Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brain mechanisms for simple perception and bistable perception

Significance When viewing an image with multiple interpretations such as the Necker cube, subjective perception alternates stochastically between the different interpretations. This phenomenon provides a well-controlled experimental approach to studying how the brain responds to ambiguities in sensory inputs—a ubiquitous problem in dealing with natural environment. We found that, compared with simple perception devoid of ambiguities, bistable perception requires additional higher-order brain regions and dramatically enhanced top-down and bottom-up influences in the brain. Intermittent viewing of ambiguous images elicits even stronger top-down brain activity. These results help elucidate the mechanisms of visual perception by demonstrating an active top-down inferential process. When faced with ambiguous sensory inputs, subjective perception alternates between the different interpretations in a stochastic manner. Such multistable perception phenomena have intrigued scientists and laymen alike for over a century. Despite rigorous investigations, the underlying mechanisms of multistable perception remain elusive. Recent studies using multivariate pattern analysis revealed that activity patterns in posterior visual areas correlate with fluctuating percepts. However, increasing evidence suggests that vision—and perception at large—is an active inferential process involving hierarchical brain systems. We applied searchlight multivariate pattern analysis to functional magnetic resonance imaging signals across the human brain to decode perceptual content during bistable perception and simple unambiguous perception. Although perceptually reflective activity patterns during simple perception localized predominantly to posterior visual regions, bistable perception involved additionally many higher-order frontoparietal and temporal regions. Moreover, compared with simple perception, both top-down and bottom-up influences were dramatically enhanced during bistable perception. We further studied the intermittent presentation of ambiguous images—a condition that is known to elicit perceptual memory. Compared with continuous presentation, intermittent presentation recruited even more higher-order regions and was accompanied by further strengthened top-down influences but relatively weakened bottom-up influences. Taken together, these results strongly support an active top-down inferential process in perception.
Some psychological correlates of environmentally responsible behavior

This study investigated the relationship between six psychological variables and environmentally responsible behavior of Japanese undergraduates, 106 males and 44 females. Their average age was 18.66 with a standard deviation of 1.38. The six variables were attitudes toward growth and technology, efficacy of personal proenvironmental behavior, sensitivity to noise, social awareness, emotional sensitivity and behavioral independence. Multiple regression analysis was conducted for environmentally responsible behavior with the six variables entered simultaneously as predictors. Negative attitudes toward growth and technology, efficacy of personal proenvironmental behavior and emotional sensitivity were significantly related to environmentally responsible behavior. Behavioral independence was marginally related, but sensitivity to noise and social awareness were not related.
Rhyme Awareness, Orthographic Analogy Use, Phonemic Awareness and Reading: An examination of relationships

It is suggested that children learning to read require phonemic awareness before being able to make orthographic analogies during reading (Ehri & Robbins, 1992) and that phonemic awareness is a better discriminator of children who will benefit from orthographic analogies than rhyme awareness (Walton, 1995). It has also been found that orthographic analogy use does not make an independent contribution to early reading ability (Wood, 1999). The present study investigates which skills are best able to account for orthographic analogy use during early reading and tests the finding that there is no independent association between reading ability and orthographic analogy use. Results suggest that phonemic awareness and reading experience are best able to account for analogy use, and that orthographic analogy use does directly contribute to early reading ability. Rhyme awareness was also associated with orthographic analogy use, but this contribution was less than that of phonemic awareness, and was not significant after the contribution of phonemic awareness was taken into account.
Selective Exposure in the Internet Age: The Interaction between Anxiety and Information Utility

The rise of the Internet forces scholars to reevaluate the frequency and nature of political information seeking in the contemporary period. The functionality of the Internet makes passive exposure more difficult, and selective information seeking easier, than in the past. However, people may also use the Internet in a new and directed way—to arm themselves with information to express and defend their views either online or in the real world. The central question we explore in this paper is what explains balanced versus biased information seeking in the era of the Internet? We combine insights from Sears and Freedman (1967) with newer work on emotion to predict motivated selectivity: focusing specifically on the interaction between anxiety and information utility. Our central theoretical claim is that anxiety does not simply boost any information seeking; it triggers information seeking that is useful for addressing the problem at hand. Anxiety alone, therefore, does not guarantee a balanced information search. When counterattitudinal information is useful for some reason—for example, to defend their own opinions to others who may disagree—anxious citizens should seek it out. As a consequence, these subjects should learn more specific information about where each candidate stands on the issues. In an experiment we find support for these hypotheses. We conclude that while today's flexible Internet environment may permit selectivity, balanced seeking should still occur under a fairly common set of circumstances.
Making the Most of Adolescence

