Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FACTORS AFFECTING THE PROCESSING OF JAPANESE RELATIVE CLAUSES BY L2 LEARNERS

This article reports on a crosslinguistic comparative study of the processing of Japanese relative clauses (RCs) by Chinese-, Sinhalese-, Vietnamese-, Thai-, and Indonesian-speaking second language (L2) learners. A robust finding in studies on the acquisition of RCs in L2 English and other European languages is that subject-gap RCs are easier than object-gap RCs, both in production and comprehension. However, in the case of L2 Japanese studies, the picture does not seem to be as clear as in the English case. This study identifies some factors that might contribute to this situation. The results of a listening comprehension test involving reversible and nonreversible test sentences show that the five groups of learners overall found subject-gap RCs easier to process than object-gap RCs, but that their performances are poor and vary for sentence types in which no semantic cue is available to help identify the grammatical function of the overt noun phrase in RCs, yielding inconclusive results with respect to the question of whether subject-gap RCs are easier than object-gap RCs. Results indicate that when RCs are too difficult for learners to process, first language properties such as head direction, word order, and the relative order of filler and gap affect the manner in which they are interpreted.I am grateful to Stephen Matthews, William O'Grady, Yasuhiro Shirai, and the anonymous SSLA reviewers for their valuable comments. I would also like to thank Chisako Umeda for her help in collecting data.
Of Cannibals, Missionaries, and Converts: Graphing Competencies from Grade 8 to Professional Science Inside (Classrooms) and Outside (Field/Laboratory)

To date, little is known about when and to what degree science students begin to participate in authentic scientific graphing practices. This article presents the results of a series of studies on the production, transformation, and interpretation of graphical representation from Grade 8 to professional scientific practice both in formal testing situations (inside) and in the course of field/laboratory work (outside). The results of these studies can be grouped into two major areas. First, there is a discontinuity in the graph-related practices that marks a boundary between people who engage in work that requires them to transform data into graphical representations (converted) and people who do not have such experiences (cannibals). Second, the didactic practices of high school textbooks and university lectures exhibit a marked discontinuity relative to graphing practices in scientific journals. Graphs used in didactic circumstances may be associated with students’ difficulties in interpreting “real data. ” It appears that school teachers and university professors (missionaries) do little to put their students on trajectories of increasing participation in authentic scientific graphing practices.
Cost-effectiveness of caspofungin versus liposomal amphotericin B in the treatment of systemic fungal infections: a systematic review of economic analyses

ABSTRACT Introduction: The treatment of fungal infections in severely ill patients is a clinical and economic challenge worldwide. Liposomal amphotericin B and caspofungin are highly effective antifungal drugs; however, they are very expensive and health systems must select the drug that results in the best clinical outcomes and is economically feasible. Areas covered: A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Health Economic Evaluation Database, and Centre for Review and Dissemination to find complete economic evaluations that directly compared the two treatment strategies. Expert commentary: Because of the high cost, patients in developing countries experience difficulty accessing highly effective treatments. These data can subsidize a decision for an effective antifungal treatment with reduced costs from all perspectives.
BUILDING LAYOUTS AS COGNITIVE DATA: PURVIEW AND PURVIEW INTERFACE

This paper offers a computational description and provisional statistical profile of properties of building layouts that contribute to making them intelligible. Buildings are arrangements of boundaries that demarcate interior space according to the organization of human life and activity. At the same time a building is usually a continuously connected interior. Thus, the implicit question addressed in practice by the design of every building layout is as follows: how can spatial demarcation and differentiation be consistent with our capacity to cognitively map a building as a whole? Everyday experience suggests that spaces with characteristic names such as corridors, courtyards, atria, halls and hallways act as references. They provide us with a more expansive visual field than the rooms devoted to particular uses; more importantly, they often afford an overview of the connections to adjoining spaces. This is generalized by the idea of the purview interface: the interface between ordinary spaces confining perception to a limited part of the interior, and prominent spaces providing overview not only of area but also of 11 Building layouts as CognitiVe data connections. The purview interface can function as a rudimentary foundation of layout intelligibility. I show that prominent overview spaces are strategically distributed so that all other spaces are only very few visual turns away from the nearest overview space. The strategic distribution of overview spaces limits the minimum number of turns around corners that are necessary in order to move between any two spaces in the building. This affords anchoring cognitive maps on overview spaces which can act as effective references when navigating between any two spaces.
Survey-based assessment of the relationship between cognitive impairment and mentally stimulating activity in multiple sclerosis

