Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early and late Spanish–English bilinguals' acquisition of English word stress patterns

Guion, Clark, Harada and Wayland (2003) found that three factors affect English speakers' stress placement on bisyllabic non-words: syllabic structure, lexical class and stress patterns of phonologically similar real words. The current replication and extension included three groups (N = 30): native English speakers, early Spanish–English bilinguals, and late Spanish–English bilinguals. Participants produced and gave perceptual judgments on 40 non-words of varying syllabic structures in noun and verb sentence frames. A regression analysis used the three factors to predict stress placement in production and perception. All three groups showed significant effects from stress patterns of phonologically similar real words and lexical class. The effect of syllabic structure for early bilinguals was slightly different from that of native speakers and late bilinguals showed greatly reduced effects. Late bilinguals exhibited more initial stress overall, possibly due to L1 transfer. These results run counter to the prediction made by Long (1990) about age effects on phonological acquisition.
Time course of haemostatic effects of fibrinogen concentrate administration in aortic surgery

Background There is currently a contrast between the demonstrated benefits of fibrinogen concentrate in correcting bleeding and reducing transfusion, and its perceived thrombogenic potential. This analysis evaluates the effects of fibrinogen concentrate on coagulation up to 12 days after administration during aortic surgery. Methods We performed a post hoc analysis of a prospective, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of fibrinogen concentrate as first-line haemostatic therapy in aortic surgery. After cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and protamine administration, subjects with coagulopathic bleeding received fibrinogen concentrate or placebo. The placebo group received allogeneic blood products, including fresh-frozen plasma (FFP; n=32); the fibrinogen concentrate group received fibrinogen concentrate alone (FC; n=14), or fibrinogen concentrate followed by allogeneic blood products (FC+FFP; n=15). Plasma fibrinogen, fibrin-based clotting (ROTEM®-based FIBTEM assay), and peri- and postoperative haematological and coagulation parameters were compared. Results Plasma fibrinogen and FIBTEM maximum clot firmness (MCF) decreased ∼50% during CPB but were corrected by FC or FC+FFP. At last suture, the highest values for plasma fibrinogen (360 mg dl−1) and FIBTEM MCF (22 mm) were within normal ranges—below the acute phase increases observed after surgery. In patients receiving only FFP as a source of fibrinogen, these parameters recovered marginally by last suture (P<0.001 vs FC and FC+FFP). All groups displayed comparable haemostasis at 24 h post-surgery. Fibrinogen concentrate did not cause alterations of other haemostasis parameters. Conclusions Fibrinogen concentrate provided specific, significant, short-lived increases in plasma fibrinogen and fibrin-based clot firmness after aortic surgery.
Channelrhodopsin assisted synapse identity mapping reveals clustering of layer 5 intralaminar inputs

The computation in the brain is executed at different levels, from single synapses to ensembles of networks. Perception, behavior, and phenomena such as consciousness emerge from the activity of all levels. The synaptic input, which is mostly received on the dendrites of the neurons is integrated linearly or nonlinearly with other inputs as it propagates to the soma. There, depending on the strength of the signal, the neuron passes this information to its downstream partners in the network. To be able to relate the computation of a single neuron to the computation of the network, the information on how and where the individual neurons integrate into the circuit is essential. For this reason, different techniques currently try to map the connectivity between different neurons in the network. This study presents a new approach for connectivity mapping by utilizing the light activated cation channel, channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2). Specific presynaptic neuronal populations are targeted genetically to express ChR2 and driven to fire action potentials by photostimulation. In individual spines of the target postsynaptic neurons, calcium signals evoked by the stimulated presynaptic neurons are detected. These sites reliably locate the input of the presynaptic neurons with single synapse resolution. By systematically scanning over the dendrites of the postsynaptic neurons, this technique yields input maps that exhibit the connectivity between the two neuronal populations. Analysis of the spatial organization of these identified inputs reveals clustering in the connectivity between preand postsynaptic layer 5 neurons of the primary visual cortex.
The Use of the English Article among Japanese Students

This study1 was designed to investigate a general feature of the use of the English articles among Japanese students learning English as a foreign language. An article cloze-type test was employed for this purpose. It was found that the accuracy level of the three types of articles (the, a/an, and ϕ) pooled was about 70% even in the advanced students. The overall difficult order among the three types of articles from easiest to most difficult was: (1) the → (2) a/an → (3) ϕ for the intermediate level group; and (1) the → (2) a/an → (3) $ for the intermediate level group; teristics of difficult and easy items within each type were briefly discussed. Possible strategies used by the subjects and acquisition process were also suggested.
Kinect-Based Sliding Mode Control for Lynxmotion Robotic Arm

