Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CONTEXT MODULATION OF ATTENTION Context modulation of learned attention deployment

In three experiments, we investigated contextual control of attention in human discrimination learning. In each experiment, participants initially received discrimination training in which cues from Dimension A were relevant in Context 1, but irrelevant in Context 2, while cues from Dimension B were irrelevant in Context 1, but relevant in Context 2. In Experiment 1, the same cues from each dimension were used in Contexts 1 and 2, while in Experiments 2 and 3, the cues from each dimension were changed across contexts. In each experiment, participants were subsequently shifted to a transfer discrimination involving novel cues from either dimension in order to assess contextual control of attention. In Experiment 1, measures of eye-gaze during the transfer discrimination revealed that Dimension A received more attention than Dimension B in Context 1, while the reverse occurred in Context 2. Corresponding results indicating contextual control of attention were found in Experiments 2 and 3, which used the speed of learning (associability) as an indirect marker of learned attentional changes. Implications of our results for current theories of learning and attention are discussed.
Epidemiological determinants of contraceptive practices among eligible couples in a rural area of Thrissur , Kerala

Background: India launched the Family Planning Programme in 1952 to accelerate the country’s socioeconomic development and to reduce the rate of population growth. In spite of the efforts by the government, women, especially in the rural areas are reportedly reluctant to accept any method of contraception due to various reasons. Despite Kerala is a state in which the total fertility rates, urban-rural differences still persist in Kerala with rural women having 0.56 children more than urban women. In the above context, the present study was conducted to throw light on the prevalence and epidemiological determinants of contraceptive practices among the eligible couples in Thrikkur, a rural area of Thrissur. Methodology: A community based cross-sectional study was done among all the currently married women in the reproductive age group (n=130) residing in Thrikkur. Data was collected using a pre-tested semi-structured interview schedule by house-to house survey, after obtaining consent from the study subjects. Results: The contraceptive prevalence rate among the eligible couples in this study was found to be 68.5%. The most common method of contraception used by the study subjects was Post Partum Sterilization (43.8%). The prevalence of unmet need of family planning in this study was 18.4%. Religion, educational status of females and parity were the factors which were significantly associated with contraceptive practices of the eligible couples in this study. Conclusion: The present study found a high contraceptive prevalence rate among the study subjects. But the unmet need of family planning, among the women was found to be higher than the overall unmet need of family planning in Kerala. There is an urgent need to fill this gap between the contraceptive need and the contraceptive practices of the eligible couples in this area.
Spatial and temporal variability of absorption by dissolved material at a continental shelf

Optical properties of dissolved (colored dissolved organic material (CDOM)) and particulate matter and hydrographic measurements were obtained at the Mid-Atlantic Bight during the fall of 1996 and the spring of 1997 as part of the Coastal Mixing and Optics experiment. To assess the temporal and spatial variability, time series were obtained at one location and cross-shelf transects were carried out. On short timescales, variability in the vertical distribution of the dissolved fraction was mostly due to high- frequency internal waves. This variability was conservative, resulting in no changes on isopycnals. Over longer periods and episodically, CDOM variability was dominated by storms. The storms were associated with sediment resuspension events and were accompanied by an increase in the absorption by the dissolved materials. Data from spatial transects show that near the bottom, over the shelf, and in both spring and fall, increased particulate absorption and increased CDOM absorption co-occur. These data support the hypothesis that bottom sediments can act as a source of dissolved organic carbon during sediment resuspension events.
The Cycle of Trust and Responsibility in Outsourced AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are rapidly becoming must-have capabilities. According to a 2019 Forbes Insights Report, “seventy-nine percent [of executives] agree that AI is already having a transformational impact on workflows and tools for knowledge workers, but only 5% of executives consider their companies to be industry-leading in terms of taking advantage of AI-powered processes. ” (Forbes 2019) A major reason for this may be a shortage of on-staff expertise in AI/ML. This paper explores the intertwined issues of trust, adoption, training, and ethics of outsourcing AI development to a third party. We describe our experiences as a provider of outsourced natural language processing (NLP). We discuss how trust and accountability co-evolve as solutions mature from proof-of-concept to production-ready.
Ultra-trace determination of aluminium and gallium in marine waters

