Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Unifying Probabilistic Perspective for Spectral Dimensionality Reduction: Insights and New Models

We introduce a new perspective on spectral dimensionality reduction which views these methods as Gaussian Markov random fields (GRFs). Our unifying perspective is based on the maximum entropy principle which is in turn inspired by maximum variance unfolding. The resulting model, which we call maximum entropy unfolding (MEU) is a nonlinear generalization of principal component analysis. We relate the model to Laplacian eigenmaps and isomap. We show that parameter fitting in the locally linear embedding (LLE) is approximate maximum likelihood MEU. We introduce a variant of LLE that performs maximum likelihood exactly: Acyclic LLE (ALLE). We show that MEU and ALLE are competitive with the leading spectral approaches on a robot navigation visualization and a human motion capture data set. Finally the maximum likelihood perspective allows us to introduce a new approach to dimensionality reduction based on L1 regularization of the Gaussian random field via the graphical lasso.
Downstream physics of the helicon discharge

Measurements of the radial and axial profiles of both the plasma parameters and the wave properties in a long, thin helicon discharge show that most of the RF power is deposited near the antenna and that a dense, cool ( eV) plasma can be obtained in the downstream region. The density n and electron temperature profiles in that region can be explained quantitatively with classical collisional theory, and factor-of-two agreement can be obtained on total particle and energy balance. Spatial modulation of the helicon wave amplitude can be explained by the beating of two different radial modes launched simultaneously by the antenna. Though the helicon wave can be shown to be essential to the production of high densities, it plays little role in the downstream evolution of the plasma. These results indicate that helicon discharges can produce the cool plasmas normally associated with afterglows without the attendant loss of density.
Phylogeography of the pallid kangaroo mouse, Microdipodops pallidus: a sand-obligate endemic of the Great Basin, western North America

Aim Kangaroo mice, genus Microdipodops Merriam, are endemic to the Great Basin and include two species: M. pallidus Merriam and M. megacephalus Merriam. The pallid kangaroo mouse, M. pallidus, is a sand‐obligate desert rodent. Our principal intent is to identify its current geographical distribution and to formulate a phylogeographical hypothesis for this taxon. In addition, we test for orientation patterns in haplotype sharing for evidence of past episodes of movement and gene flow.
Transduction with recombinant adeno-associated virus for gene therapy is limited by leading-strand synthesis

Adeno-associated virus is an integrating DNA parvovirus with the potential to be an important vehicle for somatic gene therapy. A potential barrier, however, is the low transduction efficiencies of recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) vectors. We show in this report that adenovirus dramatically enhances rAAV transduction in vitro in a way that is dependent on expression of early region 1 and 4 (E1 and E4, respectively) genes and directly proportional to the appearance of double-stranded replicative forms of the rAAV genome. Expression of the open reading frame 6 protein from E4 in the absence of E1 accomplished a similar but attenuated effect. The helper activity of adenovirus E1 and E4 for rAAV gene transfer was similarly demonstrated in vivo by using murine models of liver- and lung-directed gene therapy. Our data indicate that conversion of a single-stranded rAAV genome to a duplex intermediate limits transduction and usefulness for gene therapy.
Late, but Not Early, Inhibition of Soluble Guanylate Cyclase Decreases Mortality in a Rat Sepsis Model

Overproduction of nitric oxide and activation of soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) are important in sepsis-induced hypotension and hyporesponsiveness to vasoconstrictors. A time course of the expression and activity of sGC in a sepsis model [cecal ligation and puncture (CLP)] was evaluated in rats. Soluble GC α-1 and β-1 subunit mRNA levels increased in the lungs, but not in the aorta. However, in both tissues, the protein levels increased 24 h after sepsis and remained high for up to 48 h. Sodium nitroprusside-stimulated cGMP accumulation was higher 48 h after CLP in the lung and aorta. NOS-2 protein expression peaked 24 h after CLP, decreasing thereafter. The impact of inhibiting the expression of sGC early (8 h) or late (20 h) on vascular reactivity and the indexes of organ damage and mortality were also studied. Late administration of methylene blue (MB) or ODQ (1H-[1,2,4]-oxadiazole[4,3-a]quinoxalin-1-one) restored the blood pressure and vascular responsiveness to vasoconstrictors to normal levels but was ineffective in early sepsis. Late MB injection reduced the plasma levels of urea, creatinine, and lactate. MB improved the survival if administered late, but it increased the mortality when administrated early after sepsis onset. The increased sGC expression/activity may be relevant for the late hypotension and hyporesponsiveness to vasoconstrictors in sepsis. In accordance, MB increased survival if administered in late sepsis, but not in early sepsis. Therefore, differential responsiveness to sGC during the course of sepsis may determine the success or failure of treatment with sGC inhibitors.
Electroencephalographic seizures during cardiopulmonary bypass

