Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The development of short-term and incidental memory: A cross-cultural study.

WAGNER, DANIEL A. The Development of Short-Term and Incidental Memory: A Crosscultural Study. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1974, 45, 389-396. 5 age groups (CA 7-9, 10-12, 1316, 20-21, ~ 27) of Ss were selected from 2 contrasting populations in urban and rural Yucatan. Whereas all urban Ss were in school, only the 2 younger rural age groups were in school--older rural Ss had little or no schooling. The Ss were tested on a short-term and incidental memory task. The developmental changes in memory performance of the urban-educated Ss were very similar to those reported for analogous tasks with American middle-class Ss. The performance of rural Ss did not show these consistent developmental changes. This fact, along with the results of several features of the data, support the hypothesis that formal schooling is an important factor in the development of mnemonic skills in short-term memory. Data from the incidental memory task implied that the development of selective attention is independent of short-term memory development and is probably influenced by both school and certain cultural factors.
Tangible bits: beyond pixels

Tangible user interfaces (TUIs) provide physical form to digital information and computation, facilitating the direct manipulation of bits. Our goal in TUI development is to empower collaboration, learning, and design by using digital technology and at the same time taking advantage of human abilities to grasp and manipulate physical objects and materials. This paper discusses a model of TUI, key properties, genres, applications, and summarizes the contributions made by the Tangible Media Group and other researchers since the publication of the first Tangible Bits paper at CHI 1997. http://tangible.media. mit.edu/
Groupe de Recherche en Économie et Développement International Cahier de recherche / Working Paper 10-04 Using an Almost Ideal Demand System in a Macro-Micro Modelling Context to Analyse Poverty and Inequalities

In this paper, we explore the contribution of introducing a flexible form for household consumption in a macro-micro modelling context for poverty and income distribution analysis. The almost ideal demand system exhibits interesting features allowing for the introduction of inter-household heterogeneity in a rigorous fashion. In order to illustrate the contribution of the AIDS system in the macro-micro modelling context, we perform a comparative analysis with an equivalent model using a LES demand system and a CGE with representative households including an AIDS. Results show the strong contribution of using an almost ideal demand system in a microsimulation context and its value added versus a linear expenditure system to analyse poverty and income distribution changes following a policy simulation. Keyworkds: Computable General Equilibrium Models, Estimation, Personal Income and Wealth Distribution, Measurement and Analysis of Poverty JEL Classification: I32, D31, C13, C68
An Improved Ant Colony Optimization Applied in Robot Path Planning Problem

an improved Ant colony optimization algorithm (PM-ACO for short) is proposed to solve the robot path planning problem. In PM-ACO, ants deposit pheromone on the nodes but not on the arcs, resulting in that the trails of pheromone become the form of marks, which consist of a series of pheromone points. After ant colony’s tours, the iteration-best strategy is combined with an r-best nodes rule to update the nodes’ pheromone. The stability of PM-ACO is analyzed and some advancement to the algorithm is proposed to improve the performance. Because the pheromone on several arcs is integrated into the pheromone on one node, a rapid pheromone accumulation occurs easily. It is the major causes to the instability. An r-best nodes rule is presented for regulating the pheromone distribution and an adaptive mechanism is designed to further balance the pheromone arrangement. In addition, to shorten the time wasted in constructing the first complete solution and get a better solution, an azimuth guiding rule and a one step optimization rule are used in local optimization. By establishing a grid model of the robot’s navigation area, PM-ACO is applied in solving the robot path planning. Experimental results show that an optimal solution of the path planning problem can be achieved effectively, and the algorithm is practical.
Occupational and nonoccupational factors associated with high grade bronchial pre-invasive lesions

Besides tobacco exposure, factors associated with the development of pre-invasive bronchial lesions are not known. Autofluorescence bronchoscopy was used to assess the prevalence of severe dysplasia and carcinoma in situ (SD/CIS) of the proximal bronchial tree in relation to occupational or nonoccupational carcinogen exposure. Among the 241 individuals in this study, the overall prevalence of at least one SD/CIS was 9% (21 subjects). Multivariable analysis revealed significant and independent associations between presence of SD/CIS and: 1) active smoking, relative to former smokers; 2) presence of synchronous invasive lung cancer; 3) duration of asbestos exposure and; 4) exposure to other occupational carcinogens. The independent associations of synchronous lung cancer with severe dysplasia and carcinoma, after adjusting for both occupational and nonoccupational carcinogen exposures, suggest other mechanisms than a field cancerisation may be involved in the carcinogenesis of these pre-invasive lesions. Moreover, active smokers, patients with recently resected invasive lung cancer and workers occupationally exposed to bronchial carcinogens may represent a population of choice for early cancer endoscopic detection programmes in view of their high severe dysplasia and carcinoma prevalence.
Empirical Comparison of Simple Sequence Repeats and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in Assessment of Maize Diversity and Relatedness

While Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs) are extremely useful genetic markers, recent advances in technology have produced a shift toward use of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The different mutational properties of these two classes of markers result in differences in heterozygosities and allele frequencies that may have implications for their use in assessing relatedness and evaluation of genetic diversity. We compared analyses based on 89 SSRs (primarily dinucleotide repeats) to analyses based on 847 SNPs in individuals from the same 259 inbred maize lines, which had been chosen to represent the diversity available among current and historic lines used in breeding. The SSRs performed better at clustering germplasm into populations than did a set of 847 SNPs or 554 SNP haplotypes, and SSRs provided more resolution in measuring genetic distance based on allele-sharing. Except for closely related pairs of individuals, measures of distance based on SSRs were only weakly correlated with measures of distance based on SNPs. Our results suggest that 1) large numbers of SNP loci will be required to replace highly polymorphic SSRs in studies of diversity and relatedness and 2) relatedness among highly-diverged maize lines is difficult to measure accurately regardless of the marker system.
First effects of a multicomponent treatment for sleep disorders in children

Insomnia in children is a common disorder, yet only few child-specific treatment modalities exist so far. The goal of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention program for children with insomnia at 5–10 years of age and their parents. The program was a structured six-session behavioral and hypnotherapeutic group treatment with three sessions for the children and three for their parents. Thirty-eight children (5.1–10.9 years) were randomly assigned to the specific treatment condition or waiting list plus sleep diary control condition. Twenty-two children participated in the treatment group and 16 in the control group. All children suffered from insomnia according to the International Classification of Sleep Disorders criteria. Sleep symptoms were assessed with a sleep diary and the German version of the Children Sleep Habit Questionnaire (CSHQ) and the Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children (SDSC). Although both conditions showed a significant decrease in several sleep symptoms, the treatment group exhibited a significantly greater improvement with regard to CSHQ and SDSC total scores as well as in several sleep parameters, reflecting the most important features of the intervention program, such as bedtime, sleep-related anxiety, night waking, and sleeping in parents’ bed. By contrast, the control group’s data revealed only unspecific effects. These pilot data suggest that insomnia in childhood can be treated effectively with this child-specific multicomponent group treatment.
Tough spiders

Spider graphs are the intersection graphs of subtrees of subdivisions of stars. Thus, spider graphs are chordal graphs that form a common superclass of interval and split graphs. Motivated by previous results on the existence of Hamilton cycles in interval, split and chordal graphs, we show that every 3/2‐tough spider graph is hamiltonian. The obtained bound is best possible since there are (3/2 – ε)‐tough spider graphs that do not contain a Hamilton cycle. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 56: 23–40, 2007
Survey of Promising Technologies for 5G Networks

As an enhancement of cellular networks, the future-generation 5G network can be considered an ultra-high-speed technology. The proposed 5G network might include all types of advanced dominant technologies to provide remarkable services. Consequently, new architectures and service management schemes for different applications of the emerging technologies need to be recommended to solve issues related to data traffic capacity, high data rate, and reliability for ensuring QoS. Cloud computing, Internet of things (IoT), and software-defined networking (SDN) have become some of the core technologies for the 5G network. Cloud-based services provide flexible and efficient solutions for information and communications technology by reducing the cost of investing in and managing information technology infrastructure. In terms of functionality, SDN is a promising architecture that decouples control planes and data planes to support programmability, adaptability, and flexibility in ever-changing network architectures. However, IoT combines cloud computing and SDN to achieve greater productivity for evolving technologies in 5G by facilitating interaction between the physical and human world. The major objective of this study provides a lawless vision on comprehensive works related to enabling technologies for the next generation of mobile systems and networks, mainly focusing on 5G mobile communications.
Detection of Rabies Antigen in the Saliva and Brains of Apparently Healthy Dogs Slaughtered for Human Consumption and Its Public Health Implications in Abia State, Nigeria

