Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of benefactor type on gratitude and indebtedness

Gratitude can be a strong emotion, as can be indebtedness. Although historically in the social sciences gratitude and indebtedness have been equated with each other, situations may differentially affect these emotions. One situational aspect that may impact these emotions differentially is the type of benefactor; an individual, independent institution, or a related institution. Does the type of benefactor impact gratitude responses? The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate this question. Using a scenario methodology, I manipulated type of benefactor and cost of the benefit to the benefactor. With this study, I hope to gain more knowledge of gratitude and indebtedness and how different situations affect the levels of these emotions. Because well-being has a strong link to gratitude, this study provides additional information about factors that may enhance gratitude. A main effect for type of benefactor was found, such that participants in the individual benefactor condition reported higher gratitude responses compared to the independent and related institution benefactor conditions. This difference was explained by appraisals of whether individuals felt that the benefactor exceeded their obligations: they felt that the individual benefactor exceeded their obligations more than did the university. However, cost to the benefactor did not have an impact on gratitude in any of the conditions. As in past studies, there was a large main effect for type of emotion, such that participants reported far more gratitude than indebtedness in response to the benefit. Indebtedness followed the similar trend as gratitude, though not at a significant level.
Exploring Consumer Behavior in Virtual Reality Tourism Using an Extended Stimulus-Organism-Response Model

Although virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology in tourism, little research has been conducted on what factors make consumers visit destinations presented by VR. To address this gap in the literature, this study developed a theoretical framework including authentic experience, cognitive and affective responses, attachment, and visit intention with VR tourism using a stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory. The results revealed significant impacts of authentic experience on cognitive and affective responses, indicating that authentic experience is an important factor in VR tourism. The study identified cognitive and affective responses as significant mediators in predicting attachment and visit intention. The results demonstrated that the intention to visit places shown in VR tourism was influenced by attachment to VR. Cognitive response had a stronger influence than affective response on the intention to visit a destination in VR. This study sheds light on why potential tourists visit destinations shown in VR.
2 . A Generic User Model

Automated software customization is drawing increasing attention as a means to help users deal with the scope, complexity, potential intrusiveness, and everchanging nature of modern software. The ability to automatically customize functionality, interfaces, and advice to specific users is made more difficult by the uncertainty about the needs of specific individuals and their preferences for interaction. Following recent probabilistic techniques in user modeling, we model our user with a dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) and propose to explicitly infer the “user’s type” — a composite of personality and affect variables — in real time. We design the system to reason about the impact of its actions given the user’s current state. Our simulations show that user types can be inferred quickly and that a myopic policy offers considerable benefit by adapting to both different types and changing attitudes. We then develop a more realistic user model, using behavioural data from 45 users to learn model parameters and the topology of our proposed user types. With the new model, we conduct a usability experiment with 4 users and 4 different policies. These experiments, while preliminary, show encouraging results for our adaptive policy.
Biomarkers of Disease and Treatment in Murine and Cynomolgus Models of Chronic Asthma

