Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Racial Diversity, Racial Asymmetries, and Team Learning Environment: Effects on Performance

This paper argues that learning in cross-race interactions is critical for work teams to realize performance benefits from racial diversity but that diversity is a liability when society’s negative stereotypes about racial minorities’ competence inhibit such interactions. We analyze two years of data from 496 retail bank branches to investigate racial asymmetries in the dynamics of team learning and their impact on the link between diversity and bottom-line performance. As expected, minorities’ negative assessments of their team’s learning environment precipitate a negative relationship between diversity and performance, irrespective of White teammates’ assessments; only when both groups view the team’s learning environment as supportive—implying that the team has successfully countered the negative effects of societal stereotypes on cross-race learning—is the relationship positive. We conclude that acknowledging the impact of societal asymmetries between racial groups, especially in regard to learning, can reorient research about the link between identity-group-based diversity and performance.
Testing a Model of Teacher Satisfaction for Blacks and Whites

The purpose of this study was to construct and test a model of the influences affecting early-career teachers’ job satisfaction. The path model is presented and tested first with a sample of black teachers and then with a sample of white teachers. Although the model provides a plausible explanation for the relationships among the variables for both groups, differences in the structural coefficients indicate the process leading to teacher job satisfaction is different for blacks and whites. The implications of this study suggest it may be critical to take into account factors such as race and sex in teacher induction and training.
A Comparison of Cross Sectional Surface Area Densities Between Adult and Juvenile Porcine Islets of Langerhans*

The object of this study was to evaluate differences in islet diameters, their distribution and both cross sectional surface areas and densities of insulin containing islets between adult and juvenile porcine pancreata using a computerised image analysis system (Improvision). Five adult (A) (2-3 yrs) and 5 juvenile (J) (< 12 mths) Large White pancreata were assessed. Biopsies were taken from 5 different regions (posterior lobe, duodenal lobe, along with the head, body and tail regions of the splenic lobe) of the pancreas and tissue sections stained for insulin. In both A and J pancreata islet numbers increased with decreasing islet diameter, showing a skewed distribution. There was no statistical significance between the cross sectional surface area within A (mean 5.04 x 10(3) microm2) or J (mean 5.99 x 10(3) microm2) pancreata. Assuming islets are spherical, extrapolation from pir2 showed that the mean diameter for A was 80 microm and 87 microm in J. These compared with A 77 microm and J 86 microm diameters using conventional microscopic techniques. The percentage islet volume density relative to exocrine tissue, derived from the principle of Delesse (Area density = volume density), did not significantly differ between each of the 5 areas studied, either in A or J. The percentage islet volume densities did show a significant difference between A (mean 1.83%) (P = 0.001) but not between J pancreata (mean 2.13 %). In conclusion poor islet yields can be attributed to differences in islet volume density of islets within porcine pancreata. These results also suggest that the posterior and duodenal lobes should be used along with the splenic lobe in order to improve porcine islet yields. Furthermore, the current practise of reporting porcine islet yields and the isolation index relative to 150 microm (IEQs) needs to be redefined, based on the assumption that the average size of an adult porcine islet is 80 microm.
Network Learning: The Effects of Partners' Heterogeneity of Experience on Corporate Acquisitions

To examine the effects of interorganizational network structures on acquisition decisions, we propose a model whereby firms learn by sampling the diverse experiences of their network partners. We tested this model by examining the effect of diversity of network partners' experience on firms' acquisition decisions, using data on acquisition premiums and acquirers' stock market performance from 1986 to 1997. Results show that firms tied to others with heterogeneous prior premium experience tend to pay less for their acquisitions and have better-performing acquisitions than those tied to others with homogeneous experience. Firms also pay lower premiums when their network partners (1) have completed deals of diverse sizes, (2) have unique information, and (3) are themselves of diverse sizes. Firms that have multiplex relationships with their partners receive even more benefit. The results extend prior research on networks and learning by showing that collective network experience affects firms' decision quality.
Scrub Typhus in Previously Unrecognized Areas of Endemicity in China

ABSTRACT Scrub typhus, caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi, has emerged recently in areas of northern China where the disease had not been known to exist. We analyzed epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory data for 104 patients who were admitted to a hospital in Fuyang City between 26 September and 1 November 2008. We showed that the major clinical manifestations of the patients were fever (100%), headache (82%), myalgias (77%), eschar (67%), rash (52%), and unusual facial flushing (62%). Among the 104 patients, the sera of 98% contained IgM antibodies to O. tsutsugamushi detected by indirect immunofluorescence assays (IFA), and DNA of the O. tsutsugamushi 56-kDa gene was amplified by PCR from the blood of 36 patients. We conclude that 104 patients were infected with scrub typhus in Fuyang City, Anhui Province. Our study indicates that physicians need to consider the diagnosis of scrub typhus for febrile patients living in northern China, where scrub typhus had not been considered to exist in the past.
Neisseria gonorrhoeae Transmission Among Men Who Have Sex With Men: An Anatomical Site-Specific Mathematical Model Evaluating the Potential Preventive Impact of Mouthwash