Abstract Objectives: Cognitive impairment (CI) is a common and potentially debilitating component of the disease course in multiple sclerosis (MS). However, therapeutic options remain limited. It is unknown whether cognitively enriching activities reduce the burden of CI in patients with MS, as is found in other neurologic diseases affecting cognition. The aim of this study was to determine whether participation in cognitively enriching activities decreased self-reported CI in MS patients. Methods: CI and activity levels were reported through electronic surveys completed by MS patients at the Cleveland Clinic. Responses were analyzed by univariable and multivariable regressions to identify factors associated with lower CI. Results: We received 316 survey responses. Use of an assistive device (β = 4.09; P = 0.033) and Internet use (β = 11.9; P = 0.017) were associated with higher reported CI, while employment correlated with reduced CI (β = −7.97; P < 0.0001). None of the cognitive activities surveyed were found to reduce CI. Discussion: This study did not identify a significant impact of cognitively enriching activities on reducing CI, suggesting that other prophylactic or therapeutic approaches should be investigated. A small portion of the population surveyed reported no or minimal CI, suggesting the existence of a resilient population.
A Reassessment of the Echocardiogram in Mitral Stenosis

Echocardiographic and cardiac catheterization findings were compared in 61 patients with mitral stenosis without other significant lesions in an attempt to determine the clinical usefulness of echocardiography in the assessment of such patients. There was a poor correlation between the E-F slope on the echocardiogram and the calculated mitral valve area (r = 0.51). A review of reported data relating the E-F slope to mitral valve area indicated that echocardiographic assessment of mitral valve area had a low sensitivity and specificity. The amplitude of excursion of the anterior leaflet did not differ significantly in patients undergoing valvotomy and those undergoing valve replacement. The data obtained suggest that while the echocardiogram is a reliable method of diagnosing mitral stenosis, the E-F slope is an unreliable index of the severity of the lesion.
College students’ motivation and learning strategies profiles and academic achievement: a self-determination theory approach

The development of effective self-regulated learning strategies is of interest to educationalists. In this paper, we examine inherent individual difference in self-regulated learning based on Motivated Learning for Learning Questionnaire (MLSQ) using the cluster analytic approach and examine cluster difference in terms of self-determination theory related variables. The sample of the study consisted of 238 junior college students from 12 intact classes. Two adaptive clusters and two maladaptive clusters were uncovered based on the MLSQ, with the adaptive clusters showing better academic grades. Results from the one-way MANOVA showed that the four clusters differed significantly in terms of their needs satisfaction, behavioural regulations, enjoyment, effort and value. The findings supported the importance of needs satisfaction in the development of self-regulated learning behaviour.
Peer Victimization and Social Dominance as Intervening Variables of the Link Between Peer Liking and Relational Aggression

The current study examined social dominance and peer victimization as possible intervening and moderating variables of the association between peer liking and relational aggression because previous findings suggest that social dominance and peer victimization are important for predicting the acceptableness and success of aggression. A total of 367 5th- and 6th-grade students from Quebec, Canada, completed peer ratings of their classmates on measures of peer liking, relational aggression, social dominance, and peer victimization. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated that peer victimization worked as a mediator and a moderator, such that victimization explained the link between peer liking and relational aggression, and that this association was only significant at high levels of peer victimization. Alternatively, social dominance worked as a suppressor, with the link between peer liking and relational aggression becoming stronger once social dominance was controlled in the multiple regression. Social dominance did not moderate the same association.
Induction of macrophage inflammatory protein 2 gene expression by interleukin 1 beta in rat lung.

BACKGROUND--Recruitment of inflammatory cells in the lungs may contribute to tissue injury as a result of mediators released from these cells. Interleukin 1 beta (IL-1 beta) is a potent inducer of neutrophil accumulation, a process that may require local protein biosynthesis. Macrophage inflammatory protein 2 (MIP-2) is a approximately 6 kD heparin binding protein and is a member of the C-X-C superfamily that causes significant neutrophil chemotaxis and activation in vitro. A study was performed to determine whether IL-1 beta could induce the expression of MIP-2 in the lungs of Brown-Norway rats. METHODS--rhIL-1 beta (500 U) or 0.9% NaCl was injected intratracheally and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cells and lung tissues were evaluated for MIP-2 mRNA expression after RNA extraction by Northern blot analysis. MIP-2 probe was prepared from cDNA obtained by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) of BAL cells obtained from a rat treated with lipopolysaccharide. RESULTS--There was no detectable MIP-2 mRNA in the lungs of control rats but a marked enhancement of the expression at four hours with no expression at 12 hours and a slight expression at 24 hours. IL-1 beta induced a significant influx of neutrophils into BAL fluid with a transient increase in macrophages. In situ hybridisation of lungs using MIP-2 cDNA probe labelled with digoxigenin showed expression of MIP-2 mRNA in airway mononuclear cells and airway epithelium at four hours after IL-1 beta; at 24 hours the signal had nearly gone. CONCLUSION--IL-1 beta induces the expression of MIP-2 mRNA in rat lung. MIP-2 may be one chemokine that could contribute to IL-1 beta induced neutrophil influx.
Programmed cell death in a human intestinal parasite, Blastocystis hominis

