Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Citizenship, Democracy, and the Civic Reintegration of Criminal Offenders

Convicted felons face both legal and informal barriers to becoming productive citizens at work, responsible citizens in family life, and active citizens in their communities. As criminal punishment has increased in the United States, collateral sanctions such as voting restrictions have taken on new meaning. The authors place such restrictions in comparative context and consider their effects on civil liberties, democratic institutions, and civic life more generally. Based on demographic life tables, the authors estimate that approximately 4 million former prisoners and 11.7 million former felons live and work among us every day. The authors describe historical changes in these groups; their effects on social institutions; and the extent to which they constitute a caste, class, or status group within American society. The authors conclude by discussing how reintegrative criminal justice practices might strengthen democracy while preserving, and perhaps enhancing, public safety.
Application of Boric Acid Baits to Plant Foliage for Adult Mosquito Control

ABSTRACT Boric acid (1%) in 5% sugar water bait solution was applied as a spray to the foliage, stems, and other surfaces of plants for control of adult Aedes albopictus, Culex nigripalpus, and Ochlerotatus taeniorhynchus. Initial studies outdoors in small (1.42-m3) screened cages showed that exposure of male and female mosquitoes to 1% boric acid bait for 48 h resulted in 80 to 100% mortality in Ae. albopictus and ≥98% mortality in Cx. nigripalpus and Oc. taeniorhynchus. At 48 h posttreatment, in large (1,178-m3) outdoor screened cages, 1% boric acid bait applied as a spray to plant surfaces significantly reduced the landing rates of Ae. albopictus and Cx. nigripalpus on a human subject as well as the numbers of these two species captured in mechanical traps, compared with responses for adults exposed to 5% sugar water solution only (control). Boric acid bait treatments in large screened cages did not significantly reduce landing rates or trap captures of Oc. taeniorhynchus. The application of boric acid baits to plant surfaces may be an effective adulticidal method for selected species of pest and disease vector mosquitoes.
Arresting mantle formation and redirecting embryonic shell gland tissue by platinum2+ leads to body plan modifications in Marisa cornuarietis (Gastropoda, Ampullariidae)

To evaluate the threat that anthropogenic substances pose to animals when they are emitted into the environment, tests like the invertebrate embryo toxicity test with the ramshorn snail Marisa cornuarietis have been developed. These tests are used to investigate substances like the heavy metal platinum (Pt) that is used in catalytic converters and is gradually released in car exhausts. In 2010, our group reported that high Pt concentrations cause body plan alterations in snails and prevent the formation of an external shell during M. cornuarietis embryogenesis. Now, this study presents scanning‐electron micrographs and histological sections of platinum2+ (Pt2+)‐treated and untreated M. cornuarietis embryos and compares “normally” developing and “shell‐less” embryos during embryogenesis, to reveal the exact course of events that lead to this body plan shift. Both groups showed similar development until the onset of torsion 70‐ to 82‐h postfertilization. In the Pt2+‐exposed embryos, the rudimentary shell gland (=anlage of both shell gland and mantle, which usually evaginates, grows, and eventually covers the visceral sac) does not spread across the visceral sac but remains on its ventral side. Without the excessive growth of the shell gland, a horizontal rotation of the visceral sac relative to head and foot does not occur, as being normal during the process of torsion. J. Morphol. , 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The effect of long‐term left ventricular assist device support on myocardial sympathetic activity in patients with non‐ischaemic dilated cardiomyopathy

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients have abundant levels of norepinephrine secondary to failure of the norepinephrine transporter uptake mechanism. Little is known about the effects of an LV assist device (LVAD) on cardiac sympathetic innervations and norepinephrine transporter dysfunction. This study examines the effects of continuous‐flow HeartMate II LVAD on cardiac sympathetic innervations using [123I]metaiodobenzylguanidine ([123I]MIBG) nuclear imaging.
Worker or Shirker - Who Evades More Taxes? A Real Effort Experiment

With the help of a real effort experiment, we analyze if tax evasion depends on the amount of effort invested to generate income. In three treatments, subjects were either endowed with income or had to work moderately or hard to earn it. In line with prospect theory, subjects evaded more taxes when they worked hard for their income. We find little evidence for the prediction that tax evasion in the endowed treatment is higher than in the moderate work treatment.
Hormone replacement therapy and its relationship to lipid and glucose metabolism in diabetic and nondiabetic postmenopausal women: results from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III).

