Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neural dynamics of social emotion processing in alexithymia

Alexithymia is characterized by impairments in emotion processing, frequently linked to facial expressions of emotion. The eye-region conveys information necessary for emotion processing. It has been demonstrated that alexithymia is associated with reduced attention to the eyes, but little is known regarding the cognitive and electrophysiological mechanisms underlying emotive eye-region processing in alexithymia. Here, we recorded behavioral and electrophysiological responses of individuals with alexithymia (ALEX; n=25) and individuals without alexithymia (NonALEX; n=23) while they viewed intact and eyeless faces with angry and sad expressions during a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation task. Results showed different eye-region focuses and differentiating N1 responses between intact and eyeless faces to anger and sadness in NonALEX, but not in ALEX, suggesting deficient perceptual processing of the eye-region in alexithymia. Reduced eye-region focus and smaller differences in frontal alpha asymmetry in response to sadness between intact and eyeless faces were observed in ALEX than NonALEX, indicative of impaired affective processing of the eye-region in alexithymia. These findings highlight perceptual and affective abnormalities of emotive eye-region processing in alexithymia. Our results contribute to understanding the neuropsychopathology of alexithymia and alexithymia-related disorders.
Building as new perspective for Education: From belief mode to design mode and the need for

Despite the wide implementations and extensive research base that has developed on knowledge building communities, continued efforts are re­ quired to address the challenges of implementing innovations in diverse contexts as well as sustaining them over time. In this paper, we draw on the idea of infrastructuring as an emergent, multi­level approach that can shed new light on ways to do this. After defining the notion of infrastruc­ turing and showing its unique potential to sustain knowledge building, we examine three cases of infrastructuring within the context of efforts to grow knowledge building innovations in existing educational ecolo­ gies. This paper offers some new insights into how infrastructuring can be conceptualized to expand and sustain knowledge building innovations.
Syllables as representational units

When individuals write words, does syllable structure influence the preparation and execution of the responses? Recent studies conducted with French and Spanish participants have suggested that this is the case; specifically, inter-letter pauses when writing in uppercase tend to be prolonged when the critical bigram straddles a syllable boundary, compared to when the same bigram occurs within a syllable. This implies that higher-level abstract linguistic properties such as syllable structure emerge in the motoric properties of the written response. The current work investigated whether similar syllabic effects are found in English, a language in which syllable boundaries are oftentimes vague and ambiguous, and due to less perceptual salience syllables might be less relevant as organisational principles in orthographic output tasks. We asked participants to copy visually presented disyllabic words onto a digital graphic tablet in uppercase letters. Materials were chosen in pairs such that they had identical word-initial trigrams, but the critical bigram for which interletter duration was measured (occupying second and third position) either straddled a syllable boundary (e.g., BA.SIS) or occurred within a syllable (e.g., BAS.KET). In addition, letter movement duration for the first and the third letter were measured. Results showed no systematic effects of syllables, neither in interletter intervals nor in letter durations. These results might suggest that in languages such as English with relatively ambiguous syllabic boundaries, individuals don’t plan and execute written responses in terms of syllables. A number of alternative accounts are discussed. Abstract La structure syllabique
Trained dogs can detect the odour of Parkinson's Disease

A definitive diagnostic test for Parkinson Disease (PD) remains elusive, so identification of potential biomarkers may shed light on methods for diagnosis and facilitate early intervention. Excess sebum secretion and skin pathology are recognised symptoms of early PD. It is likely these result in a unique signature of volatile organic compounds that could be used to identify early stages of disease. Numerous medical conditions produce distinctive odours, and dogs have been trained to detect many of these. A single previous study, suggested that dogs can also be trained to detect Parkinsons Disease. In this study, two dogs were trained to distinguish sebum swabs obtained from drug naive, and medicated Parkinsons patients from swabs from control participants. After 38-53 weeks of training on 205 samples (90 target and 115 control), the dogs were tested in a double-blind trial using 60 control and 40 target samples from drug-naive patients. The dogs both showed high sensitivity (proportion of target samples found 70% and 80%) and specificity (proportion of control samples not alerted to 90% and 98%) of alerting response. This trial supports previous findings that dogs can be trained to reliably detect the odour of PD. We suggest there is a potential for dogs to achieve even higher accuracy with increased exposure and refined training methods and to detect early-stage PD, even prior to diagnosis, as well as hard to diagnose PD cases. Further exploration of the factors which affect dogs sensitivity and specificity and sample features which affect accuracy of discrimination are now required.
University of Birmingham Angel investors around the world

