Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
47 Moral Th inking

This chapter presents several current models of moral thinking, with a focus on the cognitive processes that support people’s moral judgments and justifications. These models are not mutually exclusive; rather, based on recent evidence from psychology and neuroscience, they posit different cognitive processes as the primary source of moral thinking. This chapter therefore does not quantify the evidence for one model versus another but instead reviews evidence for each model separately. These models, discussed in turn, emphasize the role of conscious principled reasoning, emotional processing, theory of mind, and a domain-specific “moral faculty” that integrates information from other cognitive systems to compute specifically moral judgments.
Using Genre Pedagogy to Teach Adolescent English Learners to Write Academic Persuasive Essays

The new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (NGACBP & CCSSO, 2010) require teachers to prepare all learners, including adolescent English learners (ELs), to develop academic literacy practices. Genre pedagogy may be one way to meet this goal. This article describes an instructional intervention in an urban public high school using the genre-based Reading to Learn (Rose & Martin, 2012) approach to teach 20 adolescent ELs to write academic persuasive essays. Results indicated a significant increase from pretest to posttest in participants' effective use of key academic linguistic resources that function to create persuasion. The findings suggest that the Reading to Learn approach may support adolescent ELs' development of academic literacy practices.
What is reinforcement sensitivity? Neuroscience paradigms for approach‐avoidance process theories of personality

Reinforcement sensitivity is a concept proposed by Gray (1973) to describe the biological antecedents of personality, and has become the common mechanism among a family of personality theories concerning approach and avoidance processes. These theories suggest that 2–3 biobehavioural systems mediate the effects of reward and punishment on emotion and motivation, and that individual differences in the functioning of these systems manifest as personality. Identifying paradigms for operationalising reinforcement sensitivity is therefore critical for testing and developing these theories, and evaluating their footprint in personality space. In this paper I suggest that, while traditional self‐report paradigms in personality psychology may be less‐than‐ideal for this purpose, neuroscience paradigms may offer operations of reinforcement sensitivity at multiple levels of approach and avoidance processes. After brief reflection on the use of such methods in animal models—which first spawned the concept of reinforcement sensitivity—recent developments in four domains of neuroscience are reviewed. These are psychogenomics, psychopharmacology, neuroimaging and category‐learning. By exploring these paradigms as potential operations of reinforcement sensitivity we may enrich our understanding of the putative biobehavioural bases of personality. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Central role for aldose reductase pathway in myocardial ischemic injury

Aldose reductase (AR), a member of the aldo‐keto reductase family, has been implicated in the development of vascular and neurological complications of diabetes. Recently, we demonstrated that aldose reductase is a component of myocardial ischemic injury and that inhibitors of this enzyme protect rat hearts from ischemia‐reperfusion injury. To rigorously test the effect of aldose reductase on myocardial ischemia‐reperfusion injury, we used transgenic mice broadly overexpressing human aldose reductase (ARTg) driven by the major histocompatibility complex I promoter. Hearts from these ARTg or littermate mice (WT) (n=6 in each group) were isolated, perfused under normoxic conditions, then subjected to 50 min of severe low flow ischemia followed by 60 min of reperfusion. Creatine kinase (CK) release (a marker of ischemic injury) was measured during reperfusion; left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP), end diastolic pressure (EDP), and ATP were measured throughout the protocol. CK release was significantly greater in ARTg mice compared with the WT mice. LVDP recovery was significantly reduced in ARTg mice compared with the WT mice. Furthermore, ATP content was higher in WT mice compared with ARTg mice during ischemia and reperfusion. Infarct size measured by staining techniques and myocardial damage evaluated histologically were also significantly worse in ARTg mice hearts than in controls. Pharmacological inhibition of aldose reductase significantly reduced ischemic injury and improved functional recovery in ARTg mice. These data strongly support key roles for AR in ischemic injury and impairment of functional and metabolic recovery after ischemia. We propose that interventions targeting AR may provide a novel adjunctive approach to protect ischemic myocardium. —Hwang, Y. C. , Kaneko, M. , Bakr, S. , Liao, H. , Lu, Y. , Lewis, E. R. , Yan, S. , Ii, S. , Itakura, M. , Rui, L. , Skopicki, H. , Homma, S. , Schmidt, A. M. , Oates, P. J., Szabolcs, M. , Ramasamy, R. Central role for aldose reductase pathway in myocardial ischemic injury. FASEB J. 18, 1192–1199 (2004)
On spectral properties of large dimensional correlation matrices and covariance matrices computed from elliptically distributed data

