Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gender differences in risk tolerance, trust and trustworthiness: Are they related?

The paper assesses risk tolerance, trust and trustworthiness among male and female youth group members in recently formed primary cooperative businesses in Ethiopia. Male members are found to be more risk tolerant, trusting and trustworthy than females. There is a strong positive correlation between individual risk tolerance and trust for male while this correlation is much weaker for female members. Individual risk tolerance is positively correlated with trustworthiness for males but not for females. Females are more trusting and trustworthy in groups with more risk tolerant members. Females’ trustworthiness is more sensitive to group characteristics and experiences. The findings are consistent with social role theory as males appear more instrumental and females more communal in their responses.
Adaptation to Climate Change in Preindustrial Iceland

We investigate the effect of climate change on population growth in 18th and 19th century Iceland. We find that annual temperature changes help determine the population growth rate in pre-industrial Iceland: a year 1 degree Celsius cooler than average drives down population growth rates by 1.14%. We also find that 18th and 19th century Icelanders adapt to prolonged changes in climate after 20 years. These adaptations reduce the short run effect of annual change in temperature by about 60%. Finally, a 1 degree Celsius sustained decrease in temperature decreases the steady state population by 10% to 26%.
Image metamorphosis using snakes and free-form deformations

This paper presents new solutions to the following three problems in image morphing: feature specification, warp generation, and transition control. To reduce the burden of feature specification, we first adopt a computer vision technique called snakes. We next propose the use of multilevel free-form deformations (MFFD) to achieve -continuous and one-to-one warps among feature point pairs. The resulting technique, based on B-spline approximation, is simpler and faster than previous warp generation methods. Finally, we simplify the MFFD method to construct -continuous surfaces for deriving transition functions to control geometry and color blending.
Block-sparse analysis regularization of ill-posed problems via l2,1-minimization

Recovering an infinite dimensional parameter from incomplete and noisy observations is a fundamental task in many branches of mathematical and engineering science. Reasonable solution approaches require the use of regularization techniques, which incorporate a-priori knowledge about the desired unknown. For that purpose a frequently used property is the (block) sparsity of the coefficients with respect to some sparsifying transformation. In this paper we review regularization methods for sparse inverse problems and derive linear stability estimates for block-sparse analysis regularization implemented via ℓ2,1-minimization.
Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games

Collaborative mechanisms are starting to become prominent in computer games, like massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs); however, by their nature, these games are difficult to investigate. Game play is often complex and the underlying mechanisms are frequently opaque. In contrast, board games are simple. Their game play is fairly constrained and their core mechanisms are transparent enough to analyze. In this article, the authors seek to understand collaborative games. Because of their simplicity, they focus on board games. The authors present an analysis of collaborative games. In particular, they focus on Reiner Knizia's LORDOFTHERINGS, considered by many to be the quintessential collaborative board game. Our analysis yields seven observations, four lessons, and three pitfalls, that game designers might consider useful for designing collaborative games. They reflect on the particular opportunities that computers have for the design of collaborative games as well as how some of the issues discussed apply to the case of computer games.
Obstetric Characteristics and Management of Patients with Postpartum Psychosis in a Tertiary Hospital Setting

Background. Postpartum psychosis is the most severe and uncommon form of postnatal affective illness. It constitutes a medical emergency. Acute management emphasizes hospitalization to ensure safety, antipsychotic medication adherence, and treatment of the underlying disorder. Objective. The aim of the study was to determine the obstetric characteristics and management of patients with postpartum psychosis in a tertiary centre in North-Western Nigeria. Methodology. This was a 10-year retrospective study. Records of the patients diagnosed with postpartum psychosis from January 1st, 2002, to December 31st, 2011, were retrieved and relevant data extracted and analyzed using the SPSS for Windows version 16.0. Results. There were 29 cases of postpartum psychosis giving an incidence of 1.1 per 1000 deliveries. The mean age of the patients was 20.6 ± 4 years. Twelve (55%) were primiparae, 16 (72.7%) were unbooked, and 13 (59%) delivered at home. All had vaginal deliveries at term. There were 12 (52.2%) live births, and 11 (47.8%) perinatal deaths and the fetal sex ratio was equal. The most common presentation was talking irrationally. Conclusion. There is need for risk factor evaluation for puerperal psychosis during the antenatal period especially in primigravidae and more advocacies to encourage women to book for antenatal care in our environment.
Student-Centered Teaching Approach Combined with Coaching and Mentoring Elements in Arabic Language Speaking Proficiency

