Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can Interactive Activation Models Accommodate Neighborhood Distribution Effects in Visual Word Recognition

Summary The effects of neighborhood distributions on word recognition were investigated by manipulating the position of the highest frequency neighbor. In the Twin condition, a word had two higher frequency neighbors with a letter change in the same position. In the Single condition a word also had two higher frequency neighbors, but the letter change was made in a different position for each neighbor. The letter position involved could be internal or external, depending on whether the change took place in an intermediate or start/end position. Participants made lexical decisions about postmasked letter strings, while response times and evoked-related potentials were recorded. Results show a significant effect of the Single vs Twin manipulation with Twin targets RTs slower than Single RTs. Furthermore, ERP data reveal that in the parietal area of both hemispheres, words with Twin targets result in less brain activity than words with Single targets, specifically in later decisional stages (P400). An analysis by position reveals how this Twin / Single contrast stems from the effects of interaction between the type of distribution (Twin / Single) and the position of the highest frequency neighbor (Internal / External). The results obtained are not easily reconciled with a theoretical framework that proposes a “Gang Effect” as part of a model including intralexical inhibition mechanisms (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981; Grainger & Jacobs, 1996).
Towards a theory of variable privacy

We define “variable privacy” as the use of non-perfect protocols with parameters controlled by Alice. Variable privacy enables Alice to choose the amount of information leaked to Bob, in situations where information revelation bears a privacy cost and also provides a benefit. We propose a framework for the study of variable privacy, using a security perspective to obtain a privacy measure of the binary symmetric randomization protocol (flipping a bit with probability 1−ρ). We define an attack as any sequence of protocol instances that decreases estimation error on a bit beyond that possible with a single instance. Viewing the protocol as a communication channel for the data to be protected, we show that channel codes i.e. error-correcting and error-detecting codes are particularly efficient attacks. In particular, they can be more efficient than the repeated query attack. The cost of a repeated query attack, per bit of entropy in the data, increases monotonically with a decrease in error. We show that attacks other than the repeated query attack can achieve zero asymptotic error with merely a constant cost per bit of entropy; that the cost is asymptotically tightly bound below if asymptotic error is zero; that polynomial time attacks that achieve the bound exist; and that similar attacks can be constructed in linear time. We define the privacy measure of randomization as the tight asymptotic lower bound on the number of protocol instances required for zero asymptotic error, per bit of entropy. We show that the privacy measure of a randomization protocol is the inverse of its capacity if it is viewed as a communication channel. Our results follow easily from the channel and source-channel coding theorems of Shannon, but we are not aware of any other work that uses these or similar results to study the security of any cryptographic protocols. Our results, in addition to providing a measure of the privacy cost of the protocol to Alice, have implications for the security of statistical databases.
Exploring the 'Black Box' of Process: A comparison of theoretical notions of the 'adult learner' with accounts of postgraduate learning experience

The literature concerning student learning in higher education is now wide ranging and diverse. This article suggests that whilst one strand of this literature appears to be describing learning as increasingly complex and difficult to understand, there is another strand that is using ideas about 'adult learning' in a simplistic and uncritical way. This appears to be particularly the case in some literatures connected with staff development. In response to a lack of research-based information about the relationship between ideas about 'adult' learning and the process of learning as described by adult learners themselves, particularly in higher education, a small research project was carried out. This aimed to explore individual accounts of the experience of learning to see whether or not such descriptions of process reflected the assumptions about 'adults' that appear to underpin this strand of writing. The experiences of these particular postgraduates revealed a diversity of approach and experience which did not fit with the idea of a distinctively 'adult' way of learning, and described a multiplicity of elements which did not appear in the dominant models.
The role of the LIRG and ULIRG phases in the evolution of K-s-selected galaxies

Aims. We investigate the role of the luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG) and ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) phases in the evolution of K-s-selected galaxies and, in particular, Extremely Red Galaxies (ERGs). Methods. With this aim, we compare the properties of a sample of 2905 K-s 1 x 10(11) M-circle dot assembled at redshift z = 0.5. A minimum of 65% of the galaxies with M > 2.5 x 10(11) M-circle dot at z approximate to 2-3 are ULIRGs at those redshifts. 60% of the ULIRGs in our sample have the characteristic colours of ERGs. Conversely, 40% of the ERGs with stellar mass M > 1.3 x 10(11) M-circle dot at 1.5 1 x 10(11) M-circle dot) galaxies present in the Universe at a given time, this fraction becomes very significant (greater than or similar to 50%) at redshifts z greater than or similar to 2.
The effect of pectin on the structure and function of the rat small intestine

