Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Emotional processes in risky and multiattribute health decisions

Objective: Here, we develop an integrative account of the roles of emotion in decision-making. In Part I, we illustrate how emotional inputs into decisions may rely on physiological signals from emotions experienced while making the decision, and we review evidence suggesting that the failure to represent the emotional meaning of options can often reduce decision quality. We propose that health-related decrements in the ability to generate emotional reactions lead people to inaccurately represent emotional responses and compromise decisions, particularly about risk. Part II explores complex decisions in which choice options involve trade-offs between positive and negative attributes. We first review evidence showing that difficult trade-off decisions generate negative affect and physiological arousal. Next, we propose that medical decision-making will be linked to short- and long-term stress and health outcomes. Conclusion: In sum, this article proposes and reviews initial evidence supporting the effective use and management of emotional inputs as important to both clinical and non-clinical populations. Our approach will contribute to the understanding of patient-centred emotional decision-making and will inform medical decision aids.
Environmental Neurotoxic Pesticide Increases Histone Acetylation to Promote Apoptosis in Dopaminergic Neuronal Cells: Relevance to Epigenetic Mechanisms of Neurodegeneration

Pesticide exposure has been implicated in the etiopathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD); in particular, the organochlorine insecticide dieldrin is believed to be associated with PD. Emerging evidence indicates that histone modifications play a critical role in cell death. In this study, we examined the effects of dieldrin treatment on histone acetylation and its role in dieldrin-induced apoptotic cell death in dopaminergic neuronal cells. In mesencephalic dopaminergic neuronal cells, dieldrin induced a time-dependent increase in the acetylation of core histones H3 and H4. Histone acetylation occurred within 10 min of dieldrin exposure indicating that acetylation is an early event in dieldrin neurotoxicity. The hyperacetylation was attributed to dieldrin-induced proteasomal dysfunction, resulting in accumulation of a key histone acetyltransferase (HAT), cAMP response element-binding protein. The novel HAT inhibitor anacardic acid significantly attenuated dieldrin-induced histone acetylation, Protein kinase C δ proteolytic activation and DNA fragmentation in dopaminergic cells protected against dopaminergic neuronal degeneration in primary mesencephalic neuronal cultures. Furthermore, 30-day exposure of dieldrin in mouse models induced histone hyperacetylation in the striatum and substantia nigra. For the first time, our results collectively demonstrate that exposure to the neurotoxic pesticide dieldrin induces acetylation of core histones because of proteasomal dysfunction and that hyperacetylation plays a key role in dopaminergic neuronal degeneration after exposure of dieldrin.
Training CNNs with Low-Rank Filters for Efficient Image Classification

We propose a new method for creating computationally efficient convolutional neural networks (CNNs) by using low-rank representations of convolutional filters. Rather than approximating filters in previously-trained networks with more efficient versions, we learn a set of small basis filters from scratch; during training, the network learns to combine these basis filters into more complex filters that are discriminative for image classification. To train such networks, a novel weight initialization scheme is used. This allows effective initialization of connection weights in convolutional layers composed of groups of differently-shaped filters. We validate our approach by applying it to several existing CNN architectures and training these networks from scratch using the CIFAR, ILSVRC and MIT Places datasets. Our results show similar or higher accuracy than conventional CNNs with much less compute. Applying our method to an improved version of VGG-11 network using global max-pooling, we achieve comparable validation accuracy using 41% less compute and only 24% of the original VGG-11 model parameters; another variant of our method gives a 1 percentage point increase in accuracy over our improved VGG-11 model, giving a top-5 center-crop validation accuracy of 89.7% while reducing computation by 16% relative to the original VGG-11 model. Applying our method to the GoogLeNet architecture for ILSVRC, we achieved comparable accuracy with 26% less compute and 41% fewer model parameters. Applying our method to a near state-of-the-art network for CIFAR, we achieved comparable accuracy with 46% less compute and 55% fewer parameters.
Public Forecast Information Sharing in a Market with Competing Supply Chains

Studying the operational motivation of a retailer to publicly announce his forecast information, this paper shows that by making forecast information publicly available to both his manufacturer and to the competitor, a retailer is able to credibly share his forecast information-an outcome that cannot be achieved by merely exchanging information within the supply chain. We model a market comprised of an incumbent supply chain facing the possible entry of a competing supply chain. In each supply chain, a retailer sources the product from a manufacturer, and the manufacturers must secure capacity prior to the beginning of the selling season. Due to the superior knowledge of the incumbent retailer about the consumer market, he privately observes a signal about the consumer's demand, which may be high or low. We first confirm that the retailer cannot credibly share this forecast information only with his manufacturer within the supply chain, since, regardless of the observed signal, the retailer has an incentive to inflate to induce the manufacturer to secure a high capacity level. However, when the information is also shared with the competitor, the incumbent retailer faces the trade-off between the desire to secure an ample capacity level and the fear of intense competition. By making information publicly available, it is possible to achieve truthful information sharing; an incumbent retailer observing a high forecast benefits from the increased capacity level to such an extent that he is willing to engage in intense competition to prove his accountability for the shared information. On the other hand, an incumbent retailer with a low forecast is not willing to engage in intense competition in exchange for the high level of capacity; thus, he truthfully reveals his low forecast to weaken competition. Moreover, we demonstrate that this public information sharing can benefit all the firms in the market as well as consumers. In addition, we show that compared to the advance purchase contract, all the firms except the incumbent manufacturer can be better off using public information sharing under a simple wholesale price contract. This paper was accepted by Yossi Aviv, operations management.
The Potentiality of Bodies