This qualitative study investigated the relationship between adolescents' sense of school belonging and opportunities to integrate aspects of their identity with their 9th-grade English assignments. The study provided evidence of a positive relationship between these two experiences for an ethnically diverse group of students. Moreover, issues of identity (connections made with issues that were important to the self, connections with their background, and the ability to make themselves known) contributed significantly to belonging. Students' sense of connection and engagement in their classroom was supported while they participated in activities designed to encourage curricular connections with their identity and culture.
Intraocular Pressure Lowering Effect of Orbital Decompression is Related to Increased Venous Outflow in Graves Orbitopathy

Abstract Purpose: To investigate the effects of combined orbital bone and fat decompression on intraocular pressure (IOP) and superior ophthalmic vein blood flow velocity (SOV-BFV), and their association with the clinical features of Graves orbitopathy (GO). Methods: During the 2002–2008 period, 72 eyes of 36 GO cases demonstrating moderate to severe orbitopathy were evaluated according to their clinical features as: cases with or without dysthyroid optic neuropathy (DON), and underwent orbital decompression. A control group comprised 40 eyes of 20 healthy subjects. In both groups, a full ophthalmic examination including IOP and Hertel measurements was performed, and SOV-BFV was analyzed with color Doppler imaging. Examinations were repeated after orbital decompression in GO patients. Results: All the cases demonstrated clinical features of inactive disease. Among the patients 24 of 72 eyes (33.3%) showed clinical features of DON. After surgery, the mean decrease in Hertel values was 6.2 ± 1.8 mm (p = 0.001). The mean decrease in IOP was 3.0 ± 1.7 mmHg (from 17.3 ± 2.7 to 14.3 ± 2.0 mmHg) after orbital decompression where the post-operative values were comparable with the control group (12.9 ± 1.4 mmHg, p = 0.36). The mean increase in SOV-BFV achieved with decompression was 1.2 ± 0.6 cm/s (from 4.8 ± 1.7 to 6.0 ± 1.8 cm/s) and post-operative SOV-BFV values were also comparable with the control group (6.6 ± 1.3 cm/s, p = 0.26). The increase in SOV-BFV in cases with DON did not differ from cases without DON (p = 0.32), however, post-operative SOV-BFV of cases with DON was stil lower than cases without DON (p = 0.035). Conclusions: Combined orbital bone and fat decompression significantly reduced the IOP levels and increased the SOV-BFV in GO. This could be the confirmative finding of prediction that elevated IOP in GO is associated with increased episcleral venous pressure. The post-operative changes in IOP and SOV-BFV show differences regarding the clinical features of disease.
Malaria detection using non-blood samples

Malaria is still a major problem in many parts of the world. Accurate diagnosis, crucial in disease control, currently relies on the microscopic detection of parasites in blood samples. This technique is invasive, increases risk of blood-borne disease transmission, and is uncomfortable for the patient. Non-invasive approaches to detect antibodies against malaria, malarial antigens, and malarial DNA in non-blood samples, i.e. saliva, urine and buccal mucosa, have been developed to overcome these problems. This review summarizes the techniques that have been used to detect malaria in non-blood samples, their sensitivities and specificities as well as the factors influencing them. The provided information may be useful for further development of highly efficient non-invasive malaria detection methods.
Sampling Assumptions in Inductive Generalization

Inductive generalization, where people go beyond the data provided, is a basic cognitive capability, and it underpins theoretical accounts of learning, categorization, and decision making. To complete the inductive leap needed for generalization, people must make a key ''sampling'' assumption about how the available data were generated. Previous models have considered two extreme possibilities, known as strong and weak sampling. In strong sampling, data are assumed to have been deliberately generated as positive examples of a concept, whereas in weak sampling, data are assumed to have been generated without any restrictions. We develop a more general account of sampling that allows for an intermediate mixture of these two extremes, and we test its usefulness. In two experiments, we show that most people complete simple one-dimensional generalization tasks in a way that is consistent with their believing in some mixture of strong and weak sampling, but that there are large individual differences in the relative emphasis different people give to each type of sampling. We also show experimentally that the relative emphasis of the mixture is influenced by the structure of the available information. We discuss the psychological meaning of mixing strong and weak sampling, and possible extensions of our modeling approach to richer problems of inductive generalization.
Free Trade Networks

The paper examines the formation of free trade agreements (FTAs) as a network formation game. We consider a general n-country model in which countries trade differentiated industrial commodities as well as a numeraire good. Countries may be different in the size of the industrial good industry (measure of firms) and the market size (population size). Their incentives to sign an FTA depend on these characteristics of their own countries and those of their partner countries. We show that if all countries are symmetric, a complete global free trade network is pairwise stable and it is the unique stable network if industrial commodities are not highly substitutable. We also compare FTAs and customs unions (CUs) as to which of these two regimes facilitate global trade liberalization, emphasizing the fact that unlike in the case of a CU, each country signing an FTA can have a new FTA with an outside country without consent of other member countries.
Descriptive Analysis of Bullying in Male and Female Adult Prisoners