OBJECTIVE Among postmenopausal women, those with diabetes experience more cardiovascular diseases than those without diabetes. We examine the relationship of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) with indicators of lipid and glucose metabolism using a national sample of diabetic and nondiabetic postmenopausal women. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We used data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, conducted from 1988 to 1994. A total of 2,786 postmenopausal women aged 40-74 years participated in an oral glucose tolerance test, had blood drawn for lipid assessment, and responded to HRT questions. RESULTS Our results show that postmenopausal women with diabetes had increased dyslipidemia compared with nondiabetic women. Among diabetic women, current users of HRT had significant different lipid and glucose control levels than never users of HRT for the following variables: total cholesterol (225 vs. 241 mg/dl), non-HDL (169 vs. 188 mg/dl), apoA (171 vs. 147 mg/dl), fibrinogen (306 vs. 342 mg/dl), glucose (112 vs. 154 mg/dl), insulin (16.81 vs. 22.6 uU/ml), and GHb (6.03 vs. 7.13 mg/dl). CONCLUSIONS Diabetic and nondiabetic postmenopausal women currently taking HRT had better lipoprotein profile than never or previous users of HRT. Diabetic women currently taking HRT had better glycemic control than never or previous users of HRT.
IGF-I induces upregulation of DDR1 collagen receptor in breast cancer cells by suppressing MIR-199a-5p through the PI3K/AKT pathway

Discoidin Domain Receptor 1 (DDR1) is a collagen receptor tyrosine-kinase that contributes to epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and enhances cancer progression. Our previous data indicate that, in breast cancer cells, DDR1 interacts with IGF-1R and positively modulates IGF-1R expression and biological responses, suggesting that the DDR1-IGF-IR cross-talk may play an important role in cancer. In this study, we set out to evaluate whether IGF-I stimulation may affect DDR1 expression. Indeed, in breast cancer cells (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231) IGF-I induced significant increase of DDR1 protein expression, in a time and dose dependent manner. However, we did not observe parallel changes in DDR1 mRNA. DDR1 upregulation required the activation of the PI3K/AKT pathway while the ERK1/2, the p70/mTOR and the PKC pathways were not involved. Moreover, we observed that DDR1 protein upregulation was induced by translational mechanisms involving miR-199a-5p suppression through PI3K/AKT activation. This effect was confirmed by both IGF-II produced by cancer-associated fibroblasts from human breast cancer and by stable transfection of breast cancer cells with a human IGF-II expression construct. Transfection with a constitutively active form of AKT was sufficient to decrease miR-199a-5p and upregulate DDR1. Accordingly, IGF-I-induced DDR1 upregulation was inhibited by transfection with pre-miR-199a-5p, which also impaired AKT activation and cell migration and proliferation in response to IGF-I. These results demonstrate that, in breast cancer cells, a novel pathway involving AKT/miR-199a-5p/DDR1 plays a role in modulating IGFs biological responses. Therefore, this signaling pathway may represent an important target for breast cancers with over-activation of the IGF-IR axis.
On the Use of the Coefficient of Variation as a Measure of Diversity

The coefficient of variation (V) is a statistical measure commonly used for comparing diversity in work groups. It has been employed by organizational researchers to index the relative internal variability of top-management teams, task groups, boards of directors, departments, and other social aggregates on numerous dimensions. Commenting on its widespread application, this article reviews cautions and pitfalls associated with its use for this purpose. Research implications associated with using V are also discussed.
Does Knowledge that a Crime Was Staged Affect Eyewitness Performance?1

The Staged crime has generally been considered a valid paradigm for assessing eyewitness identification accuracy. Yet the typical procedure informs the witness before the lineup task that the event was staged. The current study manipulated whether or not witnesses were informed that the witnessed crime was staged (information variable). Two other variables, the presence or absence of the perpetrator in the photo-lineup and the physical similarity of lineup members, were manipulated to asses any possible interactions with the information variable. A theft was staged individually for 184 unsuspecting witnesses who were then randomly assigned to be either informed that the theft was staged or not informed. Next, all witnesses were met by a uniformed security officer who showed them a photo-lineup of six individuals. Half of the witnesses viewed a perpetrator-present lineup with either high or low physical similarity between the foils and the perpatrator and half viewed a perpetrator-absent lineup with either high or low physical similarity. Three confidence measures, one cooperation measure, and an Embedded Figures Test score were obtained. The results showed that (a) the information variable did not affect the likelihood that a witness would attempt an identification; (b) the information variable did not have a main effect on the particular choices made by the witnesses nor did it interact with lineup similarity, but it did interact with the presence-absence variable; and (c) the information variable did not affect witness confidence either as a main effect or interaction effect, but, was relatively consistent in affecting the correlation between confidence and accuracy such that the correlation was lower for witnesses who were not informed. The interaction between the information variable and the presence-absence variable on accuracy was due to the uninformed witnesses being less accurate than the informcd witnesses in the perpetrator-present condition. The results suggest that accuracy among actual eyewitnesses may be lower than obtained in the typical staged crime procedure and that accuracy-confidence correlations may be overestimated by the typical staged crime.
Mental health and citizenship

The view that changes in mental health legislation and treatment advances have improved the status of mental patients as citizens is examined critic ally. Principles of civil and political rights set out by the United Nations and the National Council for Civil Liberties are used to facilitate this examination.This is followed by a discussion of the implications arising in the context of contemporary debates about community care. The disadvan tages of debating mental health policy only in terms of civil liberties are outlined.
Family Context Predictors of Math Self-Concept among Undergraduate STEM Majors: An Analysis of Gender Differences.

