Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of negative refraction with multilayered mushroom-type metamaterials at microwaves

In this paper, it is shown that bulk metamaterials formed by multilayered mushroom-type structures enable broadband negative refraction. The metamaterial configurations are modeled using homogenization methods developed for a uniaxial wire medium loaded with periodic metallic elements (for example, patch arrays). It is shown that the phase of the transmission coefficient decreases with the increasing incidence angle, resulting in the negative spatial shift of the transmitted wave. The homogenization model results are obtained with the uniform plane-wave incidence, and the full-wave results are generated with a Gaussian beam excitation, showing a strong negative refraction in a significant frequency band. Having in mind a possible experimental verification of our findings, we investigate the effect of introducing air gaps in between the metamaterial layers, showing that even in such simple configuration the negative refraction phenomenon is quite robust.
Making the Business Case for the Learning Organization Concept

The problem and the solution. Organizations that embrace strategies consistent with the learning organization literature are thought to achieve improved performance. Yet few empirical studies have examined the relationship between the learning organization concept and firms' financial performance. To assess this association, managerial responses to the Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire along with objective measures of firms' financial performance were obtained.
How Applicants Want and Expect to Be Treated: Applicants' Selection Treatment Beliefs and the Development of the Social Process Questionnaire on Selection

In psychology, general beliefs are considered to be the stepping-stones of future behavior and attitudes (Rokeach, 1973; Olson, Roese, & Zanna, 1996). The goal of this paper is to explore applicants' general beliefs about the selection treatment, namely the way they want and expect to be treated during selection. After the concept of selection treatment beliefs is introduced and both its theoretical and practical relevance is highlighted, the development of the Social Process Questionnaire on Selection (SPQS) is reported, which measures selection treatment beliefs. Factor analyses (660 students and 643 applicants) revealed six treatment factors. Applicants valued and expected transparency, objectivity, feedback, job information, participation, and a humane treatment. Apparently, applicants valued the six factors more than they expected them to be realized. The scientific and practical relevance of the findings are discussed.
Identifying depressive users in Twitter using multimodal analysis

Recently, many efforts have been spent on observing individual's psychological states through analyzing users' social activities on SNS. In this paper, we propose a novel method for identifying the users with depressive moods by analyzing their daily tweets for a long period of time. Then, for more accurately understand their tweets, we exploit all media types of tweets, i.e., images and emoticons as well as texts, thus develop a multimodal method for analyzing them. In the proposed method, three single-modal analyses are first performed for extract the hidden users' moods from text, emoticon, and images: a learning based text analysis, a word-based emoticon analysis, and a SVM based image classifier. Thereafter, the extracted moods from the respective analyses are integrated into a mood and again aggregated per a day, which allows for continuous monitoring of user's mood trends. To assess the validity of the proposed method, two types of experiments were performed: 1) the proposed multimodal analysis was tested with a number of tweets, and its performance was compared to SentiStrength; 2) it was applied to classify 45 users' mental states as depressive and non-depressive ones. Then, the results demonstrated that the proposed method outperforms the baseline, and it is effective in finding depressive moods for users.
Detection of emotional faces: low perceptual threshold and wide attentional span

In two experiments, prime face stimuli with an emotional or a neutral expression were presented individually for 25 to 125 ms, either in foveal or parafoveal vision; following a mask, a probe face or a word label appeared for recognition. Accurate detection and sensitivity (A') were higher for angry, happy, and sad faces than for nonemotional (neutral) or novel (scheming) faces at short exposure times (25-75 ms), in both the foveal and the parafoveal field, and with both the probe face and the probe word. These results indicate that there is a low perceptual threshold for unambiguous emotional faces, which are especially likely to be detected both within and outside the focus of attention; and that this facilitated detection involves processing of the affective meaning of faces, not only discrimination of formal visual features.
Assessment of Lumbar Intervertebral Disc Glycosaminoglycan Content by Gadolinium-Enhanced MRI before and after 21-Days of Head-Down-Tilt Bedrest

