Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is the El Farol more efficient when cognitive rational agents have a larger memory size?

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in applying cognitive modelling approaches towards the understanding of the behaviour of agents in complex systems. In this paper we employ a cognitive modelling approach in a representative instance of such systems namely in the El Farol bar problem. We establish a relationship between agents and strategies, by defining the degree of belief of agents in the correctness of strategies, and devise a concept of rationality inspired in cognitive emotion theories, by conceptualizing the belief threshold by which agents must change its current strategy. We investigate whether a larger memory size increases market efficiency. We test this by systematically evaluating fifteen different treatments in which we gradually increase the memory size of cognitive agents. Interestingly, we found that the benefits of having a larger memory size are somehow limited. The results did not provide us with sufficient evidence to state that the El Farol bar is more efficient when cognitive rational agents have a larger memory size.
Racial disparity in the use of atypical antipsychotic medications among veterans.

OBJECTIVE This study assessed the current state of antipsychotic prescription practices regarding race among veterans receiving care through the Department of Veterans Affairs. METHOD The authors examined pharmacy records over a 12-month period for all veterans with schizophrenia and antipsychotic prescriptions in fiscal year 1999. They used logistic regression analysis to assess the effect of race on the use of various atypical antipsychotic agents. Analytic models controlled for age, sex, comorbid substance use, bipolar disorder, and other psychosis. RESULTS The sample of 69,787 veterans with schizophrenia was 61.3% white, 30.1% African American, and 8.5% Hispanic. Among them, 39% had prescriptions for conventional antipsychotics, 37% for atypical antipsychotics, and 23% for both atypical and conventional antipsychotics. Use of any atypical agent during the year was less likely for Hispanic veterans (55%) than for two other groups (both 61%). When examining specific medications in a multivariate model, the authors found that African American and Hispanic veterans were much less likely to receive clozapine than were white veterans. CONCLUSIONS Overall use of atypical antipsychotics was slightly less common for African American and Hispanic veterans with schizophrenia than for white patients. However, use of clozapine, the first choice for refractory illness and possibly uniquely effective for patients with comorbid substance abuse, did vary greatly by race. This may reflect concern over serious side effects, such as loss of white blood cells and fluctuations of serum glucose levels, or patient preference.
Strengthening and sustaining professional learning in the second year of teaching

The data discussed in this paper derive from post‐lesson and end‐of‐year interviews with 17 teachers in their second year of teaching. They form part of a longitudinal study which first tracked these teachers through their initial postgraduate teacher education programme and induction year. In the light of earlier analysis, which had highlighted both the enduring importance of individuals’ dispositions towards their own learning and the profound sense of professional isolation that some teachers experience once the support of their induction year is withdrawn, this paper focuses specifically on the interplay between teachers’ orientations towards their own professional learning and the nature of the learning environments in which they are working. The complex interrelationships between these two dimensions are illuminated by six case studies, which offer strong support to those who have challenged exclusive conceptualisations of ‘learning’ as either ‘construction’ or ‘participation’. The findings have important implications for all those responsible for the professional education of beginning and early career teachers, especially as they respond to the government launch in England of a new ‘national framework’ intended (eventually) to offer opportunities for Masters level professional learning to all newly qualified teachers.
Pathways to Career-Ending Police Misconduct

Prior research has not sufficiently explained the various pathways that lead to career-ending misconduct among police officers, most notably the timing of misconduct in officers’ careers, whether certain factors are related to that timing, and whether the types of misdeeds vary over time. The current study seeks to address these questions through an examination of all officers separated from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for career-ending misconduct (n = 1,542) from 1975 to 1996 as well as a comparison sample of officers who served honorably during that same time (n = 1,543). The authors adopt a survival perspective using both Cox regression survival analysis and multinomial logistic regression. Results indicate that time to termination is a complex, long-term process with distinct patterns that emerge over police officers’ careers. A number of variables were significantly associated with time to termination across officer careers, such as officer race and prior criminal history, while others were significant only at certain career stages. For example, promotion only protected against termination early in an officer’s career, while military service was a predictor of misconduct only after 10 years of service. The article highlights the importance of selection screening “out and in” processes, as officers with red flags early in their careers were at greatest risk for dismissal. The results also suggest that police departments themselves play an important role in shaping the patterns and timing of officer misconduct. Moreover, the survival framework provides a foundation for a long-overdue dialogue on good policing.
Adult Crime, Adult Time? Benchmarking Public Views on Punishing Serious Juvenile Felons