We document that the choice between disintermediated individual angel investments and intermediated private equity and venture capital investments depends on legal, economic, and cultural differences. We find evidence of this using PitchBook's comprehensive data on more than 5,000 angel and 80,000 private equity and venture capital investments in 96 countries from 1977 to 2012. The data further indicate that investee firms funded by angels are less likely to successfully exit through either an IPO or an acquisition. These findings are robust to propensity score matching methods, as well as to clustering standard errors and excluding U.S. observations, among other approaches.
Defining the chemical character of aerosols from the atmosphere of the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding regions

Atmospherically-transported trace metals can play an important role in biogeochemical cycles in the Mediterranean Sea. However, although the magnitude of trace metal air to sea fluxes is initially dependent on the metal concentrations in the air, it is the ''chemical character'' of the aerosol which constrains the fate of the metals in sea water; for example, the solubility of trace metals is considerably greater from anthropogenic than from crustal components. To a first approximation the chemical composition of the Mediterranean particulate aerosol is controlled by the extent to which an anthropogenic-rich ''background'' material, having a mainly European origin, is perturbed by mixing with crustal components having a desert origin. These perturbations offer an environmentally meaningful index which can be used to define the ''chemical character'' of the Mediterranean particulate aerosol in terms of the manner in which trace metals are partitioned between the anthropogenic and crustal components. This ''chemical character'' concept was assessed using: a) a total of 83 particulate aerosols collected on a W -- E transect across the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding regions; and b) particulate aerosol populations from a number of adjacent coastal seas. The crustal component in the samples was assumed to have the composition of the average crust and trace metals in excess of their crustal metal:Al ratios were assigned to a European aerosol ''background'' component (EABC). It was found that the average Zn:Cu, Zn:Ni, Zn:Cr and Zn:Mn ratios in the EABC indicate that it has a composition which is generally similar to the average anthropogenic background emissions of trace metals over Europe.
Epidemiology and management of leaf spot of ginger in Himachal Pradesh

Leaf spot is an important disease of ginger occurring in moderate to severe form in all the ginger growing areas of Himachal Pradesh. Influence of environmental factors viz., air temperature, relative humidity and rainfall on the disease development was found to be an extent of 85.5 percent. Rhizome treatment as well as foliar sprays with Bordeaux mixture (1%), companion (0.2%), Indofil M-45 (0.25%), Unilax (0.2%) and Baycor (0.05%) were found effective in checking the disease severity. However, Bordeaux mixture and companion effectively increased the rhizome yield of ginger.
Current Directions in Psychological Science

Mediating variables continue to play an important role in psychological theory and research. A mediating variable transmits the effect of an antecedent variable on to a dependent variable, thereby providing more detailed understanding of relations among variables. Methods to assess mediation have been an active area of research for the last two decades. This paper describes the current state of methods to investigate mediating variables. KEYWORDS—mediation, indirect effect, statistical methods Mediating variables have been ubiquitous throughout the history of psychology because they are used to explain how or why two variables are related. One of the oldest models in psychology, the Stimulus ! Organism ! Responsemodel, specifies mediating processes in an organism that transmit a stimulus to a response. A modern application of mediating variables is in treatment and prevention research, where interventions are designed to change mediating variables, such as norms, which are hypothesized to be causally related to a dependent variable, such as health behavior. The promise of mediation analysis is that it can identify fundamental processes underlying human behavior that are relevant across behaviors and contexts. Once a true mediating process is identified, then more efficient and powerful interventions can be developed because these interventions can focus on variables in the mediating process. A variety of mediation-analysis methods, including statistical and experimental methods, have been used throughout the history of psychology. New developments in mediation analysis extract more accurate information about whether a variable truly mediates the relation between two other variables. Consider some examples of mediating variables in psychology: (a) A tobacco prevention program, the antecedent variable, reduces cigarette smoking by changing the social norms for tobacco use, the mediating variable; (b) exposure to negative life events affects blood pressure through the mediation of cognitive attributions to stress; or (c) instructing persons tomake images of words in a memory task increases the number of images made, the mediating variable, which improves recall of the words. In each case, an antecedent variable affects a mediator variable and the mediator variable affects a dependent variable, thus forming a chain of relations among the three variables (Baron & Kenny, 1986; Judd & Kenny, 1981). The chain of relations among the variables is called an indirect or mediated effect of the antecedent variable on the dependent variable. An effect that is not mediated this way is called a direct effect. Although the consideration of a mediating variable may appear straightforward, even this simplest of mediating-variable models can be complicated. The methodological and statistical challenges of investigating mediation have made the assessment of mediation an active research topic. THE SINGLE-MEDIATOR MODEL The single-mediator model is shown in Figure 1 and further illustrated with the following three equations (MacKinnon &
La Follette School of Public Affairs