This study provides a descriptive analysis of bullying in adult prisons and compares the responses of male and female inmates. Ninety male and forty-eight female inmates were surveyed via a self-report questionnaire which asked about the extent of bullying, the frequency the respondent had bullied or been bullied and their perceptions of bullying. The perceived extent of bullying was fairly high, with women reporting a higher level than men. Bullying was predominantly physical but women reported a higher frequency of indirect bullying than men. A particular 'type' of individual was viewed as being predisposed to become a victim of bullying and various reasons were suggested as to why an inmate was bullied. Bullying was seen to occur at locations throughout the prison. Inmates typically reported that both they and staff were willing to help the victims of bullying and a number of interventions were suggested. A small percentage of inmates admitted to being bullies, with on average 2 to 4 victims each in the previous week. The overall percentage of self-reported victims was also relatively small, with a higher proportion of women admitting being victims.
Determinants of Entry Exclusion within Eex and TraG Are Cytoplasmic

ABSTRACT We report here functional and topological analyses of TraG and Eex, the donor and recipient cell inner membrane proteins that mediate entry exclusion in the SXT/R391 family of integrative conjugative elements. We found that the exclusion-determining regions of the Eex variants EexS (SXT) and EexR (R391) are located in distinct yet overlapping regions of the proteins. Unexpectedly, the carboxyl-terminal regions of TraG and Eex, which contain the residues essential for exclusion activity and specificity, were found to localize in the cell cytoplasm. These observations suggest that complex topological rearrangements of conjugative proteins must occur during mating to enable these domains to interact.
Individual learning accounts: a strategy for lifelong learning?

Purpose – Since the end of the previous century social partners in different branches of industry have laid down measures to stimulate individual learning and competence development of workers in collective labour agreements. Special attention is given to stimulating learning demand among traditional non‐participants to lifelong learning, such as lower educated and older employees. The paper examines one such measure, the individual learning account (ILA). Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on a quasi‐experimental study, in which we evaluate the impact of ILA on learning intention and work floor learning culture is evaluated. The study focuses on lower educated employees in two sectors of employment: the elderly care sector and SME's in the technical installation (TI) sector. The point of departure is Ajzen'se theory of planned behaviour. In this study, we attempt to examine the effects of ILAs on intention to engage in learning activities and behavioural predictors such as attitude, perceiv.
Globally optimal decentralized spatial smoothing for wireless sensor networks with local interactions

In most sensor network applications, the vector containing the observations gathered by the sensors lies in a space of dimension equal to the number of nodes, typically because of observation noise, even though the useful signal belongs to a subspace of much smaller dimension. This motivates smoothing or rank reduction. We formulate a convex optimization problem, where we incorporate a fidelity constraint that prevents the final smoothed estimate from diverging too far from the observations. This leads to a distributed algorithm in which nodes exchange updates only with neighboring nodes. We show that the widely studied consensus algorithm is indeed only a very specific case of our more general formulation. Finally, we study the convergence rate and propose some approaches to maximize it.
The Trouble with Women in Policing: Attitudes Aren't Changing

One hundred sixteen male and female undergraduate criminal justice students indicated the extent of their agreement or disagreement with statements on a questionnaire taken from interviews with police officers about women in policing. A factor analysis of the responses revealed four major attitudinal sets regarding women in policing: Limited Role -the role offemales in patrol should be limited; Equality -women should be treated just like men; Trait Advantage -women possess certain traits which especially suit them for policing; and Anti-female-women have no place in policing. Males andfemales differed significantly on their responses to the four factors. Males agreed most with the idea that policing was essentially a male occupation and a physical task and that women were more suited for handling juveniles and office work. Females, however, felt that they possessed certain traits which especially suited them for patrol work. The results are discussed in terms of the stability of male resistance to females in policing.
Effectiveness of Role Playing and Antiracist Teaching in Reducing Student Prejudice.

Abstract This study examined the effectiveness of role playing and antiracist teaching to reduce the racial prejudice of students. Meta-analysis was used to integrate findings from studies examining those strategies. Studies were located according to predetermined criteria, summarized, and the results converted to a standardized score, or “effect size. ” Twenty-six relevant studies were located, yielding 43 effect sizes. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to interpret the effect-size data. Through multiple-regression techniques, 65% of the variance was explained, and several moderating variables were found to influence the strategies' effectiveness. The results indicate that role playing and antiracist teaching significantly reduce racial prejudice, and they do not differ from each other in their effectiveness. The implications of the results for education policy and future research are discussed.
Neurofibromatosis and severe hypertension in pregnancy

Summary. Four pregnant patients with neurofibromatosis (Von Recklinghausen's disease) either developed hypertension during pregnancy or had an exacerbation of a pre‐existing chronic hypertension. Two patients required early termination of pregnancy for severe hypertension; a third had severe intrauterine growth retardation resulting in intrauterine fetal death; and one had an otherwise uneventful pregnancy and a live healthy infant. Because of the association between neurofibromatosis and hypertension, patients with neurofibromatosis require special antenatal care and management.
Randomized, multicenter, phase II study of CO-101 versus gemcitabine in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: including a prospective evaluation of the role of hENT1 in gemcitabine or CO-101 sensitivity.

