Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design for Rituals of Letting Go

People increasingly live their lives online, accruing large collections of digital possessions, which symbolically represent important relationships, events, and activities. Most HCI research on bereavement focuses on retaining these significant digital possessions to honor the departed. However, recent work suggests that significant digital possessions may complicate moving on; they function as both comforting and painful reminders but currently provide inflexible methods for disposal. A few works have investigated the disposal of digital objects as a means of letting go. To better understand this we interviewed 10 psychotherapists who employ rituals of letting go to help patients overcome loss in situations such as a divorce, a breakup, or a stillbirth. Patients disposed of either natural artifacts or symbolic personal possessions through actions such as burning, burying, or placing in a body of water. Therapists noted that people increasingly have digital possessions, and that the act of deletion does not offer the same cathartic sense of release as disposal of material artifacts. Based on the analysis of this grief therapy, we propose a new conceptual framework for rituals of letting go that highlights temporality, visibility, and force. It provides a vocabulary to talk about disposal. We then offer design implications connecting the rituals of letting go to the disposal of digital things. Based on our interviews and analytic framework, we propose novel technologies that better connect the embodied nature of letting go rituals to the process of digital disposal.
I’m the Mayor of My House: Examining Why People Use a Social-Driven Location Sharing Application

There have been many location-sharing applications developed over the past two decades, and only recently have these kinds of applications started to see adoption by consumers. In this paper, we present the results of interviews and two surveys to understand how and why people use locationsharing applications, as well as how they manage their privacy, focusing on the foursquare check-in system. We also document some surprising uses of foursquare, and discuss some implications for design for other mobile social services.
The Skill Premium, Technological Change and Appropriability

This paper demonstrates that an increase in the relative supply of educated workers generates a structural change in the production structure towards a knowledge-intensive production process. This structural shift may ultimately lead to an increase in the return to educated labor despite the increase in their supply. The paper argues that the steady increase in the supply of educated workers that most Western economies have experienced in recent decades may be viewed as the driving force behind the observed pattern of wage inequality. In particular, the paper demonstrates that if firms can appropriate a sufficient share of the intertemporal return from knowledge generating activities of their labor force, a gradual increase in the supply of skilled workers would generate only a temporary reduction in the skill premium followed by a permanent increase in the return to skill.
Improved design of the weighting matrices for the S/KS/T mixed sensitivity problem-application to a multivariable thermodynamic system

This paper describes an improved design procedure for the weighting matrices of the S/KS/T mixed sensitivity problem. Using low-order models, as usual in industrial processes, and based on recent works, the new design will allow to significantly reduce the time response overshoots, without degrading the speed of these responses. Weighting matrices are designed in such a way that they depend only on a few parameters, which can be easily adjusted by means of the proposed methodology. Experimental results in the simultaneous control of two temperatures of a pilot plant (which constitutes a typical example of industrial process) are included in order to validate the proposed methodology.
Evaluation and Reliability Assessment of GaN-on-Si MIS-HEMT for Power Switching Applications

This paper reports an extensive analysis of the physical mechanisms responsible for the failure of GaN-based metal–insulator–semiconductor (MIS) high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). When stressed under high applied electric fields, the traps at the dielectric/III-N barrier interface and inside the III-N barrier cause an increase in dynamic on-resistance and a shift of threshold voltage, which might affect the long term stability of these devices. More detailed investigations are needed to identify epitaxy- or process-related degradation mechanisms and to understand their impact on electrical properties. The present paper proposes a suitable methodology to characterize the degradation and failure mechanisms of GaN MIS-HEMTs subjected to stress under various off-state conditions. There are three major stress conditions that include: V DS = 0 V, off, and off (cascode-connection) states. Changes of direct current (DC) figures of merit in voltage step-stress experiments are measured, statistics are studied, and correlations are investigated. Hot electron stress produces permanent change which can be attributed to charge trapping phenomena and the generation of deep levels or interface states. The simultaneous generation of interface (and/or bulk) and buffer traps can account for the observed degradation modes and mechanisms. These findings provide several critical characteristics to evaluate the electrical reliability of GaN MIS-HEMTs which are borne out by step-stress experiments.
Monetary Transmission and the Yield Curve in a Small Open Economy

Long-term nominal interest rates in a number of inflation-targeting small open economies have tended to be highly correlated with those of the United States. This observation has recently lent support to the view that the long end of the yield curve is determined abroad. We set up and estimate a micro-founded two-block small open economy model to study the co-movement of long-term nominal interest rates of different currencies. The expectations hypothesis together with uncovered interest rate parity, which both hold in our model, can account for much of the co-movement of interest rates observed in the data.
Stroop effect in Spanish–English bilinguals