What are the factors that lead to desirable organizational characteristics? This paper examines this question by proposing a model to explain the ability of some organizations to create a focus on results and high levels of managerial authority. The New Public Management literature points to these two organizational characteristics as key steps for improving public performance and providing results-based accountability. Employing a national survey of U.S. state government health and human service agency managers we find that political support for the organization and purposeful reform efforts do lead to desirable organizational characteristics. In addition, strong internal communication fosters a focus on results, and organizational culture shapes the decision-making authority of managers.
Formation and evolution of buried snowpack deposits in Pearse Valley, Antarctica, and implications for Mars

Abstract Buried snowpack deposits are found within the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, which offers the opportunity to study these layered structures of sand and ice within a polar desert environment. Four discrete buried snowpacks are studied within Pearse Valley, Antarctica, through in situ observations, sample analyses, O-H isotope measurements and numerical modelling of snowpack stability and evolution. The buried snowpack deposits evolve throughout the year and undergo deposition, melt, refreeze, and sublimation. We demonstrate how the deposition and subsequent burial of snow can preserve the snowpacks in the Dry Valleys. The modelled lifetimes of the buried snowpacks are dependent upon subsurface stratigraphy but are typically less than one year if the lag thickness is less than c. 7 cm and snow thickness is less than c. 10 cm, indicating that some of the Antarctic buried snowpacks form annually. Buried snowpacks in the Antarctic polar desert may serve as analogues for similar deposits on Mars and may be applicable to observations of the north polar erg, buried ice at the Mars Phoenix landing site, and observations of buried ice throughout the martian Arctic. Numerical modelling suggests that seasonal snows and subsequent burial are not required to preserve the snow and ice on Mars.
One , two , three , four , nothing more : An investigation of the conceptual sources of the verbal counting principles

Since the publication of [Gelman, R. , & Gallistel, C. R. (1978). The child’s understanding of number. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ] seminal work on the development of verbal counting as a representation of number, the nature of the ontogenetic sources of the verbal counting principles has been intensely debated. The present experiments explore proposals according to which the verbal counting principles are acquired by mapping numerals in the count list onto systems of numerical representation for which there is evidence in infancy, namely, analog magnitudes, parallel individuation, and set-based quantiWcation. By asking 3and 4-year-olds to estimate the number of elements in sets without counting, we investigate whether the numerals that are assigned cardinal meaning as part of the acquisition process display the signatures of what we call “enriched parallel individuation” (which combines properties of parallel individuation and of set-based quantiWcation) or analog magnitudes. Two experiments demonstrate that while “one” to “four” are mapped onto core representations of small sets prior to the acquisition of the counting principles, numerals beyond “four” are only mapped onto analog magnitudes about six months after the acquisition of the counting principles. Moreover, we show that children’s numerical estimates of sets from 1 to 4 elements fail to show the signature of numeral use based on analog magnitudes – namely, scalar variability. We conclude that, while representations of small sets provided by parallel individuation, enriched by the resources of set-based quantiWcation This manuscript was accepted under the editorship of Jacques Mehler. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: lecorre@wjh.harvard. edu (M. Le Corre). Author's personal copy 396 M. Le Corre, S. Carey / Cognition 105 (2007) 395–438 are recruited in the acquisition process to provide the Wrst numerical meanings for “one” to “four”, analog magnitudes play no role in this process. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Behaviour of piles subjected to passive loading due to embankment construction

Behaviour of two embedded piles subjected to passive loading due to construction of an embankment was modelled in this paper. The piles were installed at the berm section of an embankment in a later stage of its construction. The investigation was carried out using a combination of two- and three-dimensional analyses. The analysis results were compared with the field-measured values and they agreed well. KEYWORDS: post-construction subsoil movements, soft soil, pile, lateral bending Dans cet article, le comportement de deux pieux enfouis soumis a des sollicitations passives causees par la construction d'un remblai est modelise. Les pieux ont ete installes dans la section de berme d'un remblai a un stade avance de sa construction. L'etude a ete realisee en utilisant une combinaison d'analyses en deux et trois dimensions. Les resultats de l'analyse ont ete compares a des valeurs mesurees sur le terrain, et correspondent bien. [Traduit par la Redaction]
Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization

Protesters now routinely fill the streets when any large, formal meeting dealing with international economic issues takes place. They express concern about the potential social and environmental costs of globalization and want negotiators to address these issues in trade agreements and international organizations. In addition, the debate over whether and how to link labor standards to trade has led to an impasse in American trade policy for much of the past decade and has tied the hands of US trade negotiators. Proposals to "let the market do it" or "let the International Labor Organization (ILO) do it" abound, but it is less common to find any serious analysis of just how activists can galvanize consumers to demand that corporations raise labor standards in their global operations or how the ILO can become more effective.In this study, Elliott and Freeman move beyond the debate on the relative merits and risks of a social clause in trade agreements and focus on practical approaches for improving labor standards in a more integrated global economy. The authors examine both what is being done in these areas and what more needs to be done to ensure that steady and tangible progress toward universal respect for core labor standards is made. While concluding that the ILO should have primary responsibility for labor standards, the book also suggests that the WTO should consider how to address egregious and willful violations of core labor standards if they are trade related.
FLUIDS 4 , 083302 ( 2019 ) Stability of plane Poiseuille flow of a Bingham fluid through a deformable neo-Hookean channel

We study the linear stability of plane Poiseuille flow of a Bingham fluid through a deformable neo-Hookean channel. The analysis reveals the existence of a finite-wave instability in the creeping-flow limit, which is absent for Newtonian fluid flow in the same geometry. Indeed, the instability in plane Poiseuille flow of a Bingham fluid closely resembles the finite-wave instability exhibited by plane Couette flow of a Newtonian fluid past a deformable solid. The motion of the unyielded region near the channel centerline effectively results in a Couette-like drag flow of the fluid in the yielded region, albeit with a parabolic base flow velocity profile. More importantly, the boundary conditions at the interface between yielded and unyielded zones is found to be crucial for the existence of the finite-wave instability. This is in stark contrast to Newtonian channel flow where the conditions at the channel centerline are dictated by the symmetry or antisymmetry of the velocity perturbations. The continuation of the predicted instability in the creeping-flow limit is also shown to determine the stability of the flow of a Bingham fluid at higher Reynolds number. In addition to treating the plug as a rigid solid, we also consider the plug to be an elastic solid and show that the elastic nature of the plug does not have any effect on the predicted finite-wave instability. We further argue, using the elastic plug scenario, that some of the regularized models can introduce model-dependent instabilities which are specific to the parameters used in the models.
Hydrological and sedimentary analyses of well‐preserved paleofluvial‐paleolacustrine systems at Moa Valles, Mars

Moa Valles is a well‐preserved, likely Amazonian (younger than 2 Ga old), paleodrainage system that is nearly 300 km long and carved into ancient highland terrains west of Idaeus Fossae. The fluvial system apparently originated from fluidized ejecta blankets, and it consists of a series of dam breach paleolakes with associated fan‐shaped sedimentary deposits. The paleolakes are interconnected and drain eastward into Liberta crater, forming a complex and multilobate deltaic deposit exhibiting a well‐developed channelized distributary pattern with evidence of switching on the delta plain. A breach area, consisting of three spillover channels, is present in the eastern part of the crater rim. These channels connect the Liberta crater to the eastward portion of the valley system, continuing toward Moa Valles with a complex pattern of anabranching channels that is more than 180 km long. Based on hydrological calculations of infilling and spillover discharges of the Liberta crater lake, the formation of the whole fluvial system is compatible with short to medium (<1000 year) timescales, although the length and morphology of the observed fluvial‐lacustrine features suggest long‐term periods of activity based on terrestrial analogs. Water for the 300 km long fluvial system may have been primarily sourced by the melting of shallow ice due to the thermal anomaly produced by impact craters. The occurrence of relatively recent (likely Amazonian) hydrological activity, which could have been primarily supported by groundwater replenishment, supports the hypothesis that hydrological activity could have been possible after the Noachian‐Hesperian boundary, which is commonly considered as the onset epoch of the present cold‐dry climate.