Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Algorithmic brand culture: participatory labour, machine learning and branding on social media

Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have transformed how brands operate as cultural processes. Over the past decade, these platforms have engineered an algorithmic brand culture that combines the participatory affordances and data-processing power of digital media. In the brand culture of social media, the creative narration of cultural experience doubles as data that trains platform algorithms. We develop an account of the algorithmic brand culture of social media via a case study of the Splendour in the Grass music festival, the activations sponsoring brands build at the festival, and the participatory mediation of the festival on Instagram. Brands play a critical role in both funding and engineering social media platforms, and integrating them into cultural experience. We argue for the development of critical cultural and computational approaches that examine how the use of machines to make judgments about cultural life is intrinsic to capitalising on the participatory nature of brand culture. Media researchers must go beyond describing the content of user-generated content on platforms to critically simulate and scrutinise media platforms’ algorithmic infrastructure.
Accurate positioning of RNA polymerase II on a natural TATA-less promoter is independent of TATA-binding-protein-associated factors and initiator-binding proteins

Two promoter elements, the TATA element and initiator (Inr), are capable of directing specific transcription initiation of protein-encoding genes by RNA polymerase II (RNAPII). Although binding to the TATA element by the TATA-binding protein (TBP) has been shown to be the initial recognition step in transcription complex formation in vitro, the mechanism through which the basal machinery assembles into a functional complex on TATA-less promoters is controversial. Evidence supporting numerous models of Inr-mediated transcription complex formation exists, including the nucleation of a complex by Inr-binding proteins, a component of the TFIID complex, or a specific upstream activator common to many TATA-less promoters, Sp1. Using various techniques, we have undertaken a systematic analysis of the natural TATA-less human DNA polymerase beta (beta-pol) gene promoter. Although the beta-pol promoter contains upstream Sp1 elements and a functional Inr that binds YY1, neither of these factors is essential for Inr-mediated transcription complex formation. A complex containing TBP, TFIIB, TFIIF, and RNAPII (DBPolF complex) is capable of forming on the promoter in an Inr-dependent manner. A single point mutation within the Inr that affects DBPolF complex formation diminishes beta-pol transcriptional activity.
ACCEL-RATE: a faster mechanism for memory efficient per-flow traffic estimation

Per-flow network traffic measurement is an important component of network traffic management, network performance assessment, and detection of anomalous network events such as incipient DoS attacks. In [1], the authors developed a mechanism called RATE where the focus was on developing a memory efficient scheme for estimating per-flow traffic rates to a specified level of accuracy. The time taken by RATE to estimate the per-flow rates is a function of the specified estimation accuracy and this time is acceptable for several applications. However some applications, such as quickly detecting worm related activity or the tracking of transient traffic, demand faster estimation times. The main contribution of this paper is a new scheme called ACCEL-RATE that, for a specified level of accuracy, can achieve orders of magnitude decrease in per-flow rate estimation times. It achieves this by using a hashing scheme to split the incoming traffic into several sub-streams, estimating the per-flow traffic rates in each of the substreams and then relating it back to the original per-flow traffic rates. We show both theoretically and experimentally that the estimation time of ACCEL-RATE is at least one to two orders of magnitude lower than RATE without any significant increase in the memory size.
Perfect Powers: Pillai's works and their developments

A perfect power is a positive integer of the form $a^x$ where $a\ge 1$ and $x\ge 2$ are rational integers. Subbayya Sivasankaranarayana Pillai wrote several papers on these numbers. In 1936 and again in 1945 he suggested that for any given $k\ge 1$, the number of positive integer solutions $(a,\, b,\, x,\, y)$, with $x\ge 2$ and $y\ge 2$, to the Diophantine equation $a^x-b^y=k$ is finite. This conjecture amounts to saying that the distance between two consecutive elements in the sequence of perfect powers tends to infinity. After a short introduction to Pillai's work on Diophantine questions, we quote some later developments and we discuss related open problems.
Caudate Dopamine D1 Receptor Density Is Associated with Individual Differences in Frontoparietal Connectivity during Working Memory