The acquisition of Arabic speaking skills becomes an important issue in Arabic language learning. So, the National University of Malaysia (UKM) has offered the PPPJ3503 Oral Arabic Language Course as one of the department’s elective subjects to undergraduate degree students. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the proficiency of speaking in Arabic and identify improved language-speaking factor among students. This research was a quantitative case study using data from survey instruments and focus group interview. The focus group consisted of 21 study pants. The study questions focus on their speaking competence after attending Oral Arabic Language courses with a student-centered teaching approach combined with coaching and mentoring elements. The findings show that there are self-improvements in Arabic speaking proficiency among students taking the course. The improvements in Arabic speaking proficiency among students were caused by spontaneous activities, video recording assignments, Arabic Linguaphone textbooks, Arabic speaking drill exercises repeatedly, discussions in the lecture room and student’s self-esteem. This Oral Arabic course has proven that student-centered teaching approach combined with coaching and mentoring elements is good to be applied in the teaching of spoken Arabic and Arabic in general. This study also identifies ways to improve Arabic speaking proficiency through a student-centered teaching approach combined with coaching and mentoring elements in teaching Arabic speaking skills.
Estimation of curcumin intake in Korea based on the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2008-2012)

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES Turmeric and its active component curcumin have received considerable attention due to their many recognized biological activities. Turmeric has been commonly used in food preparation and herbal remedies in South Asia, leading to a high consumption rate of curcumin in this region. However, the amount of curcumin in the Korean diet has not yet been estimated, where turmeric is not a common ingredient. SUBJECTS/METHODS This study utilized the combined data sets obtained from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted from 2008 to 2012 in order to estimate the curcumin intake in the Korean diet. The mean intake of curcumin was estimated from the amount of curcumin-containing foods (curry powder and ready-made curry) consumed using reported curcumin content in commercial turmeric and curry powders. RESULTS Only 0.06% of Koreans responded that they consumed foods containing curcumin in a given day, and 40% of them were younger than 20 years of age. Curcumin-containing foods were largely prepared at home (72.9%) and a significant proportion (20.4%, nearly twice that of all other foods) was consumed as school and workplace meals. The estimated mean turmeric intake was about 0.47 g/day corresponding to 2.7-14.8 mg curcumin, while the average curry powder consumption was about 16.4 g, which gave rise to curcumin intake in the range of 8.2-95.0 mg among individuals who consumed curcumin. The difference in estimated curcumin intake by using the curcumin content in curry powder and turmeric may reflect that curry powder manufactured in Korea might contain higher amounts of other ingredients such as flour, and an estimation based on the curcumin content in the turmeric might be more acceptable. CONCLUSIONS Thus, the amount of curcumin that can be obtained from the Korean diet in a day is 2.7-14.8 mg, corresponding to nearly one fourth of the daily curcumin intake in South Asia, although curcumin is rarely consumed in Korea.
An Eecient and Accurate Decomposition Method for Open Finite-and Innnite-buuer Queueing Networks