During the 1980s and 1990s, policy makers became alarmed by the perceived increase in juveniles’ involvement in serious crime. As a result, a number of laws were passed to increase the penalties associated with the commission of such crimes, including laws making juvenile waiver to adult court easier. Although research exists regarding public support for transferring juveniles, limited research is available to shed light on whether the public supports juveniles receiving “adult time” for “adult crimes. ” This study expands on the current literature by assessing the public’s views on the appropriate level of punishment for juveniles who have committed a serious felony offense. Drawing on public responses to vignettes and data from the National Judicial Reporting Program, we also benchmark public preferences against actual sentences in criminal court. Although our results show that the public favors less severe penalties for many juveniles, we also find evidence of a public sentiment that “adult crime” merits “adult time. ”
Spelling disability: A developmental linguistic analysis of pattern abstraction

ABSTRACT The ability of Learning Disabled Spellers to abstract spelling patterns was compared to two groups of normal spellers; Poor and Good. One hundred and eighty children were studied: 20 Good Spellers, 20 Poor Spellers, and 20 Learning Disabled Spellers at each age level from 8 to 10 years. Patterns were investigated using three tests; two multiple choice tests, one with nonsense words and one with real words, and a dictation test using nonsense words. The Learning Disabled Spellers showed little ability to abstract patterns at ages 8 and 9 but made considerable improvement from 9 to 10. The performance of the Learning Disabled Spellers was significantly below that of both the Good and Poor Spellers and quite distinct from the Poor Spellers. Error analyses suggest that the responses of the Learning Disabled Spellers are characteristic of those of younger, normal children.
Research Paper Series Globalisation and Labour Markets Boon or Bane for Domestic Employment? Acknowledgements Financial Support from the Leverhulme Trust under Programme Grant F114/bf Is Gratefully Acknowledged. We Are Grateful to International Fragmentation: Boon or Bane for Domestic Employment?

In this paper, we introduce the fairness approach to efficiency wages into a standard model of international fragmentation. This gives us a theoretical framework in which wage inequality and unemployment rates are co-determined and therefore the public concern can be addressed that international fragmentation and outsourcing to low wage countries lead to domestic job-losses. We develop a novel diagrammatic tool to illustrate the main labour market effects of international fragmentation. We also explore how preferences for fair wages and the size of unemployment benefits impact on the employment effects of outsourcing and critically assess the role of political intervention that aims to reduce unemployment benefits under internationally fragmented production.
A Modified Baboon Model for Endometriosis

Abstract: Endometriosis is one of the most common causes of infertility and chronic pelvic pain and affects 1 in 10 women in the reproductive‐age group. Although existence of this disease has been known for over 100 years, our current knowledge of its pathogenesis, the pathophysiology of related infertility, and its spontaneous evolution is limited. Several reasons contribute to our lack of knowledge, the most critical being the difficulty in carrying out objective long‐term studies in women. Thus, we and others have developed the baboon as an appropriate nonhuman primate to study the etiology of this disease. We suggested that endometriosis develops in two distinct phases. Phase I is invasive and dependent on ovarian steroids. Phase II, which is the active phase of the disease, is characterized by endogenous estrogen biosynthesis. Following inoculation with menstrual endometrial tissues in two consecutive menstrual cycles, baboons develop lesions that are similar to those seen in humans. Laparoscopy at 1, 4, and 10 months revealed a preponderance of red raised nodules at the first month, while both red lesions and reddish‐blue proliferative endometriotic lesions were evident at 4 and 10 months. The presence of glandular tissue and stromal fibroblasts in these lesions was confirmed by histology. Lesions obtained at 1 and 4 months expressed estrogen receptor β (ERβ), matrix metalloproteinase‐7 (MMP‐7), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) predominantly. However, aromatase expression was only readily evident at 10 months, although some lesions obtained at 4 months expressed low levels of aromatase. Therefore, our preliminary data suggest that endometriosis can be artificially induced in baboons, and the role of exogenous and endogenous estradiol in proliferation, angiogenesis, and immune modulations can now be evaluated in a potentially systemic manner.
Circle of Willis Atherosclerosis Is a Risk Factor for Sporadic Alzheimer’s Disease

Objectives—We conducted a quantitative investigation of brain arterial atherosclerotic damage and its relationship to sporadic Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Methods and Results—Fifty-four consecutive autopsy cases, 32 AD and 22 nondemented control subjects, were examined to establish the degree of arterial stenosis. Vessel external and lumenal area measurements were taken from 3-mm arterial cross-sections to calculate a stenosis index. AD patient circle of Willis arteries possessed a significant degree of stenosis as a consequence of multiple and severe atherosclerotic lesions. These lesions were significantly more severe in AD cases than in age-matched controls (P <0.0001), and the number of stenoses and the index of occlusion (R =0.67; P <0.00001) were positively correlated. In addition, the index of stenosis significantly correlated with the following measures of AD neuropathological lesions: total plaque score, neuritic plaque score, neurofibrillary tangle score, Braak stage score, and white matter rarefaction score. Conclusions—Our study reveals an association between severe circle of Willis atherosclerosis and sporadic AD that should be considered a risk factor for this dementia. These observations strongly suggest that atherosclerosis-induced brain hypoperfusion contributes to the clinical and pathological manifestations of AD.
The Musashi family RNA-binding proteins in stem cells