Theorizing embodiment has proved a major stumbling block in social psychology in recent times. Attempts have been made, such as the “discursive body” or the “regulated body,” but less attention has been placed upon incorporating a sense of movement and change within theories of the body. This paper seeks to conceptualize a potentialized body, utilizing Deleuzian theory, along with Massumi’s focus on potentiality. This is empirically driven through focus on the various ways in which mental health service users manage the somatic challenges presented by adhering to medication regimens, which involves a detailed empirical and conceptual engagement with accounts of medication taking. This culminates in the presentation of a move towards innovating social psychological engagement with embodiment theory and reveals greater insight into the difficulties presented in everyday life for service users drawn into complex medication regimen practices.
Efficacy of Multicultural Education for Preschool Children

The efficacy of multicultural curricula for the development of “racial expertise” was examined in 79 pre-school children. Children in preschools with multicultural and emergent curricula (n = 43) were compared with children in preschools with multicultural but no emergent curricula (n = 20) and children in preschools with neither multicultural nor emergent curricula (n = 16) in their responses to the Multi-Response Racial Attitude Scale and domain-specific measures of racial groups knowledge. Results suggest children in preschools with both multicultural and emergent curricula have more domain-specific racial knowledge but not less biased attitudes than other preschool children.
Managing leadership in university reform

The contemporary English policy discourse in higher education of ‘Putting Students at the Heart of the System’ has led to an increasing use of managing by performance ‘smart-data’ reinforcing a consumer-led representation of students as ‘partners’ in the ‘business of learning’ within the academy. This approach disguises ongoing fundamental changes to academic work by mixing an increased ‘market-driven’ transparency with ‘accountability’ in ‘institutional and organization management’, utilizing so-called research-led or evidence-informed practice. The policy discourse masks and limits any critique of such data production, or more particularly its purposes and uses, while perhaps yet more significantly, generating an associated ‘modernizing’ rhetoric impacting multiple levels of decision-making throughout the HE institution. Evidence from previous research into school sector reform as data-based decision-making became mainstreamed is used to support our prognosis for the future. Drawing upon documentary analysis of KIS (Key Information Sets) and other publicly available data, this article presents a critique of widespread institutional reform that is rapidly becoming reliant upon what we call ‘data-smart policy’. In conclusion, a series of emerging issues are identified as part of managing the way forward in meeting data access requirements, ensuring student satisfaction and consumer protection, while preserving intellectual values associated with substantive scholarship and sound academic leadership.
ClassSheets: automatic generation of spreadsheet applications from object-oriented specifications

Spreadsheets are widely used in all kinds of business applications. Numerous studies have shown that they contain many errors that sometimes have dramatic impacts. One reason for this situation is the low-level, cell-oriented development process of spreadsheets.We improve this process by introducing and formalizing a higher-level object-oriented model termed ClassSheet. While still following the tabular look-and feel of spreadsheets, ClassSheets allow the developer to express explicitly business object structures within a spreadsheet, which is achieved by integrating concepts from the UML (Unified Modeling Language). A stepwise automatic transformation process generates a spreadsheet application that is consistent with the ClassSheet model. Thus, by deploying the formal underpinning of ClassSheets, a large variety of errors can be prevented that occur in many existing spreadsheet applications today.The presented ClassSheet approach links spreadsheet applications to the object-oriented modeling world and advocates an automatic model-driven development process for spreadsheet applications of high quality.
Planetary bow shocks: Gasdynamic analytic approach

[1] A new analytical model of the bow shock surface is suggested for reasonably accurate and fast prediction of this boundary's position near obstacles of different shape. For axially symmetric obstacles the model was verified by comparison with experiments and results of gasdynamic code application for a wide range of upstream polytropic indexes, 1.15 < γ < 2, and Mach numbers, 1 < Ms < ∞. The model can also be used for prediction of the bow shock position around nonaxially symmetric obstacles.
Understanding Paper Recycling in an Institutionally Supportive Setting: An Application of the Theory of Reasoned Action

