Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Convex Elicitation of Continuous Real Properties

A property or statistic of a distribution is said to be elicitable if it can be expressed as the minimizer of some loss function in expectation. Recent work shows that continuous real-valued properties are elicitable if and only if they are identifiable, meaning the set of distributions with the same property value can be described by linear constraints. From a practical standpoint, one may ask for which such properties do there exist convex loss functions. In this paper, in a finite-outcome setting, we show that in fact essentially every elicitable real-valued property can be elicited by a convex loss function. Our proof is constructive, and leads to convex loss functions for new properties.
Atmospheric Deposition and Critical Loads for Nitrogen and Metals in Arctic Alaska: Review and Current Status

To protect important resources under their bureau’s purview, the United States National Park Service’s (NPS) Arctic Network (ARCN) has developed a series of “vital signs” that are to be periodically monitored. One of these vital signs focuses on wet and dry deposition of atmospheric chemicals and further, the establishment of critical load (CL) values (thresholds for ecological effects based on cumulative depositional loadings) for nitrogen (N), sulfur, and metals. As part of the ARCN terrestrial monitoring programs, samples of the feather moss Hylocomium splendens are being collected and analyzed as a cost-effective means to monitor atmospheric pollutant deposition in this region. Ultimately, moss data combined with refined CL values might be used to help guide future regulation of atmospheric contaminant sources potentially impacting Arctic Alaska. But first, additional long-term studies are needed to determine patterns of contaminant deposition as measured by moss biomonitors and to quantify ecosystem responses at particular loadings/ ranges of contaminants within Arctic Alaska. Herein we briefly summarize 1) current regulatory guidance related to CL values 2) derivation of CL models for N and metals, 3) use of mosses as biomonitors of atmospheric deposition and loadings, 4) preliminary analysis of vulnerabilities and risks associated with CL estimates for N, 5) preliminary analysis of existing data for characterization of CL values for N for interior Alaska and 6) implications for managers and future research needs.
On Reproducible AI - final

Background: Artificial intelligence, like any science, must rely on reproducible experiments to validate results. Objective: To give practical and pragmatic recommendations for how to document AI research so that results are reproducible. Method: Our analysis of the literature shows that AI publications currently fall short of providing enough documentation to facilitate reproducibility. Our suggested best practices are based on a framework for reproducibility and recommendations for best practices given by scientific organizations, scholars, and publishers. Results: We have made a reproducibility checklist based on our investigation and described how every item in the checklist can be documented by authors and examined by reviewers. Conclusion: We encourage authors and reviewers to use the suggested best practices and author checklist when considering submissions for AAAI publications and conferences.
Reconciling Expert Advice and Community Opinion in a Local Government Strategic Planning Process

This article proposes that the eventual outcomes of local government strategic policy deliberations can often reflect the interplay between “expert” administrative staff, democratically elected politicians, and the community they jointly serve. A multi-site case study approach, to examine the generation of local government strategy related to a niche economic activity concludes that broadly conceptualized opinion congruence can sometimes be threatened by substantial pockets of stakeholder vested interest. As such, “expert” and “political” opinion reflects a caution based on both historical experience and political expediency; while community opinion displays an optimism based on eager anticipation of an unknown future.
Prevalence and Risk Factors of Social Phobia Among Secondary School Male Students in Khamis Mushayt, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Aim of Study : To assess the prevalence and risk factors of social phobia (SP) among secondary school male students in Khamis Mushayt, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Subjects and Methods : This study was conducted in secondary schools for males in Khamis Mushayt. A total of 566 male secondary school students were included in the present study. Study tools included the translated forms of the SP Inventory and the SP Risk Factors Questionnaire. Results : Prevalence of SP is high among male secondary school students (14.1 %). More than half of students expressed the presence of negative temperament symptoms, i.e., being shy (52.5%) or anxious (51.1%) when facing new situations or people. Almost one third of students felt restrained (32.7%) or fear (31.6%), while almost one fourth felt withdrawn (24.4%). Being a middle-born child was associated with least prevalence of SP (39%) and being the first born child (or the only child) was associated with higher prevalence of SP (46.4%, p =0.036). All studied risk factors (i.e., exposure to teasing, battering, frightening, rejection, mockering or humiliation) are associated with significantly higher prevalence of SP. Having problems with the mother or siblings and the presence of problems within the family is associated with significantly higher prevalence of SP ( p<0.001 for all). All negative symptoms (i.e., shy, withdrawn, restrained, fear and anxiety) felt by students are significantly associated with higher prevalence of SP ( p<0.001 for all symptoms). Conclusions: SP is highly prevalent among male secondary school students in Khamis Mushayt. Birth order is a risk factor for developing SP among male adolescents, being least among middle born children. Frequent exposure to teasing, battering, frightening, rejection, mockering or humiliation is associated with significantly higher prevalence of SP. Having problems with the mother or siblings and the presence of problems within the family are associated with significantly higher prevalence of SP. Negative symptoms felt by students are significantly associated with higher prevalence of SP. Age, scholastic year and family size of secondary school students are not significant variables as regard prevalence of SP. Recommendations: Growing children should be protected against exposure to negative experiences. Teachers should be
Prevalence of Anisometropia, Strabismus and Amblyopia among First Year Optometry Students in Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana

Purpose: To determine the prevalence of anisometropia, amblyopia, and strabismus among first year optometry students in Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). Methods: This was a descriptive cross sectional study. The study population included all first year optometry students in KNUST during the 2016/2017 academic year. Uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) and best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) were recorded for each participant. Anisometropia was defined as spherical equivalent (SE) refraction difference of 1.00D or more between the two eyes. Amblyopia was distinguished as a reduction of BCVA to 6/9 or less in one eye or 2-line interocular optotype acuity differences in the absence of pathological causes. Cover tests were done to investigate strabismus. All data was entered into and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 23, USA. Descriptive analysis and Chisquared test were employed. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05. Results: A total of 67 students were involved in the study. The mean age of the participants was 20.96 years. The prevalence of anisometropia was 5.97% (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.49-11.94). The prevalence of anisometropia in males and females were 5.26% and 6.90% respectively (p = 0.272). 1.49% of the participants (95% CI, 1.62-6.34) were amblyopic. The prevalence of strabismus was 1.49% (95% CI, 1.62-6.34). Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the prevalence of anisometropia, amblyopia, and strabismus among the first year optometry students was low. We advise that all newly admitted students to the university should undergo comprehensive eye examinations every academic year.
Numerical study of the evaporation process and parameter estimation analysis of an evaporation experiment

Abstract. Evaporation is an important process in soil-atmosphere interaction. The determination of hydraulic properties is one of the crucial parts in the simulation of water transport in porous media. Schneider et al. (2006) developed a new evaporation method to improve the estimation of hydraulic properties in the dry range. In this study we used numerical simulations of the experiment to study the physical dynamics in more detail, to optimise the boundary conditions and to choose the optimal combination of measurements. The physical analysis exposed, in accordance to experimental findings in the literature, two different evaporation regimes: (i) a soil-atmosphere boundary layer dominated regime (regime I) close to saturation and (ii) a hydraulically dominated regime (regime II). During this second regime a drying front (interface between unsaturated and dry zone with very steep gradients) forms which penetrates deeper into the soil as time passes. The sensitivity analysis showed that the result is especially sensitive at the transition between the two regimes. By changing the boundary conditions it is possible to force the system to switch between the two regimes, e.g. from II back to I. Based on this findings a multistep experiment was developed. The response surfaces for all parameter combinations are flat and have a unique, localised minimum. Best parameter estimates are obtained if the evaporation flux and a potential measurement in 2 cm depth are used as target variables. Parameter estimation from simulated experiments with realistic measurement errors with a two-stage Monte-Carlo Levenberg-Marquardt procedure and manual rejection of obvious misfits lead to acceptable results for three different soil textures.
Promises and Punishment

We study the effect of communication on beliefs, behavior, and efficiency in the context of hold-up problems with a punishment option. We apply a novel behavioral motivation, frustration-dependent anger, that links unmet payoff expectations with the willingness to forgo material payoffs to punish others, and we conjecture that communication works through this mechanism to raise expectations about the likelihood of belief-dependent costly punishment and to increase trust, cooperation, and efficiency. In an experiment we allow communication in the form of a single pre-play message. We measure beliefs and our design permits the observation of promises and deception. The results are consistent with the theory that costly punishment results from belief- dependent anger and frustration. Promises drive the effect of communication on beliefs and broken promises lead to higher rates of costly punishment.
The Power of Ensembles for Active Learning in Image Classification

Deep learning methods have become the de-facto standard for challenging image processing tasks such as image classification. One major hurdle of deep learning approaches is that large sets of labeled data are necessary, which can be prohibitively costly to obtain, particularly in medical image diagnosis applications. Active learning techniques can alleviate this labeling effort. In this paper we investigate some recently proposed methods for active learning with high-dimensional data and convolutional neural network classifiers. We compare ensemble-based methods against Monte-Carlo Dropout and geometric approaches. We find that ensembles perform better and lead to more calibrated predictive uncertainties, which are the basis for many active learning algorithms. To investigate why Monte-Carlo Dropout uncertainties perform worse, we explore potential differences in isolation in a series of experiments. We show results for MNIST and CIFAR-10, on which we achieve a test set accuracy of 90% with roughly 12,200 labeled images, and initial results on ImageNet. Additionally, we show results on a large, highly class-imbalanced diabetic retinopathy dataset. We observe that the ensemble-based active learning effectively counteracts this imbalance during acquisition.
Prevalence of Nomophobia among University Students: A Comparative Study of Pakistani and Turkish Undergraduate Students