During spaceflight, it has been shown that intervertebral discs (IVDs) increase in height, causing elongation of the spine up to several centimeters. Astronauts frequently report dull lower back pain that is most likely of discogenic origin and may result from IVD expansion. It is unknown whether disc volume solely increases by water influx, or if the content of glycosaminoglycans also changes in microgravity. Aim of this pilot study was to investigate effects of the spaceflight analog of bedrest on the glycosaminoglycan content of human lumbar IVDs. Five healthy, non-smoking, male human subjects of European descent were immobilized in 6° head-down-tilt bedrest for 21 days. Subjects remained in bed 24 h a day with at least one shoulder on the mattress. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans were taken according to the delayed gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (dGEMRIC) protocol before and after bedrest. The outcome measures were T1 and ΔT1. Scans were performed before and after administration of the contrast agent Gd-DOTA, and differences between T1-values of both scans (ΔT1) were computed. ΔT1 is the longitudinal relaxation time in the tissue and inversely related to the glycosaminoglycan-content. For data analysis, IVDs L1/2 to L4/5 were semi-automatically segmented. Zones were defined and analyzed separately. Results show a highly significant decrease in ΔT1 (p<0.001) after bedrest in all IVDs, and in all areas of the IVDs. The ΔT1-decrease was most prominent in the nucleus pulposus and in L4/5, and was expressed slightly more in the posterior than anterior IVD. Unexpected negative ΔT1-values were found in Pfirrmann-grade 2-discs after bedrest. Significantly lower T1 before contrast agent application was found after bedrest compared to before bedrest. According to the dGEMRIC-literature, the decrease in ΔT1 may be interpreted as an increase in glycosaminoglycans in healthy IVDs during bedrest. This interpretation seems contradictory to previous findings in IVD unloading.
Effects of Acculturation, Leisure Benefits, and Leisure Constraints on Acculturative Stress And Self-esteem Among Korean Immigrants

Abstract In this study, we sought to assess the role that leisure benefits and constraints play in facilitating acculturation, allaying acculturative stress, and enhancing self-esteem among Korean-Americans. Data were collected from a sample of Koreans living primarily in large cities in the United States. Results provided partial support for the proposed theoretical model. As predicted, acculturation was negatively related to acculturative stress and positively related to self-esteem, and acculturative stress was negatively related to self-esteem. The leisure benefits construct was significantly and positively related to only self-esteem. Contrary to what we predicted, however, the leisure benefits construct was not significantly related to acculturation and was positively, rather than negatively, related to acculturative stress (although only at the 0.1 level of significance). Finally, the leisure constraints construct was significantly related to acculturative stress but not to the level of acculturation or self-esteem.
THE ULTIMATUM GAME : INTERDEPENDENT PREFERENCES IN EXPERIMENTAL SETTING

We approach the Ultimatum Game as a mechanism designed to elicit information about the preferences and beliefs of players. While remaining agnostic about the right way to interpret preferences, we maintain the assumption that preferences are interdependent the utility of a player may be a function of other players’ types. We explain the relation between the best known explanations of the experimental evidence to the proposed framework. We then illustrate how standard arguments can be used to extract the information conveyed by existing experimental results, and how the latter can restrict the set of plausible models of interdependence. We then conduct an experiment that tests the equilibrium predictions of the proposed model as well as models of social preferences and intention based reciprocity. We find that the experimental evidence is consistent with the equilibrium prediction of the model with interdependent preferences, while being inconsistent with the other models. 0.
Moderating Role of Personal Characteristics in Forming Restaurant Customers' Behavioral Intentions: An Upscale Restaurant Setting

ABSTRACT This study attempted to investigate the relationships among overall service quality (OSQ), customer satisfaction (CS), and behavioral intentions (BI), such as repeat visit intention (RVI) and word-of-mouth intention (WOMI) by considering the moderating role of personal characteristics (gender and age) in an upscale restaurant setting. Structural equation analyses showed that OSQ was an antecedent of CS, and CS was a significant predictor of RVI and WOMI. In addition, metric invariance test revealed that the strength of the relationships among study constructs was, in general, strongly influenced by personal characteristics. Specifically, the CS-RVI link was stronger for women than for men, and the OSQ-CS-WOMI link was stronger for the high-age group than for the low-age group. However, the OSQ-CS-WOMI link was found to be equal across genders, and the influence of age on the CS-RVI link was identical across groups. The findings from this study will provide restaurant managers/marketers with a guideline for developing effective marketing/service strategies for customer retention.
Multivariate pattern analysis of MEG and EEG: A comparison of representational structure in time and space