A rapid and simple analytical procedure was developed for the determination of aluminium and gallium at ultra-trace concentrations in marine waters. Pre-concentration and matrix removal was achieved via Solid Phase Extraction (SPE), using the Chelex-100 ion exchange resin. Extraction conditions such as sample and column pH (pH 5.5 ± 0.1), sample flow rate (4.00 mL.min-1), as well as the column rinsing solution (1.0 M ammonium acetate) were optimised to ensure quantitative recovery, while minimising sample preparation times. Quantification was conducted using an Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) equipped with a collision/reaction cell. Instrumental conditions were optimised specifically for aluminium and gallium detection. Optimisation of the hydrogen and helium collision/reaction cell flow rates enabled polyatomic and doubly charged interferences to be minimised, allowing for accurate quantification at the ng.L-1 level of aluminium in hydrogen or helium cell gas modes, and gallium in hydrogen or no gas modes. The newly developed SPE method was applied to a number of coastal marine samples collected off the coast of Sydney, New South Wales. Dissolved aluminium concentrations ranged from 1.2 μg. L-1 in the Port Hacking estuary, to 7.3 μg. L-1 in Botany Bay. Dissolved gallium concentrations shared a similar trend to aluminium concentrations with the lowest concentrations found in the Port Hacking estuary (1.3 ng.L-1), increasing in both Sydney Harbour and up to a maximum of 110 ng.L-1 in Botany Bay. All samples contained dissolved aluminium concentrations above the current ANZECC marine Environmental Concern Level (ECL) of 0.5 μg. L-1. The method detection limits for aluminium (10 ng.L-1) and gallium (0.1 ng.L-1) are sufficiently low, and the method itself is simple and fast enough to be applied in routine water quality monitoring programs to determine dissolved aluminium at and below the current ANZECC marine Environmental Concern Level (ECL) of 0.5 μg. L-1, as well as dissolved gallium concentrations at and below the current ANZECC freshwater ECL for gallium of 18 μg. L-1 (used in place of a marine ECL due to lack of data).
A Synthesis of Technical Analysis and Fractal Geometry - Evidence from the Dow Jones Industrial Average Components

The profitability of technical analysis has been investigated extensively, with inconsistent results. This paper seeks to develop new insights into the profitability of technical trading rules through a synthesis of fractal geometry and technical analysis. The Hurst exponent (H) emerged from fractal geometry as a means to detect long-term dependencies in a time series; the same dependencies that technical analysis should be able to identify and exploit to earn profits. Two tests of the synthesis are conducted using the thirty Dow Jones Industrial Average components. Firstly, the financial series are classified into three groups based on their H to determine if a higher (lower) H results in higher returns to trending (contrarian) trading rules. Secondly, the relationship between H and profits to technical analysis are estimated through OLS regression. Both tests suggest that the fractal nature of a time series explains a significant portion of the profits generated by technical analysis.
Chromatographic analyses of fatty acid methyl esters by HPLC-UV and GC-FID

Um metodo analitico por cromatografia liquida de alto rendimento com deteccao ultravioleta (HPLC-UV) (metodo A) foi utilizado na determinacao simultânea dos valores totais de triacilglicerideos, diacilglicerideos, monoacilglicerideos e esteres metilicos de acidos graxos na alcolise de diferentes oleos (algodao, canola, girassol, milho e soja). As analises foram realizadas a 40 oC por 20 min usando gradiente de metanol (MeOH) e 2-propanol-hexano 5:4 (v/v) (PrHex): 100% de MeOH em 0 min, 50% de MeOH e 50% de PrHex em 10 min mantido com eluicao isocratica por 10 min. Outro metodo por HPLC-UV (metodo B) com eluicao isocratica de acetonitrila por 34 min foi utilizado na determinacao da composicao de acidos graxos de oleos analisando seus derivados de ester metilico. Os conteudos foram analisados com satisfatoria repetibilidade (desvio padrao relativo, RSD 0,99) e sensibilidade (limite de quantificacao). O metodo B foi comparado com o metodo oficial cromatografico gasoso com deteccao atraves de ionizacao por chama (GC-FID) da American Oil Chemists' Society (AOCS) na determinacao de esteres metilicos de acidos graxos (FAME) em amostras reais de biodiesel
Increasing Immigrant Children’s Participation in the Finnish Early Childhood Education Context

The ongoing immigration flow poses challenges to the development of inclusive early childhood education (ECE) in Finland. This article focuses on immigrant children ́s participation as a means to developing effective pedagogical practices in the Finnish ECE settings. The research method involves collecting large-scale observation data (N=316) based on a random sampling of immigrant children’s everyday activities in the ECE context. The results show that the children’s participatory action is correlated with their involvement, deepening their level of inclusion in the particular situation. Participatory action is also related to peer relations with a group of children or another child. Role play is positively correlated with participatory action. The results imply the need for more attention to jointly creating and supporting elaborated learning practices and contexts, as well as to understanding the crucial roles of peer relations and ECE teachers in promoting children’s interaction, participation and role play. Teachers should develop daily actions and practices to be more accessible and understandable for all children to participate. The results demonstrate that the participation of immigrant children and families needs more effective interventions in the Finnish ECE setting. © 2017 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy. org.uk
Flying Rebots: First Results on an Autonomous UAV-Based LTE Relay Using Open Airinterface