Recently, the technological development of manipulator robot increases very quickly and provides a positive impact to human life. The implementation of the manipulator robot technology offers more efficiency and high performance for several human’s tasks. In reality, efforts published in this context are focused on implementing control algorithms with already preprogrammed desired trajectories passive robots case or trajectory generation based on feedback sensors active robots case. However, gesture based control robot can be considered as another channel of system control which is not widely discussed. This paper focuses on a Kinect-based real-time interactive control system implementation. Based on LabVIEW integrated development environment IDE, a developed human-machine-interface HMI allows user to control in real time a Lynxmotion robotic arm. The Kinect software development kit SDK provides a tool to keep track of human body skeleton and abstract it into 3-dimensional coordinates. Therefore, the Kinect sensor is integrated into our control system to detect the different user joints coordinates. The Lynxmotion dynamic has been implemented in a real-time sliding mode control algorithm. The experimental results are carried out to test the effectiveness of the system, and the results verify the tracking ability, stability, and robustness.
A Dirac Operator for Extrinsic Shape Analysis

The eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of the Laplace‐Beltrami operator have proven to be a powerful tool for digital geometry processing, providing a description of geometry that is essentially independent of coordinates or the choice of discretization. However, since Laplace‐Beltrami is purely intrinsic it struggles to capture important phenomena such as extrinsic bending, sharp edges, and fine surface texture. We introduce a new extrinsic differential operator called the relative Dirac operator, leading to a family of operators with a continuous trade‐off between intrinsic and extrinsic features. Previous operators are either fully or partially intrinsic. In contrast, the proposed family spans the entire spectrum: from completely intrinsic (depending only on the metric) to completely extrinsic (depending only on the Gauss map). By adding an infinite potential well to this (or any) operator we can also robustly handle surface patches with irregular boundary. We explore use of these operators for a variety of shape analysis tasks, and study their performance relative to operators previously found in the geometry processing literature.
Monoamine Oxidase Inhibition Causes a Long-Term Prolongation of the Dopamine-Induced Responses in Rat Midbrain Dopaminergic Cells

The way monoamine oxidase (MAO) modulates the depression of the firing rate and the hyperpolarization of the membrane caused by dopamine (DA) on rat midbrain dopaminergic cells was investigated by means of intracellular recordings in vitro. The cellular responses to DA, attributable to the activation of somatodendritic D2/3 autoreceptors, were prolonged and did not completely wash out after pharmacological blockade of both types (A and B) of MAO. On the contrary, depression of the firing rate and membrane hyperpolarization induced by quinpirole (a direct D2 receptor agonist) were not affected by MAO inhibition. Furthermore, although the inhibition of DA reuptake by cocaine and nomifensine caused a short-term prolongation of DA responses, the combined inhibition of MAO A and B enzymes caused a long-term prolongation of DA effects. Moreover, the effects of DA were not largely prolonged during the simultaneous inhibition of MAO and the DA reuptake system. Interestingly, the actions of amphetamine were not clearly augmented by MAO inhibition. From the present data it is concluded that the termination of DA action in the brain is controlled mainly by MAO enzymes. This long-term prolongation of the dopaminergic responses suggests a substitutive therapeutic approach that uses MAO inhibitors and DA precursors in DA-deficient disorders in which continuous stimulation of the dopaminergic receptors is preferable.
Early predictive biomarkers for postpartum depression point to a role for estrogen receptor signaling

Background Postpartum depression (PPD) affects approximately 13% of women and has a negative impact on mother and infant, hence reliable biological tests for early detection of PPD are essential. We aimed to identify robust predictive biomarkers for PPD using peripheral blood gene expression profiles in a hypothesis-free genome-wide study in a high-risk, longitudinal cohort. Method We performed a genome-wide association study in a longitudinal discovery cohort comprising 62 women with psychopathology. Gene expression and hormones were measured in the first and third pregnancy trimesters and early postpartum (201 samples). The replication cohort comprised 24 women with third pregnancy trimester gene expression measures. Gene expression was measured on Illumina-Human HT12 v4 microarrays. Plasma estradiol and estriol were measured. Statistical analysis was performed in R. Results We identified 116 transcripts differentially expressed between the PPD and euthymic women during the third trimester that allowed prediction of PPD with an accuracy of 88% in both discovery and replication cohorts. Within these transcripts, significant enrichment of transcripts implicated that estrogen signaling was observed and such enrichment was also evident when analysing published gene expression data predicting PPD from a non-risk cohort. While plasma estrogen levels were not different across groups, women with PPD displayed an increased sensitivity to estrogen signaling, confirming the previously proposed hypothesis of increased sex-steroid sensitivity as a susceptibility factor for PPD. Conclusions These results suggest that PPD can be robustly predicted in currently euthymic women as early as the third trimester and these findings have implications for predictive testing of high-risk women and prevention and treatment for PPD.
Task-centric interfaces for feature-rich software

