Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surf camp experiences

ABSTRACT Surf camps are located in popular surf spots and provide surf classes, guided surf tours and various services such as accommodation and food. This study’s main objective was to identify the principal components of surfers’ overall experiences in surf camps based on the narratives shared online in social media platforms. The research focused on camps in Portugal, using quantitative (i.e. computer-based) and qualitative (i.e. narrative) content analysis methods to process Web reviews written by surf camp visitors with different nationalities. The results reveal 10 themes in descriptions of stays at surf camps: ‘surf’, ‘instructors’, ‘place’, ‘camp’, ‘beach’, ‘staff’, ‘experience’, ‘wave’,’ home’ and ‘team’. These represent the overall surf camp experiences connected to surf lessons, natural resources of surf spots, human resources in surf camps and recommendations after experiences. This study contributes to the literature on surf tourism by addressing the need for more literature on surf camps, especially those in Portugal.
Audio Tactile Maps (ATM) System for the Exploration of Digital Heritage Buildings by Visually-impaired Individuals - First Prototype and Preliminary Evaluation

Navigation within historic spaces requires analysis of a variety of acoustic, proprioceptive and tactile cues; a task that is well-developed in many visually-impaired individuals but for which sighted individuals rely almost entirely on vision. For the visually-impaired, the creation of a cognitive map of a space can be a long process for which the individual may repeat various paths numerous times. While this action is typically performed by the individual on-site, it is of some interest to investigate to what degree this task can be performed off-site using a virtual simulator. We propose a tactile map navigation system with interactive auditory display. The system is based on a paper tactile map upon which the user’s hands are tracked. Audio feedback provides; (i) information on user-selected map features, (ii) dynamic navigation information as the hand is moved, (iii) guidance on how to reach the location of one hand (arrival point) from the location of the other hand (departure point) and (iv) additional interactive 3D-audio cues useful for navigation. This paper presents an overview of the initial technical development stage, reporting observations from preliminary evaluations with a blind individual. The system will be beneficial to visuallyimpaired visitors to heritage sites; we describe one such site which is being used to further assess our prototype.
Model selection for support vector machines: Advantages and disadvantages of the Machine Learning Theory

A common belief is that Machine Learning Theory (MLT) is not very useful, in pratice, for performing effective SVM model selection. This fact is supported by experience, because well-known hold-out methods like cross-validation, leave-one-out, and the bootstrap usually achieve better results than the ones derived from MLT. We show in this paper that, in a small sample setting, i.e. when the dimensionality of the data is larger than the number of samples, a careful application of the MLT can outperform other methods in selecting the optimal hyperparameters of a SVM.
Understanding Exclusionary Reactions Toward a Foreign Culture

Recent research has begun to examine the impact of cultural mixing on human psychology. We conducted four experiments to examine the influence of intrusive cultural mixing on implicit intergroup attitudes. Our results indicated that (a) intrusive cultural mixing augmented implicit prejudice toward the intruding foreign cultural group (Study 1), (b) heightened implicit prejudice partially mediated boycotting behavior provoked by intrusive cultural mixing (Study 2), and (c) both cultural identification (Study 3) and multicultural orientation (Study 4) moderated the influence of intrusive cultural mixing on implicit prejudice so that only individuals who highly identified with their heritage culture or those who exhibited a weak multicultural orientation manifested enhanced implicit prejudice. These findings extend our understanding of the influence of cultural mixing.
Estradiol promotes spine growth and synapse formation without affecting pre‐established networks

Estrogens regulate dendritic spine density, but the mechanism and significance of this effect for brain networks remain unknown. We used repetitive imaging over several days to investigate how 17β‐estradiol affected the turnover and long‐term behavior of dendritic spines in CA1 cells of hippocampal slice cultures. We find that 17β‐estradiol and serum in the culture medium tightly regulated spine density by promoting an increase in the rate of new spine formation and their transformation into synapses, without affecting spine elimination or stability. New spines formed during a transient 17β‐estradiol application were preferentially eliminated upon removal of the hormone, in contrast with pre‐existing spines that remained unaffected. Our results reveal that 17β‐estradiol transiently regulates the complexity of hippocampal circuits without causing major alterations of pre‐existing networks. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Convergence to Stochastic Integrals with Fractionally Integrated Integrator Processes : Theory , and Applications to Cointegrating Regression

