Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Fast Distributed Solver for Symmetric Diagonally Dominant Linear Equations

In this paper, we propose a fast distributed solver for linear equations given by symmetric diagonally dominant M-Matrices. Our approach is based on a distributed implementation of the parallel solver of Spielman and Peng by considering a specific approximated inverse chain which can be computed efficiently in a distributed fashion. Representing the system of equations by a graph $\mathbb{G}$, the proposed distributed algorithm is capable of attaining $\epsilon$-close solutions (for arbitrary $\epsilon$) in time proportional to $n^{3}$ (number of nodes in $\mathbb{G}$), ${\alpha}$ (upper bound on the size of the R-Hop neighborhood), and $\frac{{W}_{max}}{{W}_{min}}$ (maximum and minimum weight of edges in $\mathbb{G}$).
The Effect of Spaced Repetitions on Korean Elementary Students’ L2 English Vocabulary Learning

In this article, the effect of spaced review on Korean elementary students’ English vocabulary learning is investigated in an attempt to find an optimal way of teaching and presenting new words in the context of textbook-based instruction. Sixty fourth graders participated in Experiment 1. They learned new vocabulary through four classroom activities on three different spaced schedules: four 10-minute presentations with one activity each, two 20-minute presentations with two activities each, and one massed 40-minute presentation with all four activities. It was found that there was no significant interaction between review spacing and vocabulary gain. Experiment 2 replicated the procedure of Experiment 1 with new words and participants (n = 57), the results of which reaffirmed the earlier finding. This indicates that spaced learning may not bring about a strong facilitative effect on beginner-level foreign language learners’ vocabulary acquisition and that there exist many other variables modulating the effect to a larger extent than the sheer frequency of repetition.
Antihypertensive Potential of Combined Extracts of Olive Leaf, Green Coffee Bean and Beetroot: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Crossover Trial

Extracts of olive leaf, green coffee bean and beetroot may deliver cardiovascular benefits. This study sought to evaluate the effects of regularly consuming a combination of these extracts on blood pressure (BP), arterial compliance, blood lipids, blood glucose and insulin sensitivity. A double-blind randomised placebo-controlled crossover trial was conducted in adults with untreated high normal or borderline elevated BP. They were randomised to take an active supplement, comprising 500 mg olive leaf extract, 100 mg green coffee bean extract and 150 mg beet powder, or a matching placebo twice daily for six weeks, followed by the alternate supplement for a further six weeks. Assessments of 24-h ambulatory BP (ABP), clinic BP arterial compliance (pulse-wave analysis), blood lipids, blood glucose and insulin were obtained at baseline and at the end of each treatment phase. Baseline clinic BP in 37 overweight middle-aged men and women who completed the trial averaged 145/84 mmHg. There was no significant effect of treatment on ABP or any other outcome measure. The failure to confirm prior evidence of the antihypertensive benefits of these extracts emphasises the importance of placebo control and the value of ABP monitoring. Further dose-response evaluation of olive leaf, green coffee bean or beetroot extracts is required to confirm or refute the purported benefits.
Acute Lung Injury: A Clinical and Molecular Review.

CONTEXT Acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are a continuum of lung changes arising from a wide variety of lung injuries, frequently resulting in significant morbidity and frequently in death. Research regarding the molecular pathophysiology of ALI/ARDS is ongoing, with the aim toward developing prognostic molecular biomarkers and molecular-based therapy. OBJECTIVE To review the clinical, radiologic, and pathologic features of ALI/ARDS; and the molecular pathophysiology of ALI/ARDS, with consideration of possible predictive/prognostic molecular biomarkers and possible molecular-based therapies. DATA SOURCES Examination of the English-language medical literature regarding ALI and ARDS. CONCLUSIONS ARDS is primarily a clinicoradiologic diagnosis; however, lung biopsy plays an important diagnostic role in certain cases. A significant amount of progress has been made in the elucidation of ARDS pathophysiology and in predicting patient response, however, currently there is no viable predictive molecular biomarkers for predicting the severity of ARDS, or molecular-based ARDS therapies. The proinflammatory cytokines TNF-α (tumor necrosis factor α), interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, IL-8, and IL-18 are among the most promising as biomarkers for predicting morbidity and mortality.
Effects of ironic advertising on consumers’ attention, involvement and attitude

