Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Defects and D-Brane Monodromies

In this paper D-brane monodromies are studied from a world-sheet point of view. More precisely, defect lines are used to describe the parallel transport of D-branes along deformations of the underlying bulk conformal field theories. This method is used to derive B-brane monodromies in Kahler moduli spaces of non-linear sigma models on projective hypersurfaces. The corresponding defects are constructed at Landau-Ginzburg points in these moduli spaces where matrix factorisation techniques can be used. Transporting them to the large volume phase by means of the gauged linear sigma model we find that their action on B-branes at large volume can be described by certain Fourier-Mukai transformations which are known from target space geometric considerations to represent the corresponding monodromies.
Domain expertise insulates against judgment bias by monetary favors through a modulation of ventromedial prefrontal cortex

Recent work using an art-viewing paradigm shows that monetary sponsorship of the experiment by a company (a favor) increases the valuation of paintings placed next to the sponsoring corporate logo, an effect that correlates with modulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). We used the same art-viewing paradigm to test a prevailing idea in the domain of conflict-of-interest: that expertise in a domain insulates against judgment bias even in the presence of a monetary favor. Using a cohort of art experts, we show that monetary favors do not bias the experts’ valuation of art, an effect that correlates with a lack of modulation of the VMPFC across sponsorship conditions. The lack of sponsorship effect in the VMPFC suggests the hypothesis that their brains remove the behavioral sponsorship effect by censoring sponsorship-dependent modulation of VMPFC activity. We tested the hypothesis that prefrontal regions play a regulatory role in mediating the sponsorship effect. We show that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is recruited in the expert group. Furthermore, we tested the hypothesis in nonexpert controls by contrasting brain responses in controls who did not show a sponsorship effect to controls who did. Changes in effective connectivity between the DLPFC and VMPFC were greater in nonexpert controls, with an absence of the sponsorship effect relative to those with a presence of the sponsorship effect. The role of the DLPFC in cognitive control and emotion regulation suggests that it removes the influence of a monetary favor by controlling responses in known valuation regions of the brain including the the VMPFC.
Emotional speech synthesis with corpus-based generation of F0 contours using generation process model

A method was developed for the corpus-based synthesis of emotional speech. Fundamental frequency (F0) contours were synthesized by predicting command values of the generation process model using binary regression trees with the input of linguistic information of the sentence to be synthesized. Because of the model constraint, a certain quality is still kept in synthesized speech even if the prediction is done poorly. Prediction of the accent phrase boundaries for the input text, a necessary process for the synthesis, was also realized in a similar statistical framework. The HMM synthesis scheme was used to generate segmental features. The speech corpus used for the synthesis includes three types of emotional speech (anger, joy, sadness) and calm speech uttered by a female narrator. The command values of the model necessary for the training and testing of the method were automatically extracted using a program developed by the authors. For the better prediction, accent phrases where the automatic extraction was done poorly were excluded from the training corpus. The mismatches between the predicted and target contours for angry speech were similar to those for calm speech. Larger mismatches were observed for sad speech and joyful speech. Perceptual experiment was conducted using synthesized speech, and the result indicated that the anger could be well conveyed by the developed method.
Why do ethnic minority (Indian) children living in Britain display more internalizing problems than their English peers? The role of social support and parental style as mediators

The purpose of this paper was to examine explanatory mechanisms of differences in children's internalizing problems between ethnic minority (i.e., Indian) and ethnic majority (i.e., English) children living in Britain. Fifty-nine English children (31 girls) and 66 Indian children (30 girls), and their parents constituted the sample of this study. Both mothers and fathers reported on the children's internalizing problems, and provided reports of their own parenting style and social support. Analysis showed that maternal positivity, paternal negativity, and both parents’ reports of social support mediated the link between ethnicity and internalizing problems. Furthermore, according to the best-fitting structural equation model, ethnicity did not have a direct influence on children's internalizing problems, nor on parental style. Ethnicity instead predicted parental reports of social support. Social support, in turn, contributed to children's internalizing problems directly as well as indirectly through parenting style. Finally, although parenting style significantly influenced children's internalizing problems, social support was a much stronger contributor. The role of the distal as well as the proximal environments on children's adjustment is discussed.
The Effects of Salary on Willingness to Date

The purpose of the present experiment was to test the role of salary in date selection by men and women. Male and female college students ( N = 150) viewed pictures of the opposite sex and rated the target’s attractiveness and their own willingness to date the target. Varied among 3 conditions was the level of salary (i.e., $20,000, $60,000, and $100,000) listed. Statistical analyses yielded support for the hypothesis that as the target’s salary increased, a participant’s willingness to date the target would also increase. That is, as salary increased, both men’s and women’s willingness to date a target increased. We also found a significant main effect for the sex of participants; as salary increased, women’s willingness to date a person increased significantly more than men’s willingness.
Establishment of a Greek Food Database for Palaeodiet Reconstruction: Case Study of Human and Fauna Remains from Neolithic to Late Bronze Age from Greece