We address a decomposition approach for the evaluation of large, open networks of mixed nite-and innnite-buuer queues with phase-type distributed service and interarrival times. Such queueing networks can be seen as high-level speciications of continuous-time Markov chains (CTMCs). However, these CTMCs can either become very large (in case all buuers are nite) or even become innnitely large (in as many dimensions as that there are innnite queues). To avoid these large state spaces we decompose such queueing networks in separate queues which can be solved eeciently using matrix-geometric or spectral expansion techniques, or specialised Markovian techniques for the solution of a nite system of global balance equations. However, since we allow for job losses to occur, we cannot decompose the overall model in a single pass to models of the individual queues; instead we have to iterate the decomposition procedure, so as to incorporate correctly the changes in the traac streams between the queues due to the losses. A crucial point in the decomposition approach is the characterisation of the traac streams between the nodes. In the paper we discuss in detail the impact of the merging and splitting of traac streams as well as the servicing of customers at the nodes on the traac streams through the queueing network. This paper extends our earlier work on open networks of nite-buuer PHjPHj1jK queues 10, 8] by replacing a number of approximation steps with exact results. The paper presents the theoretical background as well as some validation results. To the best of our knowledge, the method presented here is currently the \most exact" analytic/numerical approach for analysing large open networks of PHjPHj1jK queues.
Goal description language for semantic Web service automatic composition

Current Web service composition requires manual process modeling, which is hard to adapt to users' various requirements and becomes more and more difficult with the explosion of Web service resources. It proposes goal-driven Web service automatic composition protocol stack to achieve automatic process modeling. Based on ontology description language OWL (Web ontology language), it comes up with a goal description language, which lies on the top of stack and tries to catch users' requirements or preferences on requesting services. It describes the goals needed to be achieved, relationships within goals and constrains when achieving the goals. Finally, it also provides a way to detect the inconsistency in goal description. It takes an important step towards goal-driven Web service automatic composition. The work in this paper aims at building a bridge between users' requirement and the implementation.
Gradings of non-graded Hamiltonian Lie algebras

Abstract A thin Lie algebra is a Lie algebra graded over the positive integers satisfying a certain narrowness condition. We describe several cyclic grading of the modular Hamiltonian Lie algebras H(2: n; ω2) (of dimension one less than a power of p) from which we construct infinite-dimensional thin Lie algebras. In the process we provide an explicit identification of H(2: n; ω2) with a Block algebra. We also compute its second cohomology group and its derivation algebra (in arbitrary prime characteristic).
An Educational Strategy to Enhance Caring in Nursing Students in an Associate Degree Program

This article describes a course to enhance caring ability, which the author designed and taught for 3 consecutive years, including course foundations, course themes, teaching strategies, and outcomes. Course design was based on two models established by the author in previous studies. The semester-long course focused sequentially on care for self, others, and the community. Each class session was arranged to include opportunities for reflection, group discussion, oral presentation, and lecture. Both student feedback and quantitative analysis indicated that student caring behavior significantly improved.
Additive Mixture Effects of Estrogenic Chemicals in Human Cell-Based Assays Can Be Influenced by Inclusion of Chemicals with Differing Effect Profiles

A growing body of experimental evidence indicates that the in vitro effects of mixtures of estrogenic chemicals can be well predicted from the estrogenicity of their components by the concentration addition (CA) concept. However, some studies have observed small deviations from CA. Factors affecting the presence or observation of deviations could include: the type of chemical tested; number of mixture components; mixture design; and assay choice. We designed mixture experiments that address these factors, using mixtures with high numbers of components, chemicals from diverse chemical groups, assays with different in vitro endpoints and different mixture designs and ratios. Firstly, the effects of mixtures composed of up to 17 estrogenic chemicals were examined using estrogenicity assays with reporter-gene (ERLUX) and cell proliferation (ESCREEN) endpoints. Two mixture designs were used: 1) a ‘balanced’ design with components present in proportion to a common effect concentration (e.g. an EC10) and 2) a ‘non-balanced’ design with components in proportion to potential human tissue concentrations. Secondly, the individual and simultaneous ability of 16 potential modulator chemicals (each with minimal estrogenicity) to influence the assay outcome produced by a reference mixture of estrogenic chemicals was examined. Test chemicals included plasticizers, phthalates, metals, PCBs, phytoestrogens, PAHs, heterocyclic amines, antioxidants, UV filters, musks, PBDEs and parabens. In all the scenarios tested, the CA concept provided a good prediction of mixture effects. Modulation studies revealed that chemicals possessing minimal estrogenicity themselves could reduce (negatively modulate) the effect of a mixture of estrogenic chemicals. Whether the type of modulation we observed occurs in practice most likely depends on the chemical concentrations involved, and better information is required on likely human tissue concentrations of estrogens and of potential modulators. Successful prediction of the effects of diverse chemical combinations might be more likely if chemical profiling included consideration of effect modulation.
Association between pet ownership and coronary artery disease in a Chinese population

