Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Laboratory Study Comparing the Effectiveness of Verbal and Nonverbal Rapport-Building Techniques in Interviews

ABSTRACT The relative and combined effectiveness of verbal versus nonverbal techniques in eliciting rapport during interviews is unknown. The effectiveness of one verbal and one nonverbal behavioral technique presumed to be associated with rapport-building were compared to determine if either or both could influence participants to disclose more personal information. In an experiment, an interviewer performed one of four conditions with participants: verbal commonalities, mirrored body postures, a combination of both, or neither (control). Results indicated that participants were more willing to discuss personal, or “closed” topics when verbal commonalities were used alone, versus in conjunction with nonverbal mirroring. The simple effect of mirroring trended in the predicted direction but was not significantly different from the control group. Practical and research-based implications for rapport-building in interviews are discussed.
Design Space Cards

The potential space of game designs is astronomically large. This paper shows how game design theories can be translated into a simple, tangible card deck that can assist in the exploration of new game designs within a broader "design space. " By translating elements of game design theory into a physical card deck, we enable users to randomly sample a design space in order to synthesize new game design variations for a new play platform ("Lumies"). In a series of iterative design and testing rounds with various user groups, the deck has been optimized to merge relevant game theory elements into a concise card deck with limited categories and clear descriptions. In a small, controlled experiment involving groups of design students, we compare the effects of brainstorming with the card deck or the "Directed Brainstorming" method. We show that the deck does not increase ideation speed but is preferred by participants. We further show that our target audience, children, were able to use the card deck to develop dozens of new game ideas. We conclude that design space cards are a promising way to help adults and children to generate new game ideas by making it easier to explore the game design space.
Level Design Patterns That Invoke Curiosity-Driven Exploration

Video games frequently feature 'open world' environments, designed to motivate exploration. Level design patterns are implemented to invoke curiosity and to guide player behavior. However, evidence of the efficacy of such patterns has remained theoretical. This study presents an empirical study of how level design patterns impact curiosity-driven exploration in a 3D open-world video game. 254 participants played a game in an empirical study using a between-subjects factorial design, testing 4 variables: presence or absence of patterns, goal or open-ended, nature and alien aesthetic, and assured or unassured compensation. Data collection consisted of in-game metrics and emotion word prompts as well as post-game questionnaires. Results show that design patterns invoke heightened exploration, but this effect is influenced by the presence of an explicit goal or monetary compensation. There appear to be many motivations behind exploratory behavior in games, with patterns raising expectations in players. A disposition for curiosity (i.e. 'trait curiosity') was not found to influence exploration. We interpret and discuss the impact of the conditions, individual patterns, and player motivations.
Productivity, Quality, Nutrient Content and Soil Fertility of Summer Greengram ( Vigna radiata ) as Influenced by Different Levels of Vermicompost and Phosphorus with and without PSB

A field experiment was conducted at the Agronomy Instructional Farm, C. P. College of Agriculture, S. D. Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar during 2010 on loamy sand soil to investigate the effect of different levels of vermicompost and phosphorus with and without PSB on yield, quality, nutrient content of summer greengram and soil fertility status after harvest of the crop. Among the different levels of vermicompost, application of vermicompost @ 1t ha -1 sowed its superiority, producing highest seed (1105 kg ha -1 ) and stover yield (2379 kg ha -1 ). The same treatment exhibited significant improvement in recording maximum values for the protein content, nutrients content and uptake of summer greengram. Among the levels of phosphorus @ 40 kg P 2 O 5 ha -1 + PSB standing statistically at par with 40 kg P 2 O 5 ha -1 recorded significantly higher seed (1099 kg ha -1 ) and stover yield (2301kg ha -1 ) over PSB only and 20 kg P 2 O 5 with and without PSB. Phosphorus application @ 40 kg ha -1 + PSB performed equally as that of P 2 O 5 40 kg ha -1 without PSB, significantly improved the protein content, nutrients content and uptake as well as soil fertility status after harvest the crop.
For Honor, for Toxicity