Background Biomarkers facilitate early detection of disease and measurement of therapeutic efficacy, both at clinical and experimental levels. Recent advances in analytics and disease models allow comprehensive screening for biomarkers in complex diseases, such as asthma, that was previously not feasible. Objective Using murine and nonhuman primate (NHP) models of asthma, identify biomarkers associated with early and chronic stages of asthma and responses to steroid treatment. Methods The total protein content from thymic stromal lymphopoietin transgenic (TSLP Tg) mouse BAL fluid was ascertained by shotgun proteomics analysis. A subset of these potential markers was further analyzed in BAL fluid, BAL cell mRNA, and lung tissue mRNA during the stages of asthma and following corticosteroid treatment. Validation was conducted in murine and NHP models of allergic asthma. Results Over 40 proteins were increased in the BAL fluid of TSLP Tg mice that were also detected by qRT-PCR in lung tissue and BAL cells, as well as in OVA-sensitive mice and house dust mite-sensitive NHP. Previously undescribed as asthma biomarkers, KLK1, Reg3γ, ITLN2, and LTF were modulated in asthmatic mice, and Clca3, Chi3l4 (YM2), and Ear11 were the first lung biomarkers to increase during disease and the last biomarkers to decline in response to therapy. In contrast, GP-39, LCN2, sICAM-1, YM1, Epx, Mmp12, and Klk1 were good indicators of early therapeutic intervention. In NHP, AMCase, sICAM-1, CLCA1, and GP-39 were reduced upon treatment with corticosteroids. Conclusions and clinical relevance These results significantly advance our understanding of the biomarkers present in various tissue compartments in animal models of asthma, including those induced early during asthma and modulated with therapeutic intervention, and show that BAL cells (or their surrogate, induced sputum cells) are a viable choice for biomarker examination.
Through the looking glass: The factors that influence consumer trust and distrust in brands

This study aims to identify the factors responsible for creating brand trust and brand distrust among consumers. It uses a grounded theory approach to guide the conduct and analysis of 20 semistructured interviews that yielded 120 descriptions of consumer‐brand interactions. The 3‐stage model that emerged shows a process whereby consumers prioritize product/service quality information and subsequently consider how the company behind the brand behaves toward consumers in the name of the brand, specifically behaviors signalling its integrity and benevolence. Finally, consumers consider characteristics of the company behind the brand (e.g., its financial status) and how it behaves in its own name toward other stakeholder groups (e.g., employees). The process for distrust mirrors that for trust, implying that the two are polar opposites. The data also show that trust and distrust in a brand can coexist but within separate domains.
Curvature-Augmented Tensor Voting for Shape Inference from Noisy 3D Data

Improves the basic tensor voting formalism to infer the sign and direction of principal curvatures at each input site from noisy 3D data. Unlike most previous approaches, no local surface fitting, partial derivative computation, nor oriented normal vector recovery is performed in our method. These approaches are known to be noise-sensitive, since accurate partial derivative information is often required, which is usually unavailable from real data. Also, unlike approaches that detect signs of Gaussian curvature, we can handle points with zero Gaussian curvature uniformly, without first localizing them in a separate process. The tensor-voting curvature estimation is non-iterative, does not require initialization, and is robust to a considerable amount of outlier noise, as its effect is reduced by collecting a large number of tensor votes. Qualitative and quantitative results on synthetic and real complex data are presented.
Engagement in educational games: An exploration of the interaction between game features, players’ perceptions and learning

"Engagement scheint der Schlusselmechanismus zu sein, der den Erfolg von Computerspielen erklart. Fur effektive zukunftige Entwicklung von Lernspielen ist fundiertes Wissen uber die Merkmale dieses Engagements unerlasslich. Dies schliest Erkenntnise daruber ein, welche Dimensionen des Engagements bei der Konzeption von Lernpiele zu berucksichtigen sind und wie sich diese Dimensionen auf den Wissenserwerb auswirken. Auserdem ist es fur einen erfolgreichen Umgang mit solche Technologien zentral zu berucksichtigen, wie die Spielaktivitat wahrgenommen wird und in welchem Umfang diese Wahrnehmung einen Effekt auf die Qualitat des “gameplay”, bzw. des Engagements haben konnte. Als eine entscheidende Variabel wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit die kognitive Dimension des Engagement mit einem Lernspiel analysiert und diskutiert. Zu diesem Zweck wurden Studierende eingeladen, ein Lernpiel zu spielen. Durch eine bestimmte Instruktion (d.h., “Spielen um zu lernen” vs. “Spielen um Spas zu haben”) wird versucht, das Engagement der Studierenden zu vertiefen und ihren Wissenserwerb zu optimieren. Dabei kommen unterschiedliche Testinstrumentarien zum Einsatz (Leistungstest, Interview, Fragebogen und Blickbewegungen). Als ein Ergebnis der Studie kann festgehalten werden, dass 1) die Korrelationen zwischen den Dimensionen des Engagement (Kognition, Emotion, und Verhalten) positiv und signifikant sind, 2) die Rolle kognitiven Engagements auf den Wissenserwerb nicht deutlich festgestellt werden konnte, 3) kognitives Engagement mit Wahrnehmungen uber Spiele positive korreliert, und 4) die Spiel-Instruktion (entweder zu lernen oder Spas zu haben) keine Wirkung auf den Wissenserwerb hatte. Die Ergebnisse bedeuten, dass bei der Entwicklung eines Lernspiel weniger berucksichtigt werden sollte, ob das Spiel eine “intrinsische Fantasie” darstellt, sondern mehr inwieweit das Spiel die Umsetzung von "game design patterns" darstellt. Letztendlich bedeuten die Ergebnisse auch, dass die Wahrnehmungen von Menschen berucksichtigt werden sollten. "
Electromagnetic and Mechanical design of a Fractional-slot-windings Axial-flux PM synchronous machine with Soft Magnetic Compound Stator