1. The effect of pectin on the structure and function of the rat small intestine was compared with that of a standard pellet diet and of a fibre-free basal diet. 2. The length and wet weight of the small bowel was significantly greater inpect in-fed rats than in either pellet- or basal-diet-fed rats. 3. Histological measurements of longitudinal sections from the small bowel showed a significantly greater crypt depth and muscle layer thickness in the mid-jejunum and ileum of the pectin fed rats. Villous height showed less variation. 4. The specific activity of alkaline phosphatase (EC 3.1.3.1)and leucyl-P-naphthylamidase (EC 3.4.11.1) in mucosal scrapings was significantly lower in the upper jejunum of pectin-fed rats compared with either of the other dietary groups. The differences were not so marked in mid-jejunum or ileum. 5. Glucose absorption measured in vivo from jejunal and ileal loops was similar in all three dietary groups. 6. With two minor exceptions there were no significant differences in any of these measurements between the pellet- and basal-diet-fed rats. 7. These findings could be explained by increased epithelial cell turnover caused by pectin. The possible mechanisms of this are discussed. 8. The effect of pectin on the human small bowel requires study before it can be widely prescribed in man.
The Effect of Information and Communication Technologies on Urban Structure

Two innovations in the last century have changed dramatically the cost of communicating and transmitting information: The first is the widespread adoption of telephony; the second is the internet. We study the implications of these changes in ICT for urban structure. We find robust evidence that increases in the number of telephone lines per capita lead to a more concentrated distribution of city sizes and so correspondingly to more dispersion in the distribution of economic activity in space. The evidence on internet usage is more speculative, although it goes in the same direction. This empirical result is rationalized in a theoretical model.
Growing in Favor with God and Man: Attachment to God and Psychological Separation of Christian, Millennial College Students

The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to examine whether Christian, Millennial college students’ secure attachment to God relationship could contribute to their psychological separation. This question was addressed by examining (a) the correlation between attachment to parents and psychological separation, (b) the correlation between attachment to parents and attachment to God, and (b) the correlation between attachment to God and psychological separation. Bowlby’s (1969, 1973, 1982) attachment theory was used as the theoretical foundation to explore both the students’ relationships with parents and God. Attachment to parents of Christian, Millennial college students attending a Southern Christian college was measured by the revised Inventory of Parental and Peer Attachment (IPPA-R, Armsden & Greenberg, 1987, 2017); attachment to God by the Attachment to God Inventory (AGI, Beck & McDonald, 2004); and psychological separation by the Psychological Separation Inventory (PSI, Hoffman, 1984). Analysis revealed this sample of Christian, Millennial college students as moderately secure in their attachment to parents but psychologically still dependent and insecure in their attachment to God. Explanations for these contrary results are provided. Christian college leadership is encouraged to continue fostering the development of students’ relationship with God to facilitate expected psychosocial benefits of this spiritual relationship.
Multiagent Teleautonomous Behavioral Control

Multiagent schema-based reactive robotic systems are complemented with the addition of a new behavior controlled by a human operator. This enables the whole society to be a(cid:11)ected as a group rather than forcing the operator to control each agent individually. The operator is viewed by the reactive control system as another behavior exerting his/her in(cid:13)uence on the society as a whole. The operator can also control the overall personality of the robot group. Simulation results are presented for foraging, vacuuming, and herding tasks. Results on real robots are presented for maneuvering robots out of a box canyon and squeezing robots through a small space. Teleautonomous operation of multiagent reactive systems was demonstrated to be signi(cid:12)cantly useful for some tasks, less so for others.
Measuring Identity From an Eriksonian Perspective: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

In this article, we report the results of 3 studies evaluating the psychometric properties of scores generated using the Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory (EPSI; Rosenthal, Gurney, & Moore, 1981) with emerging adults. In Study 1, a hybrid bifactor solution, consisting of an overall identity factor as well as of “method effects” factors for identity synthesis and identity confusion, provided a better fit to the data than did either one or two-factor solutions. This bifactor solution was largely invariant across gender and across Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics. In Study 2, the overall identity, identity synthesis, and identity confusion scores were shown to possess convergent validity with another Eriksonian measure and with measures of identity status. In Study 3, the EPSI subscale scores were shown to possess construct validity vis-à-vis self-esteem, purpose in life, internal locus of control, ego strength, anxiety, and depression. We discuss implications for the measurement of identity.
On the accuracy of urban crowd-sourcing for maintaining large-scale geospatial databases