Multivariate pattern analysis of magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) data can reveal the rapid neural dynamics underlying cognition. However, MEG and EEG have systematic differences in sampling neural activity. This poses the question to which degree such measurement differences consistently bias the results of multivariate analysis applied to MEG and EEG activation patterns. To investigate, we conducted a concurrent MEG/EEG study while participants viewed images of everyday objects. We applied multivariate classification analyses to MEG and EEG data, and compared the resulting time courses to each other, and to fMRI data for an independent evaluation in space. We found that both MEG and EEG revealed the millisecond spatio-temporal dynamics of visual processing with largely equivalent results. Beyond yielding convergent results, we found that MEG and EEG also captured partly unique aspects of visual representations. Those unique components emerged earlier in time for MEG than for EEG. Identifying the sources of those unique components with fMRI, we found the locus for both MEG and EEG in high-level visual cortex, and in addition for MEG in early visual cortex. Together, our results show that multivariate analyses of MEG and EEG data offer a convergent and complimentary view on neural processing, and motivate the wider adoption of these methods in both MEG and EEG research.
Hong Kong men's stories of intra-national cross border romances

This article explores experiences of gender, love, sex and family during the present period of complex social transformation in Hong Kong (HK) and the mainland through the narratives of five HK men and their adventures across the border. Whilst initially rose-tinted, their adventures encountered unexpected problems and brought about unforeseen needs. The article explores the emotions and responsibilities these men needed to contend with as they tried to exploit the opportunities that the mainland presented and argues for the need for services and support for the increasing number of men who frequently cross the border to achieve their goals.
Effects of Epistemic Motivations on the Use of Accessible Constructs in Social Judgment

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the use of primed constructs to interpret target information will be increased under high need for closure and decreased under high need to avoid closure. Supporting this hypothesis, Experiment I found that subjects high in need for closure (induced by increasing cognitive load) were more likely to characterize an ambiguous target in terms of primed traits. Subjects high in need to avoid closure (induced by stressing the importance of impression accuracy) were less likely to characterize the target in terms of primed traits. Experiment 2 found that subjects high in dispositional need for closure were more likely to characterize the target in terms of primed traits than subjects low in dispositional need for closure. By grouping subjects based on individual differences in need for closure, Experiment 2 provides convergent validity for the hypothesis and rules out alternative interpretations for the results of Experiment 1.
Perceptions of Presence as Antecedents to E-tail Shopping - An Extended Technology Acceptance Model -

Drawing on the literature on TAM and presence, this study proposes a model of the extended TAM by identifying factors that affect the motivations to enhance our understanding of online consumers` acceptance of an e-tail website. This study conceptualizes that consumers` perceived presence variables such as telepresence and social presence are the antecedents to the motivations of TAM. Empirical tests using regression analyses generally supported the proposed model. The overall conclusion from the current data is that our integrated model is useful in understanding consumers` acceptance of an apparel e-tail website. The findings show that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived interest motivations act as strong determinants of consumers` attitude toward an e-tailer, which leads to their behavioral intentions about the e-tailer. This suggests that apparel e-tailers should consider these three motivations when they design their websites. As one way to influence these three factors, this study showed the role of perceived presence in the usage of an apparel e-tail website. The findings suggest that online consumers` perceptions of "being there" and "socialness" stimulate their perceptions of usefulness and interest in the website use. Thus, e-tailers should consider effective ways to increase consumers` perceived presence.
Automatic Online Calibration of Cameras and Lasers

The combined use of 3D scanning lasers with 2D cameras has become increasingly popular in mobile robotics, as the sparse depth measurements of the former augment the dense color information of the latter. Sensor fusion requires precise 6DOF transforms between the sensors, but hand-measuring these values is tedious and inaccurate. In addition, autonomous robots can be rendered inoperable if their sensors’ calibrations change over time. Yet previously published camera-laser calibration algorithms are offline only, requiring significant amounts of data and/or specific calibration targets; they are thus unable to correct calibration errors that occur during live operation. In this paper, we introduce two new real-time techniques that enable camera-laser calibration online, automatically, and in arbitrary environments. The first is a probabilistic monitoring algorithm that can detect a sudden miscalibration in a fraction of a second. The second is a continuous calibration optimizer that adjusts transform offsets in real time, tracking gradual sensor drift as it occurs. Although the calibration objective function is not globally convex and cannot be optimized in real time, in practice it is always locally convex around the global optimum, and almost everywhere else. Thus, the local shape of the objective function at the current parameters can be used to determine whether the sensors are calibrated, and allows the parameters to be adjusted gradually so as to maintain the global optimum. In several online experiments on thousands of frames in real markerless scenes, our method automatically detects miscalibrations within one second of the error exceeding . 25 deg or 10cm, with an accuracy of 100%. In addition, rotational sensor drift can be tracked in real-time with a mean error of just . 10 deg. Together, these techniques allow significantly greater flexibility and adaptability of robots in unknown and potentially harsh environments.
An Efficient Method for Assigning Harmonic Periods to Hard Real-Time Tasks with Period Ranges