Eleven cardiac operations are reported in which there was electroencephalographic and/or clinical evidence of seizure activity during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). In four patients seizure activity appeared after acute episodes of cerebral ischaemia resulting from either hypotension or pump-generated emboli occurring at the beginning of CPB, or from air embolism occurring at the end of CPB when the myocardium was closed and defibrillated. In the remaining seven patients the seizures appeared to result from the synergistic action of a toxic substance in the perfusate with pre-existing or CPB-induced alterations in cerebral physiology.
Bullying victimisation and social support of adolescent male dance students: an analysis of findings

This analysis (n = 33), drawn from the findings of the author’s larger mixed method research study, investigated bullying and harassment of adolescent male students (ages 13–18) pursuing dance study at the pre-professional level in the United States. Procedures for this analysis included review of primary and secondary sources from the international literature in psychology, adolescent and public health, paediatrics, sexuality studies, and dance education, an adapted version of the Dancer’s Social Support Scale, and data from online surveys and in-depth interviews. Findings indicate significant bullying of adolescent males engaging in western concert dance training. Analyses reveal pervasive heterocentric discourses and continued homophobic attitudes surrounding the adolescent male dancer and his experiences regardless of his sexual orientation. The importance of social support in and outside the dance studio especially support from his dance teacher-director, best friend in dance or school, and his mother figure prominently. Findings from research on bullying in the general and sexual minority populations are discussed. Pragmatic and critical approaches for understanding bullying and supporting bullied adolescent male dancers are presented.
On Arbitrage-free Pricing for General Data Queries

Data is a commodity. Recent research has considered the mathematical problem of setting prices for different queries over data. Ideal pricing functions need to be flexible --defined for arbitrary queries (select-project-join, aggregate, random sample, and noisy privacy-preserving queries). They should be fine-grained -- a consumer should not be required to buy the entire database to get answers to simple "low-information" queries (such as selecting only a few tuples or aggregating over only one attribute). Similarly, a consumer may not want to pay a large amount of money, only to discover that the database is empty. Finally, pricing functions should satisfy consistency conditions such as being "arbitrage-free" -- consumers should not be able to circumvent the pricing function by deducing the answer to an expensive query from a few cheap queries. Previously proposed pricing functions satisfy some of these criteria (i.e. they are defined for restricted subclasses of queries and/or use relaxed conditions for avoiding arbitrage). In this paper, we study arbitrage-free pricing functions defined for arbitrary queries. We propose new necessary conditions for avoiding arbitrage and provide new arbitrage-free pricing functions. We also prove several negative results related to the tension between flexible pricing and avoiding arbitrage, and show how this tension often results in unreasonable prices.
INDUCED AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOUR IN THE PROTOZOA TETRAHYMENA

Bergstrom, S. R. Induced avoidance behaviour in the Protozoa Tetrahymena. Scand.J. Psychol. , 1968, 9, 215–219. —A sample of Tetrahymena, exposed to a series of light and electric shocks paired, was placed in a partially lighted glass chamber. During the first three minutes the number of animals in the lighted parts of the chamber decreased, and an essentially smaller proportion of the sample was then found in the light, in comparison with control samples, which had received either shocks or light or neither of the two stimuli.
Attitudes Toward Adoption in Singapore

This study aimed to understand the factors that influence attitudes toward adoption in Singapore. Using a multistage, quota sampling method, 1,200 Singaporean citizens and permanent residents were interviewed. The results indicate that the majority of the respondents approved adoption as a family form. Logistic regression analysis showed that individual characteristics (women and income) and factors such as the importance of blood ties, adoption-related altruistic values, and familiarity with adoption were related to adoption approval. The factors that influenced intention to adopt were women, familiarity with adoption, and approval of adoption. Individuals who perceived the importance of blood ties in familial relationships and had concerns about the outcomes of adopted children (adjustment problems, behavioral problems, medical problems, etc.) were less likely to have considered adopting. The findings point to the need to increase awareness among the public and to promote adoption as a rewarding and responsible choice for family formation.
Antecedents and consequences of flight attendants' job satisfaction

Flight attendants' working conditions are harsh due to frequent night shifts, long shifts, and long sequences. This study sought to identify the antecedents and consequences of flight attendants' job satisfaction and assess the significant relationships among the study variables. Two hundred and twelve flight attendants in South Korea airlines were randomly chosen. Significant antecedents of job satisfaction were revealed to be self-efficacy and perceived benefits of organizational support. The indirect effect of emotional dissonance via burnout on job satisfaction was significant, and the significant positive effect of job satisfaction on organizational commitment was confirmed. Findings may guide employers in developing internal marketing strategies, including more effective benefit and reward systems, and career development programmes.
Receptor‐regulated and inhibitory Smads are critical in regulating transforming growth factorβ–mediated Meckel's cartilage development