The aim of this study was to analyze the performance of Spanish–English bilinguals on the Golden Stroop Test. The effects of bilingualism, participants' age, age of acquisition of the second language, and proficiency in each language were analyzed. Participants consisted of 71 Spanish–English bilinguals, 40 English monolinguals, and 11 Spanish monolinguals from South Florida. Proficiency in Spanish and English was established using a self-report questionnaire and the English and Spanish versions of the Boston Naming Test. In bilinguals, the Golden Stroop Test was administered in English and in Spanish. Overall, performance was slower in bilinguals than in monolinguals. No significant differences were observed in color reading but bilinguals performed worse in the naming color condition. Even though bilinguals were 5% to 10% slower in the color–word condition, one-way ANOVAs revealed no statistically significant differences between groups. Within the bilingual group, the Stroop Test scores were similar in both English and Spanish. Age of acquisition of the second language did not predict the Stroop Test performance. Repeated measures ANOVA demonstrated a significant interaction between Language Proficiency × Language (in which the test was administered) in some of the ST conditions. In balanced bilinguals, the language used in the ST did not matter, but in unbalanced subjects, the best-spoken language showed better results. In addition, our results support the presence of both between- and within-language interference in Spanish–English bilinguals. Different conceptualization models of the structure of bilingual memory are disclosed. (JINS, 2002, 8, 819–827.)
Irradiation of Anastrepha fraterculus (Diptera: Tephritidae) Eggs to Inhibit Fly Emergence in the Mass-Rearing of Diachasmimorpha longicaudata (Hymenoptera: Braconidae)

As the incidence of Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) has increased in Southern Brazil in the past 3 yr, an initiative to release sterile flies and parasitoids has started. In order to make feasible the mass-rearing of the parasitoid Diachasmimorpha longicaudata (Ashmed), this study investigated the suitability of A. fraterculus larvae derived from irradiated eggs as host for D. longicaudata. Two different ages of A. fraterculus eggs (24 and 48 h old) were analyzed for hatchability after the exposure to a range of radiation doses. The hatchability of 48-h-old eggs was not affected by radiation, and no fly emerged at doses higher than 27.5 Gy. The larvae derived from irradiated eggs proved to be suitable hosts for the parasitoid development, with observed parasitism rates higher than 70% and sex ratio values above 0.6. The parasitism capability and longevity of D. longicaudata reared on larvae derived from irradiated eggs were also assessed. During the 10 d of parasitism evaluated, D. longicaudata from the treatments were able to parasitize nonirradiated larvae similarly as the parasitoids from controls and the laboratory colony. The longevity of D. longicaudata from the treatments was not affected either, with survival rates higher than 80% after 20 d of evaluation. The age of 48 h and a dose of 30 Gy could be considered the best age and dose for A. fraterculus eggs to be used in the mass-rearing of D. longicaudata. The results of this study will decrease the costs of mass-rearing D. longicaudata on A. fraterculus.
Electron microscope study of DNA-containing plasms. II. Vegetative and mature phage DNA as compared with normal bacterial nucleoids in different physiological states.

The nucleoids of Escherichia coli, independently of the physiological state of the bacteria, are shown to be preserved as a fine-stranded fibrillar nucleoplasm by an OsO4 fixation under defined conditions: acetate-veronal buffer pH 6, presence of Ca++ and amino acids, stabilization with uranyl-acetate before dehydration. The same fixation procedure applied to the DNA of vegetative phage reveals a pool of homogeneous fibrillar structure very similar to the nucleoplasm. The "versene test," which produces a coarse coagulation of these plasms, emphasizes the similar behaviour of the pool and the nucleoids. The heads of mature phage are preserved in their true polyhedral shape by the standard fixation procedure, although they may be badly distorted when fixed under different conditions. Lanthanum nitrate and uranyl-acetate are shown to increase markedly the contrast of both phage and cytoplasm. The consequences of the fibrillar structure of the genetic material are discussed in relation to the probable division process.
Stability Analysis of Unbalanced Distribution Systems With Synchronous Machine and DFIG Based Distributed Generators