We review the stable isotopic data of recovered Greek bones from the Early Neolithic to the Late Bronze period in order to examine dietary changes over time. As an isotopic baseline we use the published fauna data of the periods. The analysis revealed a diet that included a significant proportion of foods based on C3 plants, and the bulk of the animal protein must have been provided by terrestrial mammals with a small but detectable proportion of marine protein for coastal and island populations. A more significant contribution of marine protein is observed for Bronze Age populations while the enrichment in both C and N isotopes is connected, for some areas, to the introduction of millet during the Bronze Age, and to freshwater consumption. An extensive database of Greek food sources is presented and compared to the fauna from the prehistoric periods (Early Neolithic to Late Bronze Age) of the literature. We propose that this database can be used in palaeodiet reconstruction studies.
Do urology journals enforce trial registration? A cross-sectional study of published trials

Objectives (1) To assess endorsement of trial registration in author instructions of urology-related journals and (2) to assess whether randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in the field of urology were effectively registered. Design Cross-sectional study of author instructions and published trials. Setting Journals publishing in the field of urology. Participants First, the authors analysed author instructions of 55 urology-related journals indexed in ‘Journal Citation Reports 2009’ (12/2010). The authors divided these journals in two groups: those requiring and those not mentioning trial registration as a precondition for publication. Second, the authors chose the five journals with the highest impact factor (IF) from each group. Intervention MEDLINE search to identify RCTs published in these 10 journals in 2009 (01/2011); search of the clinical trials meta-search interface of WHO (International Clinical Trials Registry Platform) for RCTs that lacked information about registration (01–03/2011). Two authors independently assessed the information. Outcome measures Proportion of journals providing advice about trial registration and proportion of trials registered. Results Of 55 journals analysed, 26 (47.3%) provided some editorial advice about trial registration. Journals with higher IFs were more likely to mention trial registration explicitly (p=0.015). Of 106 RCTs published in 2009, 63 were registered (59.4%) with a tendency to an increase after 2005 (83.3%, p=0.035). 71.4% (30/42) of the RCTs that were published in journals mentioning and requiring registration, and 51.6% (33/64) of the RCTs that were published in journals that did not mention trial registration explicitly were registered. This difference was statistically significant (p=0.04). Conclusions The existence of a statement about trial registration in author instructions resulted in a higher proportion of registered RCTs in those journals. Journals with higher IFs were more likely to mention trial registration.
Terminal Impact Angle Constrained Guidance Laws Using Variable Structure Systems Theory

In this brief, variable structure systems theory based guidance laws, to intercept maneuvering targets at a desired impact angle, are presented. Choosing the missile's lateral acceleration (latax) to enforce sliding mode, which is the principal operating mode of variable structure systems, on a switching surface defined by the line-of-sight angle leads to a guidance law that allows the achievement of the desired terminal impact angle. As will be shown, this law does not ensure interception for all states of the missile and the target during the engagement. Hence, additional switching surfaces are designed and a switching logic is developed that allows the latax to switch between enforcing sliding mode on one of these surfaces so that the target can be intercepted at the desired impact angle. The guidance laws are designed using nonlinear engagement dynamics for the general case of a maneuvering target.
Impact of Son Preference on Fertility Indices in Manipur

The societies with high fertility rate exposed very less rate of son preference over daughter. But the fertility decline has a linkage of greater demand for son than daughter. In Manipur, a high proportion i.e., 31.2% of married women want more sons than daughters according to NFHS-3 which is declining from that of 36.5% in NFHS-2 and 43.4% in NFHS-1, so that, the factors associated with desire of more sons have caused high fertility indices in the state. The objective of this study is to investigate the socio-demographic determinants of fertility differential and the third birth transition. This is a cross sectional, community based study of 1296 women and was conducted through a cluster sampling scheme in four valley districts of Manipur-Bishnupur, Imphal East, Imphal West and Thoubal. The multiple and logistic regression models are adopted in addition to the classical statistical tests. Results show that, the age at marriage, education, income, desire number of son, duration of marriage, infant mortality, etc,. have significant contribution on the variation of fertility indices. One of the most important determinants of the fertility indices is son preference which is quantified by desire number of son in one way or others. The son preference is most important factor among other socio-demographic determinants of fertility differentials in Manipur. The findings may be useful in community maternal health management.
Genetic origins of anxiety in women: a role for a functional catechol-O-methyltransferase polymorphism