Although programmed cell death (PCD) has been associated with multicellular organisms, there have been more reports of its presence in some protozoans. Our study shows the existence of PCD in an intestinal protozoan, Blastocystis hominis. Light and electron microscopy, biochemical and flow cytometry studies showed apoptosis-like death in B. hominis cells exposed to a cytotoxic monoclonal antibody (MAb 1D5). B. hominis cells displayed key morphological and biochemical features of apoptosis, namely, nuclear condensation and in situ fragmentation, reduced cytoplasmic volume, some externalization of phosphatidylserine and maintenance of plasma membrane integrity. No oligonucleosomal DNA laddering was observed in gel electrophoresis. This study supports earlier observations that the cellular machinery that is required to carry out PCD may have existed before the advent of multicellularity. Our study also ascribes a novel function for the B. hominis central vacuole in apoptosis; it acts as a repository where apoptotic bodies are stored before being released into the extracellular space.
Parents' Preferences for Return of Results in Pediatric Genomic Research

Background: The aim of this study was to ascertain parental preferences for the return of genetic research results on themselves and their children and their choices for genetic research results to receive. Methods: A mail survey was sent to 6,874 families seen at Boston Children's Hospital. The survey included questions assessing the respondents' preferences regarding the types of result they wanted to receive on themselves and their children. Results: Most of the 1,060 respondents ‘probably' or ‘definitely' wanted to receive genetic research results about themselves (84.6%) and their children (88.0%). Among those who wanted to receive results, 83.4% wanted to receive all research results for themselves and 87.8% for their children. When questions about specific types of research results were combined into a composite measure, fewer respondents chose to receive all results for themselves (53.5%) and for their children (56.9%). Conclusion: Although most parents report a desire to receive all research results on a general question, almost half chose to receive only a subset of research results when presented with specific types of research results. Our findings suggest that participants might not understand the implications of their choice of individual research results to receive unless faced with specific types of results.
The motor system does not learn the dynamics of the arm by rote memorization of past experience.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the learning mechanisms underlying motor adaptation of arm movements to externally applied perturbing forces. We considered two alternative hypotheses. According to one, adaptation occurs through the learning of a mapping between the states (positions and velocities) visited by the arm and the forces experienced at those states. The alternative hypothesis is that adaptation occurs through the memorization of the temporal sequence of forces experienced along specific trajectories. The first mechanism corresponds to developing a model of the dynamics of the environment, whereas the second is a form of "rote learning. " Both types of learning would lead to the recovery of the unperturbed performance. We have tested these hypotheses by examining how adaptation is transferred across different types of movements. Our results indicate that 1) adaptation to an externally applied force field occurs with different classes of movements including but not limited to reaching movements and 2) adaptation generalizes across different movements that visit the same regions of the external field. These findings are not compatible with the hypothesis of rote learning. Instead, they are consistent with the hypothesis that adaptation to changes in movement dynamics is achieved by a module that learns to reproduce the structure of the environmental field as an association between visited states and experienced forces, independent of the kinematics of the movements made during adaptation.
A High-Throughput Computational Framework for Identifying Significant Copy Number Aberrations from Array Comparative Genomic Hybridisation Data

Reliable identification of copy number aberrations (CNA) from comparative genomic hybridization data would be improved by the availability of a generalised method for processing large datasets. To this end, we developed swatCGH, a data analysis framework and region detection heuristic for computational grids. swatCGH analyses sequentially displaced (sliding) windows of neighbouring probes and applies adaptive thresholds of varying stringency to identify the 10% of each chromosome that contains the most frequently occurring CNAs. We used the method to analyse a published dataset, comparing data preprocessed using four different DNA segmentation algorithms, and two methods for prioritising the detected CNAs. The consolidated list of the most commonly detected aberrations confirmed the value of swatCGH as a simplified high-throughput method for identifying biologically significant CNA regions of interest.
Spin Transfer Torque Driven Coupled Oscillators for Self-Oscillating Radio- Frequency Mixers