We assess the relationship of age-related losses in striatal D1 receptor densities to age-related reductions in functional connectivity between spatially distinct cortical regions in healthy human participants. Previous neuroimaging studies have reported age-related differences in functional connectivity of the frontoparietal working memory network and the default mode network during task performance. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging and seed-based connectivity (right dorsolateral and medial prefrontal cortex) to extend these findings: Anterior–posterior connectivity of both these functional networks was reduced in older (65–75 years, n = 18) compared with younger (20–30 years, n = 19) adults, whereas bilateral connectivity in prefrontal cortex was increased in older adults. Positron emission tomography with the D1 receptor ligand [11C]SCH23390 was used to assess caudate D1 receptor density in the same sample. Older adults showed significantly reduced caudate D1 receptor density compared to the younger adults. Of key interest, partial correlations showed that individual differences in caudate D1 receptor density were positively associated with individual differences in dorsolateral prefrontal connectivity to right parietal cortex (BA40) and negatively with medial prefrontal connectivity to right parietal cortex (BA40 and postcentral gyrus), after controlling for age. We found no correlation of caudate D1 receptor density with anterior–posterior coupling within the default mode network or with bilateral frontal connectivity. These results are consistent with animal work that has identified a role for caudate D1 receptors in mediating information transfer between prefrontal areas and parietal cortex.
Communication Strategies: A Psychological Analysis of Second-Language Use

Reviews Communication Strategies: A Psychological Analysis of Second-Language Use by Ellen Bialystok. Applied Linguistics Series, D. Crystal and K. Johnson, Eds., Cambridge, MA. : Basil Blackwell, 1990. vi pp. Reviewed by James E. Purpura University of California, Los Angeles Over interest in the cognitive processes the past fifteen years, there has been an increased which account for how the learner of a second language (L2) handles conceptual and linguistic input, how this learner processes this information to allow for intake, and how the newly-acquired knowledge is used to produce messages in the L2. Second-language learning strategy research focuses on the processes and strategies used to perceive, internalize and automatize new linguistic input, with emphasis on language learning. Bialystok's work. Communication Strategies, however, differs from other books on strategy research (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990; Wenden, 1991) in that it takes a much narrower focus, concentrating on the processes and strategies a learner invokes when declarative and procedural knowledge are utilized to communicate a message. The emphasis of this book is on language use and the linguistic and cognitive processes involved in communication. Thus, in providing an in depth analysis of the processes and strategies used in language production. Communication Strategies provides a unique contribution to learning strategy research. Bialystok's overall goal in Communication Strategies is to find a means of explaining how strategies function in the speech of L2 learners (p. 13). The book contains a preface, eight chapters, notes, references and an index. In Chapter 1 Bialystok finds all the definitions of communication strategies commonly used in strategy research to be ambiguous. explicitly, the undue emphasis Bialystok also criticizes, although not in strategy research on definitions and proposes an approach to investigating communication strategies fully incorporates the identification, explanation, and instruction of communication strategies. The remaining chapters of which the book are organized around these three points. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 address the question of how to identify and categorize strategic behavior in the communication of L2 learners. Chapters 5,
SOME INEQUALITIES FOR ALTERNATING KUREPA'S FUNCTION

In this paper we consider alternating Kurepa’s function A(z). We give some recurrent relations for alternating Kurepa’s function via appropriate sequences of rational functions and gamma function. Also we give some inequalities for the real part of alternating Kurepa’s function A(x) for values of argument x> 2. The obtained results are analogous to results from the author’s paper [5].
Nest Material Shapes Eggs Bacterial Environment