In this paper we introduce the design of the “Rebot” (Relaying Robot) for future wireless networks. The Rebot concept is first of its kind in providing enhanced end-to-end LTE connectivity to ground users from a fixed base station via a flying relay which is enabled with an autonomous placement algorithm. The Rebot that we have built is a customized integrated UAV relay and its communication layer is based on OpenAirInterface. The ground user carries an off-the-shelf commercial LTE mobile terminal. We also present a placement algorithm that updates the UAV position in real time based on user location and wireless channel conditions so as to maximize the throughput at all times. The experimental results show throughput gains by using this UAV relay and also illustrate the learning/tracking behavior of the Rebot.
The effect of child labor on mathematics and language achievement in Latin America

The authors use a unique data set on language, and mathematics test scores for third, and fourth graders in eleven different Latin American countries, to determine whether child labor raises or lowers school achievement. Their findings are amazingly consistent across countries. In every country, child labor lowers performance on tests of language and mathematics proficiency, even when controlling for school and household attributes. The magnitude of the effect is similar to the percentage reduction in adult wages from child labor reported by Ilahi, Sedlacek and Orazem. The adverse impact of child labor on test performance is larger when children work regularly, rather than occasionally. Even modest levels of child labor at early ages cause adverse consequences for the development of cognitive abilities. These findings strongly refute the presumptions that child labor may be neutral, or complementary to academic performance, provided that the child remains enrolled in school. Instead, child labor consistently makes a year of education less productive in the generation of human capital.
ATTITUDES TOWARDS FOOD PRODUCTS FOR CHILDREN: A PARENTAL VIEWPOINT

During the last decades sociological changes have modified the role of children within families: participatory models have become more widespread, to the detriment of more authoritative ones: this change has had consequences also in reference to families’purchases. In scientific literature some scholars show that this influence is real and marketers try to take advantage of this through a communication style which attempts to “teach” children how top ester their parents: this is so-called nag factor. This is a quantitative research. In order to understand which are the parental attitude towards kids food products, a questionnaire has been administered both in some schools (nursery and primary) to a random sample of parents, representative of a larger sample of kids (200 in all). Findings showed that pestering is a real attitude, in particular among the littlest children. Moreover these findings reflect in part the reality described by marketing literature: children influence the purchasing decisions of their parents, but this influence decreases when mothers and fathers are more aware of the importance of a quality based diet.
The Impact of Maternal Education on Child Nutrition: Evidence from Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe

Child malnutrition remains one of the health challenges that African countries have to deal with to remain on course to achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This study analyzes the impact of maternal education on child nutritional status in three African countries, based on data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), the 2010 Malawi DHS, with a sample of 4,563 children age 0-59 months; the 2009-10 Tanzania DHS, 4,821 children; and the 2005-06 Zimbabwe DHS, 3,473 children. Bivariate analyses and the Pearson Chi-square test of independence were used to test the association of maternal education and three measures of child nutrition—stunting, wasting, and underweight. A survey logistic regression was employed to assess the determinants of the three measures and to examine the relationship between maternal education and child nutrition. The results show that in all three countries the three measures of child nutritional status significantly decrease with increased levels of mother’s education. The analysis also shows that, after controlling for other factors, maternal education reduces the odds of the three measures of child nutrition in all three countries. The threshold level of maternal education above which it significantly improves child stunting and underweight is 9 years of schooling in Malawi and 11 years of schooling in Tanzania and Zimbabwe. The policy implication is that the free primary education currently offered in the three countries may not be sufficient to address child malnutrition. In all three countries, if maternal education is to play a significant role in reducing child malnutrition, women need to be educated beyond the primary school level. In addition, offering nutritional education programs for women, particularly those with low levels of education, would help them attain better nutritional outcomes for their children.
Sensitivity of p-Mode Absorption on Magnetic Region Properties and Kernel Functions