Background Gonorrhoea notifications are rapidly rising in men who have sex with men (MSM). We developed a model to assess mouthwash as a novel intervention for gonorrhoea control. Methods We developed a model of Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) transmission to explain anatomic site-specific prevalence of gonorrhoea among MSM. The model was calibrated to available epidemiological and behavioral data. We estimated the contribution of various sexual acts to gonorrhoea incidence and evaluate the potential impacts of screening scale-up and utilization of mouthwash on the gonorrhoea epidemic. Results We calibrated the model to prevalence of oropharyngeal, anal, and urethral gonorrhoea of 8.6% (7.7–9.5%), 8.3% (7.4–9.1%), and 0.20% (0.04–0.35%), respectively, among MSM. Oropharynx to oropharynx transmission through kissing is estimated to account for nearly three quarters of all incident cases (71.6% [64.4–80.5%]) of gonorrhoea in MSM. Substantially increasing annual oropharynx screening for gonorrhoea from the current 40% to 100% may only halve the prevalence of gonorrhoea in MSM. In contrast, the use of mouthwash with moderate efficacy (additional 1% clearance per daily use) would further reduce the corresponding prevalence rates to 3.1% (2.2–4.4%), 3.8% (2.3–4.9%), and 0.10% (0.06–0.11%), and a high-efficacy mouthwash (additional 1.5% clearance per daily use) may further halve the gonorrhoea prevalence. Without oropharynx to oropharynx transmission, we could not replicate current prevalence data. Conclusions Despite a dearth of empirical data, our model suggests that kissing could potentially play an important role in NG transmission among MSM. Control through sexually transmitted infection screening alone is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the gonorrhoea epidemic in MSM.
A Lightweight Opportunistic Tunneling 1

We present LOT, a lightweight ‘plug and play’ secure tunneling protocol deployed at network gateways. Two communicating gateways, A and B, running LOT would automatically detect each other and establish an efficient tunnel, securing communication between them. LOT tunnels allow A to discard spoofed packets that specify source addresses in B’s network and vice-versa. This helps to mitigate many attacks, including DNS poisoning, network scans and most notably (Distributed) Denial of Service (DoS). LOT tunnels provide several additional defenses against DoS attacks. Specifically, since packets received from LOT-protected networks cannot be spoofed, LOT gateways implement quotas, identifying and blocking packet floods from specific networks. Furthermore, a receiving LOT gateway (e.g., B) can send the quota assigned to each tunnel to the peer gateway (A), who can then enforce near-source quotas, reducing waste and congestion by filtering excessive traffic before it leaves the source network. Similarly, LOT tunnels facilitate near-source filtering, where the sending gateway discards packets based on filtering rules defined by the destination gateway. LOT gateways also implement an inter-gateway congestion detection mechanism, allowing sending gateways to detect when their packets get dropped before reaching the destination gateway and to perform appropriate near-source filtering to block the congesting traffic; this helps against DoS attacks on the backbone connecting the two gateways. LOT is practical: it is easy to manage (‘plug and play’, requires no coordination between gateways), deployed incrementally at edge gateways (not at hosts and core routers), and has negligible overhead in terms of bandwidth and processing, as we validate experimentally. LOT storage requirements are also modest.
Fusing LIDAR, camera and semantic information: A context-based approach for pedestrian detection

In this work, a context-based multisensor system, applied to pedestrian detection in urban environments, is presented. The proposed system comprises three main processing modules: (i) a LIDAR-based module acting as the primary object detector, (ii) a module which supplies the system with contextual information obtained from a semantic map of the roads, and (iii) an image-based detection module, using sliding window detectors, with the role of validating the presence of pedestrians in the regions of interest generated by the LIDAR module. A Bayesian strategy is used to combine information from sensors onboard the vehicle (‘local’ information) with information contained in a digital map of the roads (‘global’ information). To support experimental analysis, a multisensor dataset, named the Laser and Image Pedestrian Detection dataset (LIPD), is used. The LIPD dataset was collected in an urban environment, under daylight conditions, using an electrical vehicle driven at low speed. A down-sampling method, using support vectors extracted from multiple linear SVMs, was used to reduce the cardinality of the training set and, as a consequence, to decrease the CPU time during the training process of the image-based classifiers. The performance of the system is evaluated, in terms of detection rate and the number of false positives per frame, using three image-detectors: a linear SVM, a SVM-cascade, and a benchmark method. Additionally, experiments are performed to assess the impact of contextual information on the performance of the detection system.
Synergistic action of amphotericin B and rifampin on Candida albicans.