Selective pressures imposed by pathogenic microorganisms to embryos have selected in hosts for a battery of antimicrobial lines of defenses that includes physical and chemical barriers. Due to the antimicrobial properties of volatile compounds of green plants and of chemicals of feather degrading bacteria, the use of aromatic plants and feathers for nest building has been suggested as one of these barriers. However, experimental evidence suggesting such effects is scarce in the literature. During two consecutive years, we explored experimentally the effects of these nest materials on loads of different groups of bacteria (mesophilic bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae, Staphylococcus and Enterococcus) of eggshells in nests of spotless starlings (Sturnus unicolor) at the beginning and at the end of the incubation period. This was also explored in artificial nests without incubation activity. We also experimentally increased bacterial density of eggs in natural and artificial nests and explored the effects of nest lining treatments on eggshell bacterial load. Support for the hypothetical antimicrobial function of nest materials was mainly detected for the year and location with larger average values of eggshell bacterial density. The beneficial effects of feathers and plants were more easily detected in artificial nests with no incubation activity, suggesting an active role of incubation against bacterial colonization of eggshells. Pigmented and unpigmented feathers reduced eggshell bacterial load in starling nests and artificial nest boxes. Results from artificial nests allowed us to discuss and discard alternative scenarios explaining the detected association, particularly those related to the possible sexual role of feathers and aromatic plants in starling nests. All these results considered together confirm the antimicrobial functionality mainly of feathers but also of plants used as nest materials, and highlight the importance of temporally and geographically environmental variation associated with risk of bacterial proliferation determining the strength of such effects. Because of costs associated to nest building, birds should adjust nest building effort to expected bacterial environments during incubation, a prediction that should be further explored.
Clustering of High-Redshift (z ≥ 2.9) Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We study the two-point correlation function of a uniformly selected sample of 4426 luminous optical quasars with redshift 2.9 ≤ z ≤ 5.4 selected over 4041 deg2 from the Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We fit a power-law to the projected correlation function wp(rp) to marginalize over redshift-space distortions and redshift errors. For a real-space correlation function of the form ξ(r) = (r/r0)-γ, the fitted parameters in comoving coordinates are r0 = 15.2 ± 2.7 h-1 Mpc and γ = 2.0 ± 0.3, over a scale range 4 h-1 Mpc ≤ rp ≤ 150 h-1 Mpc. Thus high-redshift quasars are appreciably more strongly clustered than their z ≈ 1.5 counterparts, which have a comoving clustering length r0 ≈ 6.5 h-1 Mpc. Dividing our sample into two redshift bins, 2.9 ≤ z ≤ 3.5 and z ≥ 3.5, and assuming a power-law index γ = 2.0, we find a correlation length of r0 = 16.9 ± 1.7 h-1 Mpc for the former and r0 = 24.3 ± 2.4 h-1 Mpc for the latter. Strong clustering at high redshift indicates that quasars are found in very massive, and therefore highly biased, halos. Following Martini & Weinberg, we relate the clustering strength and quasar number density to the quasar lifetimes and duty cycle. Using the Sheth & Tormen halo mass function, the quasar lifetime is estimated to lie in the range ∼4-50 Myr for quasars with 2.9 ≤ z ≤ 3.5, and ∼30-600 Myr for quasars with z ≥ 3.5. The corresponding duty cycles are ∼0.004-0.05 for the lower redshift bin and ∼0.03-0.6 for the higher redshift bin. The minimum mass of halos in which these quasars reside is (2-3) × 1012 h-1 M⊙ for quasars with 2.9 ≤ z ≤ 3.5 and (4-6) × 1012 h-1 M⊙ for quasars with z ≥ 3.5; the effective bias factor beff increases with redshift, e.g., beff ∼ 8 at z = 3.0 and beff ∼ 16 at z = 4.5.
Monopoly Profit Maximization: Success and Economic Principles

This paper presents a classroom experiment on pricing strategies available to monopolists. Each student makes production decisions as a monopolist during the experiment; learning from his/her own experiences what it means to be a price searcher. Full information is provided on cost conditions, while the demand function remains unknown to the participants. Given a sufficient number of periods, students will be able to maximise their profits only by applying a trial-and-error strategy. However, one of the objectives of the experiment is to demonstrate to students that search strategies based on economic principles are more efficient.
Psychosocial adjustment in males with Duchenne muscular dystrophy: psychometric properties and clinical utility of a parent-report questionnaire.