Aims. Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) sausage tube waves are excited in magnetic flux tubes by p-mode forcing. These tube waves carry energy away from the p-mode cavity which results in a source of absorption. We wish to see the effect of an ensemble of randomly distributed thin magnetic flux tubes on the absorption of p-modes for the model plage region and also study the effect of the spacial weighting function on the theoretically calculated absorption coefficients. Methods. We calculate the absorption coefficients of p modes for a model plage, assumed to consist of an ensemble of many thin magnetic flux tubes with randomly distributed plasma properties. Each magnetic flux tube in the ensemble is modelled as axisymmetric, non-interacting, vertically oriented and untwisted. Results. We find that the magnitude and the form of the absorption coefficient is sensitive to the plasma-β of the tubes which is consistent with previous work. Both the random distribution used to model the ensemble of flux tubes and the spatial weighting function inherent to the measurement of the absorption affect the absorption. As the width of the weighting function increases, the absorption increases.
An objective prior error quantification for regional atmospheric inverse applications

Abstract. Assigning proper prior uncertainties for inverse modelling of CO2 is of high importance, both to regularise the otherwise ill-constrained inverse problem and to quantitatively characterise the magnitude and structure of the error between prior and "true" flux. We use surface fluxes derived from three biosphere models – VPRM, ORCHIDEE, and 5PM – and compare them against daily averaged fluxes from 53 eddy covariance sites across Europe for the year 2007 and against repeated aircraft flux measurements encompassing spatial transects. In addition we create synthetic observations using modelled fluxes instead of the observed ones to explore the potential to infer prior uncertainties from model–model residuals. To ensure the realism of the synthetic data analysis, a random measurement noise was added to the modelled tower fluxes which were used as reference. The temporal autocorrelation time for tower model–data residuals was found to be around 30 days for both VPRM and ORCHIDEE but significantly different for the 5PM model with 70 days. This difference is caused by a few sites with large biases between the data and the 5PM model. The spatial correlation of the model–data residuals for all models was found to be very short, up to few tens of kilometres but with uncertainties up to 100 % of this estimation. Propagating this error structure to annual continental scale yields an uncertainty of 0.06 Gt C and strongly underestimates uncertainties typically used from atmospheric inversion systems, revealing another potential source of errors. Long spatial e-folding correlation lengths up to several hundreds of kilometres were determined when synthetic data were used. Results from repeated aircraft transects in south-western France are consistent with those obtained from the tower sites in terms of spatial autocorrelation (35 km on average) while temporal autocorrelation is markedly lower (13 days). Our findings suggest that the different prior models have a common temporal error structure. Separating the analysis of the statistics for the model data residuals by seasons did not result in any significant differences of the spatial e-folding correlation lengths.
Travel Agency Marketing Strategy: Insights from Switzerland

This article provides insight into alternative strategies for travel agencies in a matured travel market with a high Internet penetration. Discounting arguments that claim that there will be no need for travel agents in the future, two possible roles for travel agents can be derived from theory and prior studies in the field: travel agents can survive if they focus on specific specialized services, such as travel consultation (specialization; hypothesizing that systematic differences exist between the usage of travel agents for different travel contexts); and travel agents can survive if they focus on specific segments of the market, such as older travelers (segmentation; hypothesizing that systematic differences exist between the usage of travel agents depending on the personal characteristics of travelers). Results indicate that the use of travel agencies is indeed associated with specific services related to package holidays, transport services, beach or city holidays, as well as destinations travelers are not familiar with. In contrast, no clear association between travel agent use and sociodemographic characteristics of travelers exists. Hence, the findings from this study support the notion that the most promising future for travel agents will lie in specializing in travel contexts and travel components where other booking channels and media are unlikely to be able to offer a full substitute for travel agent services.
Reexamining the Effectiveness of Vocabulary Learning via Mobile Phones

The purpose of this study is to reexamine the effectiveness of vocabulary learning via mobile phones. Students (N=78) from two intact classes of sophomores at a Chinese university were assigned to two groups: the SMS group (the experimental group) and the paper group (the control group). Then, they were administered a pretest to identify the level of their prior vocabulary knowledge. The results revealed that there was no significant difference (p>.05) between the SMS group (Mean=33.34, SD=14.30) and the paper group (Mean=37.13, SD=15.21). Next, they were put into two intervention conditions. The SMS group studied a selected list of vocabulary via mobile phone SMS text messages while the paper group worked on the same list of vocabulary through paper material in a self-regulated manner. Results showed that there was a significant difference (p .05) between the two groups. The study concludes that vocabulary learning through these two methods is effective in their own way and that a blended approach to vocabulary learning may better help increase the effectiveness from the perspective of sustained retention rates. Finally, the limitations of this study and suggestions for future studies are discussed.