Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intensionality, Reference and Games of Partial Information II. Semantic Verbs

In this paper, I look at the semantic behaviour of the most emblematic verb of our semantic lexicon, „refer (to)”, through the prism of the semantic features considered definitory for the extensional verbs and I show that there are strong theoretical reasons for considering that it belongs to the class of ITVs and that, in consequence, it generates structural ambiguity at each level of language in which it is involved. In this regard, I show how the conceptual framework of the games of partial information can successfully accommodate the semantic verb’s inherent ambiguity. In order to accomplish this task, I present a scenario of strategic communication involving semantic verbs and I model it as a two-agent coordination game. The cognitive dynamics peculiar to the agents’ interaction will be presented on the background of some reasonable assumptions introduced to guarantee the finding of a solution concept corresponding to the game. In this regard, after I compute the expected utilities of the strategic profiles, I determine a set of Nash equilibria and I show that the game’s unique solution can be equated with that set’s member which passes the test of Paretian efficiency. In the end, I present the picture of the interplay between the speaker’s reference and the semantic reference which emerges from the game-theoretical framework adopted here and I show some of its methodological consequences related to the way in which the key concept of reference has to be theoretically framed. This is the second part of a two-part study.
Perseverative and Semantic Influences on Visual Object Naming Errors in Optic Aphasia: A Connectionist Account

Although perseverationthe inappropriate repetition of previous responsesis quite common among patients with neurological damage, relatively few detailed computational accounts of its various forms have been put forth. A particularly well-documented variety involves the pattern of errors made by optic aphasic patients, who have a selective deficit in naming visually presented objects. Based on our previous work in modeling impaired reading via meaning in deep dyslexia, we develop a connectionist simulation of visual object naming. The major extension in the present work is the incorporation of short-term correlational weights that bias the network towards reproducing patterns of activity that have occurred on recently preceding trials. Under damage, the network replicates the complex semantic and perseverative effects found in the optic aphasic error pattern. Further analysis reveals that the perseverative effects are strongest when the lesions are near or within semantics, and are relatively mild when the preceding object evokes no response. Like optic aphasics, the network produces predominantly semantic rather than visual errors because, in contrast to reading, there is some structure in the mapping from visual to semantic representations for objects. Viewed together with the dyslexia simulations, the replication of complex empirical phenomena concerning impaired visual comprehension based on a small set of general connectionist principles strongly suggests that these principles provide important insights into the nature of semantic processing of visual information and its breakdown following brain damage.
Two Countries in Crisis: Economic Inequality in the EU and Disidentification With Europe in Spain and Greece

European identity is currently facing important challenges. From the beginning, European identity has been related to the national identities of Member States with different economic strengths. The recent economic recession made these disparities salient across countries. In this research conducted in two countries with relative low status in the European Union (EU), we explored whether the perceived disparities in wealth between the countries of the EU—perceived economic inequality—predicted disidentification with Europe. We also examined the mediators of this relationship. Study 1, conducted in Spain, revealed that perceived economic inequality positively predicted disidentification with Europe; importantly, this effect remained when controlling for individuals’ subjective socioeconomic status and the perceived status of the country. The experience of fear of economic inequality in the EU mediated this relationship. The results of Study 1 were replicated comparing a Spanish sample (Study 2a) and a Greek sample (Study 2b). These studies delved deeper into the specific appraisals of fear that mediate the relationship between economic inequality and disidentification with Europe. Four categories of fear appraisals obtained in a preliminary qualitative study were measured as potential mediators: losing national sovereignty, worsening of living conditions, being negatively stereotyped, and Europe losing fundamental values. The relationship between economic inequality in the EU and disidentification with Europe was mediated by fear of losing national sovereignty and fear of Europe losing fundamental values.
Reconnoitering relationships among value, trust, affect, and loyalty at association events

ABSTRACT Meetings and conventions organized by associations are considered the most competitive industry segment due to the number of associations and their frequency of regular meetings and events. The success of association events may result from greater attendees' loyalty. This loyalty, in turn, may be determined by association event value they received from the event, trust in the association, and by feelings or affect elicited by the association. However, little research has been done on the value of attending an association event in relation to association trust and affect, leading to loyalty toward an association and association event. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship among “association event value,” “association trust,” “association affect,” and loyalty in the context of association events. The survey has been disseminated to those who had attended an association event no more than 1 year prior to taking the survey. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test the hypotheses. The findings suggest that attendees' perceived value at an association event builds loyalty toward the association. In addition, association trust and affect mediate the relationship between value and loyalty toward the association.
Walking a Tightrope on (Hetero)Sexuality: Performatively Vigilant Masculine Subjectivity in Response to Sexualized Culture

