Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Influence of Noise Reduction on Speech Intelligibility, Response Times to Speech, and Perceived Listening Effort in Normal-Hearing Listeners

Single-microphone noise reduction leads to subjective benefit, but not to objective improvements in speech intelligibility. We investigated whether response times (RTs) provide an objective measure of the benefit of noise reduction and whether the effect of noise reduction is reflected in rated listening effort. Twelve normal-hearing participants listened to digit triplets that were either unprocessed or processed with one of two noise-reduction algorithms: an ideal binary mask (IBM) and a more realistic minimum mean square error estimator (MMSE). For each of these three processing conditions, we measured (a) speech intelligibility, (b) RTs on two different tasks (identification of the last digit and arithmetic summation of the first and last digit), and (c) subjective listening effort ratings. All measurements were performed at four signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs): −5, 0, +5, and +∞ dB. Speech intelligibility was high (>97% correct) for all conditions. A significant decrease in response time, relative to the unprocessed condition, was found for both IBM and MMSE for the arithmetic but not the identification task. Listening effort ratings were significantly lower for IBM than for MMSE and unprocessed speech in noise. We conclude that RT for an arithmetic task can provide an objective measure of the benefit of noise reduction. For young normal-hearing listeners, both ideal and realistic noise reduction can reduce RTs at SNRs where speech intelligibility is close to 100%. Ideal noise reduction can also reduce perceived listening effort.
The ‘neat concept’ of sexual citizenship: a cautionary tale for human rights discourse

The growing interest in human rights discourse is a welcome development for strategic lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activism and the appropriation of such a global signifier continues to move LGBT political claims into the mainstream. However, such language appropriation or strategic deployment opens debate as to its meaning and the limits of its descriptive power. For example, the popularity of citizenship discourse in the early 1990s led to an array of commentary from social and political theorists sketching the contours of epistemological meaning and potential policy outcomes. In the wake of this, queer social theorists pontificated on the meaning of ‘sexual citizenship’. Citizenship was the new black and everyone was wearing it. Citizenship was interesting because it had, and still has, purchasing power within a liberal democratic tradition. Human rights discourse is interesting for similar reasons. This article's cautionary tale addresses the twofold concern: ‘what is at stake in focusing on “human rights”? ’ and how can such a strategic linguistic shift be ‘explained by political and sociological theories’? In raising these concerns, the article encourages those articulating human rights to be mindful of the potential variety of frames – readings and strategic or competing activists and academic agendas – within which this discourse might be used or, potentially, abused.
A study of Web‐based learning (WBL) environment in Malaysia

The advance of online technology and instructional delivery such as Web‐based learning (WBL) has heralded new changes in education. Students using the WBL environment in various courses at eight universities in Malaysia were surveyed. Results showed that five main factors influence the effectiveness of the online learning process: students' behavior, characteristics of lecturers, interactive application, technology or system, and the institutions. Results indicated that students' grades are highly correlated with student perception, self‐efficacy and interactivity. The WBL learners do not outperform traditional learners. There is also a need to improve the quality of WBL due to differences in adaptation styles of learners in the process.
Gains, losses, and cooperation in social dilemmas and collective action: The effects of risk preferences

We address two related issues. First, we analyze the effects of risk preferences on cooperation in social dilemmas. Second, we compare social dilemmas in which outcomes represent gains with dilemmas where outcomes represent losses. We show that predictions on gain‐loss asymmetries with respect to conditions for cooperation crucially depend on assumptions concerning risk preferences. Under the assumption of risk aversion for gains as well as losses together with an assumption of decreasing absolute risk aversion, conditions for cooperation are less restrictive if outcomes represent losses than if outcomes represent gains. Conversely ‐ and counterintuitively ‐ under the assumption of S‐shaped utility, conditions for cooperation are more restrictive if outcomes represent losses than if outcomes represent gains. We provide an experimental test of such predictions. Only a minority of subjects behaves consistent with the assumption of S‐shaped utility. Furthermore, we find no empirical evidence for a general di.
Age differences in personality traits across cultures: self‐report and observer perspectives

Using self‐report measures, longitudinal studies in the US and cross‐sectional studies from many cultures suggest that the broad factors of Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience decline from adolescence to adulthood, whereas Agreeableness and Conscientiousness increase. Data are inconsistent on the rate of change during adulthood, and on the generalizability of self‐report findings to informant ratings. We analysed cross‐sectional data from self‐reports and informant ratings on the Revised NEO Personality Inventory in Czech (N = 705) and Russian (N = 800) samples. Some curvilinear effects were found, chiefly in the Czech sample; informant data generally replicated self‐reports, although the effects were weaker. Although many of the details are not yet clear, there appear to be pan‐cultural trends in personality development that are consistent with the hypothesis of intrinsic maturation. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Chinese, Japanese or ‘Oriental’?: Vietnamese-passing in ‘super-diverse’ London