The Ajzen and Fishbein theory of reasoned action is employed to predict levels of paper recycling and to identify the socio-psychological factors which influence performance of this action. The faculty of a medium-sized northwestern public university where recycling opportunities are institution­ ally supported and convenient served as the survey population. The results lend strong support overall to the theory and demonstrate its utility for predicting and understanding individual actions such as source separationrecycling which could reduce environmental pollution and natural resource depletion. SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM The problems of resource depletion, pollution, paper consumption, and paper waste are serious and inseparable. While world waste paper consumption doubled between 1965 and 1982, recycling rates increased by only 4 percent, from 20 percent in 1965 to 24 percent in 1982 [1]. On the national level, during an average seventy-year lifetime, an average American will use directly or indirectly more than 19 tons of paper or approximately 600 pounds of paper per year [2, 3]. This rate of paper consumption is about nine times the world's average, and about forty-six times the rate in less developed nations—and results in millions of trees being cut down annually to satisfy the demand for paper products in the United States [2]. Yet the United States has one of the lowest recovery rates for paper
Big Math for Little Kids: The Effectiveness of a Preschool and Kindergarten Mathematics Curriculum

Research Findings: Big Math for Little Kids (BMLK) is a mathematics curriculum developed for use with 4- and 5-year-old children. To investigate the BMLK curriculum's effect on children's mathematics knowledge, this cluster-randomized controlled trial randomly assigned child care centers to provide mathematics instruction to children, using either the BMLK mathematics curriculum or the centers’ business-as-usual curriculum, over a 2-year period when children were in prekindergarten and kindergarten. Participants in the study were 762 children and their teachers at 16 publicly subsidized child care centers. The study assessed children's mathematics knowledge using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), Direct Mathematics Assessment, a measure of young children's mathematics knowledge that is not aligned with the curriculum. The ECLS-B scores of children in the BMLK group increased significantly more than did those of children in the comparison group. The study also included exploratory analyses to examine whether children in the BMLK group demonstrated evidence of improved mathematical language. Practice or Policy: These results indicate that the BMLK curriculum, which is designed to help teachers use play-based, developmentally appropriate mathematics instruction, has a positive impact on young children's mathematics knowledge as measured by a general mathematics assessment that is not aligned with the curriculum.
Acculturation and Parenting in First-Generation Chinese Immigrants in the United Kingdom

This study examined acculturation and parenting among 37 first-generation Chinese immigrant parents in the United Kingdom. The findings showed that these parents still felt stronger affiliation with the Chinese than with the English culture. There were also significant positive associations between their affiliation to Chinese culture and their Chinese-specific parenting as well as between their affiliation to English culture and authoritative parenting. However, the length of their U.K. residence did not affect their Chinese cultural identity or affiliation. These findings showed the strong cultural identity of Chinese immigrants to Britain and suggested that the parenting of Chinese immigrant parents may be modified in the course of acculturation.
Can you handle this?: Motor activity, preference, and the body specificity hypothesis

According to the Body-Specificity Hypothesis, experiences of habitual motor fluency cause people to associate positive valence with their dominant hand side and confer positive valence to items located on their dominant hand side (Casasanto, 2009). Can ongoing motor experience impact this association in the absence of visually lateralized stimuli? In Experiment 1, participants flipped cards using one hand and rated the image on each card with respect to how well it was described by positive or negative personal characteristics. Contrary to our predictions, participant’s ratings were not biased by the hand that they used during the trial. In Experiment 2, the task was almost entirely the same, though participants wore a slippery glove on their dominant hand to reduce the perceived motor fluency of the dominant hand. Again, participant’s ratings were not biased by the relative motor fluency of the hand used during the trial. Results indicate that ongoing motor activity may not be sufficient to activate body specific preferences in
The performance of a risk score as a screening test for undiagnosed hyperglycemia in ethnic minority groups: data from the 1999 health survey for England.

OBJECTIVE To assess the performance of the Cambridge Risk Score (CRS) to predict undiagnosed hyperglycemia in Caribbean and South Asian people living in the U.K. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The CRS uses routinely available data from primary care records to identify people at high risk for undiagnosed type 2 diabetes. The sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve for the CRS cut point of 0.199 were 77, 72, and 80% (95% CI 68-91), respectively. The risk score was calculated for 248 Caribbean and 555 South Asian participants aged 40-75 years in the 1999 Health Survey for England. Undiagnosed hyperglycemia was considered present if fasting plasma glucose was >/=7.0 mmol/l or HbA(1c) was >/=6.5%. Sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values were calculated for various cut points of the risk score, and ROC curves were constructed. RESULTS The area under the ROC curve was 67% (59-76) and 72% (67-78) for Caribbeans and South Asians, respectively. The optimal cut point in Caribbean participants was 0.236, sensitivity was 63% (46-77), and specificity was 63% (56-69). In the South Asian population, the optimal cut point was and 0.127, sensitivity was 69% (60-78), and specificity was 64% (60-69). CONCLUSIONS The CRS, using routinely available data, can be used in a strategy to detect undiagnosed hyperglycemia in Caribbean and South Asian populations. The existence of ethnic group-specific cut points must be further established in future studies.
Counselor Advocacy: Affecting Systemic Change in the Public Arena