This study focused on to examine prevalence of nomophobia among university students; and the relationship among nomophobia, self-esteem, loneliness and self-happiness with respect to gender and year of study of the university students in Pakistan and Turkey. The study subjects consisted of 729 students 368 (50.5%) of which were from Turkey and 361 (49.5%) from Pakistan. The data were collected by using Nomophobia Scale (NMP-Q), UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS–8), Self-Happiness Scale, and Rosenberg’ Self-Esteem Scale by the researchers from Pakistan and Turkey respectively. The relationship and the effect of each psychological structure on nomophobia were examined with multiple linear regression model. The difference across the categories of independent variables on each of the dependent variables (loneliness, self-happiness, self-esteem and nomophobia) and on linear combination of dependent variables for each country was examined by multivariate MANOVA. According to multivariate effects results, the main effect of gender on self-esteem and nomophobia was statistically significant which indicates that differences between male and female students with respect to self-esteem and nomophobia were significant. The study demonstrated differences between Turkish and Pakistani students’ score on nomophobia, loneliness and self-happiness were significant, while difference on self-esteem across countries was not statistically significant.
CTLA-4 gene polymorphism A/G in exon 1 (+49) is associated with plasma viral load in HIV-1 infection patients

Objective: Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Antigen 4 (CTLA-4) is a potent immunoregulatory molecule that suppresses antitumor response by down-regulating T cell activation and is believed to have a critical modulatory role in the immune response. The expression and function of CTLA-4 may be affected by gene polymorphisms. The present study examined the correlation of CTLA-4 gene +49 G/A polymorphism with HIV-1 infection, and evaluated the role of +49G/A polymorphism on plasma EFV level and treatment response in the form of change in HIV viral load, CD+4 T-cell counts and CD+4/CD +8 ratios in HIV-1 infected patients receiving Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART). Materials and Methods: The CTLA-4 exon 1 +49 A/G Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) were genotyped in 45 adult patients with HIV-1 infection and 50 ethnically, age, gender matched healthy controls through polymerase chain reaction. Plasma EFV levels were detected using high-performance liquid chromatography, and viral load, CD+4 T-cell counts and CD+4/CD+8 ratios were measured at enrolment and every 2 months for 6 months. Results: Frequencies of the CTLA-4 +49 AG and GG genotype and the +49 G allele were not significantly increased in patients with HIV-1 infection compared to healthy controls (AG andGG vs. AA: Odds Ratio (OR)=1.70, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.74-3.89, P=0.21; G vs. A: OR=1.45, 95% CI: 0.74-2.82, P=0.28), meanwhile, were not significantly associated with high plasma EFV concentrations (P=0.0236), whereas the GG genotype was associated with higher plasma viral load (P=0.017) and lower CD+4 T-cell counts (P=0.009). The relationship between the reactivation of HIV viral load declines, increased CD+4 T-cell counts and increment ratio of CD+4/CD+8 in peripheral blood were observed. Conclusions: This study provides the first evidence that CTLA-4 exon 1 +49A/G polymorphism does not represent a major susceptibility risk allele for HIV-1 infection, however, supporting the association with plasma HIV viral load level. Furthermore, the CTLA-4 (+99A/G) gene polymorphism is not associated with immune response to HAART. To validate our results, further studies on a larger cohort are needed.
How to Design a Crowdwork Platform

Digital technology is rapidly changing the organisation of work. On form of digital work is crowd work that is gaining increasing importance in the field of software development. However, only few platforms are able to sustainably create and capture value. We therefore provide an examination of how to design crowd work platforms by conducting a multiple case study in the software development industry.
Emotional Modulation of the Pupil Response in Psychopathy

Psychopathy is a form of personality disorder associated with a deficit in emotional processing. However, there is debate whether this deficit applies to all emotions or exists only for negative emotions. The pupil dilates rapidly in response to emotional stimuli, allowing a time-sensitive index of emotional processing. Across 3 experiments using (a) visual images of real-world scenes, (b) auditory sound clips, and (c) videos of dynamic facial expressions, we measured emotional modulation of the pupil response to both negative and positive stimuli. Participants were 82 male mentally disordered offenders. Psychopathy was measured using the Psychopathy Checklist—Revised to produce factor scores of interpersonal–affective traits (Factor 1) and lifestyle–antisocial traits (Factor 2). Participants with high Factor 1 scores showed reduced emotional modulation of the pupil response to negative images and angry faces but not to any of the positive stimuli. These effects only occurred shortly after the emotion was presented (<2,000 ms), suggesting delayed processing of negative affective stimuli in Factor 1 psychopathy. Factor 2 scores were not associated with any changes in pupil response. There were no effects of psychopathy on the pupil response to the affective sound clips. The results support a specific psychopathic deficit in the processing of negative stimuli related to the interpersonal–affective dimension of psychopathy. We argue that pupillometry is a powerful and noninvasive tool to investigate emotional processing in clinical populations.
Entrepreneurial judgment as empathic accuracy: a sequential decision-making approach to entrepreneurial action