Although young men’s subjectivity continues to be defined in terms of their heterosexual performance, they feel vulnerable when women increasingly resist submission to men’s desire and control. However, the sexual objectification of women, driven by consumerist urban culture and commercial media, is rapidly pushing the boundaries of men’s (hetero)sexual expression. Men are thus compelled to renegotiate their masculine heterosexual subjectivities in response to women’s resistance and the demands of the moralistic middle-class society. Based on the performativity-performance framework, this article uses focus group data with Hong Kong college men to illustrate the ways that Chinese young men are “performatively vigilant,” resorting to different cultural and discursive resources to construct multiple and diverse subjectivities in defining manhood and responding to their vulnerabilities in different relational contexts. In this process, the hegemony of men as sexually and culturally superior to women and in control of themselves and the situation is propagated.
Evans function and blow-u[ methods in critical eienvalue problems

Contact defects are one of several types of defects that arise generically in oscillatory media modelled by reaction-diffusionsystems. An interesting property of these defects is that the asymptotic spatial wave number is approached only with algebraic order O(1/x) (the associated phase diverges logarithmically). The essential spectrum of the PDE linearization about a contact defect always has a branch point at the origin. We show that the Evans function can be extended across this branch point and discuss the smoothness properties of the extension. The construction utilizes blow-up techniques and is quite general in nature. We also comment on known relations between roots of the Evans function and the temporal asymptotics of Green’s functions, and discuss applications to algebraically decaying solitons.
Root cortical aerenchyma inhibits radial nutrient transport in maize (Zea mays).

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Formation of root cortical aerenchyma (RCA) can be induced by nutrient deficiency. In species adapted to aerobic soil conditions, this response is adaptive by reducing root maintenance requirements, thereby permitting greater soil exploration. One trade-off of RCA formation may be reduced radial transport of nutrients due to reduction in living cortical tissue. To test this hypothesis, radial nutrient transport in intact roots of maize (Zea mays) was investigated in two radiolabelling experiments employing genotypes with contrasting RCA. METHODS In the first experiment, time-course dynamics of phosphate loading into the xylem were measured from excised nodal roots that varied in RCA formation. In the second experiment, uptake of phosphate, calcium and sulphate was measured in seminal roots of intact young plants in which variation in RCA was induced by treatments altering ethylene action or genetic differences. KEY RESULTS In each of three paired genotype comparisons, the rate of phosphate exudation of high-RCA genotypes was significantly less than that of low-RCA genotypes. In the second experiment, radial nutrient transport of phosphate and calcium was negatively correlated with the extent of RCA for some genotypes. CONCLUSIONS The results support the hypothesis that RCA can reduce radial transport of some nutrients in some genotypes, which could be an important trade-off of this trait.
Mobile‐aware dynamic resource management for edge computing

Shifting cloud computing capabilities close to the edge enables provisioning of low latency location‐based internet services that are adapted to user behaviour. However, this can be achieved neither with a simple move of the physical hosts closer to edge networks, nor continuing to abide by the same principles as the ones implemented in traditional cloud computing approaches. In order to accomplish the promised high quality of service, changes must be made to the resource management techniques so that they are adapted to the requirements of fog computing. This paper introduces a novel location‐based handoff management and its corresponding implementation of dynamic resource management modules that introduce resource allocation and migration strategies adapted specifically to fog computing. The aim is the implementation of the follow‐me behaviour of edge resources considering a tightly coupled perspective with the user location. The proposal is based on the concept of mapping physical areas to logical resource communities where the node mobility triggers migrations to the corresponding community. The results analysis from the simulation scenarios shows that the effectiveness of our community‐based dynamic resource management proposal in following the geographical trajectory of mobile users with wearable devices is over 80% even in highly saturated environments. The comparison with traditional resource management techniques clearly presents the advantages of our proposal, while the parameter wise in‐depth analysis discusses dependencies on the number of nodes, speed, and available resources.
Upregulation of miR-150* and miR-630 Induces Apoptosis in Pancreatic Cancer Cells by Targeting IGF-1R