We place ourselves in the setting of high-dimensional statistical inference, where the number of variables p in a dataset of interest is of the same order of magnitude as the number of observations n. More formally we study the asymptotic properties of correlation and covariance matrices under the setting that p/n → ρ ∈ (0,∞), for general population covariance. We show that spectral properties for large dimensional correlation matrices are similar to those of large dimensional covariance matrices, for a large class of models studied in random matrix theory. We also derive a Marčenko-Pastur type system of equations for the limiting spectral distribution of covariance matrices computed from elliptically distributed data. The motivation for this study comes from the possible relevance of such distributional assumptions to problems in econometrics and portfolio optimization. From a theoretical standpoint, we show that our approach can be extended beyond elliptically distributed data to more general geometric frameworks. A mathematical theme of the paper is the important use we make of concentration inequalities.
Diagnostic evaluation of paediatric pulmonary hypertension in current clinical practice

Current paediatric pulmonary hypertension (PH) diagnostic algorithms include some testing specifically for paediatrics, but it is unclear if this is used in clinical practice. We describe the current diagnostic workup of the TOPP (Tracking Outcomes and Practice in Paediatric Pulmonary hypertension) registry for suspected PH. We investigated 456 patients enrolled until February 2010. The majority had ECGs (94%), echocardiograms (96%) and/or chest radiographs (89%) performed and these were the noninvasive tests most frequently used for evaluation of suspected PH. No patient had all three tests considered normal, suggesting the potential for the combined use to rule out PH. For evaluation of complications associated with heart catheterisation (HC) we analysed a total of 908 HCs reported until February 2012. Of these, 554 were at diagnosis and 354 in follow-up. Complications were reported in 5.9% with five deaths considered related to HC, suggesting a higher rate of HC complications compared to adult studies. However, current recommendations support HC in paediatric PH. A proper application of the risk/benefit ratio for HC requires further data. Most children did not undergo the diagnostic workup currently recommended for adults, which highlights either incomplete awareness of current guidelines and/or challenges their appropriateness for children. Most PH children don’t undergo full diagnostic evaluations; despite complications, catheterisation is used for diagnosis http://ow.ly/mx4GW
European MIMO PLC field measurements: Channel analysis

Utilization of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) principles improves throughput and reliability in particular of residential Power Line Communications (PLC) systems. This paper analyses the MIMO-PLC channels based on measurements obtained during the ETSI STF410 field measurement campaign in six European countries. STF410 recorded - among many other measurements - the transfer functions of all individual MIMO paths in frequencies up to 100 MHz. The channel analysis in this paper compares different MIMO configurations and investigates the attenuation, correlation and capacity of the MIMO-PLC channel.
The Effect of Correlations on the Fisher Information of Population Codes

We study the effect of correlated noise on the accuracy of population coding using a model of a population of neurons that are broadly tuned to an angle in two-dimension. The fluctuations in the neuronal activity is modeled as a Gaussian noise with pairwise correlations which decays exponentially with the difference between the preferred orientations of the pair. By calculating the Fisher information of the system, we show that in the biologically relevant regime of parameters positive correlations decrease the estimation capability of the network relative to the uncorrelated population. Moreover strong positive correlations result in information capacity which saturates to a finite value as the number of cells in the population grows. In contrast, negative correlations substantially increase the information capacity of the neuronal population.
Towards Maturity of the PASSI Process

Introduction The PASSI2 design process is the evolution of PASSI (Process for Agent Society Specification and Implementation) [44], it covers all the phases from the requirements analysis to the deployment configuration, coding, and testing. PASSI2, so as PASSI and all its evolution, is based on a meta-model describing the elements that constitute the system to be designed (agents, tasks, communications, roles) and what are the relationships among them. The importance of this description is in the lack of an universally accepted meta-model of MASs (differently from object oriented systems) that makes unclear any agent design process that does not precisely define the structure of the system it aims to produce. PASSI2 has been designed keeping in mind the possibility of designing systems with the following peculiarities: (i) highly distributed, (ii) subject to a (relatively) low rate of requirements changes, (iii) openness (external systems and agents that are unknown at design time will interact with the system to be built at runtime). Robotics, workflow management, and information systems are the specific application areas where it has been applied. As regards the implementation architecture, since we consider remarkably important the adoption (and enhancement) of standards for the diffusion of the agent-base software engineering, we decided to use the FIPA architecture although; this however, does not mean that PASSI cannot be largely applied for the design of non FIPA agents (like BDI ones). Actors involved in the design process are supposed to be designers with: • some experience of object-oriented design (using processes like the Unified Process [RUP,UP]). Starting from this requisite we propose a process that relies on common concepts like a functionality-oriented requirement analysis (differently from methodologies like Tropos [26] that is goal-based). This allows a smooth change towards AO approaches for a great number of already skilled designers that could profitably reuse their past experience without the significant slowdown induced by a remarkable change in their mental attitudes. • a good knowledge of UML and the use of related CASE tools. All the diagrams used in PASSI2 are based on the Unified Modeling Language and their syntax has been modified only to satisfy the needs of agents representation in a few limited cases. Sometimes the significance of their elements is mapped to agent-related concepts using stereotypes. • some kind of confidence with agent-oriented solutions. PASSI2 supports different levels of details and therefore it is recommended that the designer has some …
When Quality Beats Quantity: Decision Theory, Drug Discovery, and the Reproducibility Crisis