Feature-rich software can be difficult to learn and use, and current approaches to organizing functionality do little to help users with performing unfamiliar tasks. In this paper, we investigate the potential for alternative task-centric interface designs that organize functionality around specific tasks. To understand the potential of this approach, we developed and studied Workflows, a prototype task-centric interface design. Our findings suggest that task-centric interfaces scaffold and guide the user's exploration of a subset of application functionality, and thereby help them to avoid common difficulties and inefficiencies caused by self-directed exploration of the full interface. We also found evidence that task-centric interfaces enable a different kind of application learning, in which users associate tasks with relevant keywords as opposed to low-level commands and procedures. This has potential benefits for memorability, because the keywords themselves describe the task, and scalability, because a few keywords can map to an arbitrarily large procedure.
Multiple hypotheses testing

Often one is interested in testing a set of hypotheses simultaneously. For example, Paul, Maiti, Dasgupta, and Forjuoh (2005) investigated the role of various factors in underground coal mine-related injuries in India using a case-control design. In prospective studies that examine the impacts of safety interventions, one may wish to test the effectiveness of the intervention on many outcomes, or in different subgroups. In analysing such studies, investigators typically investigate multiple exposure factors and/or multiple outcome variables using multiple individual tests of hypotheses. One can test each hypothesis separately, usually at the same level of significance a. The question is whether one should worry that the combined Type I error rate, i.e., the overall probability of observing significant results due solely to chance, is higher than the desired a level of significance. On the other hand, methods that maintain the combined Type I error rate under control, often may increase the Type II error rate and thus reduce the statistical power of each individual test. This Accidental Note discusses some of the statistical aspects of dealing with multiple testing situations.
Knowledge Intensive Word Alignment with KNOWA

In this paper we present KNOWA, an English/Italian word aligner, developed at ITC-irst, which relies mostly on information contained in bilingual dictionaries. The performances of KNOWA are compared with those of GIZA++, a state of the art statistics-based alignment algorithm. The two algorithms are evaluated on the EuroCor and MultiSemCor tasks, that is on two English/Italian publicly available parallel corpora. The results of the evaluation show that, given the nature and the size of the available English-Italian parallel corpora, a language-resource-based word aligner such as KNOWA can outperform a fully statistics-based algorithm such as GIZA++.
Assimilation exceeds respiration sensitivity to drought: A FLUXNET synthesis

The intensification of the hydrological cycle, with an observed and modeled increase in drought incidence and severity, underscores the need to quantify drought effects on carbon cycling and the terrestrial sink. FLUXNET, a global network of eddy covariance towers, provides dense data streams of meteorological data, and through flux partitioning and gap filling algorithms, estimates of net ecosystem productivity (FNEP), gross ecosystem productivity (P), and ecosystem respiration (R). We analyzed the functional relationship of these three carbon fluxes relative to evaporative fraction (EF), an index of drought and site water status, using monthly data records from 238 micrometeorological tower sites distributed globally across 11 biomes. The analysis was based on relative anomalies of both EF and carbon fluxes and focused on drought episodes by biome and climatic season. Globally P was ≈50% more sensitive to a drought event than R. Network‐wide drought‐induced decreases in carbon flux averaged −16.6 and −9.3 g C m−2 month−1 for P and R, i.e., drought events induced a net decline in the terrestrial sink. However, in evergreen forests and wetlands drought was coincident with an increase in P or R during parts of the growing season. The most robust relationships between carbon flux and EF occurred during climatic spring for FNEP and in climatic summer for P and R. Upscaling flux sensitivities to a global map showed that spatial patterns for all three carbon fluxes were linked to the distribution of croplands. Agricultural areas exhibited the highest sensitivity whereas the tropical region had minimal sensitivity to drought. Combining gridded flux sensitivities with their uncertainties and the spatial grid of FLUXNET revealed that a more robust quantification of carbon flux response to drought requires additional towers in all biomes of Africa and Asia as well as in the cropland, shrubland, savannah, and wetland biomes globally.
The Redshift Evolution of the Metagalactic Ionizing Flux Inferred from Metal Line Ratios in the Lyman Forest

Metal line ratios in a sample of 13 quasar spectra obtained with the HIRES spectrograph on the Keck I Telescope have been analyzed to characterize the evolution of the metagalactic ionizing flux near a redshift of 3. The evolution of Si IV/C IV has been determined using three different techniques: using total column densities of absorption-line complexes, as in the approach of Songaila & Cowie, using the column densities of individual Voigt profile components within complexes, and using direct optical depth ratios. All three methods show that Si IV/C IV changes abruptly at z ∼ 3, requiring a jump in value of about a factor of 3.4 and indicating a significant change in the ionizing spectrum that occurs rapidly between z = 2.9 and z = 3, just above the redshift at which Reimers et al. detected patchy He II Lyα absorption. At lower redshifts, the ionization balance is consistent with a pure power-law ionizing spectrum, but at higher redshifts the spectrum must be very soft, with a large break at the He+ edge. An optical depth ratio technique is used to measure the abundances of ions whose transitions lie within the forest, and C III, Si III, and O VI are detected in this way. The presence of a significant amount of O VI at z > 3 suggests either a considerable volume of He III bubbles embedded in the more general region in which the ionizing flux is heavily broken or the addition of collisional ionization to the simple photoionization models.
Child experiences as street traders in Peru: contributing to a reappraisal for working children