There are many technical aspects and challenges in distributed generation (DG) that have not been properly understood and addressed so far. Distribution systems cannot be considered as balanced three-phase systems, because these are inherently unbalanced in steady-state operation. A full characterization of the unbalanced system with respect to system stability allows a better understanding of the dynamic behavior of such systems. This paper presents a comprehensive investigation of the effects of system unbalance on the stability of the distribution systems with synchronous generator (SG) and doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) based DG units at different loading levels. Detailed steady-state and dynamic analyses of the system are performed. Based on classical voltage, small-perturbation and transient stability studies, it is demonstrated that system unbalance can significantly affect the distribution system dynamic performance, in ways that have not been discussed in the technical literature so far. A simple and effective control strategy based on an Unbalanced Voltage Stabilizer (UVS) is also proposed to improve the system control and the stability of unbalanced distribution systems with SG and DFIG. Eigenvalue analyses and time-domain simulations (TDS) demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed UVS for unbalance conditions.
Promotion of NEDD8-CUL1 Conjugate Cleavage by COP9 Signalosome

SCF ubiquitin ligases control various processes by marking regulatory proteins for ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis. To illuminate how SCF complexes are regulated, we sought proteins that interact with the human SCF component CUL1. The COP9 signalosome (CSN), a suppressor of plant photomorphogenesis, associated with multiple cullins and promoted cleavage of the ubiquitin-like protein NEDD8 fromSchizosaccharomyces pombe CUL1 in vivo and in vitro. Multiple NEDD8-modified proteins uniquely accumulated in CSN-deficientS. pombe cells. We propose that the broad spectrum of activities previously attributed to CSN subunits—including repression of photomorphogenesis, activation of JUN, and activation of p27 nuclear export—underscores the importance of dynamic cycles of NEDD8 attachment and removal in biological regulation.
Phonological typicality influences on-line sentence comprehension

Since Saussure, the relationship between the sound and the meaning of words has been regarded as largely arbitrary. Here, however, we show that a probabilistic relationship exists between the sound of a word and its lexical category. Corpus analyses of nouns and verbs indicate that the phonological properties of the individual words in these two lexical categories form relatively separate and coherent clusters, with some nouns sounding more typical of the noun category than others and likewise for verbs. Additional analyses reveal that the phonological properties of nouns and verbs affect lexical access, and we also demonstrate the influence of such properties during the on-line processing of both simple unambiguous and syntactically ambiguous sentences. Thus, although the sound of a word may not provide cues to its specific meaning, phonological typicality, the degree to which the sound properties of an individual word are typical of other words in its lexical category, affects both word- and sentence-level language processing. The findings are consistent with a perspective on language comprehension in which sensitivity to multiple syntactic constraints in adulthood emerges as a product of language-development processes that are driven by the integration of multiple cues to linguistic structure, including phonological typicality.
Life Insurance Liabilities at Market Value: An Analysis of Insolvency Risk, Bonus Policy, and Regulatory Intervention Rules in a Barrier Option Framework

This article takes a contingent claim approach to the market valuation of equity and liabilities in life insurance companies. A model is presented that explicitly takes into account the following: (i) the holders of life insurance contracts (LICs) have the first claim on the company's assets, whereas equity holders have limited liability; (ii) interest rate guarantees are common elements of LICs; and (iii) LICs according to the so-called contribution principle are entitled to receive a fair share of any investment surplus. Furthermore, a regulatory mechanism in the form of an intervention rule is built into the model. This mechanism is shown to significantly reduce the insolvency risk of the issued contracts, and it implies that the various claims on the company's assets become more exotic and obtain barrier option properties. Closed valuation formulas are nevertheless derived. Finally, some representative numerical examples illustrate how the model can be used to establish the set of initially fair contracts and to determine the market values of contracts after their inception.
Flexible endoscopy of paediatric airways

Paediatric fibreoptic bronchoscopy is used for ever wider indications, and increasingly used in many contexts, including paediatric and neonatal intensive care. The report of this Task Force contains an overview on the current applications of paediatric bronchoscopy. The report discusses the facilities and equipment needed for the procedure, including the newly developed bronchoscopes which are allowing intervention even in very small children. The indications of both flexible and rigid bronchoscopes in the context of newer and smaller flexible endoscopic equipment are also considered. The care of the instruments, including disinfection and sterilisation, is fully documented. Patient management is described, including the relative merits of conscious sedation and general anaesthesia, as well as special settings for the procedure, including the needs in intensive care. Special procedures, increasingly performed bronchoscopically are described. These include bronchoalveolar lavage, endobronchial and transbronchial biopsy, laser therapy, bronchography, and endoscopic intubation and drug therapy. Finally, neonatal bronchoscopy is discussed, and the ethics of bronchoscopic procedures, including bronchoscopic research in children. Advances in instrumentation, and also improved anaesthetic techniques, allow fibreoptic bronchoscopy to be safely performed in even very small, sick infants, provided proper precautions are taken.
Effects of nano tantalum implants on inducing osteoblast proliferation and differentiation