MicroRNAs have been implicated in many critical cellular processes including apoptosis. We have previously found that apoptosis in pancreatic cancer cells was induced by adamantyl retinoid-related (ARR) molecule 3-Cl-AHPC. Here we report that 3-Cl-AHPC-dependent apoptosis involves regulating a number of microRNAs including miR-150* and miR-630. 3-Cl-AHPC stimulated miR-150* expression and caused decreased expression of c-Myb and IGF-1R in the pancreatic cancer cells. 3-Cl-AHPC-mediated reduction of c-Myb resulted in diminished binding of c-Myb with IGF-1R and Bcl-2 promoters, thereby causing repression of their transcription and protein expression. Over-expression of miR-150* also resulted in diminished levels of c-Myb and Bcl-2 proteins. Furthermore, the addition of the miRNA inhibitor 2′-O-methylated miR-150 blocked 3-Cl-AHPC-mediated increase in miR-150* levels and abrogated loss of c-Myb protein. Knockdown of c-Myb in PANC-1 cells resulted in enhanced apoptosis both in the presence or absence of 3-Cl-AHPC confirming the anti-apoptotic property of c-Myb. Overexpression of miR-630 also induced apoptosis in the pancreatic cancer cells and inhibited target protein IGF-1R mRNA and protein expression. Together these results implicate key roles for miR-150* and miR-630 and their targeting of IGF-1R to promote apoptosis in pancreatic cancer cells.
TACTILE SENSATION AS EMOTION ELICITOR

: Recent empirical studies have categorized tactile qualities in terms of being rugged, prickly, smooth, tender, etc. The studies manipulated the frequency and amplitude of stimuli and revealed that tactile sensation changed. In this study, the emotional responses to 12 tactile sensations were examined with regard to the manipulation of frequency (4 levels) and amplitude (3 levels) in the pin-array tactile display. The emotional response to tactile sensation was assessed by pleasure and arousal dimension of emotion, and by 6 bipolar scales—6 pairs of texture related adjectives. Based on the empirical results, we described the emotional proﬁle of tactile sensation. Particularly, we adopted Russell’s Circumplex Model in order to deﬁne certain areas in emotion space discretely. The emotional responses to 12 tactile sensations appeared to be within a diagonal in emotion space, and the implication thereof is discussed.
Variable temporal relationships between environment and recruitment in coral reef fishes

Studies of coral reef fish recruitment have focused more on factors influencing the return of larvae to reefs and the process of settlement than on factors affecting survival in the plank- ton, despite the well-documented importance of the larval environment for temperate marine spe- cies. We examined the ability of environmental factors to explain temporal patterns of recruitment in 8 taxa of coral reef fishes, distinguishing variables associated with settlement from those associated with the pelagic larval stage. At 10 d intervals over a 17 mo period, we collected newly settled fishes from settlement units in Barbados (West Indies). We collected concurrent data on 3 settlement- associated variables, lunar darkness, wind speed, and tidal amplitude, and 5 larval environment vari- ables, sea-surface temperature, cloud cover, salinity, chlorophyll a concentration, and normalized water-leaving radiance at 555 nm. The last 3 were associated with low-salinity intrusions originating in the Amazon. We used hierarchical partitioning and Mallow's C(p) model selection to identify important variables for each taxon. Temporal patterns of recruitment differed among taxa of which 6 showed significant environmental correlations. Significant settlement variables included lunar darkness and tidal amplitude. Significant larval environment variables were diverse and varied in magnitude and sign across taxa. The effects of larval variables were generally strong relative to settlement variables. The temporal scale of the strongest environmental predictor differed across taxa. Our study supports the views that planktonic factors affecting larval survival substantially influ- ence recruitment in coral reef fishes and that different species are affected differently by a common, temporally variable, planktonic environment.
Judgment of contingency: cognitive biases in depressed and nondepressed subjects.

In this research I investigated whether the use of relevant affective outcomes influences depressed and nondepressed subjects' judgment of contingency. Similar to previous studies (Alloy & Abramson, 1979, Experiments 1 and 2), Experiments 1 and 2 confirmed that when the outcome is affectively neutral (i.e., the onset of a light) depressed subjects make accurate judgments of contingency, whereas nondepressed subjects show (in noncontingent situations) a significant illusion of control. In Experiments 3 and 4 (a contingency situation and a noncontingency situation, respectively) different types of sentences (negative self-referent, negative other-referent, positive self-referent, positive other-referent) were used as outcomes. Although depressed subjects were more reluctant to show biased judgments than were the nondepressed subjects, in noncontingency situations depressed subjects made overestimated judgments of contingency when the outcomes were negative self-referent sentences. Results are discussed with regard to current cognitive theories of depression, particularly the learned helplessness model.
Probing the large scale velocity field with clusters of galaxies