This article provides direction for developing advocacy competency in the public arena. Direction for increasing public awareness, affecting public policy, and influencing legislation is presented. A process of creating change entailing establishing a sense of social/political urgency regarding an issue, organizing and educating a group of people to initiate social/political change, developing a vision and strategy for such change, communicating the vision for that change, empowering broad-based action, and generating actual change is detailed.
Adolescents' Coping With Frightening Mass Media

A total of 228 9th and 10th graders completed a questionnaire that measured (among other variables) the use and perceived effectiveness of strategies for coping with scary films (distraction, unreality, momentary avoidance, interpersonal comfort), coping style (monitoring, blunting), and two dimensions of empathy (empathic concern, personal distress). Regression analyses identified predictors of each strategy for coping with scary films. In general, the results for coping style were consistent with evidence that blunting is characterized by distraction or reinterpretation of scary events, whereas monitoring is characterized by attention to threat cues. With regard to empathy, results were consistent with expectations based on the other-oriented focus of empathic concern and the self-oriented focus of personal distress. Findings also suggested that effective coping may enhance empathic viewers' enjoyment of scary films. Finally, gender differences in coping were interpreted as evidence of gender role socialization of emotions.
Historical Control Data of Spontaneous Tumors in Transgenic CByB6F1-Tg(HRAS)2Jic (Tg.rasH2) Mice

The Tg.rasH2 mouse is a hemizygous transgenic mouse, approved by regulatory agencies for carcinogenicity assessment. However, the absence of a historical database for the incidence of spontaneous neoplasms has subsequently led to reluctance by some pharmaceutical companies to adopt the use of this short-term carcinogenicity assay. Our laboratory has generated a database summarizing the mortality, body weights, and the incidence of spontaneous tumors in 1420 male and female mice assigned to 26 studies conducted at our facility. In addition, we present the incidence of tumors in positive control mice treated with urethane from these studies. Mortality in the vehicle-treated Tg.rasH2 mouse was low (average of 1% in each study). The most common spontaneous tumors in the Tg.rasH2 mice were alveolar bronchiolar adenoma of the lungs (10.14% in males and 5.77% in females) and hemangiosarcoma of the spleen (3.66% in both males and females). The incidence of all other tumors was generally very low. In the positive control, urethane-treated animals, the incidence of alveolar bronchiolar adenomas and alveolar bronchiolar carcinomas in the lungs was 93.69% and 42.88% in males and 92.43% and 72.79% in females, respectively. In addition, the incidence of splenic hemangiosarcomas in urethane-treated males was 89.18% and 92.25% in females. The 6-month Tg.rasH2 assay is more precise, faster, and more economical than the conventional 2-year mouse assays because of the low incidence of background tumors, very high survival, shorter duration, and the lower number of animals used.
Half-Controlled Boost Rectifier for Low-Power High-Speed Permanent-Magnet Generators

Literature reports several future portable and distributed power supplies in the watt-to-kilowatt range based on rotating machinery equipped with a variable-speed permanent-magnet generator. In order to generate a constant direct-current output voltage, an ultracompact highly efficient low-power rectifier is required. A suitable concept, i.e., the half-controlled three-phase pulsewidth-modulation boost rectifier (HCBR), is analyzed in this paper. In previous literature, there is only limited information available, particularly concerning current stresses, common-mode characteristics, and operating principles. Therefore, the HCBR topology analysis is completed in this paper. Furthermore, a novel modulation scheme improving the power electronics efficiency is proposed using space-vector analysis. The integration into a compressed-air-to-electric-power system with a generator rotating at 350 000 r/min is presented, and the measurements verify the theoretical results with an efficiency increase of 2% for the novel modulation scheme.
Uniformly exponentially stable approximations for a class of second order evolution equations

We consider the approximation of a class of exponentially stable infinite dimensional linear systems modelling the damped vibrations of one dimensional vibrating systems or of square plates. It is by now well known that the approximating systems obtained by usual finite element or finite difference are not, in general, uniformly stable with respect to the discretization parameter. Our main result shows that, by adding a suitable numerical viscosity term in the numerical scheme, our approximations are uniformly exponentially stable. This result is then applied to obtain strongly convergent approximations of the solutions of the algebraic Riccati equations associated to an LQR optimal control problem. We next give an application to a non-homogeneous string equation. Finally we apply similar techniques for approximating the equations of a damped square plate.