During the design phase of many real-time systems, designers often have a range of acceptable period values for which some levels of safety or quality of service are guaranteed. The choice of period values influences system schedulability and computational complexity of schedulability analysis, especially for the rate monotonic (RM) scheduling algorithm. It has been shown that RM guarantees 100% utilization if the periods are harmonic, i.e., Each period is an integer multiple of shorter periods. In this paper, we address harmonic period assignment problem where each task has a given period range. We extend the results of our previous work and present an O(n^2log(n)) algorithm (where n is the number of tasks) to verify necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a harmonic period assignment in cases where the previous solution has pseudo-polynomial computational complexity. We provide utilization bounds of the potential assignments as well as a heuristic algorithm to construct low utilization harmonic task sets. The efficiency of our period assignment algorithms has been evaluated in terms of acceptance ratio, task set utilization, data structure size, and the number of operations required for harmonic period assignment.
The production of "delayed type" cutaneous hypersensitivity to human donor leukocytes as a result of the rejection of skin homografts.

SUMMARY The immunity occasioned by the rejection of askin homograft in man is manifested by delayedintradermal sensitivity following injection of do-nor white blood cells. Unlike the immunity oc-casioned by the rejection of a previous skin homo-graft itself, under the conditions of our experi-ments, this reaction is not specific for donorleukocytes but may be elicited by the injection ofnondonor leukocytes into a sensitized recipient. ACKNOWLEDGM ENT The authors gratefully acknowledge the invaluable as- sistance of Miss Audrey Jean Clemens in carrying out this study.REFERENCES1. Lawrence, H. S. Homograft sensitivity. An expres-sion of the immunologic origins and consequencesof individuality. Physiol. Rev. 1959, 39, 811.2. Brent, L. , Brown, J., and Medawar, P. B. Skin transplantation immunity in relation to hyper-sensitivity. Lancet 1958, 2, 561. 3. Billingham, R. E. , Brent, L. , and Medawar, P. B.The antigenic stimulus in transplantation im- munity. Nature (Lond.) 1956, 178, 514.4. Friedman,
Meta-analyses of cognitive functioning in euthymic bipolar patients and their first-degree relatives

Background Previous work suggests that impairments in executive function and verbal memory in particular may persist in euthymic bipolar patients and serve as an indicator of genetic risk (endophenotype). Method A systematic review of the literature was undertaken. Effects sizes were extracted from selected papers and pooled using meta-analytical techniques. Results In bipolar patients, large effect sizes (d>0.8) were noted for executive functions (working memory, executive control, fluency) and verbal memory. Medium effect sizes (0.5<d<0.8) were reported for aspects of executive function (concept shifting, executive control), mental speed, visual memory, and sustained attention. Small effect sizes (d<0.5) were found for visuoperception. In first-degree relatives, effect sizes were small (d<0.5), but significantly different from healthy controls for executive function and verbal memory in particular. Conclusions Executive function and verbal memory are candidate bipolar endophenotypes given large deficits in these domains in bipolar patients and small, but intermediate, cognitive impairments in first-degree relatives.
Procalcitonin is More Useful Than C-reactive Protein in Differentiation of Fever in Patients With Sickle Cell Disease

This study aimed at evaluating the value of C-reactive protein (CRP) and procalcitonin (PCT) levels in the differential diagnosis of fever in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). The study included 86 children with SCD (group 1) and 49 controls (group 2). During the study, the patients had 114 acute episodes or routine visits to the units. They were classified as having vasoocclusive crisis with fever (group 1A), vasoocclusive crisis without fever (group 1B), and no crisis or fever (steady state, group 1C). Only patients with crises were admitted to the hospital. Patients admitted to the hospital with various clinical signs and symptoms each and every time were included in groups 1A, 1B, and 1C. Thus, a total of 114 clinical episodes were analyzed. The mean CRP levels in the 3 patient groups were significantly higher than that in the group 2, and among the patient groups, the mean CRP was significantly higher in group 1A than the other groups. The mean CRP level in group 1A and group 1B was significantly higher than that in group 1C. There were no significant differences among the 3 SCD groups in terms of the median serum PCT level; however, the median PCT level in group 1A, group 1B, and group 1C patients was significantly higher than that in group 2 patients. These data indicate that vasoocclusive disease with or without fever apparently does not significantly increase PCT levels in relation to the baseline status of children with SCD, which in turn are clearly more elevated than PCT levels of control children.