Abstract: Entrepreurship theory within economics has long touted the importance of judgment in entrepreneurial action. More recently, proponents have begun to advocate extension of this work to organization studies. However, critics of entrepreneurial judgment have responded by claiming that the construct is only meaningful post hoc and vapid when examined ex ante. Instead, they claim that, if entrepreneurship theory is to progress, then judgment must be replaced by a process logic known as effectuation. This article examines their claims and redefines the judgment dilemma as one of scope rather than existence. Empathic accuracy is then introduced to offer a means of addressing their criticism without having to deny the existence of entrepreneurial judgment. Empathic accuracy is also shown to be capable of explaining some of the cognitive mechanisms necessary for effectuation and dynamic socio-economic order.
Reconciling drainage and receiving basin signatures of the Godavari River system

Abstract. The modern-day Godavari River transports large amounts of sediment (170 Tg per year) and terrestrial organic carbon (OCterr; 1.5 Tg per year) from peninsular India to the Bay of Bengal. The flux and nature of OCterr is considered to have varied in response to past climate and human forcing. In order to delineate the provenance and nature of organic matter (OM) exported by the fluvial system and establish links to sedimentary records accumulating on its adjacent continental margin, the stable and radiogenic isotopic composition of bulk OC, abundance and distribution of long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs), sedimentological properties (e.g. grain size, mineral surface area, etc.) of fluvial (riverbed and riverbank) sediments and soils from the Godavari basin were analysed and these characteristics were compared to those of a sediment core retrieved from the continental slope depocenter. Results show that river sediments from the upper catchment exhibit higher total organic carbon (TOC) contents than those from the lower part of the basin. The general relationship between TOC and sedimentological parameters (i.e. mineral surface area and grain size) of the sediments suggests that sediment mineralogy, largely driven by provenance, plays an important role in the stabilization of OM during transport along the river axis, and in the preservation of OM exported by the Godavari to the Bay of Bengal. The stable carbon isotopic (δ13C) characteristics of river sediments and soils indicate that the upper mainstream and its tributaries drain catchments exhibiting more 13C enriched carbon than the lower stream, resulting from the regional vegetation gradient and/or net balance between the upper (C4-dominated plants) and lower (C3-dominated plants) catchments. The radiocarbon contents of organic carbon (Δ14COC) in deep soils and eroding riverbanks suggests these are likely sources of “old” or pre-aged carbon to the Godavari River that increasingly dominates the late Holocene portion of the offshore sedimentary record. While changes in water flow and sediment transport resulting from recent dam construction have drastically impacted the flux, loci, and composition of OC exported from the modern Godavari basin, complicating reconciliation of modern-day river basin geochemistry with that recorded in continental margin sediments, such investigations provide important insights into climatic and anthropogenic controls on OC cycling and burial.
Long-term outcomes in patients who underwent surgical correction for atrioventricular septal defect

Objective: The follow-up results of patients operated for atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD) during 1996–2016 at Başkent University are presented. Methods: Data obtained from hospital records consists of preoperative echocardiographic and angiographic details, age and weight at surgery, operative details, Down syndrome presence, postoperative care details, early postoperative and latest echocardiographic findings and hospitalization for reintervention. Results: A total of 496 patient-files were reviewed including 314 patients (63.4%) with complete and 181 (36.6%) with partial AVSD (48.4% of all patients had Down syndrome). Atrioventricular (AV) valve morphology was Rastelli type A in 92.2%, B in 6.5%, and C in 1.3% of patients. The operative technique used was single-patch in 21.6% (108), double-patch in 25.8% (128), and modified single-patch (Wilcox) in 52.5% (260) of patients. The follow-up time was 37.79±46.70 (range, 0–198) months. A total of 64 patients (12.9%) had arrhythmias while in the intensive care unit; pacemaker was implanted in 12 patients. A total of 78 patients (15.7%) were treated for pulmonary hypertensive crisis. The early morbidity and mortality in the postoperative first month were calculated as 38% and 10%, and the late morbidity and mortality (>1 month) were calculated as 13.1% and 1.9%, respectively. The rate of reoperation in our cohort was 8.9%. Conclusion: Although the early morbidity and mortality are low in AVSD operations, the rate of reoperations for left AV valve insufficiency are still high. Although Down syndrome is not a risk factor for early mortality, the co-morbid factors, such as longer postoperative mechanical ventilator or inotropic support, lead to higher risk for morbidity. The frequency of pulmonary hypertension and consequent complications are also high.