OBJECTIVE The primary aim of this study was to establish the psychometric properties and clinical utility of the Personal Adjustment and Role Skills Scale (PARS-III) for assessing psychosocial adjustment in males with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). METHODS The parents of 287 male patients with DMD aged 5-18 years completed the PARS-III and Revised Rutter Scale. RESULTS The alpha coefficients and factor analysis indicated good reliability and validity. Overall psychosocial adjustment was not significantly different in DMD compared to males with other chronic medical conditions and was positively associated with increases in age. A clinical cutoff score for screening in the DMD population is also reported. CONCLUSIONS The PARS-III is a reliable and valid index of youth psychosocial adjustment in DMD and can be used for both clinical screening and research purposes.
Investigating the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation in the development of adolescent emotional problems

Abstract Previous research has indicated that cognitive emotion regulation strategies contribute to the development and maintenance of emotional problems in adults and adolescents. However, there is a lack of longitudinal research with adolescent samples, hence knowledge of exactly how these strategies influence the development of emotional problems in adolescence is sparse. This study investigated maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation (cognitive avoidance and repetitive negative thinking) as a potential mediator in the development of anxiety and depressed mood over time in adolescence. Self-reported depressed mood, anxiety, and cognitive emotion regulation strategies were assessed during school hours in a sample of Swedish 10th graders (N = 149; 53% girls), with follow-up assessments one and two years later. Repetitive negative thinking and cognitive avoidance formed a unidimensional factor of cognitive emotion regulation. Cognitive emotion regulation was found to mediate the development of both anxiety and depressed mood over time, lending support to the previous findings that cognitive emotion regulation strategies such as cognitive avoidance and repetitive negative thinking might act as transdiagnostic mechanisms in the development of emotional symptoms in adolescence. This suggests that maladaptive forms of cognitive emotion regulation could be important targets in prevention and treatment of emotional problems in adolescence.
A new approach to computing maximum flows using electrical flows

We give an algorithm which computes a (1-ε)-approximately maximum st-flow in an undirected uncapacitated graph in time O(1/ε√m/F⋅ m log2 n) where F is the flow value. By trading this off against the Karger-Levine algorithm for undirected graphs which takes ~O(m+nF) time, we obtain a running time of ~O(m n1/3/ε2/3) for uncapacitated graphs, improving the previous best dependence on ε by a factor of O(1/ε3). Like the algorithm of Christiano, Kelner, Madry, Spielman and Teng, our algorithm reduces the problem to electrical flow computations which are carried out in linear time using fast Laplacian solvers. However, in contrast to previous work, our algorithm does not reweight the edges of the graph in any way, and instead uses local (i.e., non s-t) electrical flows to reroute the flow on congested edges. The algorithm is simple and may be viewed as trying to find a point at the intersection of two convex sets (the affine subspace of st-flows of value F and the l∞ ball) by an accelerated version of the method of alternating projections due to Nesterov. By combining this with Ford and Fulkerson's augmenting paths algorithm, we obtain an exact algorithm with running time ~O(m5/4 F1/4) for uncapacitated undirected graphs, improving the previous best running time of ~O(m+ min(nF,m3/2)). We give a related algorithm with the same running time for approximate minimum cut, based on minimizing a smoothed version of the l1 norm inside the cut space of the input graph. We show that the minimizer of this norm is related to an approximate blocking flow and use this to give an algorithm for computing a length k approximately blocking flow in time ~O(m √k).
Cut Locus and Medial Axis in Global Shape Interrogation and Representation