The weak limit is derived of the sample covariance of a pair of fractionally integrated processes, one I(dY ) for 12 < dY < 1 2 , and the other I(1 + dX) for 1 2 < dX < 1 2 . The stochastic component (mean deviation) of the limit has the representation of a RiemannLiouville fractional integral of a functional of regular Brownian motion, B, having the form '(t) = R t 0 XdB. In the case dX < 0, the mean deviation is of small order relative to the mean, if the latter is non-zero. The results have applications in the analysis of cointegrating regressions, in which the cointegrating residual has long memory. A fractional variant of the fully modi ed least squares estimator (FFMLS) is derived, which both converges more rapidly than least squares in certain cases, and is asymptotically mixed Gaussian, permitting standard inference procedures. 1 Introduction A great deal of recent research in econometrics has been structured around the I(1)/I(0)cointegration paradigm. Notwithstanding the manifest fruitfulness of this approach, the necessity to characterise series as either I(1) or I(0) is often restrictive. Practical experience suggests something closer to a continuum of persistenceproperties. Distinctive process properties falling into neither the I(0) nor the I(1) categories include (i) long memory with covariance stationarity; (ii) nonstationarity with mean reversion, where the variance diverges at a rate slower than n;1 and (iii) di¤erence-stationarity with long memory (implying more persistence than I(1)). As is well known, this wide range of persistence characteristics is parsimoniously captured by the class of fractionally integrated, or I(d) processes. These contain the I(0) and I(1) cases but d can take Cardi¤Business School, Colum Drive, Cardi¤CF10 3EU, UK. Email: davidsonje@cf.ac. uk Research supported by the ESRC under award L138251025. I am indebted to Philipp Sibbertsen for useful discussions. The term mean reversion is conventional but imprecise, because the mean of these processes is not easily shown to exist in the absence of the variance. What is implied is independence of initial conditions, so that the process depends on at most a nite number of lagged shocks. If these have a mean of 0, the process cannot stray inde nitely far from the origin. This is in contrast to the I(1) case, of which in nite realizations visit 1 with probability 1.
Socioeconomic Status Predicts Objective and Subjective Sleep Quality in Aging Women

Objective: To test the hypothesis that socioeconomic status (SES) would be associated with sleep quality measured objectively, even after controlling for related covariates (health status, psychosocial characteristics). Epidemiological studies linking SES and sleep quality have traditionally relied on self-reported assessments of sleep. Methods: Ninety-four women, 61 to 90 years of age, participated in this study. SES was determined by pretax household income and years of education. Objective and subjective assessments of sleep quality were obtained using the NightCap sleep system and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), respectively. Health status was determined by subjective health ratings and objective measures of recent and chronic illnesses. Depressive symptoms and neuroticism were quantified using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale and the Neuroticism subscale of the NEO Personality Inventory, respectively. Results: Household income significantly predicted sleep latency and sleep efficiency even after adjusting for demographic factors, health status, and psychosocial characteristics. Income also predicted PSQI scores, although this association was significantly attenuated by inclusion of neuroticism in multivariate analyses. Education predicted both sleep latency and sleep efficiency, but the latter association was partially reduced after health status and psychosocial measures were included in analyses. Education predicted PSQI sleep efficiency component scores, but not global scores. Conclusions: These results suggest that SES is robustly linked to both subjective and objective sleep quality, and that health status and psychosocial characteristics partially explain these associations. SES = socioeconomic status; PSQI = Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; GCRC = General Clinical Research Center; CES-D = Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale.
New Results on Decentralized Diagnosis of Discrete Event Systems

The past decade has witnessed the development of a body of theory, with associated applications, for fault diagnosis of dynamic systems that can be modeled in a discrete event systems framework. This paper presents several new notions of diagnosability, together with on-line diagnosis decision rules, in the context of a general decentralized architecture that allows for the use of “conditional decisions” by local diagnosers. The properties of these new notions of diagnosability are presented and their relationship with existing work discussed. Verification algorithms and local diagnoser synthesis methods are briefly outlined.
Prediction of Genomewide Conserved Epitope Profiles of HIV-1: Classifier Choice and Peptide Representation

Identification of peptides binding to Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) molecules is important for accelerating vaccine development and improving immunotherapy. Accordingly, a wide variety of prediction methods have been applied in this context. In this paper, we introduce (tree-based) ensemble classifiers for such problems and contrast their predictive performance with forefront existing methods for both MHC class I and class II molecules. In addition, we investigate the impact of differing peptide representation schemes on performance. Finally, classifier predictions are used to conduct genomewide scans of a diverse collection of HIV-1 strains, enabling assessment of epitope conservation. We investigated all combinations of six classification methods (classification trees, artificial neural networks, support vector machines, as well as the more recently devised ensemble methods (bagging, random forests, boosting) with four peptide representation schemes (amino acid sequence, select biophysical properties, select quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) descriptors, and the combination of the latter two) in predicting peptide binding to an MHC class I molecule (HLA-A2) and MHC class II molecule (HLA-DR4). Our results show that the ensemble methods are consistently more accurate than the other three alternatives. Furthermore, they are robust with respect to parameter tuning. Among the four representation schemes, the amino acid sequence representation gave consistently (across classifiers) best results. This finding obviates the need for feature selection strategies incurred by use of biophysical and/or QSAR properties. We obtained, and aligned, a diverse set of 32 HIV-1 genomes and pursued genomewide HLA-DR4 epitope profiling by querying with respect to classifier predictions, as obtained under each of the four peptide representation schemes. We validated those epitopes conserved across strains against known T-cell epitopes. Once again, amino acid sequence representation was at least as effective as using properties. Assessment of novel epitope predictions awaits experimental verification.
A fitting formula for the non‐linear evolution of the bispectrum