In the present study, we examined the effects of nano tantalum (Ta) dental implants on inducing osteoblast proliferation and differentiation. The MG-63 osteoblasts were divided into 3 groups after recovery, passage and storage: i) Osteoblast culturing group (control group); ii) osteoblast and titanium (Ti) implant co-culturing group (Ti group); and iii) osteoblast and Ta implant co-culturing group (Ta group). After 7 days, a scanning electron microscope was used to observe the growth status, number and morphological changes of the cells on the surfaces of the materials. An MTT assay was used to detect cell proliferation after culturing for 1, 3 and 7 days. ELISA assay was used to detect the levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) after 1, 3 and 7 days. Western blot analysis was used to detect the expression levels of collagen type I (Col-1) and osteocalcin after 1, 3 and 7 days. There was significant cell spreading on the surfaces of Ti and of Ta after 7 days, flat and with many pseudopodia. Additionally, there were more cell components in the Ta group. Concurrently, cell proliferation in the Ti and Ta groups increased. There was also an increase in the level of ALP and the expression level of Col-1 over time. The indexes of the Ta group were more apparent than those of the Ti group at each time-point, and the differences were statistically significant (p<0.05). In conclusion, compared with Ti implants, Ta implants induced more osteoblast proliferation and differentiation.
Job Satisfaction, Affective Commitment, and Turnover Intentions among Front Desk Staff: Evidence from Pakistan

Understanding attitudes and behaviors at workplace develop organizational knowledge and capabilities to increase quality of services and help in retaining competent and skillful employees. The present study aims to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction (JS), affective commitment (AC), and turnover intentions (TI) among front desk staff working as customer service representatives in Pakistani banks. Data was collected through questionnaire from 106 front desk customer representatives in 5 different banks located in Rawalpindi district of northern Punjab, Pakistan. Correlation and regression analysis concluded that both, JS and AC, were significantly related to the TI with negative associations. Based on the conclusions of this study, the implications for future studies are discussed.
Knowledge and information systems

Knowledge and Information Systems (KAIS) provides an international forum for researchers and professionals to share their knowledge and report new advances on all topics related to knowledge systems and advanced information systems. This monthly peer-reviewed archival journal publishes state-of-the-art research reports on emerging topics in KAIS, reviews of important techniques in related areas, and application papers of interest to a general readership. The journal focuses on knowledge systems and advanced information systems, including their theoretical foundations, infrastructure and enabling technologies. We solicit submissions of original research, and experience and vision papers that address this theme. We publish critical review papers to discuss the state of the art in particular areas, as well as state-of-the-art research reports. Accepted papers are grouped for publication so that individual issues focus on a small number of theme areas. In addition to archival papers, the journal also publishes significant on-going research in the form of Short Papers (limited to 3000 words), and very short papers on "visions and directions" (no more than 1000 words, excluding bibliography). We conduct reviews in a timely fashion and inform authors of decisions with a target turnaround time of 3 months. Selected papers from relevant conferences are welcome. Good papers with high quality reviews can be accepted after the expansion and revision is verified by an Associate Editor of the Editorial Board. Conference organizers are invited to contact the Editor-in-Chief kais@cs.uvm. edu for further information.
FDTD Characterisation of UWB Indoor Radio Channel Including Frequency Dependent Antenna Directivities

This paper presents a modelling of ultra-wideband (UWB) indoor radio channel using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. By dividing the frequency band (3-11 GHz) into 8 sub-bands, the conventional FDTD method is applied to calculate the channel impulse responses (CIRs) at different sub-bands. At the centre frequency of each sub-band, measured frequency dependent dielectric constant/loss factor of different indoor materials are used and antenna patterns are taken into account by applying the equivalence principle with the total-field/scattered-field approach. Radio channel modelling results shows that the basestation antenna pattern variations at different frequencies can considerably influence the channel behaviour in a UWB indoor environment
Sphingosine 1-phosphate receptors and sphingosine kinase 1: novel biomarkers for clinical prognosis in breast, prostate, and hematological cancers

There is substantial evidence for a role in cancer of the bioactive lipid sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P), the enzyme sphingosine kinase 1 (that catalyses S1P formation) and S1P-specific G protein-coupled receptors. This perspective highlights recent findings demonstrating that sphingosine kinase 1 and S1P receptors are new important biomarkers for detection of early cancer and progression to aggressive cancer. The impact of the sub-cellular distribution of S1P metabolizing enzymes and S1P receptors and their spatial functional interaction with oncogenes is considered with respect to prognostic outcome. These findings suggest that S1P, in addition to being a biomarker of clinical prognosis, might also be a new therapeutic target for intervention in cancer.