The study was carried out in eight dogs slaughtering outlets within four Local Government Areas of the State for the determination of rabies antigen in the saliva and brain of apparently healthy dogs slaughtered for human consumption. A total of one hundred (100) samples each of saliva and brain were collected before and after slaughter, respectively, between April to June, 2013, in the selected areas. The saliva was subjected to rapid immune-chromatographic test (RICT) while direct fluorescent antibody test (DFAT) was carried out on the brain samples. Structured questionnaire was administered to nineteen (19) dog meat processors comprising 18 males and 1 female in the selected areas. Sixty four percent of the samples tested were from female dogs while 36% were from males, 5% tested positive for rabies antigen with the use of both tests; there was no statistical association between sex and rabies status of the dogs sampled (P > 0.05). Butchers bitten during the course of slaughtering were 94.7% out of which 72.8% utilized traditional method of treatment and only 27.8% reported to the hospital for proper medical attention. This study has established the presence of rabies antigen in apparently healthy dogs in the study area.
Opportunistic Spectrum Access Using Partially Overlapping Channels: Graphical Game and Uncoupled Learning

This article investigates the problem of distributed channel selection in opportunistic spectrum access (OSA) networks with partially overlapping channels (POC) using a game-theoretic learning algorithm. Compared with traditional non-overlapping channels (NOC), POC can increase the full-range spectrum utilization, mitigate interference and improve the network throughput. However, most existing POC approaches are centralized, which are not suitable for distributed OSA networks. We formulate the POC selection problem as an interference mitigation game. We prove that the game has at least one pure strategy NE point and the best pure strategy NE point minimizes the aggregate interference in the network. We characterize the achievable performance of the game by presenting an upper bound for aggregate interference of all NE points. In addition, we propose a simultaneous uncoupled learning algorithm with heterogeneous exploration rates to achieve the pure strategy NE points of the game. Simulation results show that the heterogeneous exploration rates lead to faster convergence speed and the throughput improvement gain of the proposed POC approach over traditional NOC approach is significant. Also, the proposed uncoupled learning algorithm achieves satisfactory performance when compared with existing coupled and uncoupled algorithms.
Are Non-cardiac Surgeries Safe for Dialysis Patients? – A Population-Based Retrospective Cohort Study

Background End-stage renal disease represents a risk complex that complicates surgical results. The surgical outcomes of dialysis patients have been studied in specific fields, but the global features of postoperative adverse outcomes in dialysis patients receiving non-cardiac surgeries have not been examined. Methods Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database was used to study 8,937 patients under regular dialysis with 8,937 propensity-score matched-pair controls receiving non-cardiac surgery between 2004 and 2007. We investigated the influence of hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis, effects of hypertension and diabetes, and impact of additional comorbidities on postoperative adverse outcomes. Results Postoperative mortality in dialysis patients was higher than in controls (odds ratio [OR] 3.33, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.56 to 4.33) when receiving non-cardiac surgeries. Complications such as acute myocardial infarction, pneumonia, bleeding, and septicemia were significantly increased. Postoperative mortality was significantly increased among peritoneal dialysis patients (OR 2.71, 95% CI 1.70 to 4.31) and hemodialysis patients (OR 3.42, 95% CI 2.62 to 4.47) than in controls. Dialysis patients with both hypertension and diabetes had the highest risk of postoperative complications; these risks increased with number of preoperative medical conditions. Patients under dialysis also showed significantly increased length of hospitalization, more ICU stays and higher medical expenditures. Conclusion Surgical patients under dialysis encountered significantly higher postoperative complications and mortality than controls when receiving non-cardiac surgeries. Different dialysis techniques, pre-existing hypertension/diabetes, and various comorbidities had complication-specific impacts on surgical adverse outcomes. These findings can help surgical teams provide better risk assessment and postoperative care for dialysis patients.
What Happens to Drinking and Harms When Alcohol Policy Changes? A Systematic Review of Five Natural Experiments for Alcohol Taxes, Prices, and Availability

Natural experiments are an important alternative to observational and econometric studies. This paper provides a systematic review of empirical results from primary studies of alcohol policy interventions in five countries: Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Sweden, and Switzerland. Major policy changes were removal of limits on travellers’ tax-free imports and substantial alcohol tax reductions. A total of 55 articles are reviewed, which contain 78 results for alcohol consumption by various subpopulations, imports of alcohol, and evidence for alcohol-related acute- and chronic-harms. For each country, the review summarizes and examines: (1) history of policy interventions; (2) graphical trends for alcohol consumption and liver disease mortality; (3) empirical results for policy effects on alcohol consumption by subpopulations; and (4) empirical results for policy effects on alcohol-related harms. We also compare cross-country results for several outcomes, including binge drinking, alcohol consumption by youth and young adults, acute harms (assaults, drink-driving), and chronic harms (liver disease mortality, chronic hospitalizations). Overall, the review finds a lack of consistent results for consumption and harms both within- and across-countries, with a general finding that tax policy interventions had selective, rather than broad, impacts on subpopulations, drinking patterns, and alcohol-related harms. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.
Does Government Spending Crowd in Private Consumption?: Theory and Empirical Evidence for the Euro Area