A striking contrast runs through the last 60 years of biopharmaceutical discovery, research, and development. Huge scientific and technological gains should have increased the quality of academic science and raised industrial R&D efficiency. However, academia faces a "reproducibility crisis"; inflation-adjusted industrial R&D costs per novel drug increased nearly 100 fold between 1950 and 2010; and drugs are more likely to fail in clinical development today than in the 1970s. The contrast is explicable only if powerful headwinds reversed the gains and/or if many "gains" have proved illusory. However, discussions of reproducibility and R&D productivity rarely address this point explicitly. The main objectives of the primary research in this paper are: (a) to provide quantitatively and historically plausible explanations of the contrast; and (b) identify factors to which R&D efficiency is sensitive. We present a quantitative decision-theoretic model of the R&D process. The model represents therapeutic candidates (e.g., putative drug targets, molecules in a screening library, etc.) within a “measurement space", with candidates' positions determined by their performance on a variety of assays (e.g., binding affinity, toxicity, in vivo efficacy, etc.) whose results correlate to a greater or lesser degree. We apply decision rules to segment the space, and assess the probability of correct R&D decisions. We find that when searching for rare positives (e.g., candidates that will successfully complete clinical development), changes in the predictive validity of screening and disease models that many people working in drug discovery would regard as small and/or unknowable (i.e., an 0.1 absolute change in correlation coefficient between model output and clinical outcomes in man) can offset large (e.g., 10 fold, even 100 fold) changes in models’ brute-force efficiency. We also show how validity and reproducibility correlate across a population of simulated screening and disease models. We hypothesize that screening and disease models with high predictive validity are more likely to yield good answers and good treatments, so tend to render themselves and their diseases academically and commercially redundant. Perhaps there has also been too much enthusiasm for reductionist molecular models which have insufficient predictive validity. Thus we hypothesize that the average predictive validity of the stock of academically and industrially "interesting" screening and disease models has declined over time, with even small falls able to offset large gains in scientific knowledge and brute-force efficiency. The rate of creation of valid screening and disease models may be the major constraint on R&D productivity.
What seems attractive may not always work well: Evaluative and cardiovascular responses to morality and competence levels in decision-making teams

People are particularly attracted to groups that value morality. However, in social and work life, team decision-making sometimes involves balancing moral considerations with achievement goals in ambiguous situations. We examined how the importance attached to morality and competence in experimentally created task teams influenced perceived team attractiveness and motivational responses. Results showed that team attractiveness was fully determined by value attached to morality in a team. However, cardiovascular responses revealed that when actually engaging in a team interaction where unanimous decisions had to be made about competing considerations, value attached to both morality and competence in a team influenced participants’ motivational states. Congruence between the value attached to morality and competence elicited adaptive challenge responses, while incongruence between these team features elicited maladaptive threat. These results have important theoretical and practical implications.
A numerical study of convection in rainbands of Typhoon Morakot (2009) with extreme rainfall: Roles of pressure perturbations with low-level wind maxima

Abstract. This paper investigates the formation and evolution of deep convection inside the east–west oriented rainbands associated with a low-level jet (LLJ) in Typhoon Morakot (2009). With the typhoon center to the northwest of Taiwan, the westerly LLJ occurred as a result from the interaction of typhoon circulation with the southwest monsoon flow, which supplied the water vapor for the extreme rainfall (of ~ 1000 mm) over southwestern Taiwan. The Cloud-Resolving Storm Simulator with 1 km grid spacing was used to simulate the event, and it successfully reproduced the slow-moving rainbands, the embedded cells, and the dynamics of merger and back-building (BB) on 8 August as observed. Our model results suggest that the intense convection interacted strongly with the westerly LLJ that provided reversed vertical wind shear below and above the jet core. Inside mature cells, significant dynamical pressure perturbations (p'd) are induced with positive (negative) p'd at the western (eastern) flank of the updraft near the surface and a reversed pattern aloft (> 2 km). This configuration produced an upward-directed pressure gradient force (PGF) to the rear side and favors new development to the west, which further leads to cell merging as the mature cells slowdown in eastward propagation. The strong updrafts also acted to elevate the jet and enhance the local vertical wind shear at the rear flank. Additional analysis reveals that the upward PGF there is resulted mainly by the shearing effect but also by the extension of upward acceleration at low levels. In the horizontal, the upstream-directed PGF induced by the rear-side positive p'd near the surface is much smaller, but can provide additional convergence for BB development upstream. Finally, the cold-pool mechanism for BB appears to be not important in the Morakot case, as the conditions for strong evaporation in downdrafts do not exist.
Random Forest for Malware Classification