The proper development of Meckel's cartilage is critical for craniofacial skeletogenesis, because it serves as the primordium for the formation of mandible, malleus, incus, and sphenomandibular ligament. Cranial neural crest (CNC) cells contribute significantly to the formation of Meckel's cartilage. Members of the transforming growth factor beta (TGF‐β) family control the proliferation and differentiation of CNC cells during craniofacial skeletogenesis. TGF‐β signaling is transduced from the cell membrane to the nucleus by means of specific type I and type II receptors and phosphorylated Smad proteins. Here we demonstrate that application of TGF‐β promotes chondrogenesis by specifically increasing proliferation of CNC‐derived chondrocytes and production of extracellular matrix. To understand the molecular regulation of TGF‐β signaling, we have examined the biological function of both TGF‐β receptor‐regulated and inhibitory Smads during Meckel's cartilage development. The expression patterns of Smad2, 3, and 7 are identical to the ones of endogenous TGF‐β and its cognate receptors during Meckel's cartilage development, establishing the potential that these intracellular signaling Smads may regulate TGF‐β‐mediated chondrogenesis. Functional haploinsufficiency of Smad2 delays TGF‐β–mediated Meckel's cartilage development. Overproduction of Smad7 severely inhibits Meckel's cartilage formation, indicating a negative feedback on TGF‐β signaling by inhibitory Smad is critical in orchestrating TGF‐β–mediated gene regulation during embryonic chondrogenesis. The effectiveness of TGF‐β signaling is highly sensitive to the level of Smad gene expression. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the Body and the Self: A Qualitative Analysis

In a study directed towards the development of a greater understanding of the subjective illness experience of those who suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), we identified the sufferer's relationship with the body as one of the dimensions of the self most affected by CFS. We found that the profound changes instigated by CFS transform the relationship between the self and the body into a frontline where conflict prevails and inner dissension threaten. Participants' experiences fortunately revealed that such discord can be attenuated when the self makes it its personal responsibility to listen attentively to the body and to then respond to it in a way that will support a sensible balance between activity and restriction.
The Potential for Directing Study in Combined Reading and Writing Activity

An experiment investigated the memorial effects of three different writing tasks and worksheet exercises assigned as study activities to accompany reading. High school boys and girls read and recalled a pretreatment target text and then read a sequence of topically related passages and reacted to each by paraphrasing, formulating questions, comparing and contrasting, or completing matching exercises on worksheets. Afterward, the students again recalled the target text. A comparison of information given in retelling the target text before and after performing the study tasks indicated that quality of inferences differed according to assigned writing task. Writing questions and compare-contrast statements resulted in the generation of significantly more new information, and writing questions resulted in the recall of proportionally more superordinate information. The results are explained as stemming from the organizing requirements of writing.
Generating Chinese Couplets and Quatrain Using a Statistical Approach

We propose a novel statistical approach to automatically generate Chinese couplets and Chinese poetry. For Chinese couplets, the system takes as input the first sentence and generates as output an N-best list of second sentences using a phrase-based SMT model. A comprehensive evaluation using both human judgments and BLEU scores has been conducted and the results demonstrate that this approach is very successful. We then extended this approach to generate classic Chinese poetry using the quatrain as a case study. Given a few keywords describing a user's intention, a statistical model is used to generate the first sentence. Then a phrase-based SMT model is used to generate the other three quatrain sentences one by one. Evaluation using human judgment over individual lines as well as the quality of the generated poem as a whole demonstrates promising results.
Localization and Importance of the Adenovirus E4orf4 Protein during Lytic Infection

ABSTRACT The human adenovirus type 5 (Ad5) E4orf4 product has been studied extensively although in most cases as expressed from vectors in the absence of other viral products. Thus, relatively little is known about its role in the context of an adenovirus infection. Although considerable earlier work had indicated that the E4orf4 protein is not essential for replication, a recent study using dl359, an Ad5 mutant believed to produce a nonfunctional E4orf4 protein, suggested that E4orf4 is essential for virus growth in primary small-airway epithelial cells (C. O'Shea, et al., EMBO J. 24:1211-1221, 2005). Hence, to examine further the role of E4orf4 during virus infection, we generated for the first time a set of E4orf4 virus mutants in a common Ad5 genetic background. Such mutant viruses included those that express E4orf4 proteins containing various individual point mutations, those defective entirely in E4orf4 expression, and a mutant expressing wild-type E4orf4 fused to the green fluorescent protein. E4orf4 protein was found to localize primarily in nuclear structures shown to be viral replication centers, in nucleoli, and in perinuclear bodies. Importantly, E4orf4 was shown not to be essential for virus growth in either human tumor or primary cells, at least in tissue culture. Unlike E4orf4-null virus, mutant dl359 appeared to exhibit a gain-of-function phenotype that impairs virus growth. The dl359 E4orf4 protein, which contains a large in-frame internal deletion, clustered in aggregates enriched in Hsp70 and proteasome components. In addition, the late viral mRNAs produced by dl359 accumulated abnormally in a nuclear punctate pattern. Altogether, our results indicate that E4orf4 protein is not essential for virus growth in culture and that expression of the dl359 E4orf4 product interferes with viral replication, presumably through interactions with structures in the nucleus.
MIT Sloan School of Management