The young British-born Vietnamese are a relatively invisible group in ‘super-diverse’ London who are often misidentified in their everyday encounters. Eluding more straightforward processes of ethnic or racial assignment, the young Vietnamese ‘pass’ in various different ways as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai or ‘Oriental’. Drawing upon primary interview data and participant observation, this article traces ‘passive’ and ‘deliberate’ forms of passing to highlight how intersecting processes of class, gender and place enable/engender different kinds of passing. It is argued that Vietnamese-passing challenges more ‘celebratory’ readings of (super-) diversity by concealing (and depoliticising) difference and erasing Vietnamese voices rather than allowing for their proliferation. It is suggested that practices of passing may become more common in super-diverse societies, as markers of visible difference become increasingly complex and less determinable, especially among newer, non-colonial migrant groups who are more ambiguously positioned within existing identity regimes.
SAT-Encodings, Search Space Structure, and Local Search Performance

Stochastic local search (SLS) algorithms for prepositional satisfiability testing (SAT) have become popular and powerful tools for solving suitably encoded hard combinatorial from different domains like, e.g., planning. Consequently, there is a considerable interest in finding SAT-encodings which facilitate the efficient application of SLS algorithms. In this work, we study how two encodings schemes for combinatorial problems, like the well-known Constraint Satisfaction or Hamilton Circuit Problem, affect SLS performance on the SAT-encoded instances. To explain the observed performance differences, we identify features of the induces search spaces which affect SLS performance. We furthermore present initial results of a comparitive analysis of the performance of the SAT-encoding and-solving approach versus that of native SLS algorithms directly applied to the unencoded problem instances.
ACADEMIC SELF-EFFICACY AND MALLEABILITY OF RELEVANT CAPABILITIES AS PREDICTORS OF EXAM PERFORMANCE

In accordance with Wood and Locke's (1987) findings, the 1st study was based on the prediction that academic self-efficacy (ASE) and personal goals of psychology freshmen (N = 438) would contribute to exam performance. Although the results supported this prediction, they were less strong than those of Wood and Locke. The timing of the ASE measurement appeared to be relevant. In the 2nd study, the authors predicted that self-efficacy appraisals, together with beliefs con cerning the malleability of ability, would influence exam performance and the attri bution of failure to lack of talent. The participants with high self-efficacy appraisals and strong malleability beliefs ascribed failure less to lack of talent than those with low self-efficacy appraisals and weak malleability beliefs did. This difference occurred between participants with high and low intelligence. Differences between the exam scores occurred only in the high-intelligence group: The exam performance of the participants with high self-efficacy appraisals and strong malleability beliefs was better than that of the participants with low self-efficacy appraisals and weak malleability beliefs.
Simple estimators for relational Bayesian classifiers

We present the relational Bayesian classifier (RBC), a modification of the simple Bayesian classifier (SBC) for relational data. There exist several Bayesian classifiers that learn predictive models of relational data, but each uses a different estimation technique for modelling heterogeneous sets of attribute values. The effects of data characteristics on estimation have not been explored. We consider four simple estimation techniques and evaluate them on three real-world data sets. The estimator that assumes each multiset value is independently drawn from the same distribution (INDEPVAL) achieves the best empirical results. We examine bias and variance tradeoffs over a range of data sets and show that INDEPVAL's ability to model more multiset information results in lower bias estimates and contributes to its superior performance.
Comprehensive sex education for teens is more effective than abstinence.