In this paper, we revisit the effects of government spending shocks on private consumption within an estimated New-Keynesian DSGE model of the euro area featuring non-Ricardian households. Employing Bayesian inference methods, we show that the presence of non-Ricardian households is in general conducive to raising the level of consumption in response to government spending shocks when compared with the benchmark specification without non-Ricardian households. However, we find that there is only a fairly small chance that government spending shocks crowd in consumption, mainly because the estimated share of non-Ricardian households is relatively low, but also due to the large negative wealth effect induced by the highly persistent nature of government spending shocks. JEL Classification: E32, E62
Discussion of the evolution of the chloride migration coefficient of Portland cement concrete tested by the rapid chloride migration (RCM) test at long-term curing periods up to 5 years

Chloride-induced corrosion of reinforced concrete is one of the main deterioration mechanisms leading to shortening of the service life of concrete structures. Therefore, assessment of the resistance of concrete to chloride ingress plays an important role in predicting the service life of such structures. The Rapid Chloride Migration (RCM) test is one of the accelerated test methods commonly used in Europe. It is commonly assumed that for a properly cured Portland cement concrete without degradation, the chloride migration coefficient should decrease with increasing curing age due to on-going hydration and microstructure densification. However, recent experiments show that the rapid chloride migration coefficient of Portland cement concrete decreases at early curing age, but increases at later curing ages up to 5 years. In this paper, the evolution of the rapid chloride migration coefficient of Portland cement concrete during long-term curing periods up to 5 years is discussed. The test conditions for the RCM test and the test results obtained from RCM tests are described. Finally, possible causes for the increase in DRCM that occurred during late curing of the samples are investigated in order to explain this increase.
Validation studies for models projecting the risk of invasive and total breast cancer incidence.

BACKGROUND In 1989, Gail and colleagues developed a model for estimating the risk of breast cancer in women participating in a program of annual mammographic screening (designated herein as model 1). A modification of this model to project the absolute risk of developing only invasive breast cancer is referred to herein as model 2. We assessed the validity of both models by employing data from women enrolled in the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial. METHODS We used data from 5969 white women who were at least 35 years of age and without a history of breast cancer. These women were in the placebo arm of the trial and were screened annually. The average follow-up period was 48.4 months. We compared the observed number of breast cancers with the predicted numbers from the models. RESULTS In terms of absolute risk, the ratios of total expected to observed numbers of cancers (95% confidence intervals [CIs]) were 0.84 (0. 73-0.97) for model 1 and 1.03 (0.88-1.21) for model 2, respectively. Within the age groups of 49 years or less, 50-59 years, and 60 years or more, the ratios of expected to observed numbers of breast cancers (95% CIs) for model 1 were 0.91 (0.73-1.14), 0.96 (0.73-1. 28), and 0.66 (0.52-0.86), respectively. Thus, model 1 underestimated breast cancer risk in women more than 59 years of age. For model 2, the risk ratios (95% CIs) were 0.93 (0.72-1.22), 1.13 (0.83-1.55), and 1.05 (0.80-1.41), respectively. Both models exhibited a tendency to overestimate risk for women classified in the higher quintiles of predicted 5-year risk and to underestimate risk for those in the lower quintiles of the same. CONCLUSION Despite some limitations, these methods provide useful information on breast cancer risk for women who plan to participate in an annual mammographic screening program.
Inefficiency in Macroeconomic News Forecasts: Effects on Asset Prices and Asset Allocation Rules

This paper tests the efficiency of macroeconomic forecasts, contributing to the existing literature using a rolling-event approach. We construct a monthly economic surprises index, aggregating several macroeconomic news surprises for the nine largest economic areas (G9), which we further analyze the impact on stock, bonds and foreign exchange markets using monthly data. Consequently we extend both research branches mostly focused on efficiency analysis and event studies in macroeconomic news impact. Consistently with the slow adjustment of analysts to news, our results suggest the existence of persistent unexpected economic surprises, presenting a strong autocorrelation for the aggregated G9 economic areas and, individually for USA, Eurozone and Japan. Business cycle decomposition shows that this is more intense in recession phases. Moreover, we provide evidence of a significant relation between economic news surprises and the returns of bond and stock markets. At last, a comparative study of investment decisions and asset allocation rules is also provided, concluding that past economic surprises can be used to predict future returns, providing stronger hit-ratios and higher returns than buy-and-hold and auto-regressive based strategies.