The purpose of the current study was to examine four family context variables (socioeconomic status, mother’s level of education, father’s level of education, and perceived family social support) as predictors of math self-concept among undergraduate STEM majors to better understand the gender differential in math self-concept. Participants included 499 undergraduates (75% of whom were female) at a large research university in the southwestern United States. Results indicated that males had higher math self-concepts than females and that social support predicted math self-concept, particularly for males.
Estimating velocity from noisy GPS data for investigating the temporal variability of slope movements

Abstract. Detecting and monitoring of moving and potentially hazardous slopes requires reliable estimations of velocities. Separating any movement signal from measurement noise is crucial for understanding the temporal variability of slope movements and detecting changes in the movement regime, which may be important indicators of the process. Thus, methods capable of estimating velocity and its changes reliably are required. In this paper we develop and test a method for deriving velocities based on noisy GPS (Global Positioning System) data, suitable for various movement patterns and variable signal-to-noise-ratios (SNR). We tested this method on synthetic data, designed to mimic the characteristics of diverse processes, but where we have full knowledge of the underlying velocity patterns, before applying it to explore data collected.
Detecting social-cognitive deficits after traumatic brain injury: An ALE meta-analysis of fMRI studies

ABSTRACT Purpose: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can result in significant social dysfunction, which is represented by impairment to social-cognitive abilities (i.e. social cognition, social attention/executive function and communication). This study is aimed to explore brain networks mediating the social dysfunction after TBI and its underlying mechanisms. Methods: We performed a quantitative meta-analysis using the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) approach on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of social-cognitive abilities following TBI. Sixteen studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria resulting in a total of 190 patients with TBI and 206 controls enrolled in the ALE meta-analysis. Results: The temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) were the specific regions that social cognition predominantly engaged. The cingulate gyrus, frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule were the main regions related to social attention/executive functions. Communication dysfunction, especially related to language deficits, was found to show greater activation of the temporal gyrus and fusiform gyrus in TBI. Conclusion: The current ALE meta-analytic findings provide evidence that patients have significant social-cognitive disabilities following TBI. The relatively limited pool of literature and the varied fMRI results from published studies indicate that social-cognitive abilities following TBI is an area that would greatly benefit from further investigation.
Associative search in peer to peer networks: harnessing latent semantics

The success of a P2P file-sharing network highly depends on the scalability and versatility of its search mechanism. Two particularly desirable search features are scope (ability to find infrequent items) and support for partial-match queries (queries that contain typos or include a subset of keywords). While centralized-index architectures (such as Napster) can support both these features, existing decentralized architectures seem to support at most one: prevailing unstructured P2P protocols (such as Gnutella and FastTrack) deploy a "blind" search mechanism where the set of peers probed is unrelated to the query; thus they support partial-match queries but have limited scope. On the other extreme, the recently-proposed distributed hash tables (DHTs) such as CAN and CHORD, couple index location with the item's hash value, and thus have good scope but can not effectively support partial-match queries. Another hurdle to DHTs deployment is their tight control of the overlay structure and the information (part of the index) each peer maintains, which makes them more sensitive to failures and frequent joins and disconnects. We develop a new class of decentralized P2P architectures. Our design is based on unstructured architectures such as gnutella and FastTrack, and retains many of their appealing properties including support for partial match queries, and relative resilience to peer failures. Yet, we obtain orders of magnitude improvement in the efficiency of locating rare items. Our approach exploits associations inherent in human selections to steer the search process to peers that are more likely to have an answer to the query. We demonstrate the potential of associative search using models, analysis, and simulations.
Mining a multimodal corpus for non-verbal behavior sequences conveying attitudes

Interpersonal attitudes are expressed by non-verbal behaviors on a variety of different modalities. The perception of these behaviors is influenced by how they are sequenced with other behaviors from the same person and behaviors from other interactants. In this paper, we present a method for extracting and generating sequences of non-verbal signals expressing interpersonal attitudes. These sequences are used as part of a framework for non-verbal expression with Embodied Conversational Agents that considers different features of non-verbal behavior: global behavior tendencies, interpersonal reactions, sequencing of non-verbal signals, and communicative intentions. Our method uses a sequence mining technique on an annotated multimodal corpus to extract sequences characteristic of different attitudes. New sequences of non-verbal signals are generated using a probabilistic model, and evaluated using the previously mined sequences.
SemEval-2013 Task 10: Cross-lingual Word Sense Disambiguation