PURPOSE Gemcitabine requires transporter proteins to cross cell membranes. Low expression of human equilibrative nucleoside transporter-1 (hENT1) may result in gemcitabine resistance in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). CO-101, a lipid-drug conjugate of gemcitabine, was rationally designed to enter cells independently of hENT1. We conducted a randomized controlled trial to determine whether CO-101 improved survival versus gemcitabine in patients with metastatic PDAC (mPDAC) with low hENT1. The study also tested the hypothesis that gemcitabine is more active in patients with mPDAC tumors with high versus low hENT1 expression. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients were randomly assigned to CO-101 or gemcitabine, after providing a metastasis sample for blinded hENT1 assessment. An immunohistochemistry test measuring tumor hENT1 was developed. To dichotomize the population, an hENT1 cutoff value was defined using primary PDAC samples from an adjuvant trial, and a high/low cutoff was applied. The primary end point was overall survival (OS) in the low hENT1 subgroup. RESULTS Of 367 patients enrolled, hENT1 status was measured in 358 patients (97.5%). Two hundred thirty-two (64.8%) of 358 patients were hENT1 low. There was no difference in OS between treatments in the low hENT1 subgroup or overall, with hazard ratios (HRs) of 0.994 (95% CI, 0.746 to 1.326) and 1.072 (95% CI, 0.856 to 1.344), respectively. The toxicity profiles in both arms were similar. Within the gemcitabine arm, there was no difference in survival between the high and low hENT1 subgroups (HR, 1.147; 95% CI, 0.809 to 1.626). CONCLUSION CO-101 is not superior to gemcitabine in patients with mPDAC and low tumor hENT1. Metastasis hENT1 expression did not predict gemcitabine outcome.
Arabic loan phonology: the assimilation of English lexical items

This study analyses a corpus of English lexical items borrowed by Arabic in terms of the imperfect assimilation of these items from one phonological system (English) into the recipient system (Arabic). Specifically, the analysis looks at (1) the alteration of the phonological composition of new consonantal segments and sequences introduced to Arabic by the incoming English lexical items and (2) apparent changes in Arabic phonology as exemplified by the adapted items. Borrowing rules are proposed to account for the data relating to (1) above with a discussion of examples and exceptions to these rules. Alterations in permissible Arabic consonant clusters and canonical syllable structure are discussed with reference to contemporary theory. The problems associated with formulating abstract and concrete grammars are given particular attention as are the formal and functional properties of phonological rules.
Emergency Caesarean Section Saved Both an Anti-MuSK Antibody-positive Myasthenia Gravis Mother with Pregnancy-induced Hypertension and Her Premature Baby

We herein report the case of a 46-year-old pregnant woman with anti-muscle specific kinase (MuSK) antibody-positive myasthenia gravis (MG) who showed pregnancy-induced hypertension and developed respiratory failure at 30 weeks and 5 days of pregnancy, and who underwent an emergency caesarean section (CS). Her MG symptoms gradually improved in the subsequent weeks. The premature baby with positive MuSK antibodies was successfully delivered, but the male baby required temporary artificial ventilation. However, his condition also gradually improved over time. The present case suggests that an emergency CS could rescue both the mother, who was in critical condition, and the prematurely born baby, even when suffering from acute respiratory insufficiency.
Developmental pathway to paranoia is mediated by negative self-concept and experiential avoidance

The study investigated the role of early interactions with parents in the paranoid process. Student participants (N = 302) completed questionnaires measuring parental style, emotional invalidation, attachment, self-esteem, experiential avoidance (EA) and paranoia. Analyses using structural equation modelling confirmed a model in which cold and overprotective parenting was associated with insecure attachment and negative self-views. Childhood emotional invalidation, including punishment, belittlement, and distress on the part of the parents in response to children’s displays of negative emotions predicted EA in later life. Negative self-beliefs and avoidance of negative mental states, in turn, predicted paranoid ideation. In line with previous research, our data suggest that suboptimal parenting fosters paranoid thinking later in life. Our findings are also consistent with the idea that paranoia arises as a result of dysfunctional attempts to maintain a positive view of the self.