ABSTRA C T We present a fitting formula for the non-linear evolution of the bispectrum in cold dark matter (CDM) models, obtained from measurements in high-resolution numerical simulations. The formula interpolates between the perturbative and highly non-linear regimes, and generalizes previous results obtained for scale-free initial conditions.
An improved music algorithm based on low rank perturbation of large random matrices

This paper is devoted to subspace DoA estimation, when the number of available snapshots N is of the same order of magnitude as the number of sensors M. In this context, traditional subspace methods fail because the empirical covariance matrix of the observations is a poor estimate of the true covariance matrix. The goal of the paper is to propose a new consistent estimator of the DoAs in the case where M, N → + ∞ at the same rate, using large random matrix theory. It is assumed that the number of sources is constant, and recent results on the so called spiked matrix models are used. First and second order results are provided
The Impact of Qualitative Job Insecurity on Identification with the Organization: The Moderating Role of Overall Organizational Justice

The detrimental effects of job insecurity are well recognized in the scientific literature. In this paper, we investigate the impact of qualitative job insecurity on an outcome that has been somewhat neglected to date: organizational identification. In addition, we test the moderating role of organizational justice in the relationship between qualitative job insecurity and organizational identification. A group of 170 workers completed a questionnaire assessing qualitative job insecurity, overall organizational justice, and identification with the organization. We found that qualitative job insecurity was negatively related to organizational identification as well as to organizational justice. Organizational justice buffered the negative impact of qualitative job insecurity on organizational identification. When organizational justice was low, qualitative job insecurity was significantly negatively related to organizational identification. However, when organizational justice was high, qualitative job insecurity and organizational identification were unrelated.
Variable Left-hemisphere Language and Orthographic Lateralization Reduces Right-hemisphere Face Lateralization

It is commonly believed that, in right-handed individuals, words and faces are processed by distinct neural systems: one in the left hemisphere (LH) for words and the other in the right hemisphere (RH) for faces. Emerging evidence suggests, however, that hemispheric selectivity for words and for faces may not be independent of each other. One recent account suggests that words become lateralized to the LH to interact more effectively with language regions, and subsequently, as a result of competition with words for representational space, faces become lateralized to the RH. On this interactive account, left-handed individuals, who as a group show greater variability with respect to hemispheric language dominance, might be expected to show greater variability in their degree of RH lateralization of faces as well. The current study uses behavioral measures and ERPs to compare the hemispheric specialization for both words and faces in right- and left-handed adult individuals. Although both right- and left-handed groups demonstrated LH over RH superiority in discrimination accuracy for words, only the right-handed group demonstrated RH over LH advantage in discrimination accuracy for faces. Consistent with this, increased right-handedness was related to an increase in RH superiority for face processing, as measured by the strength of the N170 ERP component. Interestingly, the degree of RH behavioral superiority for face processing and the amplitude of the RH N170 for faces could be predicted by the magnitude of the N170 ERP response to words in the LH. These results are discussed in terms of a theoretical account in which the typical RH face lateralization fails to emerge in individuals with atypical language lateralization because of weakened competition from the LH representation of words.
Synchrony in Joint Action Is Directed by Each Participant’s Motor Control System

In this work, we ask how the probability of achieving synchrony in joint action is affected by the choice of motion parameters of each individual. We use the mirror game paradigm to study how changes in leader’s motion parameters, specifically frequency and peak velocity, affect the probability of entering the state of co-confidence (CC) motion: a dyadic state of synchronized, smooth and co-predictive motions. In order to systematically study this question, we used a one-person version of the mirror game, where the participant mirrored piece-wise rhythmic movements produced by a computer on a graphics tablet. We systematically varied the frequency and peak velocity of the movements to determine how these parameters affect the likelihood of synchronized joint action. To assess synchrony in the mirror game we used the previously developed marker of co-confident (CC) motions: smooth, jitter-less and synchronized motions indicative of co-predicative control. We found that when mirroring movements with low frequencies (i.e., long duration movements), the participants never showed CC, and as the frequency of the stimuli increased, the probability of observing CC also increased. This finding is discussed in the framework of motor control studies showing an upper limit on the duration of smooth motion. We confirmed the relationship between motion parameters and the probability to perform CC with three sets of data of open-ended two-player mirror games. These findings demonstrate that when performing movements together, there are optimal movement frequencies to use in order to maximize the possibility of entering a state of synchronized joint action. It also shows that the ability to perform synchronized joint action is constrained by the properties of our motor control systems.
Default‐mode network functional connectivity is closely related to metabolic activity