The goal of the Cross-lingual Word Sense Disam-biguation task is to evaluate the viability of multilingual WSD on a benchmark lexical sample data set. The traditional WSD task is transformed into a multilingual WSD task, where participants are asked to provide contextually correct translations of English ambiguous nouns into ﬁve target languages, viz. French, Italian, English, German and Dutch. We report results for the 12 ofﬁcial submissions from 5 different research teams, as well as for the ParaSense system that was developed by the task organizers.
Are People Prejudiced Against Women? Some Answers From Research on Attitudes, Gender Stereotypes, and Judgments of Competence

In contemporary research, attitudes toward women appear to be more positive than those toward men in samples of US and Canadian university students, and the evaluative content of the female stereotype is more favorable than the evaluative content of the male stereotype. These research findings on attitudes and stereotypes are compared with the findings of Goldberg-paradigm experiments on judgments of women's and men's competence, which are commonly thought to reflect people's attitudes and stereotypes. Although research on competence judgments has not shown a pervasive tendency to devalue women's work, it has demonstrated prejudice against women in masculine domains (e.g. male-dominated jobs, male-stereotypic behavior). This targeted form of prejudice is consistent with the generally more favorable evaluation of women than men obtained in attitude and stereotype studies because this positive evaluation derives primarily from the ascription to women of nice, nurturant, communal characteristics, which peopl.
Prevalence of pancreatic, hepatic and renal microscopic lesions in post-mortem samples from Cavalier King Charles spaniels.

OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to describe the prevalence of microscopic pancreatic, hepatic and renal lesions in post-mortem samples from Cavalier King Charles spaniels. METHODS The prevalence of microscopic lesions was determined by routine histopathology and compared to ante-mortem clinical signs. RESULTS There was evidence of chronic pancreatitis in 51·9% of the cases, and age correlated with severity. Renal lesions were diagnosed in 52·2% of cases, most of which were inflammatory. Ante-mortem diagnosis of pancreatic and renal disease was 25 and 16·7%, respectively. Primary hepatic lesions were diagnosed in 11·1% of cases; secondary hepatic lesions were diagnosed in 64·8%. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE Pancreatic and renal lesions are common in Cavalier King Charles spaniels, but they have similar rates of hepatic disease as the general population. The increasing prevalence of pancreatic lesions with age suggests that it might be a progressive condition.
Cannabis use during a life course – integrating cannabis use into everyday life

Purpose – Overall within cannabis research, only a few studies have specifically targeted the use of cannabis among the adult population, and consequently very little is known about the consumption practices of this user group. The purpose of this paper is to explore how adult cannabis users integrate cannabis use into their daily life; a use that can be characterized as recreational use, i.e. a non‐problematic use of cannabis for pleasure and to get intoxicated. Despite the fact that cannabis use is illegal and larger societal views on consuming cannabis still is subject to stigmatization and “unruly conduct”. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on qualitative interviews with 39 persons who were cannabis users as well as growers. The interviewees could not be described as “deviants” and the vast majority of them were socially well integrated. For how long the interviewees had been using cannabis depended on age as well as different life circumstances.Findings – The paper shows how cannabis us.
L1 and L2 picture naming in Mandarin–English bilinguals: A test of Bilingual Dual Coding Theory*

This study examined the nature of bilinguals’ conceptual representations and the links from these representations to words in L1 and L2. Specifically, we tested an assumption of the Bilingual Dual Coding Theory that conceptual representations include image representations, and that learning two languages in separate contexts can result in differences in referential images for L1 and L2. Mandarin–English participants named aloud culturally-biased images and culturally-unbiased filler images presented on a computer screen in both Mandarin (L1) and English (L2). Culturally-biased images were named significantly faster in the culturally-congruent language than in the incongruent language. These findings indicate that some image representations are more strongly connected to one language than the other, providing support for the Bilingual Dual Coding Theory.
Urban Multiculture and Everyday Encounters in Semi-Public, Franchised Cafe Spaces

This paper engages with an emergent literature on multiculture and concepts such as conviviality and negotiation to explore how increasingly ethnically diverse population routinely share and mix in urban places and social spaces. As part of a wider ESRC funded, two-year qualitative study of changing social life and everyday multiculture in different geographical areas of contemporary England, this paper draws on participant observation data from three branches of franchised leisure and consumption cafe spaces. We pay particular attention to the ways these spaces work as settings of encounter and shared presence between groups often envisaged as separated by ethnic difference. Our findings suggest that corporate spaces which are more often dismissed as commercial, globalized spaces of soulless homogeneity can be locally inflected spaces whose cultural blandness may generate confident familiarity, ethnic mixity, mundane co-presence and inattentive forms of conviviality.