This paper studies the impact of financing decisions on risk-averse managers. Leverage raises stock volatility, driving a wedge between the cost of debt to shareholders and the cost to undiversified, risk-averse managers. I quantify these ‘volatility costs’ of debt and examine their impact on financing decisions. The paper finds: (1) the volatility costs of debt can be large, particularly if the CEO owns in-the-money options; (2) higher option ownership tends to increase, not decrease, the volatility costs of debt; (3) a stock price increase typically reduces managerial preference for leverage, consistent with prior evidence on security issues. Empirically, I estimate the volatility costs of debt for a large sample of U.S. firms and test whether these costs affect financing decisions. I find strong evidence that volatility costs affect both the level of and short-term changes in debt. Further, a probit model of security issues suggests that managerial preferences help explain a firm’s choice between debt and equity.
The prototype effect in recognition memory: intact in autism?

BACKGROUND There are two accounts of categorization performance in autism: that there is an impairment in prototype formation (Klinger & Dawson, 2001) and that there is an impairment in processing features held in common between stimuli (Plaisted, O'Riordan, & Baron-Cohen, 1998). These accounts, together with central coherence theory (Frith, 1989; Frith & Happé, 1994), imply a reduced or absent prototype effect in autism. METHOD Children with autism or Asperger syndrome (n = 15) matched on age, gender, and verbal mental age with typically developing children (n = 15) completed a picture recognition task (Experiment 1). These participants also studied categories of cartoon animals possessing either an average prototype structure (Experiment 2) based on (Younger's 1985) stimuli or a modal structure (Experiment 3) based on (Hayes and Taplin's 1993b) stimuli. Following the study phases, participants completed recognition tests comprising prototypes and other exemplars with varying degrees of similarity to the prototypes. RESULTS For both participant groups, recognition memory appeared intact (Experiment 1) and a full prototype effect in recognition memory was observed in both Experiment 2 and Experiment 3. CONCLUSIONS The present studies fail to support predictions of impaired prototype effects in autism. The discussion focuses on key methodological differences between these studies and those that support claims that central coherence, prototype formation, and common feature processing are impaired in autism.
Theorizing an Early Childhood Educator's Authority for the Advancement of Social Goods.

Authority is an uncomfortable subject for early childhood educators. This article outlines some tensions between the theory and practice of an early childhood educator’s authority and the implications of these tensions for educators themselves and the social changes they envisage. Drawing on a range of feminist educational philosophers and critical pedagogy theorists, critiques of both traditional authority and a rejection of authority are examined. A description is offered of an early childhood educator’s authority that emerges from the actualities of pedagogical experiences and relationships and that can influence and instigate action for social goods.
Concepts of Ability and Effort in Japan and the United States

Research on concepts of ability and effort in Japan and the United States is reviewed, and three major findings are reported. First, a growing body of research conducted in both countries suggests that effort is identified as the primary determinant of achievement in Japan, whereas it receives relatively less emphasis in the U.S. in comparison to ability. Second, the concepts of ability and effort appear to differ between the two countries, along dimensions that have implications for achievement motivation. Third, Japanese homes and families appear to foster task involvement by fostering interpersonal cooperation rather than competition, avoiding salient performance evaluation, and eschewing authoritarian forms of control. These social structural arrangements may be responsible for the attributional patterns found among Japanese children.
Improving intimate relationships: Targeting the partner versus changing the self

This research examined the consequences of targeting the self versus the partner when trying to improve intimate relationships. As predicted, when participants (N = 160) focused their relationship improvement attempts on changing the partner, individuals reported more negative improvement strategies, lower improvement success, and, in turn, more negative relationship evaluations. Self-focused improvement attempts and participants’ own self-regulation efforts, however, were not associated with more positive relationship evaluations or improvement. Instead, individuals reported more improvement and greater relationship quality when partners were perceived to be engaging in successful self-regulation efforts. The results suggest that targeting the partner may do more harm than good despite that relationship evaluations pivot on whether the partner produces change.