of-the-art DE variants, our approach performs better, or at least comparably, in terms of the quality of the final solutions and the convergence rate. Finally, we validate the powerful capability of our approach by solving two real-world optimization problems.
Influence of nitrogen sources on yield and its components of some maize varieties.

2 Abstract: A field study was carried out in the Agricultural Research and Experimental Center, Faculty of Agriculture at Moshtohor, Kalubia Governorate, Benha University, Egypt during 2006 and 2007 seasons. The aim of this study was to assess influence of nitrogen sources i.e. 120 kg N/feddan as a mineral form (min.), 120 kg N/feddan as organic form (org.), 90 kg N/feddan min. + 30 kg N/feddan org. , 60kg N/feddan min. + 60 kg N/feddan org. and 30 kg N/feddan min. + 90 kg N/feddan org. on yield and its components of some maize varieties i.e. S.C 3084, S.C. 10 and T.W. C.351. The obtained results showed that the S.C 3084 significantly surpassed the other hybrids in ear leaf area and chlorophyll SPAD-units, number of ears/plant, number of grains/ear, ear weight, grain weight/ear and grain yield/feddan (one feddan = 4200 m ). It was noticed that the 2 maximum values of plant and ear height, ear leaf area, chlorophyll units, number ears/plant, 100-grain weight, ear weight, grain yield/fed, grain protein content (GPC) and grain NPK uptake in both seasons were obtained by application of 120 kg N/fed as a mineral form. Whereas, no significant difference was noticed between 90kg N min.+30kg N org. /fed and 120 kg N min/fed on most characters studied in both seasons. The interaction between maize hybrids and nitrogen sources significantly affected ear leaf area, chlorophyll SPAD-units, number of grains/ear and grain N uptake in the 2 season only. nd
Font tuning: A review and new experimental evidence

This paper reflects on the kinds of evidence able to confirm that letter and word identification in reading can be supported by encoding the underlying visual structure of the text, and specifically by deriving structural descriptions for letters. It is proposed that structure-driven processes are intimately linked to the implementation of font-specific rules for translating visual features into elements of a letter's structural description. Evidence for such font tuning comes from studies exploring the impact of font mixing on reading fluency, and from studies showing how the benefits of experience with a novel typeface can generalize to letters that have yet to be seen in the typeface. After reviewing this evidence, three new experiments are reported which explore font tuning in the context of the lexical decision task. The time course of font tuning, which is monitored by changing the time interval between successive test stimuli, is shown to be sensitive to the overall probability with which successive stimuli appear in the same typeface. In addition, font tuning is shown to reflect item-by-item fluctuations in this probability. Finally, the effects of font switching are shown to generalize beyond the particular letters present in the text, and to be confined to 1-back transitions. It is concluded that font tuning reflects the implementation of a set of font-specific translation rules held in working memory, and is moderated by the reader's implicit knowledge of the constraints present in the sequencing of successive portions of text.
Investigating the effects of encumbrance on one- and two- handed interactions with mobile devices

In this paper, we investigate the effects of encumbrance (carrying typical objects such as shopping bags during interaction) and walking on target acquisition on a touchscreen mobile phone. Users often hold objects and use mobile devices at the same time and we examined the impact encumbrance has on one- and two- handed interactions. Three common input postures were evaluated: two-handed index finger, one-handed preferred thumb and two-handed both thumbs, to assess the effects on performance of carrying a bag in each hand while walking. The results showed a significant decrease in targeting performance when users were encumbered. For example, input accuracy dropped to 48.1% for targeting with the index finger when encumbered, while targeting error using the preferred thumb to input was 4.2mm, an increase of 40% compared to unencumbered input. We also introduce a new method to evaluate the user's preferred walking speed when interacting - PWS&I, and suggest future studies should use this to get a more accurate measure of the user's input performance.
Ripening-Dependent Changes in Antioxidants, Color Attributes, and Antioxidant Activity of Seven Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) Cultivars