The United States has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among developed countries— but the appropriate response has been contested because of debate over how sex education should be taught. Some federal laws promote an abstinence-only approach. Such legislation provides funds for abstinence-based programs and prohibits most programs from providing information about contraception or safer-sex practices. A recent study, however, has found that not only does that approach to sex education fail to prevent teenage pregnancies, it’s positively correlated with increases in teenage pregnancies and births. The sex education laws and policies in each of the 48 states studied were analyzed to determine the extent to which the state emphasized abstinence in its sex education program. (North Dakota and Wyoming were excluded, as they had no state law or policy regarding sex or STD and HIV education as of 2005.) States were assigned ordinal values from 0 to 3 in four categories of emphasis: no provision (0), abstinence covered (1), abstinence promoted (2), and abstinence stressed (3). The most recent data available from national reports on teenage pregnancy, teenage births, and abortion rates among teens 15 to 19 years of age were from 2005. Data analysis showed that the more abstinence was stressed, the higher were the rates of teen pregnancy and births. Of the four approaches, the most effective was level 1, which included comprehensive sex or HIV education (or both) and covered contraception, condom use, and abstinence. Anne Teitelman, assistant professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, responded to the study by saying that with this additional evidence, NPs in family planning, adolescent health, and school nursing can be confident that providing comprehensive sexual health information to youths is appropriate and effective. “Practicing nurses can also reassure parents,” she added, “that talking with their teenagers about sex and contraception will not encourage sexual activity and will result in lessening the chance that young people will experience unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections. ” Barbara Huberman, a nurse and director of education and outreach for Advocates for Youth, noted that a major initiative, the Future of Sex Education, created new National Sexuality Education Standards, which were released in January (to read the standards, go to http://bit.ly/ zbbN8R). “Among developed countries, we’re the last to create national standards for minimum, essential core content and skills in sex education,” Huberman says. “School nurses are the most trusted by parents to deliver sex education,” she adds, and should be trained as sexuality educators and in providing “leadership in their school to adopt comprehensive sex education. ”—David Carter
Building Democracy in Palestine: Liberal Peace Theory and the Election of Hamas

The victory of Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation, in the January 2006 elections for the Palestinian Authority, was greeted with dismay by the international community, which responded by cutting off aid. This article seeks to understand why Hamas was elected, as well as the international community's response, through an analysis of the liberal peace thesis. This thesis states that democracies do not go to war with one another, thus it was thought that building a democratic Palestinian state would buttress the peace process. The Palestinian people have, however, elected an organization that rejects the peace process. This has provided a wake-up call for the US to face up to the fact that promoting democratization may not always produce the results it desires. The US sees the election of Hamas as the cause of the current crisis and the main obstacle to peace. This article, however, argues that this is merely a symptom, not the cause, of the crisis. The Palestinian Authority's lack of sovereignty and its complete dependence on Israel put severe limitations on the building of a viable, democratic state. The article concludes that the US's uncompromising response to Hamas could well undermine democracy promotion in the region.
A Model-Driven Approach for Monitoring Business Performance in Web Service Compositions

Supporting business services through Web service compositions (WSC) as part of service-oriented architectures (SOA) involves business performance monitoring requirements. Their implementation results in additional development activities. To support these activities, we already contributed a model-driven approach to the development of monitored WSC as part of our preliminary work. In this paper, we present an extension to this approach, which focuses on supporting the specification and transformation of indicators to an executable implementation. To reduce development effort for this particular task, we provide a template-based mechanism for defining performance indicators. In combination with our preliminary work, now fully monitored WSC can be generated automatically from platform-independent design models. We demonstrate the applicability of the overall approach by instantiating an integrated development process for a target platform based on IBM SOA products and showing its application for a sample business process along with monitoring requirements.
Learning How to Insist and Clarify in the Second Year: Reformulation of Requests in Different Contexts

The aim of the present study was to demonstrate that in the beginning of the second year of life, children use pre-linguistic behaviours stereotypically and progressively acquire the capacity to devise strategies to adapt to the adult's response. Children aged 14 and 18 months were observed with their mothers in three conditions involving different maternal responses to the child's request: (1) refusing to satisfy the request; (2) willingness to satisfy it, with misunderstanding, and asking for clarification; and (3) willingness to satisfy it, with misunderstanding, and responding with the wrong object. The results showed that the behaviour of 14-month-olds was less varied across situations than the behaviour of 18-month-olds, and that 18-month-olds rely more on vocal productions (linguistic and nonlinguistic) and modifications of those vocal productions when clarification is required. This predominance of vocalisations over gestures was particularly noticeable in the situation where the mother complied but did not choose the object required by the child. The findings are discussed from the point of view of two components of request: regulation of the addressee's behaviour; and referencing of the target object. An explanation of the processes involved is proposed in terms of the specific functions of vocalisations at the end of the pre-linguistic stage, and of the role of interactive "formats" as contexts for learning communication strategies.
Socially Desirable Response Tendencies in Survey Research

Socially desirable responding (SDR) has been of long-standing interest to the field of marketing. Unfortunately, the construct has not always been well understood by marketing researchers. The authors provide a review of the SDR literature organized around three key issues—the conceptualization and measurement of SDR; the nomological constellation of personality traits, values, sociodemographics, and cultural factors associated with SDR; and the vexing issue of substance versus style in SDR measures. The authors review the current “state of the literature,” identify unresolved issues, and provide new empirical evidence to assess the generalizability of existing knowledge, which is disproportionately based on U.S. student samples, to a global context. The new evidence is derived from a large international data set involving 12,424 respondents in 26 countries on four continents.
Does group discussion attenuate the dispositional bias