Despite their favorable aspect ratio, axial flux PM synchronous machines can compete with traditional radial flux machines in terms of torque and power density only if the number of pole-pairs is sufficiently high and the ratio axial length/outer diameter is low. Since axial flux PM synchronous machines have an inner stator hole, the number of stator slots is bounded, therefore in order to increase the number of poles per slots fractional slot windings arrangements can be utilized. Frequently, this procedure results into a more compact winding design, resulting in lower copper losses due to shorter end connections. This paper deals with the electromagnetic and mechanical design of a fractional windings axial flux PM synchronous machine with soft magnetic composite featuring low eddy-currents losses at high frequency and self-cooling air channel system. The whole design procedure was done using finite element analysis and multiphysics tools
Intelligent Tutoring Systems with Conversational Dialogue

Many of the intelligent tutoring systems that have been developed during the last 20 years have proven to be quite successful, particularly in the domains of mathematics, science, and technology. They produce significant learning gains beyond classroom environments. They are capable of engaging most students' attention and interest for hours. We have been working on a new generation of intelligent tutoring systems that hold mixed-initiative conversational dialogues with the learner. The tutoring systems present challenging problems and questions to the learner, the learner types in answers in English, and there is a lengthy multiturn dialogue as complete solutions or answers evolve. This article presents the tutoring systems that we have been developing. AutoTutor is a conversational agent, with a talking head, that helps college students learn about computer literacy. andes, atlas, and why2 help adults learn about physics. Instead of being mere information-delivery systems, our systems help students actively construct knowledge through conversations.
Online reverse discourses? Claiming a space for trans voices

In recent years, online media have offered to trans people helpful resources to create new political, cultural and personal representations of their biographies. However, the role of these media in the construction of their social and personal identities has seldom been addressed. Drawing on the theoretical standpoint of positioning theory and diatextual discourse analysis, this paper discusses the results of a research project about weblogs created by Italian trans women. In particular, the aim of this study was to describe the ways online resources are used to express different definitions and interpretation of transgenderism, transsexuality and gender transitioning. We identified four main positioning strategies: “Transgender”, “Transsexual before being a woman”, “A woman who was born male” and “Just a normal woman”. We conclude with the political implications of the pluralization of narratives about gender non-conformity. Specifically, we will highlight how aspects of neoliberal discourses have been appropriated and rearticulated in the construction of gendered subjectivities.
THE PROPERTIES OF QUASAR HOSTS AT THE PEAK OF THE QUASAR ACTIVITY