The world is in the midst of an immense population shift from rural areas to cities. Urban elements, such as businesses, Points-of-Interest (POIs), transportation, and housing are continuously changing, and collecting and maintaining accurate information about these elements within spatial databases has become an incredibly onerous task. A solution made possible by the uptake of social media is crowd-sourcing, where user-generated content can be cultivated into meaningful and informative collections, as exemplified by sites like Wikipedia. This form of user-contributed content is no longer confined to the Web: equipped with powerful mobile devices, citizens have become cartographers too, volunteering geographic information (e.g., POIs) as exemplified by sites like OpenStreetMap. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which crowd-sourcing can be relied upon to build and maintain an accurate map of the changing world, by means of a thorough analysis and comparison between traditional web-based crowd-sourcing (as in Wikipedia) and urban crowd-sourcing (as in OpenStreetMap).
Smart regenerative relays for link-adaptive cooperative communications

Without being necessary to pack multiple antennas per terminal, cooperation among distributed single-antenna nodes offers resilience to shadowing and can, in principle, enhance the performance of wireless communication networks by exploiting the available space diversity. Enabling the latter however, calls for practically implementable protocols to cope with errors at relay nodes so that simple receiver processing can collect the diversity at the destination. To this end, we derive in this paper a class of strategies whereby decoded bits at relay nodes are scaled in power before being forwarded to the destination. The scale is adapted to the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) of the source-relay and the intended relay-destination links. With maximum ratio combining (MRC) at the destination, we prove that such link-adaptive regeneration (LAR) strategies effect the maximum possible diversity while requiring simple channel state information that can be pragmatically acquired at the relay. In addition, LAR exhibits robustness to quantization and feedback errors and leads to efficient use of power both at relay as well as destination nodes. Analysis and corroborating simulations demonstrate that LAR relays are attractive across the practical SNR range; they are universally applicable to multibranch and multi-hop uncoded or coded settings regardless of the underlying constellation; and outperform existing alternatives in terms of error performance, complexity and bandwidth efficiency.
Use of nonverbal communication in dialog system

Understanding human emotions and their nonverbal messages is one of the most necessary and important skills for making the next generation of human-computer interfaces (HCI) easier, more natural and effective. Indeed, the first step toward an automatic emotion sensitive human-computer system having the ability to automatically detect users' nonverbal signals is the development of an accurate and real-time automatic NVC analyzer. Such an analyzer must deal mainly with users' facial expressions and paralanguage. The main goal of this paper is to compare different methods to combine the results of both classifiers. A prototype of the dialog system was developed in the Department of Computer Science. The proposed system is fully automatic, user-independent and real-time working. Several experiments show that the speech recognition quality is increased by using nonverbal information.
Bounds on test effort for event-triggered real-time systems

The test effort required for full test coverage is much higher in event-triggered than in time-triggered real-time systems. Thus, it is hard to attain sufficient confidence in the correctness of event-triggered real-time applications by testing. We present a general upper bound on the test effort of constrained event-triggered real-time systems, assuming multiple resources (a refinement of previous results). The emphasis is on system-level testing of application timeliness, assuming that sufficient confidence in its functional correctness has been attained. The covered fault types are mainly incorrect assumptions about temporal attributes. An analysis of our approach shows that designated pre-emption points are required. A key factor in this approach is the ability to reduce the test effort while maintaining full test coverage.
Complex Matrix Decomposition and Quadratic Programming

This paper studies the possibilities of the linear matrix inequality characterization of the matrix cones formed by nonnegative complex Hermitian quadratic functions over specific domains in the complex space. In its real-case analog, such studies were conducted in Sturm and Zhang [Sturm, J. F. , S. Zhang. 2003. On cones of nonnegative quadratic functions. Math. Oper. Res.28 246--267]. In this paper it is shown that stronger results can be obtained for the complex Hermitian case. In particular, we show that the matrix rank-one decomposition result of Sturm and Zhang [Sturm, J. F. , S. Zhang. 2003. On cones of nonnegative quadratic functions. Math. Oper. Res.28 246--267] can be strengthened for the complex Hermitian matrices. As a consequence, it is possible to characterize several new matrix co-positive cones (over specific domains) by means of linear matrix inequality. As examples of the potential application of the new rank-one decomposition result, we present an upper bound on the lowest rank among all the optimal solutions for a standard complex semidefinite programming (SDP) problem, and offer alternative proofs for a result of Hausdorff [Hausdorff, F. 1919. Der Wertvorrat einer Bilinearform. Mathematische Zeitschrift3 314--316] and a result of Brickman [Brickman, L. 1961. On the field of values of a matrix. Proc. Amer. Math. Soc.12 61--66] on the joint numerical range.
Bank competition and regulatory reform: the case of the Italian banking industry