Objective Women are more prone to anxiety than men. The catechol-O-methyltransferase functional polymorphism, Val158Met, is likely to be implicated in anxiety vulnerability. We hypothesized that, particularly in women, the low-activity Met158 allele would be associated with higher anxiety scores and a biological trait, low-voltage alpha resting electroencephalogram (EEG), previously associated with alcoholism and anxiety disorders. Methods DNA was obtained from two independent groups of participants ascertained as community samples: 149 predominantly Caucasian individuals (92 women, 57 men), and 252 Plains American Indians (149 women, 103 men). Dimensional measures of anxiety (Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire harm avoidance subscales HA1 and HA2) were obtained and DSM-III-R lifetime psychiatric diagnoses were determined. EEGs were recorded and EEG phenotypes assigned. Result In both populations, women showed significant associations between catechol-O-methyltransferase genotype and elevated harm avoidance scores, and the Met158/Met158 genotype was most strongly associated: predominantly Caucasian participants: HA1, P=0.03, HA2, P=0.03; and Plains American Indians: HA2, P=0.01. This was also the case with low-voltage alpha resting EEG: predominantly Caucasian participants: P=0.01, odds ratio=5.0 (95% confidence interval, 1.3–18.7); Plains American Indians: P=0.03, odds ratio=3.7 (95% confidence interval, 1.1–12.7). Conclusions The results of the present study suggest that an inherited difference in catecholamine metabolism is important in the pathogenesis of anxiety in women.
Universals in Judging Wrongdoing: Japanese and Americans Compared

Human judgment of wrongdoing underlies all social control processes. Substantively, we argue that a universal model of how humans make such judgments must allow for assessing both deeds of the actor being judgedand role-related social obligations governing what the actor should have done. Structurally, such a model can incorporate cross-cultural differences in terms of differential weights placed on these factors. The model was tested in sample surveys of Yokohama and Kanazawa, Japan, using responses to experimentally varied hypothetical vignettes. It was predicted that the Japanese would replicate previous findings for American respondents (in Detroit), but would at the same time differ significantly in their weighting of deed-related versus role-related variations in vignettes as determinants of an actor's responsibility. The bulk 9f results originally obtained in Detroit were in fact replicated in both Yokohama and Kanazawa. Predicted cultural differences were also confirmed in comparisons of each Japanese survey with the prior American one; Japanese placed greater emphasis on an actor's role position and an act's social context, relative to an American emphasis on aspects of an actor's deed per se. Further practical implications of these cultural differences for our legal system are also discussed.
Effect of Mastoid Oscillation on the Outcome of the Canalith Repositioning Procedure

Objective: The canalith repositioning procedure (CRP), as described by Epley, is a well‐established method of treatment for benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). Debate exists as to whether simultaneous application of a mastoid oscillator confers any added benefit. The aim of this study was to examine this question.
Age Differences in Perceptions of Control in Social Relationships

To date, few studies have examined perceptions of control in interpersonal relationships, and whether such perceptions reflect individual characteristics (e.g., age) and features of relationships (e.g., quality). One hundred and eighty-seven individuals aged 13 to 99 (M = 45.62, SD = 25.69) provided information about their close and problematic relationships and their perceptions of control over those relationships. Multilevel modeling revealed that both relationship features and individual characteristics were associated with perceptions of control in relationships. Specifically, individuals felt more control in their marital relationships, and in relationships characterized by higher quality and fewer worries. Age differences in individuals' perceptions of control in relationships appear to reflect age-related shifts in perceptions of control in the parent-child tie.
The Interpretive Approach in Political Science: a Symposium 1