Abstract The Musashi family is an evolutionarily conserved group of RNA-binding proteins. In mammal, two members of the group, Msi1 and Msi2, have been identified to date. Msi1 is considered to play roles in maintaining the stem cell status (stemness) of neural stem/progenitor cells in adults and in the development of central nervous system through translational regulation of its target mRNAs, which encode regulators of signal transduction and the cell cycle. Recently, strong expression of Msi1 in various somatic stem/progenitor cells of adult tissues, such as eye, gut, stomach, breast, and hair follicle, has been reported. The protein is also expressed in various cancer cells, and ectopically emerging cells have been found in neural tissues of patients with diseases involving neural disorder, including epilepsy. Many novel target mRNAs and regulatory pathways of Msi1 have been reported in recent years. Here, we present a review of the functions and action mechanisms of Msi1 protein and discuss possible directions for further study.
Enhancing Exploration in Graph-like Worlds

This paper explores two enhancements that can be made to single and multiple robot exploration in graph-like worlds. One enhancement considers the order in which potential places are explored and another considers the exploitation of local neighbor information to help disambiguate possible locations. Empirical evaluations show that both enhancements can produce a significant reduction in exploration effort in terms of the number of mechanical steps required over the original exploration algorithms and that for some environments up to 60% reduction in mechanical steps can be achieved.
Consumers' knowledge on sizing and fit issues: a solution to successful apparel selection in developing countries

A study was conducted in the Nairobi, Eldoret and Kisumu regions of Kenya with the objective to determine and describe the role that Kenyan female consumers' sizing and fit knowledge play in the problems that they experience when selecting apparel. The study was cross-sectional and 201 female teachers between the ages 25 and 55 years were involved. Participants completed a questionnaire and were measured wearing body suits. Results revealed that most Kenyan female consumers frequently experience problems in getting the right size apparel items, while more than 90% of the consumers are also unsatisfied with the fit of their clothes. It was clear that most Kenyan female consumers are familiar with the non-informative lettered and numbered size labels as well as with the size label terms that represent established body types. However, the consumers lack knowledge of the meanings of various size label descriptions used on labels of ready-made apparel and also lack knowledge of their own key body dimensions. They are also confused as to where the cause of their problems lies and therefore blame their bodies as well as the apparel industry for their problems. The importance of knowledge in consumers' selection of apparel that would fit their specific proportions should not be underestimated. Industry should take notice that it is of no use to present consumers with size label information that is not clear, informative and understandable, as currently the case with the use of non-informative lettered and numbered size codes.
Using a pattern recognition-based technique to assess the hydrophobicity class of silicone rubber materials

Several transmission and distribution companies worldwide have started to replace their existing outdoor ceramic insulators with silicone rubber insulators. The use of silicone rubber insulators in outdoor insulators was first introduced in the market almost 30 years ago. Various studies have looked at the characteristics of this material under contaminated conditions. Despite the numerous advantages of silicone rubber insulators, they still suffer from ageing especially under severe contamination conditions. Therefore, it is important to develop techniques that enable utility engineers to evaluate the ageing performance of silicone rubber insulators. The aim of this paper is to develop an automatic system to classify and assess the condition of silicone rubber insulators using image processing and pattern recognition techniques. In this research, several feature extraction and selection techniques have been used to extract textural and statistical features. These techniques include discrete cosine transformation, wavelet transformation, Radon transformation, contourlet transformation, gray-level co-occurrence matrices, and stepwise regression. Various classifiers were examined to evaluate the extracted features. The examined classifiers included k-nearest neighbor, neural networks, and linear classifiers. A database comprised of 358 images was collected and preprocessed representing the well-known seven hydrophobicity classes. A recognition rate of 96.5% was achieved using fused features selected by a stepwise regression and classified by a neural network classifier. The system proposed by this research can be used to help utilities assess their silicone rubber insulators automatically and effectively.
The Mobile Privacy-Security Knowledge Gap Model: Understanding Behaviors