Abstract A number of studies have suggested the benefits of pet ownership to human health, including cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, there are few findings regarding pet ownership and coronary artery disease (CAD). The objective of this study is to investigate the association between pet ownership and CAD in a Chinese population. From October 2015 to May 2016, a survey consisting of 561 consecutive patients was done in Nanjing, China. Based on the results of coronary arteriography for the first time, participants were divided into 2 groups (non-CAD and CAD groups). Pet ownership information was collected by using a questionnaire. After multivariate adjustments, pet ownership was associated with a decreased CAD risk (odds ratios [OR]: 0.504, 95% confidence intervals [CIs]: 0.310–0.819). There was a reduced CAD risk among dog owners (OR: 0.420, 95% CI: 0.242–0.728) when compared with the cat group (OR: 0.738, 95% CI: 0.240–2.266) and the cat and dog group (OR: 1.052, 95% CI: 0.330–3.355). With the increase of pet ownership duration, there was a decreased tendency of CAD risk, including years of keeping pets (P for trend = 0.008) and time of playing with pets per day (P for trend = 0.001). In addition, similar dose–response relationship was observed for starting age of keeping pets (P for trend = 0.002). Pet ownership, especially dog ownership, can be a protective factor for CAD in Chinese patients.
New Bounds for Restricted Isometry Constants

This paper discusses new bounds for restricted isometry constants in compressed sensing. Let Φ be an n × p real matrix and A; be a positive integer with k ≤ n. One of the main results of this paper shows that if the restricted isometry constant δ<sub>k</sub> of Φ satisfies δ<sub>k</sub> <; 0.307 then k-sparse signals are guaranteed to be recovered exactly via ℓ<sub>1</sub> minimization when no noise is present and k-sparse signals can be estimated stably in the noisy case. It is also shown that the bound cannot be substantially improved. An explicit example is constructed in which δ<sub>k</sub> = k-1/2k-1 <; 0.5, but it is impossible to recover certain k-sparse signals.
Assessment and correction of voice quality variabilities in large speech databases for concatenative speech synthesis

In an effort to increase the naturalness of concatenative speech synthesis, large speech databases may be recorded. While it is desirable to have varied prosodic and spectral characteristics in the database, it is not desirable to have variable voice quality. We present an automatic method for voice quality assessment and correction, whenever necessary, of large speech databases for concatenative speech synthesis. The proposed method is based on the use of a Gaussian mixture model, GMM, to model the acoustic space of the speaker of the database and on autoregressive filters for compensation. An objective method to measure the effectiveness of the database correction based on a likelihood function for the speaker's GMM, is presented as well. Both objective and subjective results show that the proposed method succeeds in detecting voice quality problems and successfully corrects them. Results show a 14.2% improvement of the log-likelihood function after compensation.
Bacillus subtilis spore coat assembly requires cotH gene expression