Over the last decade, the brain's default‐mode network (DMN) and its function has attracted a lot of attention in the field of neuroscience. However, the exact underlying mechanisms of DMN functional connectivity, or more specifically, the blood‐oxygen level‐dependent (BOLD) signal, are still incompletely understood. In the present study, we combined 2‐deoxy‐2‐[18F]fluoroglucose positron emission tomography (FDG‐PET), proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H‐MRS), and resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs‐fMRI) to investigate more directly the association between local glucose consumption, local glutamatergic neurotransmission and DMN functional connectivity during rest. The results of the correlation analyzes using the dorsal posterior cingulate cortex (dPCC) as seed region showed spatial similarities between fluctuations in FDG‐uptake and fluctuations in BOLD signal. More specifically, in both modalities the same DMN areas in the inferior parietal lobe, angular gyrus, precuneus, middle, and medial frontal gyrus were positively correlated with the dPCC. Furthermore, we could demonstrate that local glucose consumption in the medial frontal gyrus, PCC and left angular gyrus was associated with functional connectivity within the DMN. We did not, however, find a relationship between glutamatergic neurotransmission and functional connectivity. In line with very recent findings, our results lend further support for a close association between local metabolic activity and functional connectivity and provide further insights towards a better understanding of the underlying mechanism of the BOLD signal. Hum Brain Mapp 36:2027–2038, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Amyloidosis and female protein in the Syrian hamster. Concurrent regulation by sex hormones

Previous results have shown that when compared to male Syrian hamsters, female Syrian hamsters have a distinct predisposition to acquire amyloidosis either normally with aging or experimentally with sodium caseinate or diethylstilbestrol (DES) treatments. In the present study, we tested the influence of testosterone on expression of amyloid to determine if this hormone was solely responsible for the sex-limited amyloidosis of the Syrian hamster. Males deprived of testosterone by castration acquired amyloid at an unusually young age, an age of onset similar to that in female hamsters. Also, the amyloidogenic effect of DES in male Syrian hamsters was inhibited by concomitant injections of testosterone, indicating that estrogens induce amyloid in male hamsters by inhibiting testosterone synthesis. When administered to female hamsters, testosterone inhibited expression of amyloid in aging female Syrian hamsters and extended the life span of this gender. Of the two components of amyloid, the major component Amyloid A-derived fibril or the minor constituent, Amyloid P component, only the P component is under sex hormone control in the Syrian hamster; testosterone inhibits the hepatic synthesis of the P component homologue (called female protein), which is normally expressed 100-200-fold greater in female vs. male Syrian hamster. In general, the serum level of female protein under various experimental conditions correlated with the presence of amyloid and indicated that in the Syrian hamster the P component homologue is of primary importance in the deposition of amyloid.
Fermented Milk Consumption and Common Infections in Children Attending Day-Care Centers: A Randomized Trial

Objectives: This multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial investigated the effect of a fermented milk product containing the Lactobacillus casei National Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures (CNCM) I-1518 strain on respiratory and gastrointestinal common infectious diseases (CIDs) in children attending day-care centers in Russia. Methods: Children ages 3 to 6 years received 100 g of a fermented milk product (n = 300) or a control product (n = 299) twice daily for 3 months, followed by a 1-month observation period. The primary outcome was the incidence of CIDs during the product consumption period. Results: There was no significant difference in the incidence of CIDs between the groups (N = 98 with fermented milk product vs N = 93 with control product). The overall number of CIDs (and no severe cases at all) in both study groups and in all 12 centers, however, was unexpectedly low resulting in underpowering of the study. No differences were found between the groups in the duration or severity of disease, duration of sick leave from day-care centers, parental missed working days, or in quality-of-life dimensions on the PedsQL questionnaire (P > 0.05). There was, however, a significantly lower incidence of the most frequently observed CID, rhinopharyngitis, in children consuming the fermented milk product compared with those consuming the control product (N = 81 vs N = 100, relative risk 0.82, 95% confidence interval 0.69–0.96, P = 0.017) when considering the entire study period. Conclusions: Although no other significant differences were shown between the fermented milk and control product groups in this study, lower incidence of rhinopharyngitis may indicate a beneficial effect of this fermented milk product.