We present near-infrared imaging obtained with ESO VLT/ISAAC of a sample of 16 low luminosity radio-quiet quasars (RQQs) at the epoch around the peak of the quasar activity (2 < z < 3), aimed at investigating their host galaxies. For 11 quasars, we are able to detect the host galaxies and derive their properties, while for the other 5 quasars, upper limits to the host luminosity are estimated. The luminosities of the host galaxies of RQQs at high redshift are in the range of those of massive inactive elliptical galaxies. This work complements our previous systematic study of quasar hosts aimed to trace the cosmological luminosity evolution of the host galaxies up to z ∼ 2 and extends our pilot study of a few luminous quasars at z > 2. The luminosity trend with a cosmic epoch resembles that observed for massive inactive galaxies, suggesting a similar star formation history. In particular, both quasar host galaxies and massive inactive galaxies appear mostly assembled already at the peak age of the quasar activity. This result is of key importance for testing the models of joint formation and evolution of galaxies and their active nuclei.
Oxidation of Marine Omega-3 Supplements and Human Health

Marine omega-3 rich oils are used by more than a third of American adults for a wide range of purported benefits including prevention of cardiovascular disease. These oils are highly prone to oxidation to lipid peroxides and other secondary oxidation products. Oxidized oils may have altered biological activity making them ineffective or harmful, though there is also evidence that some beneficial effects of marine oils could be mediated through lipid peroxides. To date, human clinical trials have not reported the oxidative status of the trial oil. This makes it impossible to understand the importance of oxidation to efficacy or harm. However, animal studies show that oxidized lipid products can cause harm. Oxidation of trial oils may be responsible for the conflicting omega-3 trial literature, including the prevention of cardiovascular disease. The oxidative state of an oil can be simply determined by the peroxide value and anisidine value assays. We recommend that all clinical trials investigating omega-3 harms or benefits report the results of these assays; this will enable better understanding of the benefits and harms of omega-3 and the clinical importance of oxidized supplements.
The Complete Mitochondrial Genome of Brachmia macroscopa (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) and Its Related Phylogenetic Analysis

The sweet potato leaf folder, Brachmia macroscopa, is an important pest in China. The complete mitogenome, which consists of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes, two ribosomal RNA genes, and an A + T-rich region, was sequenced and found to be 15,394 bp in length (GeneBank no. KT354968). The gene order and orientation of the B. macroscopa mitogenome were similar to those of other sequenced lepidopteran species. All of the PCGs started with ATN as the canonical start codon except for cox1, which started with CGA. In regard to stop codons, most PCGs stopped at TAA except for cox2, which stopped at TA, and nad4, which stopped at a single T. Thirteen PCGs of the available species (33 taxa) were used to demonstrate phylogenetic relationships. The ditrysian cluster was supported as a monophyletic clade at high levels by using maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods. The apoditrysian group, covering the Gelechioidea, formed a monophyletic clade with a bootstrap value of 88% and a posterior probability of 1.00. The superfamily Gelechioidea was supported as a monophyletic lineage by a posterior probability of 1.00.
Tenant Mix Variety in Regional Shopping Centres: Some UK Empirical Analyses

The planned shopping centre or mall has become an important part of contemporary life style. It has been changing patterns of shopping as well as social and recreational activities since its first appearance in 1920s in the US: now malls are found almost everywhere in the world (Brown, 1992; Urban Land Institute, 1999). One of the major reasons for this creation was to engineer a better shopping environment and, thus, gain better operational performance. In this created shopping environment, negative agglomeration effects can be more easily eliminated or keep under proper control, further reinforcing favourable interactions among tenants. Consequently, agglomeration economies generated from the clustering of tenants are one of the most significant benefits to be pursued by retail managers. This cluster of tenants is referred to as the itenant mixi by the shopping centre industry. It has been a long-term concern for shopping centre managers/operators and researchers in this area1 because of its significance in establishing the shopping centreis image and enhancing the synergies within the shopping centre. However, no satisfactory suggestions have been made for the best strategy for tenant mix; owners merely followed some rules of thumb or their own experience (Anikeeff, 1996; Brown, 1991; Greenspan, 1987). Nevertheless, we know, from agglomeration theory, that variety is an important factor in increasing productivity in the traded-good sector (Fujita, 1989; Fujita and Thisse, 2002). However, there is a still lack of operational principles to advise centre managers/operators how to perform this crucial element for creating a pleasant shopping environment.
Regularized Weighted Linear Regression for High-dimensional Censored Data