One might perhaps expect to find interpretive methodology occupying a strong and secure place in British political science. With its origins in philosophy and history (see Kavanagh 2003) British political studies never fully or exclusively embraced behaviourism or subsequent positivist methodologies. Interpretivism represents the major alternative for social science in which, as Weber declared, ‘we are concerned with mental phenomena the empathic “understanding” of which is naturally a task of a specifically different type from those which the schemes of the exact natural sciences in general can seek to solve’ (quoted in Giddens 1971, 146). But interpretivism does not have a secure footing in British political studies. 2 The systematic explication of political phenomena through interpretive concepts and methods, despite some notable attempts and a growing intensity of focus, is still at an early stage of development (see Carver and Hyvarinen 1997; ECPR 2002). In the academic study of contemporary British government interpretivism is not at all widespread. Are things about to change? Recent methodological disputes in British political science map on to broader debates about how the structure and process of British government might or might not be changing (see, for example, Marsh and Smith 2001; Dowding 2001; Hay 2002). If we are in the midst of a shift from top-down ‘command and control’ to a looser framework of ‘governance’, then the time of interpretivism may well have arrived. But methodological arguments are always about more than method. They map on to and can define broader debates concerning what government is, how it works and whether or not it is changing. The publication of Mark Bevir and Rod Rhodes’ Interpreting British Governance (2003), which advocates and demonstrates the analysis of governance using interpretive theories and methods, is a significant development in these debates. Interpreting British Governance is an attempt to bring together some philosophically derived themes about context, agency and tradition with political science research into the conduct of governance in Britain today. As such it presents an opportunity to review the questions raised by interpretivism, put them into the broader contexts of methodological argument and assess the contribution this all makes to the analysis of British politics. In what follows Bevir and Rhodes begin by laying out the basics of their post-foundational approach to studying governance. They stress the significance of traditions in shaping actions, even as those traditions are reshaped by the ways in which people act. They use this to help make sense of a shift from government to governance: a revision of the ‘Westminster model’. BJPIR: 2004 VOL 6, 129‐164
Differential Myeloma Cell Responsiveness to Interferon-α Correlates with Differential Induction of p19INK4d and Cyclin D2 Expression*

Interferon-α (IFN-α) has been used as therapy for the treatment of a variety of viral diseases and malignancies including multiple myeloma. The effectiveness of interferon-α in treating multiple myeloma, however, has been somewhat variable, and the mechanism(s) accounting for this is not well understood. As a means to examine the basis for the differential effectiveness of this cytokine, we have analyzed IFN-α-mediated modulation of the cell cycle in two human myeloma cell lines. These two cell lines, ANBL-6 and KAS-6/1, display dramatically different outcomes in response to this cytokine. Although IFN-α inhibited the growth of ANBL-6 cells by blocking cell cycle progression from G0/G1 to S phase, IFN-α stimulated cell cycle progression in KAS-6/1 cells. Moreover, the effects of IFN-α on cell cycle progression correlated with the phosphorylation status of the retinoblastoma protein. Of interest, IFN-α increased cyclin D2 expression and cyclin-dependent kinase activity in the KAS-6/1 cells but not in the ANBL-6 cells. To determine whether the differential effects of IFN-α on myeloma cell cycle progression could also result from differences in the expression of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors, we examined the effects of IFN-α on the induction of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors with broad regulatory function (p21 and p27) and those with specificity for G1-associated cyclin-cyclin-dependent kinase complexes (p15, p16, p18, and p19). Although we failed to detect an effect of IFN-α on expression levels of p21, p15, p16, or p18, IFN-α treatment of the ANBL-6 cell line resulted in induction of p19 expression, whereas it was without effect on the KAS-6/1 cell line. These results suggest that heterogeneity in IFN-α-mediated growth effects in myeloma cells correlates with differential induction of cyclin D2 and p19INK4d expression.
Botswana English: implications for English language teaching and assessment

Concerted efforts to characterise Botswana English (BE), though still referred to as ‘a variety in development’, have validated its existence. However, the teaching and assessment of English in the high schools do not seem to have responded to the development of this variety. This paper discusses the viability of using Standard British English as the model for teaching and assessing students’ proficiency in high schools in Botswana. It examines the country's education focusing on language policy, the teaching methodology advocated in schools and teachers’ preparedness and how these factors affect English language teaching and assessment. It also highlights areas of contradiction in policy documents regarding the teaching methodology and the model/variety taught and examined. The paper then proposes the recognition of BE as an appropriate model/variety for instruction in schools in Botswana, noting that this will not only eliminate the contradictions in the current English language teaching and assessment syllabi, but also reflect some of the ways by which English mirrors the linguistic ecology of the country.
Chemosensory signaling in C. elegans

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans can sense and respond to hundreds of different chemicals with a simple nervous system, making it an excellent model for studies of chemosensation. The chemosensory neurons that mediate responses to different chemicals have been identified through laser ablation studies, providing a cellular context for chemosensory signaling. Genetic and molecular analyses indicate that chemosensation in nematodes involves G protein signaling pathways, as it does in vertebrates, but the receptors and G proteins involved belong to nematode‐specific gene families. It is likely that about 500 different chemosensory receptors are used to detect the large spectrum of chemicals to which C. elegans responds, and one of these receptors has been matched with its odorant ligand. C. elegans olfactory responses are also subject to regulation based on experience, allowing the nematode to respond to a complex and changing chemical environment. BioEssays 21:1011–1020, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.