Attribution researchers have considered the dispositional bias to be pervasive even though it has never been examined as a function of group discussion. Group discussion is a common context for attributions (e.g., jury deliberations) and there are reasons to expect such discussions to affect the bias. The current experiment examined this issue within an attitude attribution paradigm. Because group discussion necessitates a time delay between presentation of information and the attribution dependent measures, subjects in three control conditions were asked to estimate an essayist's attitudes after little deliberation, much deliberation, or after merely preparing for a discussion. The 472 male and female participants were assigned randomly to one of 16 conditions in a 2 (pro vs. con essay) × 2 (choice vs. no choice) × 4 (immediate judgment vs. delayed judgment vs. delayed plus anticipated discussion judgment vs. group discussion judgment) between-subjects factoral design. Results indicated that group discussion significantly attenuated the dispositional bias but neither prolonged deliberation nor anticipated discussion had such effects. The fact that actual discussion was required to eliminate the dispositional bias, rather than the mere anticipation of such discussion, suggests that there is something about the sharing of arguments that helps attributors to avoid the dispositional bias. Analyses of the discussion transcripts, however, failed to reveal the content of the arguments that produced the attenuation effect.
Historical fire and multidecadal drought as context for piñon-juniper woodland restoration in western Colorado.

Fire is known to structure tree populations, but the role of broad-scale climate variability is less clear. For example, the influence of climatic "teleconnections" (the relationship between oceanic-atmospheric fluctuations and anomalous weather patterns across broad scales) on forest age structure is relatively unexplored. We sampled semiarid piñon-juniper (Pinus edulis-Juniperus osteosperma) woodlands in western Colorado, U.S.A. , to test the hypothesis that woodland age structures are shaped by climate, including links to oceanic-atmospheric fluctuations, and by past fires and livestock grazing. Low-severity surface fire was lacking, as fire scars were absent, and did not influence woodland densities, but stand-replacing fires served as long-rotation (>400-600 years), stand-initiating events. Old-growth stands (>300 years old) were found in 75% of plots, consistent with a long fire rotation. Juniper and piñon age structures suggest contrasting responses during the past several centuries to dry and wet episodes linked to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Juniper density increased slightly during periods of drought, positive (warm) AMO (after approximately 10-year lag), and negative (cool) PDO. In contrast, piñon populations may still be recovering from a long, drought-filled period (AD 1620-1820), with pulses of recovery favored during cool AMO, warm PDO, and above-average moisture periods. Analysis of 20th-century tree establishment and instrumental climate data corroborate the long-term relationships between age structure and climate. After Euro-American settlement (AD 1881), livestock grazing reduced understory grasses and forbs, reducing competition with tree seedlings and facilitating climate-induced increases in piñons. Thus tree populations in these woodlands are in flux, affected by drought and wet periods linked to oceanic-atmospheric variability, Euro-American livestock grazing, and long-rotation, high-severity fires. Reductions in livestock grazing levels may aid ecological restoration efforts. However, given long-term fluctuations in tree density and composition, and expected further drought, thinning or burning to reduce tree populations may be misdirected.
Developing a Japanese version of the mental pollution questionnaire and examining the cognitions that contribute to mental contamination

Mental contamination is the experience of contamination-related feelings of dirtiness despite the absence of direct physical contact with a contaminant. These feelings of dirtiness may be evoked by unwanted thoughts and memories of negative events such as ill treatment or sexual assault. This paper is composed of two related studies. The aim of Study 1 (n = 202 for factor analysis; n = 81 for test–retest reliability) was to develop a Japanese version of the Mental Pollution Questionnaire (MPQ–J), an instrument for measuring mental contamination. The aim of Study 2 (n = 236) was to confirm this instrument’s psychometric properties and to test the hypothesis that cognitions related to responsibility and morality predict feelings of mental contamination. After conducting factor analyses, the final version of the MPQ–J yielded eight items and two subscales. The psychometric properties of the MPQ–J were verified by examining correlations with general psychopathology measures. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that cognitions related to responsibility and morality made unique contributions to MPQ–J scores after controlling for symptoms of contact contamination fears, depression, anxiety and personality traits. In conclusion, individuals with cognitions indicating an inflated sense of responsibility and high moral standards are at greater risk for mental contamination. Clinicians may find this helpful in identifying clients who are at risk for mental contamination.