Survival analysis aims at modeling time to event data which occurs ubiquitously in many biomedical and healthcare applications. One of the critical challenges with modeling such survival data is the presence of censored outcomes which cannot be handled by standard regression models. In this paper, we propose a regularized linear regression model with weighted least-squares to handle the survival prediction in the presence of censored instances. We also employ the elastic net penalty term for inducing sparsity into the linear model to ef-fectively handle high-dimensional data. As opposed to the existing censored linear models, the parameter estimation of our model does not need any prior estimation of survival times of censored instances. In addition, we propose a self-training framework which is able to improve the prediction performance of our proposed linear model. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed model using several real-world high-dimensional biomedical benchmark datasets and our experimental results indicate that our model outperforms other related competing methods and attains very competitive performance on various datasets.
Teachers' Emotional Intelligence and Self-efficacy: Mediating Role Of Teaching Performance

We investigated the relationship between teachers' emotional intelligence (EI) and self-efficacy, and tested whether this relationship was mediated by teaching performance. Participants were 467 Chinese middle school teachers (312 women; 66.8%). They completed 3 questionnaires relating to EI, self-efficacy, and teaching performance. The results showed that the total effect of EI on self-efficacy was . 61, indicating that higher EI is positively correlated with a higher level of self-efficacy. This relationship was partially mediated by teaching performance. In the mediating model for teaching performance, the direct effect of EI on teachers' self-efficacy was . 23 and the mediating effect of teaching performance on the relationship between EI and teachers' self-efficacy was . 45. In addition, both the direct and mediating effects were invariant across gender and teaching experience. These results indicate that an increase in EI largely enhances teachers' self-efficacy only when emotional skills are successfully used to improve teachers' performance.
Motor cortex involvement during verbal versus non‐verbal lip and tongue movements

We evaluated left and right motor cortex involvement during verbal and non‐verbal lip and tongue movements in seven healthy subjects using whole‐head magnetoencephalography. The movements were paced by tone pips. The non‐verbal tasks included a kissing movement and touching the teeth with the tongue. The verbal tasks comprised silent articulation of the Finnish vowel /o/, which requires mouth movement similar to that in the kissing task, pronouncing the same self‐selected word repeatedly, and producing a new word for every tone pip. Motor cortex involvement was quantified by task‐related suppression and subsequent rebound of the 20‐Hz activity. The modulation concentrated to two sites along the central sulcus, identified as the motor face and hand representations. The 20‐Hz suppression in the face area was relatively similar during all tasks. The post‐movement rebound, however, was significantly left‐lateralized during word production. In the non‐verbal tasks, hand areas showed pronounced suppression of 20‐Hz activity that was significantly diminished for the verbal tasks. The latencies of the 20‐Hz suppression in the left and right face representations were correlated across subjects during verbal mouth movements. Increasing linguistic content of lip and tongue movements was thus manifested in spatially more focal motor cortex involvement, left‐hemisphere lateralization of face area activation, and correlated timing across hemispheres. Hum. Brain Mapping 16:81–91, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Intergenerational interaction between old and young in creative task

ABSTRACT By comparing intergenerational to same-generation interactions in creative activities, we aimed to reveal characteristic behaviors of older and younger adults in intergenerational interactions using a wooden block task. Four categories (“Proposal request”, “New proposal”, “Reactions to proposal”, “Assessments of partner’s behavior”) were extracted from conversations during task performance. In intergenerational groups, the ratio of utterances of “Proposal request” (encouraging a new proposal to partner) were higher than in same-generation groups for older adults. In intergenerational groups, older people assumed the role of encouraging younger people to suggest new ideas, and older people’s such empathic behaviors might provoke lively arguments.