Spin transfer torque oscillators (STOs) based on magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) devices are emerging as a possible replacement for complementary metal-oxide semiconductors for radio-frequency (RF) signal generation. Advantages include low power consumption, small device area, and large frequency tunability. But single such devices cannot achieve the necessary noise performance for RF applications. It has been reported lately that a network of globally coupled STOs achieves significant improvement in phase noise. The study here is to propose use of such coupled STOs as self-oscillating RF mixers. Critical mixer performance parameters, including conversion gain, output power, and linearity, are discussed.
Quality of Foreign Direct Investments under country risk with incomplete markets

Empirical research shows that FDI is not necessarily an indication of good health of an economy; on the contrary riskier countries with less developed financial markets and weak institutions tend to attract less capital, but more in the form of FDI. As incomplete capital markets impose a liquidity constraint on firms from these economies, less constrained foreign investors tend to have an advantage over domestic firms in acquiring financial resources. Thus increasing foreign ownership under incomplete debt markets can add a virtual value to the domestic firm not exploitable by domestic investors. Foreign ownership however does not mean that firms become more efficient in their operations. To achieve this, foreign investors must acquire some minimum level of knowledge about the operation of the domestic firm. As the market for knowledge is also incomplete one cannot assume that control of residual rights indicates also control of the necessary intangible assets of operation. I therefore extend the pure liquidity analysis with the effects of non-contractible intangibles, opening up a new dimension in the analysis of the motives behind FDI and enabling the assessment of its quality. Using a continuous time stochastic setting that incorporates country risk, differentiated knowledge base, borrowing constraints and bankruptcy costs for foreign and domestic investors, it is possible to show that foreign residual control depends on the transparency of the target economy as well as the knowledge base of its investors. This approach also enables us to examine the differences between portfolio and classical FDI decisions, by assuming that portfolio type investments involve less specific intangibles. In accordance with the empirical evidence the model predicts riskier economies to attract FDI which is not welfare improving thus showing the properties of simple portfolio investments. These can also explain why in some countries although foreign investments appear in high magnitudes, the safe form of FDI is not present. Finally, this framework explains why the top FDI receivers predominantly consist of ‘safe’ economies.
Platelet Count and Early Outcome in Patients with Spontaneous Cerebellar Hemorrhage: A Retrospective Study

Introduction The importance of coagulation, hematology, and biochemical variables have been investigated in the stroke population but have not been systemically surveyed in cerebellar hemorrhage (CH) population. The aim of the study was to explore the predictive value of these factors for early outcome in this population. Materials and Methods Eighty patients with acute spontaneous CH were retrospectively analyzed. Clinical and laboratory data were collected on admission for analysis. The patients were divided by Glasgow outcome scale (GOS) score at discharge into the good outcome group (GOS score 4 or 5) and the poor outcome group (GOS score 1, 2, or 3). The association between early outcome and clinical or laboratory variables were investigated by binary logistic regression. Results There were 46 (57.5%) patients in the poor outcome group and 34 (42.5%) in the good outcome group. The platelet count (PC) was significantly lower in the poor outcome group (187.3 ± 53.0 × 109/l) compared with good outcome group (244.9 ± 63.9 × 109/l) (p < 0.001). Moreover, PC (OR 0.97; p = 0.004) was the strong predictor with poor early outcome. Conclusions We firstly show that lower PC is the independent predictor for poor early outcome in patients with spontaneous CH.
The Effects of Organizational and Community Context on Local Prosecution of Computer Child Pornography Cases

The personal computer has revolutionized the forms and manner of distribution of child pornography, creating a truly global system of illegal activity. How local prosecutors in the USA deal with this global problem has not been studied. Using results from the 2001 National Prosecutors Survey, this study finds that likelihood of prosecution of this form of computer crime increases with having budgets for experts, using alternatives to prosecution, and working in districts with higher crime rates and higher levels of income. The significance of these findings to enforcement of child pornography laws in the computer age is discussed, with attention to the kinds of resources prosecutors might need for targeting computer child pornography cases.
Impact of Damping on High-Speed Large Signal VCSEL Dynamics

An investigation of the optimal relaxation oscillation damping for high-speed 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) under large signal operation is presented, using devices with K -factors ranging from 0.1 to 0.4 ns. Time-domain measurements of turn-on transients are used to quantify damping dependent rise times, overshoots, and signal amplitudes. Optical eye diagrams together with timing jitter and bit error rate measurements reveal a tradeoff between the rise time and the duration of the relaxation oscillations. To produce a high-quality eye at a specific data rate, a proper amount of damping is needed to simultaneously obtain sufficiently high bandwidth and low timing jitter. We found that for error-free transmission, a VCSEL with a 0.3 ns K-factor achieved the best receiver sensitivity at 10 and 25 Gb/s, whereas a less damped VCSEL with a 0.2 ns K-factor achieved the best sensitivity at 40 Gb/s.