The cut locus CA of a closed set A in the Euclidean space E is defined as the closure of the set containing all points p which have at least two shortest paths to A. We present a theorem stating that the complement of the cut locus i.e. E \ (CA ∪A) is the maximal open set in (E \A) where the distance function with respect to the set A is continuously differentiable. This theorem includes also the result that this distance function has a locally Lipschitz continuous gradient on (E \A). The medial axis of a solid D in E is defined as the union of all centers of all maximal discs which fit in this domain. We assume in the medial axis case that D is closed and that the boundary ∂D of D is a topological (not necessarily connected) hypersurface of E. Under these assumptions we prove that the medial axis of D equals that part of the cut locus of ∂D which is contained in D. Comment: The concepts of cut locus and medial axis have recently been found to be important as tools for global shape interrogation and representation in CAGD. There exist some computational methods to compute the medial axis and the cut locus at least in a variety of practically relevant cases. However statements on fundamental topological (e.g. homotopy) relations between the shape of a domain and the medial axis of that domain mainly exist as conjectures. This is a severe gap because those topological relations often motivate the relevance of the medial axis and the cut locus for global shape interrogation and representation. We present several basic topological results on medial axis and cut locus which answer open questions in this area. We prove that the medial axis has the same homotopy type as its reference solid if the solid’s boundary surface fulfills certain regularity requirements. We also show that the medial axis with its related distance function can be be used to reconstruct its reference solid. We prove that the cut locus of a solid’s boundary is nowhere dense in the Euclidean space if the solid’s boundary meets certain regularity requirements. We show that the cut locus concept offers a common frame work lucidly unifying different concepts such as Voronoi diagrams, medial axes and equidistantial point sets. In this context we prove that the equidistantial set of two disjoint point sets is a subset of the cut locus of the union of those two sets and that the Voronoi diagram of a discrete point set equals the cut locus of that point set. We present results which imply that a non-degenerate C-smooth rational B-spline surface patch which is free of self-intersections avoids its cut locus. This implies that for small enough offset distances such a spline patch has regular smooth offset surfaces which are diffeomorphic to the unit sphere. Any of those offset surfaces bounds a solid (which is homeomorphic to the unit ball) and this solid’s medial axis is equal to the progenitor spline surface. The spline patch can be manufactured with a ball cutter whose center moves along the regular offset surface and where the radius of the ball cutter equals the offset distance.
Driving Problems in the Elderly and Cognitively Impaired

Abstract Driving ability in the elderly and cognitively impaired is of growing demographic relevance. Driving represents a complex task for which multiple central resources are needed. In mild cognitive impairment and dementia, we need to closely monitor driving ability, as it gets irrecoverably lost in the course of the disease. In normal aging, people are often able to self-regulate driving behavior with respect to their medical conditions. Some studies demonstrated that older drivers perform well compared with younger drivers. Others suggest a decline of driving ability in the process of normal aging and an increasing involvement of older drivers in car crashes. However, these findings have been questioned because of several possible biases. Therefore, unnecessary driving restrictions need to be avoided. The reliable evaluation of driving ability requires a specialist assessment with detailed neurocognitive evaluation, investigation of medical history and medical history by proxy, as well as on-the-the-road tests. Highlighting current knowledge in this field, we would like to increase our readers’ awareness for the complexity of driving-associated challenges in an aging population.
Symbolic Computation of Reduced Guards in Supervisory Control

In the supervisory control theory, a supervisor is generated based on given plant and specification models. The supervisor restricts the plant in order to fulfill the specifications. A problem that is typically encountered in industrial applications is that the resulting supervisor is not easily comprehensible for the users. To tackle this problem, we introduce an efficient method to characterize a supervisor by tractable logic conditions, referred to as guards, generated from the models. The guards express under which conditions an event is allowed to occur to fulfill the specifications. To obtain tractable guard expressions, we reduce them by exploiting the structure of the given models. In order to be able to handle complex systems efficiently, the models are symbolically represented by binary decision diagrams and all computations are performed on these data structures. The algorithms have been implemented in a supervisory control tool and applied to an industrially relevant example.