Abstract The use of an ironic message in advertising has increased, but little empirical research has been conducted to identify the effects of ironic advertising on consumers. This study demonstrated that ironic advertising can lead to consumers’ higher attention to the ad and greater involvement in the ad message compared to non-ironic advertising, applying schema incongruity theory. This study also examines whether ironic advertising influences consumers’ attitudes toward the ad and the brand. Lastly, this study identified a moderating role of need for cognition on ad attention.
Situational effects in trait assessment: The FPI, NEOFFI, and EPI questionnaires

While most researchers do agree now that situations may have an effect in the assessment of traits, the consequences have been neglected, so far: if situations affect the assessment of traits we have to take this fact into account in studies on reliability and validity of measurement instruments and their application. In the theoretical part of this article we provide a more formal exposition of this point, introducing the basic concepts of latent state–trait (LST) theory. LST theory and the associated models allow for the estimation of the situational impact on trait measures in non‐experimental, correlational studies. In the empirical part, LST theory is applied to three well known trait questionnaires: the Freiburg Personality Inventory, the NEO Five‐Factor Inventory and the Eysenck Personality Inventory. It is shown that significant proportions of the variances of the scales of these questionnaires are due to situational effects. The following consequences of this finding are discussed, (i) Instead of the reliability coefficient, the proportion of variance due to the latent trait, the consistency coefficient, should be used for the estimation of confidence intervals for trait scores, (ii) To reduce the situational effects on trait estimates it may be useful to base such an estimate on several occasions, i.e., to aggregate data across occasions. (iii) Reliability and validity studies should not only be based on a sample of persons representative of those to whom the test will be applied; they should also be conducted in situational contexts representative of the intended applications.
An empirical study of factors affecting accounting students' career choice in New Zealand

This study examines the influence of intrinsic factors; financial and job-related factors; other factors such as parent and peer influence and work experience; exposure to high school accounting; and the students' perceived benefit-cost ratio to being a chartered accountant, on whether accounting students choose to pursue a chartered accountancy (CA) career or a non-accounting career. Based on a survey of 295 students from five universities in New Zealand, the results show that the students who intend to pursue a CA career place significantly greater importance on financial and job-related factors and perceived benefit-cost ratio than those who choose a non-accounting career. Intrinsic factors, other factors and exposure to high school accounting have no significant influence on the decision whether to select a CA career. A discriminant analysis revealed that financial and jobrelated factors have the highest explanatory power differentiating the two groups, followed by the students' perception of benefits.
Sign language and pantomime production differentially engage frontal and parietal cortices

We investigated the functional organisation of neural systems supporting language production when the primary language articulators are also used for meaningful, but nonlinguistic, expression such as pantomime. Fourteen hearing nonsigners and 10 deaf native users of American Sign Language (ASL) participated in an H2 15O-positron emission tomography study in which they generated action pantomimes or ASL verbs in response to pictures of tools and manipulable objects. For pantomime generation, participants were instructed to “show how you would use the object”. For verb generation, signers were asked to “generate a verb related to the object”. The objects for this condition were selected to elicit handling verbs that resemble pantomime (e.g., TO-HAMMER, hand configuration and movement mimic the act of hammering) and nonhandling verbs that do not (e.g., POUR-SYRUP, produced with a “Y” handshape). For the baseline task, participants viewed pictures of manipulable objects and an occasional nonmanipulable object and decided whether the objects could be handled, gesturing “yes” (thumbs up) or “no” (hand wave). Relative to baseline, generation of ASL verbs engaged left inferior frontal cortex, but when nonsigners produced pantomimes for the same objects, no frontal activation was observed. Both groups recruited left parietal cortex during pantomime production. However, for deaf signers the activation was more extensive and bilateral, which may reflect a more complex and integrated neural representation of hand actions. We conclude that the production of pantomime vs. ASL verbs (even those that resemble pantomime) engages partially segregated neural systems that support praxic vs. linguistic functions.
Estudos sobre a dimensionalidade da empatia: tradução e adaptação do Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)

Over years several methods have been proposed to assess empathy, being the self-evaluate scales the most employed method. Among these scales, we highlight Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), by Davis (1983) which assess cognitive and affective components of empathy. The main aims of this work were to translate and adapt IRI to using in Brazil, checking its psychometrics properties, and to assess the construct dimensionality of empathy using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Results showed that: 1) the translated and adapted IRI version was valid to Brazilian context, 2) The Fantasy dimension is central to explain empathy and 3) A four-factor model explains better empathy than the one and two-factor models. This last finding lends support to the Davis’ and Hoffman’s thesis that a multidimensional view could explain better the construct of empathy.
Female Engineers