To evaluate the ripening-dependent changes in phytonutrients, seven commercial cultivars (two general and five cherry) of tomatoes were cultivated under greenhouse conditions. Fruits were harvested at breaker, turning, pink, light red, and red stages of each cultivar, and antioxidant contents, color attributes, and antioxidant activities were measured. During ripening process, lycopene content increased from the breaker to red stage, while lutein displayed the reverse accumulation pattern, with higher values during the breaker stage. In contrast, β-carotene showed the highest levels of synthesis in pink and light red stages. Furthermore, flavonoids (quercetin, rutin, naringenin, and luteolin) also showed similar ripening-dependent changes, with higher quantities in pink and light red stages. Ascorbic acid showed continuously increasing patterns throughout ripening until the red stage, while the accumulation of total phenolics was cultivar-dependent. These results indicate that each antioxidant compound has a unique pattern of accumulation and degradation during the ripening process. “Unicon” exhibited highest total carotenoid (110.27 mg/100 g), total phenol (297.88 mg GAE/100 g) and total flavonoid content (273.33 mg/100 g), and consequently highest antioxidant activity (2552.4 μmol TE/100 g) compared to other cultivars. Throughout the ripening processes, total phenolics showed the highest correlation with antioxidant activity, followed by β-carotene and total flavonoids. In conclusion, ripening in tomatoes is accompanied by incremental increases in various antioxidant compounds to some extent, as well as by concomitant increases in antioxidant activity.
Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate

In the modern Congress, one of the highest hurdles for major bills or nominations is gaining the sixty votes necessary to shut off a filibuster in the Senate. But this wasn't always the case. Both citizens and scholars tend to think of the legislative process as a game played by the rules in which votes are the critical commodity - the side that has the most votes wins. In this comprehensive volume, Gregory Koger shows, on the contrary, that filibustering is a game with slippery rules in which legislators who think fast and try hard can triumph over superior numbers. "Filibustering" explains how and why obstruction has been institutionalized in the U.S. Senate over the last fifty years, and how this transformation affects politics and policy making. Koger also traces the lively history of filibustering in the U.S. House during the nineteenth century and measures the effects of filibustering - bills killed, compromises struck, and new issues raised by obstruction. Unparalleled in the depth of its theory and its combination of historical and political analysis, "Filibustering" will be the definitive study of its subject for years to come.
When Are Modifications of Securitized Loans Beneficial to Investors?

Despite loan modification being widely discussed as an alternative to foreclosure, little research has focused on quantifying its effect on loan performance. I quantify the effects of additional modifications made early in the recent housing crisis by exploiting exogenous variation in the incentives to modify securitized non-agency loans. An additional modification reduces loan losses by 40% relative to the average loss, which suggests that the marginal benefit of modification likely exceeded the marginal cost. Consistent with theory, modifications are especially beneficial when borrowers are less likely to return to current status without help and when foreclosure losses are higher.
Cultural evolution of systematically structured behaviour in a non-human primate

Culture pervades human life and is at the origin of the success of our species. A wide range of other animals have culture too, but often in a limited form that does not complexify through the gradual accumulation of innovations. We developed a new paradigm to study cultural evolution in primates in order to better evaluate our closest relatives' cultural capacities. Previous studies using transmission chain experimental paradigms, in which the behavioural output of one individual becomes the target behaviour for the next individual in the chain, show that cultural transmission can lead to the progressive emergence of systematically structured behaviours in humans. Inspired by this work, we combined a pattern reproduction task on touch screens with an iterated learning procedure to develop transmission chains of baboons (Papio papio). Using this procedure, we show that baboons can exhibit three fundamental aspects of human cultural evolution: a progressive increase in performance, the emergence of systematic structure and the presence of lineage specificity. Our results shed new light on human uniqueness: we share with our closest relatives essential capacities to produce human-like cultural evolution.
Low-Cost SHA-1 Hash Function Architecture for RFID Tags

Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are expected to play an important role in the future of ubiquitous computing. By extending the deployment of computing devices to every facet of our lives will open up communication infrastructures to new forms of attack. As such, the inclusion of security is vital in the development of next-generation wireless and ubiquitous devices. In this paper, a low-cost SHA-1 hash function architecture is described that can be used to provide data integrity and authentication in RFID tags. When implemented on 130 nm CMOS the design utilises 5527 gates and consumes 2.32 μW of power. To the author’s knowledge, the proposed architecture is the smallest and most power-efficient hash function design reported in the literature to date.