The challenge in engaging malware activities involves the correct identification and classification of different malware variants. Various malwares incorporate code obfuscation methods that alters their code signatures effectively countering antimalware detection techniques utilizing static methods and signature database. In this study, we utilized an approach of converting a malware binary into an image and use Random Forest to classify various malware families. The resulting accuracy of 0.9562 exhibits the effectivess of the method in detecting malware
Performance of Dionaea muscipula as influenced by developing vegetation1

Abstract Demography, growth, and flowering of Dionaea muscipula (Venus' fly trap) were studied during three years (2003–2005) following prescribed fire. Data were collected in permanent quadrats where the developing vegetation was either repeatedly clipped or allowed to grow. Clipping increased light availability at the soil surface. Over the study period, seedling establishment and flowering declined with increasing time since the last prescribed burn. Seedling densities did not differ between clipped and control quadrats, although greater numbers of seedlings grew to adult size in control quadrats and this significantly influenced population size-class structure. Clipping had no effect on leaf number or senescence, but plants in control plots were larger and had marginally longer petioles. The plant populations initially mapped in 2003 showed a continuous decline throughout the study and this decline was punctuated by temporary senescence linked to drought conditions. Drought-induced senescence had a persistent influence on plant size. Relatively higher seedling recruitment to the adult population in control quadrats produced an overall population increase of 18% as compared to a 17% decline in the population from clipped quadrats. Dionaea muscipula may have limited ability to respond to increased light availability due to leaf development constraints and repeated drought-induced senescence. Fire-dependence may best be defined in terms of seedling establishment and stimulation of flowering. Consistent soil moisture is critical to Dionaea muscipula but the species has characteristics that allow persistence across a wide range of vegetation trajectories.
Polynomial interpolation from multiples

We are given an unknown polynomial <i>f</i> ∈ ℤ[<i>x</i>] by a black box which on input <i>a</i> ∈ ℤ returns a value <i>r</i><inf><i>q</i></inf> · <i>f</i>(<i>a</i>) for some unknown nonzero rational numbers <i>r</i><inf><i>a</i></inf>. If we have appropriate upper bounds on the numerator and denominator of <i>r</i><inf><i>a</i></inf> and the degree of <i>f</i>, then the coefficients of <i>f</i> can be computed in probabilistic polynomial time.
The multicast capacity of deterministic relay networks with no interference

The multicast capacity is determined for networks that have deterministic channels with broadcasting at the transmitters and no interference at the receivers. The multicast capacity is shown to have a cut-set interpretation. It is further shown that one cannot always layer channel and network coding in such networks. The proof of the latter result partially generalizes to discrete memoryless broadcast channels and is used to bound the common rate for problems where one achieves a cut bound on throughput.
The truth about cats and dogs

Template-based object detectors such as the deformable parts model of Felzenszwalb et al. [11] achieve state-of-the-art performance for a variety of object categories, but are still outperformed by simpler bag-of-words models for highly flexible objects such as cats and dogs. In these cases we propose to use the template-based model to detect a distinctive part for the class, followed by detecting the rest of the object via segmentation on image specific information learnt from that part. This approach is motivated by two ob- servations: (i) many object classes contain distinctive parts that can be detected very reliably by template-based detec- tors, whilst the entire object cannot; (ii) many classes (e.g. animals) have fairly homogeneous coloring and texture that can be used to segment the object once a sample is provided in an image. We show quantitatively that our method substantially outperforms whole-body template-based detectors for these highly deformable object categories, and indeed achieves accuracy comparable to the state-of-the-art on the PASCAL VOC competition, which includes other models such as bag-of-words.
The quintic nonlinear Schrödinger equation on three-dimensional Zoll manifolds

Let $(M,g)$ be a three-dimensional smooth compact Riemannian manifold such that all geodesics are simple and closed with a common minimal period, such as the $3$-sphere ${\Bbb S}^3$ with canonical metric. In this work the global well-posedness problem for the quintic nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation $i\partial_t u+\Delta u= \pm |u|^4u$, $u|_{t=0}=u_0$ is solved for small initial data $u_0$ in the energy space $H^1(M)$, which is the scaling-critical space. Further, local well-posedness for large data, as well as persistence of higher initial Sobolev regularity is obtained. This extends previous results of Burq-G\'erard-Tzvetkov to the endpoint case.