The paper analyzes the evolution of competitive conditions in the Italian banking industry using firm-level balance sheet data for the period 1983-1997. Regulatory reform, large-scale consolidation, and competitive pressure from other European countries have changed substantially the banking environment, with potentially offsetting effects on the overall degree of competitiveness of the banking market. We find that competitive conditions, relatively unchanged until 1992, have improved substantially thereafter, with estimated mark-ups decreasing over the last five years of the sample period. Also, there is no evidence that banks involved in mergers and acquisitions gained market power; at the same time, however, they exhibit lower than average marginal costs. Finally, after controlling for various factors that may have determined the time pattern of banksi? ½ estimated mark-ups, we still detect a significant unexplained drop in our competitive conditions indicators after 1992. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the introduction of the Single Banking License in 1993 contributed to improve bank competition.
Effective Police Interviewing

Research has found that deception detection accurac y in the context of suspect interrogation hovers around chance levels. Geiselma n (2012) adapted the Cognitive Interview (typically used for witnesses) for use wi th suspects (CIS) and found that judgments of deception were more accurate than prev ious interrogation techniques. The current study attempted to use the CIS to improve d eception detection with Reality Monitoring (RM: Vrij et al., 2008), which has alrea dy been validated in the context of witness statements. One hundred and sixty-six under graduate students were randomly assigned to two conditions. In the Truthful conditi on, participants played a game with a confederate, while in the Deceptive condition, part icipants rehearsed (but did not experience) a synopsis of the game scenario. Partic ip nts in the Deceptive condition were also instructed to steal $10 from a confederate’s w allet. In both conditions, $10 was purported to be missing and a researcher blind to c ondition conducted a CIS. Statement veracity was coded using six of the RM criteria adv anced by Vrij et al. (frequency of visual, auditory, spatial, temporal, cognitive, and affective details). According to results from a MANOVA, truthful and deceptive statements di ffered significantly on all RM criteria, with the exception of affective details, validating the importance for evaluation of statement veracity ( p ≤ .01). Further, a binary logistic regression found that combining the RM criteria together correctly classified 86.6% of statements, χ2 (6) = 114.4, p <. 001, with excellent sensitivity and specificity (.899 an d .833, respectively). As well, Visual, Auditory and Cognitive details uniquely predicted c ondition. Findings support using RM criteria to detect deception in interviews conducte d with the CIS.
Characteristics of Aggressive Behavior in People With Mild to Borderline Intellectual Disability and Co-Occurring Psychopathology

ABSTRACT Introduction: People with intellectual disabilities and co-occurring psychopathology have a relatively high likelihood to engage in aggressive behavior. Nevertheless, structured clinical assessment of aggressive behavior, including when and where it occurs, is scarce in this population. Methods: On three wards specializing in the care for people with mild to borderline intellectual disability and co-occurring psychopathology, staff members completed the Staff Observation Aggression Scale–Revised adapted for people with intellectual disabilities (SOAS-R-ID) during a nine-month period, every time they witnessed aggressive behavior. Results: Based on 236 SOAS-R-ID forms, it was found that aggressive incidents were most common on Thursdays, and on two specific moments of the day (between 9–11 a.m. and 7–9 p.m.). The aggressive behavior was often exclusively of a verbal nature and was usually targeted against staff members (77.1% of the incidents). The Interclass (Pearson) Correlation Coefficient agreement between observers on the total score of the SOAS-R-ID was 0.72. Correlation between the judgment of the severity of aggressive behavior made by the staff members and the SOAS-R-ID severity scores was moderate (r = .40), but significant. Conclusions: Because aggressive behavior appeared to result often from interactions between the client and staff member or other clients, these interactions might be an important starting point for interventions. Structured clinical assessment of aggressive behavior can help to devise and test the effects of interventions. The SOAS-R-ID seems to be a clinically useful instrument and could therefore help to reduce the frequency of these incidents in the future.