Endospores of Bacillus subtilis are encased in a protein shell, known as the spore coat, composed of a lamella-like inner layer and an electron-dense outer layer. We report the identification and characterization of a gene, herein called cotH, located at 300 degrees on the B. subtilis genetic map between two divergent cot genes, cotB and cotG. The cotH open reading frame extended for 1,086 bp and corresponded to a polypeptide of 42.8 kDa. Spores of a cotH null mutant were normally heat, lysozyme, and chloroform resistant but were impaired in germination. The mutant spores were also pleiotropically deficient in several coat proteins, including the products of the previously cloned cotB, -C, and -G genes. On the basis of the analysis of a cotE cotH double mutant, we infer that CotH is probably localized in the inner coat and is involved in the assembly of several proteins in the outer layer of the coat.
Should Have, Would Have, Could Have. Investigating Verb Group Representations for Parsing with Universal Dependencies.

Treebanks have recently been released for a number of languages with the harmonized annotation created by the Universal Dependencies project. The representation of certain constructions in UD are known to be suboptimal for parsing and may be worth transforming for the purpose of parsing. In this paper, we focus on the representation of verb groups. Several studies have shown that parsing works better when auxiliaries are the head of auxiliary dependency relations which is not the case in UD. We therefore transformed verb groups in UD treebanks, parsed the test set and transformed it back, and contrary to expectations, observed significant decreases in accuracy. We provide suggestive evidence that improvements in previous studies were obtained because the transformation helps disambiguating POS tags of main verbs and auxiliaries. The question of why parsing accuracy decreases with this approach in the case of UD is left open.
Low Complexity Turbo Decoding

— In this paper a truncated turbo decoding with reduced computational complexity is proposed. In the course of iterative decoding, bits are detected that will be changed very unlikely in the current iteration step. These bits are excluded from decoding (in the current iteration step) which yields a turbo decoding with much lower complexity while the loss of bit error rate (BER) is quiet small.
Le verbe aspectuel cesser et la contrainte stative : cesser obéit-il à la règle ou la transgresse-t-il? / The aspectual verb cesser and the stative constraint: Does cesser conform to the rule or deviate from it?

Résumé Cet article porte sur cesser qui, en contraste avec ses quasi-synonymes finir, achever et arrêter, semble échapper à la contrainte stative qui est généralement observée avec les verbes aspectuels. En fait, cesser permet assez facilement des infinitifs qui dénotent des états (Il a cessé d’être membre du syndicat), contrairement aux autres verbes aspectuels terminatifs (? Il a fini/achevé/arrêté d’être membre du syndicat). Je montre que les cas où ce prédicat ne semble pas respecter les contraintes générales imposées par les verbes aspectuels ne sont qu'apparemment des exceptions. L'article propose que la combinaison de certains états avec cesser crée un effet qui s'apparente à la sérialisation, une stratégie discutée dans certaines recherches, qui rend acceptable l'emploi de situations statives avec les verbes aspectuels. L'analyse s'inspire donc des prémisses des travaux de Bouchard (en particulier 1995, 2002), selon lesquelles l'explication des faits de langue doit demeurer simple et ne doit pas avoir recours à des mécanismes complexes qui sont autrement sans fondements. Abstract This article examines cesser ‘cease’ which, in contrast with its quasi-synonyms finir ‘finish’, achever ‘complete’ and arrêter ‘stop’, seems to circumvent the stative constraint which is generally observed with aspectual verbs. In fact, cesser quite readily allows infinitives that denote states (Il a cessé d’être membre du syndicat ‘He ceased to be a member of the union’), which is not the case with the other terminative aspectual verbs (? Il a fini/achevé/arrêté d’être membre du syndicat ‘? He finished/completed/stopped being a member of the union’). I show that the cases where this predicate seems not to obey the general constraints imposed by aspectual verbs are only apparent exceptions. I propose that the combination of certain states with cesser create an effect which is akin to serialization, a strategy discussed in the literature that renders the use of stative situations with aspectual verbs acceptable. The analysis is thus based on the premises of Bouchard's contributions (in particular 1995, 2002), according to which linguistic accounts need to remain simple and should not have recourse to complex mechanisms which are otherwise baseless.