Amphotericin B and rifampin were tested for synergism against Candida albicans in a synthetic medium. The test was based on viability studies in which fungicidal activity was monitored during the first few hours of drug exposure. A fungistatic concentration of amphotericin B (0.1 µg per ml) in combination with an inactive concentration of rifampin (25 µg per ml) resulted in rapid loss of viability (kill > 99.9 per cent in 8 hours). Rifampin alone at 50 µg per ml was inactive, and amphotericin B alone at 0.25 µg per ml was not as effective as the synergistic combination. Pretreatment of cells with amphotericin B did not render them susceptible to rifampin alone. On the basis of these and earlier studies, it is concluded that amphotericin B and rifampin are synergistic against various yeasts under widely differing experimental conditions.
Community-based residential supports for people with intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviour : the views of neighbours.

Background The issue of the views of neighbours of community-based residential supports for people with intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviour has not been examined till date. This study looks at the views of neighbours of two types of community-based residential supports: non-congregate settings where the minority of residents have challenging behaviour; and congregate settings where the majority of residents have challenging behaviour. Materials and methods A self-completion questionnaire was used to collect information on contact between neighbours, residents and staff, and the views of neighbours. Information was also collected by semi-structured interview with service staff on the characteristics of settings. Results Sixty-four questionnaires were returned. Contact between neighbours and service users was limited for both types of setting, with two-thirds of neighbours not knowing any service users by name, and a third having had no active contact with service users. Neighbours of non-congregate settings were more likely to think that community care was a 'good policy' (76%) than neighbours of congregate settings (53%) and to believe that there were benefits to the neighbourhood from having the group home in the area (46% versus 29%) but these differences were not significant. Contact with people with intellectual disabilities was associated with more positive attitudes to community care and specific characteristics of the settings. Conclusions Contact between neighbours and people with severe intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviour is limited. However, the majority of neighbours are positive about community care and the problems reported by neighbours are predominantly minor. The results point to the key role that contact plays in fostering positive attitudes. Findings regarding differences between congregate and non-congregate settings are limited by the small number of responses from neighbours of congregate settings.
The truth will come to light: directions and challenges in extracting the knowledge embedded within trained artificial neural networks

To date, the preponderance of techniques for eliciting the knowledge embedded in trained artificial neural networks (ANN's) has focused primarily on extracting rule-based explanations from feedforward ANN's. The ADT taxonomy for categorizing such techniques was proposed in 1995 to provide a basis for the systematic comparison of the different approaches. This paper shows that not only is this taxonomy applicable to a cross section of current techniques for extracting rules from trained feedforward ANN's but also how the taxonomy can be adapted and extended to embrace a broader range of ANN types (e.g., recurrent neural networks) and explanation structures. In addition the paper identifies some of the key research questions in extracting the knowledge embedded within ANN's including the need for the formulation of a consistent theoretical basis for what has been, until recently, a disparate collection of empirical results.
Individual Differences in the Communication of Romantic Interest: Development of the Flirting Styles Inventory

Relationship initiation research supports the existence of 5 styles of communicating romantic interest in others: traditional, physical, sincere, playful, and polite. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on a large adult sample (N = 5,020) supported the existence of the styles. Styles predictably corresponded with self-monitoring and a 5-factor personality model. Women scored higher on all styles, except the playful style. Predictive validity was demonstrated by correlating styles to courtship initiation behaviors and past relationship experiences. The physical, sincere, and playful styles correlated with more dating success. The physical and sincere styles correlated with rapid relational escalation of important relationships with more emotional connection and greater physical chemistry.
Team Learning: a Potential Solution To the Problems of Large Classes

of credit hours that can be taught by graduate faculty. In attempting to cope with these problems, many institutions have been forced to substantially increase class sizes to capitalize on the economies of scale. Unfortunately, this move to larger classes has often led to changes in both the instructional strategies that are employed and the content of the courses that are being taught. For example, the great majority of large classes are taught by the lecture method and student performance is evaluated through the use of true/false and multiple choice exams. This curtails both the
Dynamic specification of open agent systems

Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) where the agents are developed by different parties and serve different interests, are often classified as ‘open’. The specification of open MAS is largely seen as a design-time activity. Moreover, there is no support for run-time specification modification. Due to environmental, social or other conditions, however, it is often required to revise the MAS specification during its execution. To address this requirement, we present an infrastructure for ‘dynamic’ open MAS specifications, that is, specifications that may be modified at run-time by the agents. We adopt a bird's eye view of an open MAS, as opposed to an agent's own perspective whereby it reasons about how it should act. The infrastructure consists of well-defined procedures for proposing a modification of the ‘rules of the game’, as well as decision-making over and enactment of proposed modifications. We evaluate proposals for rule modification by modelling a dynamic specification as a metric space, and by considering the effects of accepting a proposal on system utility. Furthermore, we constrain the enactment of proposals that do not meet the evaluation criteria. We employ the action language C+ to formalize dynamic specifications, and the ‘Causal Calculator’ implementation of C+ to execute the specifications. We illustrate our infrastructure by presenting a dynamic specification of a resource-sharing protocol.
Job Satisfaction and Machiavellian Orientation among Department Store Executives