Under representation of women in the hard sciences has led to research on the gender gap in mathematics achievement. Data show that women are almost equally represented in mathematics but are underrepresented in engineering. Thus the assumption is that mathematics is not the only factor that influences women's choice of engineering. Interviews of 32 engineers (women and men) examine the career socialization of female engineers. Findings show that women chose engineering because of challenge and interest and a strong parental influence. They liked their work, but they experienced difficulties because of gender discrimination, occupational requirements, and the parenthood-career dilemma. This resulted in their wish to make a career change, in spite of their job satisfaction, to occupations that are more emotionally rewarding and that would give them more control over their working hours.
Networks, Social Influence, and the Choice Among Competing Innovations: Insights from Open Source Software Licenses

Existing research provides little insight into how social influence affects the adoption and diffusion of competing innovative artifacts and how the experiences of organizational members who have worked with particular innovations in their previous employers affect their current organizations' adoption decision. We adapt and extend the heterogeneous diffusion model from sociology and examine the conditions under which prior adopters of competing open source software (OSS) licenses socially influence how a new OSS project chooses among such licenses and how the experiences of the project manager of a new OSS project with particular licenses affects its susceptibility to this social influence. We test our predictions using a sample of 5,307 open source projects hosted at SourceForge. Our results suggest the most important factor determining a new project's license choice is the type of license chosen by existing projects that are socially closer to it in its inter-project social network. Moreover, we find that prior adopters of a particular license are more infectious in their influence on the license choice of a new project as their size and performance rankings increase. We also find that managers of new projects who have been members of more successful prior OSS projects and who have greater depth and diversity of experience in the OSS community are less susceptible to social influence. Finally, we find a project manager is more likely to adopt a particular license type when his or her project occupies a similar social role as other projects that have adopted the same license. These results have implications for research on innovation adoption and diffusion, open source software licensing, and the governance of economic exchange.
Flow-Injection Coulometric Detection Based on Ion Transfer and Its Application to the Determination of Chlorpromazine

A flow-injection coulometric method for the determination of chlorpromazine based on ion transfer into a plasticized poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) membrane, was developed. The detector used consists of a flow-through cell that incorporates a plasticized poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) membrane which contains tetrabutylammonium tetraphenylborate as electrolyte. The membrane is located between the flowing solution and an inner aqueous electrolyte solution. Two pairs of electrodes, each pair formed by a reference electrode and a working electrode, are used, one pair in each solution. The potential between the reference electrodes was controlled by a four-electrode potentiostat with ohmic drop compensation. A potential step capable of producing the transfer of the chlorpromazine ion into the membrane was applied during the passage of a wide portion of sample plug through the cell and the corresponding quantity of the electricity was measured. In the selected conditions, a linear relationship was observed between the quantity of electricity and chlorpromazine concentrations over a range of 1×10-6 −1×10-4 M. The detection limit was 2 × 10-7 M. Good repeatability and between-day reproducibility was obtained. No interference was observed on the part of some common ions and pharmaceutical excipients. The method proposed was applied satisfactorily to the determination of chlorpromazine in pharmaceuticals and human urine.
PES CAMS Task Force on Understanding , Prediction , Mitigation and Restoration of Cascading Failures , Initial Review of Methods for Cascading Failure Analysis in Electric Power Transmission Systems

Large blackouts are typically caused by cascading failure propagating through a power system by means of a variety of processes. Because of the wide range of time scales, multiple interacting processes, and the huge number of possible interactions, the simulation and analysis of cascading blackouts is extremely complicated. This paper defines cascading failure for blackouts and gives an initial review of the current understanding, industrial tools, and the challenges and emerging methods of analysis and simulation.
Fault ride-through behavior of MV-connected wind turbines and CHP-plants during transmission grid disturbances

Apart from the positive technical consequences, the increasing penetration of Distributed Generation (DG) units connected to the distribution network brings new requirements in the protection strategy. Grid disturbances at the transmission level can cause the unwanted disconnection of large amount of DG, leading to undesired power imbalances. This paper examines how transmission network faults can affect the operation of DG units connected on to the distribution network, and how current under-voltage protection settings cope with these fault cases.
Chemical Characteristics of Shallow High-Fluoride Groundwater in Guanzhong Basin, China