Increasing collection of individuals’ information has led to several security and privacy issues, such as identity theft and targeted marketing. These risks are further heightened in the mobile realm as data collection can occur continuously and ubiquitously. Most existing research considers threats to privacy and security as separate concerns, resulting in separate research streams. However, focusing on information privacy alone results in a lack of understanding of the security ramifications of individual information disclosure. Using the Information Motivation Behavioral (IMB) Skills Model as a theoretical foundation, we develop the Knowledge Gap Model of Security and Privacy Behavior. In the model, we propose that two knowledge gaps exist that affect how individuals enact security and privacy behaviors: the security-privacy knowledge gap, and the knowledge-belief gap. We use the model to develop a research agenda for future research.
Simultaneous assessment of left‐ventricular infarction size, function and tissue viability in a murine model of myocardial infarction by cardiac manganese‐enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MEMRI)

Owing to its signal‐enhancing characteristics in viable well‐perfused tissue, divalent manganese (Mn2+) has been used as a myocardial imaging contrast agent. Because Mn2+ can enter excitable cells through the voltage‐gated L‐type calcium channels, manganese‐enhanced MRI (MEMRI) has been used to determine the viability and the inotropic state of the heart. In this study, we examined the correlation between left ventricular infarction zone as assessed by cardiac MEMRI and function in mice with permanent coronary artery occlusion. At an Mn2+ infusion dose of 1.72±0.47 nmol/min/g body weight, the steady‐state signal intensity (SI) enhancement 20–26 min post‐Mn2+ infusion of the normal septum and left‐ventricular wall during diastole was 128.2±14.4 and 127.9±26.5%, respectively, whereas the infarction zone was 56.0±7.1%. During systole, the SI enhancement was 144.6±33.0, 116.0±18.7 and 48.3±20.0% for the normal septum, left‐ventricular wall and infarction zone, respectively. A good correlation was obtained between the MEMRI determined infarction volume and conventional histological TTC staining (r = 0.9582, p<0.01). There was also a strong negative correlation between MEMRI determined infarction percentage (compared with whole left ventricle) and ejection fraction (r = −0.94, p<0.05). These data suggest that the Mn2+ concentration at steady state in the heart may reflect altered tissue viability in the infarcted tissue as well as surrounding region following myocardial infarction. In conclusion, in vivo cardiac MEMRI offers a manner in which functional, pathologic and viability data may be obtained simultaneously in myocardial tissue. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Regulators of Androgen Action Resource: a one-stop shop for the comprehensive study of androgen receptor action

Androgen receptor (AR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor that is the main target for treatment of non-organ-confined prostate cancer (CaP). Failure of life-prolonging AR-targeting androgen deprivation therapy is due to flexibility in steroidogenic pathways that control intracrine androgen levels and variability in the AR transcriptional output. Androgen biosynthesis enzymes, androgen transporters and AR-associated coregulators are attractive novel CaP treatment targets. These proteins, however, are characterized by multiple transcript variants and isoforms, are subject to genomic alterations, and are differentially expressed among CaPs. Determining their therapeutic potential requires evaluation of extensive, diverse datasets that are dispersed over multiple databases, websites and literature reports. Mining and integrating these datasets are cumbersome, time-consuming tasks and provide only snapshots of relevant information. To overcome this impediment to effective, efficient study of AR and potential drug targets, we developed the Regulators of Androgen Action Resource (RAAR), a non-redundant, curated and user-friendly searchable web interface. RAAR centralizes information on gene function, clinical relevance, and resources for 55 genes that encode proteins involved in biosynthesis, metabolism and transport of androgens and for 274 AR-associated coregulator genes. Data in RAAR are organized in two levels: (i) Information pertaining to production of androgens is contained in a ‘pre-receptor level’ database, and coregulator gene information is provided in a ‘post-receptor level’ database, and (ii) an ‘other resources’ database contains links to additional databases that are complementary to and useful to pursue further the information provided in RAAR. For each of its 329 entries, RAAR provides access to more than 20 well-curated publicly available databases, and thus, access to thousands of data points. Hyperlinks provide direct access to gene-specific entries in the respective database(s). RAAR is a novel, freely available resource that provides fast, reliable and easy access to integrated information that is needed to develop alternative CaP therapies. Database URL: http://www.lerner. ccf.org/cancerbio/heemers/RAAR/search/
Interpersonal Expectations, Expectancy Violations, and Emotional Communication

In this article, key concepts and propositions of expectancy violations theory are explicated and then applied to emotional communication. It is proposed that emotional experience and expression can profitably be understood according to what experiences and expressions are expected in interpersonal relationships, the extent to which enacted expressions deviate positively or negatively from expectancies, the degree to which other types of expectancy violations engender emotional expressions, and the effects of deviating from entrenched patterns of emotional expression.