The Mach IV scale and the Index of Job Satisfaction were administered to 218 department store executives. Female executives scored significantly high on the Mach IV scale and significantly lower on the Index of Job Satisfaction than male executives. A significant negative correlation was observed between Machiavellianism and Job Satisfaction for the entire sample, for men and for women.
Families, Incomes and Jobs: A Statistical Report of the HILDA Survey

The HILDA Survey provides a new type of social statistics for Australia – longitudinal panel statistics describing the ways in which people’s lives are changing. In this report Bruce Headey, Diana Warren and Glenys Harding provide information and statistical tables covering the four main areas of HILDA: households and family life; incomes and wealth; employment and unemployment; and life satisfaction and wellbeing.
Historical Analyses of Disordered Handwriting

Handwritten texts carry significant information, extending beyond the meaning of their words. Modern neurology, for example, benefits from the interpretation of the graphic features of writing and drawing for the diagnosis and monitoring of diseases and disorders. This article examines how handwriting analysis can be used, and has been used historically, as a methodological tool for the assessment of medical conditions and how this enhances our understanding of historical contexts of writing. We analyze handwritten material, writing tests and letters, from patients in an early 20th-century psychiatric hospital in southern Germany (Irsee/Kaufbeuren). In this institution, early psychiatrists assessed handwriting features, providing us novel insights into the earliest practices of psychiatric handwriting analysis, which can be connected to Berkenkotter’s research on medical admission records. We finally consider the degree to which historical handwriting bears semiotic potential to explain the psychological state and personality of a writer, and how future research in written communication should approach these sources.
Structural epitome: a way to summarize one's visual experience

In order to study the properties of total visual input in humans, a single subject wore a camera for two weeks capturing, on average, an image every 20 seconds. The resulting new dataset contains a mix of indoor and outdoor scenes as well as numerous foreground objects. Our first goal is to create a visual summary of the subject's two weeks of life using unsupervised algorithms that would automatically discover recurrent scenes, familiar faces or common actions. Direct application of existing algorithms, such as panoramic stitching (e.g., Photosynth) or appearance-based clustering models (e.g., the epitome), is impractical due to either the large dataset size or the dramatic variations in the lighting conditions. As a remedy to these problems, we introduce a novel image representation, the "structural element (stel) epitome," and an associated efficient learning algorithm. In our model, each image or image patch is characterized by a hidden mapping T which, as in previous epitome models, defines a mapping between the image coordinates and the coordinates in the large "all-I-have-seen" epitome matrix. The limited epitome real-estate forces the mappings of different images to overlap which indicates image similarity. However, the image similarity no longer depends on direct pixel-to-pixel intensity/color/feature comparisons as in previous epitome models, but on spatial configuration of scene or object parts, as the model is based on the palette-invariant stel models. As a result, stel epitomes capture structure that is invariant to non-structural changes, such as illumination changes, that tend to uniformly affect pixels belonging to a single scene or object part.
Meta-Analyses of the Effects of Media Images on Men's Body-image Concerns

Abstract Two meta-analyses were conducted to determine the extent to which pressure from the mass media to conform to the muscular “ideal” male body affects men's self-images (i.e., body satisfaction, body esteem, and self-esteem). A total of 25 studies contributing 93 effect sizes were included in two meta-analyses, which revealed that pressure from the mass media was significantly related to men feeling worse about their own bodies. The effect size from the meta-analysis of the correlational studies (Study 1) was significantly negative, d = −0.19, p < . 001. The effect size from the meta-analysis of the experimental studies (Study 2) was also significantly negative, d = −0.22, p < . 0001. Results from both Study 1 and Study 2 suggest that as men felt pressure from the mass media (in correlational and experimental designs) they felt worse about their bodies. Results showed that pressure from the mass media was related to body satisfaction, body esteem, self-esteem, psychological disorders (e.g., depression.
A Refined Mean Field Approximation

Stochastic models have been used to assess the performance of computer (and other) systems for many decades. As a direct analysis of large and complex stochastic models is often prohibitive, approximations methods to study their behavior have been devised. One very popular approximation method relies on mean field theory. Its widespread use can be explained by the relative ease involved to define and solve a mean field model in combination with its high accuracy for large systems.