Shallow high-fluoride groundwater with fluoride concentration above 1.0 mg/L occurs widely in Guanzhong Basin, northwestern China. It is mainly distributed in areas on the north of Wei River in the eastern and central parts of the basin. Characterized by the chemical composition of transitional types of groundwater, the high-fluoride groundwater samples commonly belong to dilute water or slightly mineralized water and exist in weak alkaline or alkaline conditions. The correlation between F - and Na + /Ca 2+ ratio in the high-fluoride groundwater shows that a process conducive to the dissolution of Na + and sink of Ca 2+ may promote the enrichment of fluoride in groundwater. And the reason why F - is unrelated to Mg 2+ is probably the random combination of hydrogeochemical condition advantageous to Mg 2+ enrichment with that advantageous or disadvantageous to F - enrichment. In addition, the weak relationship between F - and Cl - , together with that between F - and TDS, suggests that evaporation under the semi-arid climate is just one of the factors controlling the occurrence of high-fluoride groundwater in the study area. Although natural factors are primarily responsible for the high fluoride content in groundwater, the factor of human activities can not be neglected as the relation between F - and NO 3 - shows that most high-fluoride groundwater samples have been influenced by human activities. To protect local people against the fluorosis, the high-fluoride groundwater should be defluoridated or alternative water sources with low fluoride content should be found if necessary.
The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits

This paper re-examines the commonly observed inverse relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefit. We propose that this relationship occurs because people rely on affect when judging the risk and benefit of specific hazards. Evidence supporting this proposal is obtained in two experimental studies. Study 1 investigated the inverse relationship between risk and benefit judgments under a time-pressure condition designed to limit the use of analytic thought and enhance the reliance on affect. As expected, the inverse relationship was strengthened when time pressure was introduced. Study 2 tested and confirmed the hypothesis that providing information designed to alter the favorability of one's overall affective evaluation of an item (say nuclear power) would systematically change the risk and benefit judgments for that item. Both studies suggest that people seem prone to using an ‘affect heuristic’ which improves judgmental efficiency by deriving both risk and benefit evaluations from a common source—affective reactions to the stimulus item. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Apparatus and method for determination of the fine particle dose of a powder inhalation formulation

In an apparatus for collecting aerosolised respirable particles of an inhalable medicinal formulation, aerosolised formulation is drawn pneumatically through a dose collection section comprising an inlet orifice (201) and an air-permeable filter (206), the filter being positioned opposed to said orifice, and extending across the pathway (4) for filtering the pneumatic flow so as to retain particulate material therein on the filter, and the orifice (201) being so dimensioned and configured that it has an unimpeded area that is no less than 75% of the area of the filter (201) on which the dose will be collected. In a method using the apparatus, particles (209, 210) collected on the filter may optionally be subjected to a dissolution test. A good correlation is obtainable between in vitro andin vivo doses with improved independence of loading.
A Question Answering Approach for Emotion Cause Extraction

Emotion cause extraction aims to identify the reasons behind a certain emotion expressed in text. It is a much more difficult task compared to emotion classification. Inspired by recent advances in using deep memory networks for question answering (QA), we propose a new approach which considers emotion cause identification as a reading comprehension task in QA. Inspired by convolutional neural networks, we propose a new mechanism to store relevant context in different memory slots to model context information. Our proposed approach can extract both word level sequence features and lexical features. Performance evaluation shows that our method achieves the state-of-the-art performance on a recently released emotion cause dataset, outperforming a number of competitive baselines by at least 3.01% in F-measure.
What’s bad is easy: Taboo values, affect, and cognition

Some decision situations are so objectionable or repugnant that people refuse to make a choice. This paper seeks to better understand taboo responses, and to distinguish choices that are truly taboo from those that are merely difficult or confusing. Using 22 scenarios that describe potentially taboo issues, Experiment 1 explores reasons for disapproval of the scenarios. We measure a large number of possible reasons for disapproval and a variety of preference responses (including willingness to accept), in order to test for subtleties in taboo responses. We also test cognitive and affective responses to the scenarios. Experiment 2 further explores the interaction, found in Experiment 1, between affective and cognitive factors. Taken as a whole, our results show that people are able to indicate their disapproval consistently across a variety of preference elicitation methods, that their disapproval is better understood as an attitude measure than as an economic valuation (even when the measure is in monetary terms), and that taboo responses are driven primarily by affect.