What is the role of clusters of galaxies in probing the large-scale velocity field of the universe? We investigate the distribution of peculiar velocities of clusters of galaxies in the popular low-density (omega = 0.3) flat cold dark matter (CDM) cosmological model, which best fits many large-scale structure observations. An omega = 1 CDM model is also studied for comparison. We find that clusters of galaxies are efficient tracers of the large-scale velocity field. The clusters exhibit a Maxwellian distribution of peculiar velocities, as expected from Gaussian initial density fluctuations. The cluster three-dimensional velocity distribution for the omega = 0.3 model peaks at nu approximately greater than 400 km/s and extends to high velocities of nu approximately 1200 km/s. The rms peculiar velocity of the clusters is 440 km/s. Approximately 10% of all model clusters move with high peculiar velocities nu greater or equal to 700 km/s. The observed velocity distribution of clusters of galaxies is compared with the predictions from cosmological models. The observed data exhibit a larger velocity tail than seen in the model simulations; however, due to the large observational uncertainties, the data are consistent at approximately equal to 3 sigma level with the odel predictions, and with a Gaussian initial density field. The large peculiar velocities reported for some clusters of galaxies (nu approximately greater than 3000 km/s) are likely to be overestimated, if the current model is viable.
Evaluation of the North American Land Data Assimilation System over the southern Great Plains during the warm season

[1] North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) land surface models have been run for a retrospective period forced by atmospheric observations from the Eta analysis and actual precipitation and downward solar radiation to calculate land hydrology. We evaluated these simulations using in situ observations over the southern Great Plains for the periods of May–September of 1998 and 1999 by comparing the model outputs with surface latent, sensible, and ground heat fluxes at 24 Atmospheric Radiation Measurement/Cloud and Radiation Testbed stations and with soil temperature and soil moisture observations at 72 Oklahoma Mesonet stations. The standard NLDAS models do a fairly good job but with differences in the surface energy partition and in soil moisture between models and observations and among models during the summer, while they agree quite well on the soil temperature simulations. To investigate why, we performed a series of experiments accounting for differences between model-specified soil types and vegetation and those observed at the stations, and differences in model treatment of different soil types, vegetation properties, canopy resistance, soil column depth, rooting depth, root density, snow-free albedo, infiltration, aerodynamic resistance, and soil thermal diffusivity. The diagnosis and model enhancements demonstrate how the models can be improved so that they can be used in actual data assimilation mode.
Breast-feeding and complementary feeding practices in the first 6 months of life among Norwegian-Somali and Norwegian-Iraqi infants: the InnBaKost survey

Abstract Objective To examine breast-feeding and complementary feeding practices during the first 6 months of life among Norwegian infants of Somali and Iraqi family origin. Design A cross-sectional survey was performed during March 2013–February 2014. Data were collected using a semi-quantitative FFQ adapted from the second Norwegian national dietary survey among infants in 2006–2007. Setting Somali-born and Iraqi-born mothers living in eastern Norway were invited to participate. Subjects One hundred and seven mothers/infants of Somali origin and eighty mothers/infants of Iraqi origin participated. Results Breast-feeding was almost universally initiated after birth. Only 7 % of Norwegian-Somali and 10 % of Norwegian-Iraqi infants were exclusively breast-fed at 4 months of age. By 1 month of age, water had been introduced to 30 % of Norwegian-Somali and 26 % of Norwegian-Iraqi infants, and infant formula to 44 % and 34 %, respectively. Fifty-four per cent of Norwegian-Somali and 68 % of Norwegian-Iraqi infants had been introduced to solid or semi-solid foods at 4 months of age. Breast-feeding at 6 months of age was more common among Norwegian-Somali infants (79 %) compared with Norwegian-Iraqi infants (58 %; P=0·001). Multivariate analyses indicated no significant factors associated with exclusive breast-feeding at 3·5 months of age. Factors positively associated with breast-feeding at 6 months were country of origin (Somalia) and parity (>2). Conclusions Breast-feeding initiation was common among Iraqi-born and Somali-born mothers, but the exclusive breast-feeding period was shorter than recommended in both groups. The study suggests that there is a need for new culture-specific approaches to support exclusive breast-feeding and complementary feeding practices among foreign-born mothers living in Norway.
Assessing Intercultural Sensitivity and Effectiveness: Adult Learners of Chinese as a L2

This chapter examines adult CSL (Chinese as a L2) learners’ intercultural sensitivity and effectiveness while studying in a university in Beijing. Seventy-four international students from various countries answered the intercultural sensitivity scale (ISS) and intercultural effectiveness scale (IES) as well as other scales in the present study; eight participants were informally interviewed. The findings indicate that the participants were moderate in terms of intercultural sensitivity and effectiveness, that intercultural sensitivity and effectiveness were generally and significantly related to each other, and that students’ intercultural sensitivity and effectiveness levels were not statistically correlated with their background variables. Based on these findings, some implications are therein discussed.
Subgroup Discovery – Advanced Review

Subgroup discovery is a broadly applicable descriptive data mining technique for identifying interesting subgroups according to some property of interest. This article summarizes fundamentals of subgroup discovery, before it reviews algorithms and further advanced methodological issues. In addition, we briefly discuss tools and applications of subgroup discovery approaches. In that context, we also discuss experiences and lessons learned and outline future directions in order to show the advantages and benefits of subgroup discovery.