By exploring the experiences of over a hundred child traders in Cusco, this research provides an insight into the more everyday circumstances of children's work in developing countries. The working conditions of child traders raise serious concerns, including: dangers of accidents, theft and abuse; shortage of time for play; and some disruption to education. Nevertheless, the positives of trading work are substantial. Although the children feel that they have to work, they gain enjoyment and economic empowerment. Moreover, they display a certain self esteem and confidence in the knowledge of their trading skills, and a spatial awareness of the best trading sites, demonstrating agency in their choice of trading locations. The findings suggest that international policy, which emphasises universal condemnation and prohibition of child work, requires revision. Such policy should be replaced by a more flexible approach, which recognises the benefits of children's work and embraces supportive protection for children engaged in the lighter forms of work such as trading.
Compressibility and shear strength of municipal solid waste under short-term leachate recirculation operations

This paper describes a comprehensive laboratory study performed to investigate the compressibility and shear strength properties of 1.5-year-old municipal solid waste (MSW) exhumed from a landfill cell where low amounts of leachate were recirculated. The study results are compared with results from a previous study on fresh MSW collected from the same landfill and data from previous studies with known MSW age to assess the variation in properties due to degradation. Laboratory testing was conducted on shredded landfilled and fresh MSW that consisted of similar particle-size distribution, with maximum particle size less than 40 mm and approximately 80% of the waste consisting of particles ranging from 10 to 20 mm. Standard Proctor, compressibility, direct shear, and triaxial consolidated undrained (CU) shear tests were conducted in general accordance with the American Society of Testing and Materials Standard Procedures. These tests were conducted with samples at an in-situ moisture content of 44% (dry weight basis) as well as elevated moisture contents of 60, 80 and 100% (dry weight basis). Standard Proctor compaction tests yielded a maximum dry density of 600 kg/m3 at 77% optimum moisture content for landfilled MSW compared to the 420 kg/m3 maximum dry density at 70% optimum moisture content for fresh MSW. Compression ratio values for landfilled MSW varied in a close range of 0.19—0.24 with a slight increasing trend with increase in moisture content; however, for fresh waste they were in the close range of 0.24—0.33 with no definitive correlation with moisture content. Based on direct shear tests, drained cohesion and friction angle were varied in the range of 12—64 kPa and 31—35° for landfilled MSW and 31—64 kPa and 26—30° for fresh MSW. Neither cohesion nor friction angle demonstrated any correlation with the moisture content. Based on triaxial CU tests, the average total strength parameters (TSP) were found to be 39 kPa and 12° for landfilled MSW and 32 kPa and 12° for fresh MSW, while effective strength parameters (ESP) were 34 kPa and 23° for landfilled MSW and 32 kPa and 16° for fresh MSW. This study was limited to small-scale laboratory testing using MSW samples with the specimen size relative to the maximum particle size in the range of 1.6 to 2.6; therefore, large-scale laboratory and field studies are recommended to systematically assess the influence of composition, particle size distribution and specimen size on the geotechnical properties of MSW.
Resilience in academic stress: Exploring the role of cognition in how students adjust to life at the University of York

The main aim of tertiary education is to prepare students to make a positive contribution to society by developing within them the ability to function efficiently and effectively within the workplace. However, research is instead showing that during university life, more than half of all students report a high prevalence of mental health problems (Stallman, 2010), leading to a disruption of studies (Jackson, Pancer, Pratt & Hunsberger, 2000) and a subsequent failure to develop as anticipated (Stallman, 2011). This suggests that there is a need to invest in programmes which aid students in adjusting to being at university. Researchers recommend that such programmes focus on building students’ levels of resilience; their capacity to adapt and grow in response to university life (Stallman, 2011). This thesis aims to clarify how universities can promote student adjustment by exploring the cognitive processes that influence the levels of resilience of students high on negative trait emotion. Negative trait emotion refers to the predisposition to experience intense and frequent negative emotion (Rosenberg, 1998) and has been highlighted as exerting a harmful impact on individuals’ abilities to adapt to their experiences. Therefore, in this way, the thesis aims to uncover the cognitive mechanisms that should be targeted in order to improve students’ capacity to adjust and grow while at university, enabling them to subsequently perform at a high standard post-graduation.