Is it possible to detect toxicity in games just by observing in-game behavior? If so, what are the behavioral factors that will help machine learning to discover the unknown relationship between gameplay and toxic behavior? In this initial study, we examine whether it is possible to predict toxicity in the MOBA gameFor Honor by observing in-game behavior for players that have been labeled as toxic (i.e. players that have been sanctioned by Ubisoft community managers). We test our hypothesis of detecting toxicity through gameplay with a dataset of almost 1,800 sanctioned players, and comparing these sanctioned players with unsanctioned players. Sanctioned players are defined by their toxic action type (offensive behavior vs. unfair advantage) and degree of severity (warned vs. banned). Our findings, based on supervised learning with random forests, suggest that it is not only possible to behaviorally distinguish sanctioned from unsanctioned players based on selected features of gameplay; it is also possible to predict both the sanction severity (warned vs. banned) and the sanction type (offensive behavior vs. unfair advantage). In particular, all random forest models predict toxicity, its severity, and type, with an accuracy of at least 82%, on average, on unseen players. This research shows that observing in-game behavior can support the work of community managers in moderating and possibly containing the burden of toxic behavior.
Purely elastic instabilities in the airways and oral area

Abstract The present study considers a shear-thinning viscoelastic liquid layer sheared by the air and flowing past a deformable-solid layer in the presence of a surfactant at the air–liquid interface to model the airflow in the oral area and airways. The stability analysis reveals the existence of purely elastic and unconditionally unstable ‘liquid elastic’ and ‘solid elastic’ modes. The mechanism responsible for the destabilisation of the solid elastic mode is the shear stresses exerted by the air on the liquid and by the liquid on the deformable solid while for the liquid elastic mode, the mechanism is the first normal stress difference across the air–liquid interface. The liquid and solid elastic modes undergo resonance, resulting in the ‘resonance mode’ of instability. The resonance mode exhibits a much higher growth rate than the liquid and solid elastic modes. The shear-thinning characteristic of the liquid and presence of the surfactant leads to enhancement in the growth rate of the resonance mode. An estimate shows a good correlation between the exhaled fluid particle (i.e. droplets and aerosols) diameters and the wavelength of the perturbations with maximum growth rate. In essence, the present analysis predicts that the airflow in the airways and oral area could lead to an elastic instability arising due to the elastic nature of the saliva, mucus and underlying muscle layers.
Enhancement of Hippocampal-Thalamocortical Temporal Coordination during Slow-Frequency Long-Duration Anterior Thalamic Spindles

Temporal nesting of cortical slow oscillations, thalamic spindles, and hippocampal ripples indicates multiregional neuronal interactions required for memory consolidation. However, how the thalamic activity during spindles organizes hippocampal dynamics remains largely undetermined. We analyzed simultaneous recordings of anterodorsal thalamus and CA1 in male mice to determine the contribution of thalamic spindles in cross-regional synchronization. Our results indicated that temporal hippocampo-thalamocortical coupling was more enhanced during slower and longer thalamic spindles. Additionally, spindles occurring closer to slow oscillation trough were more strongly coupled to ripples. We found that the temporal association between CA1 spiking/ripples and thalamic spindles was stronger following spatial exploration compared with baseline sleep. We further developed a hippocampal-thalamocortical model to explain the mechanism underlying the duration and frequency-dependent coupling of thalamic spindles to hippocampal activity. Our findings shed light on our understanding of the functional role of thalamic activity during spindles on multiregional information transfer. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The contribution of thalamic spindles with differential properties to cross-regional synchronization and information transfer still remains poorly understood. Using simultaneous anterodorsal thalamic and hippocampal recordings from naturally sleeping mice before and after exploration, we found strong coupling of CA1 units to anterodorsal thalamic spindles and increase of this coupling following spatial experience. We further showed that the temporal coupling of CA1 units and hippocampal ripples with thalamic spindles and the spindle-associated modulation of CA1 units with ripples were stronger for spindles with slower frequency of oscillations. Our experimental as well as computational findings using a hippocampal-thalamocortical model provide the first demonstration that spindle frequency and duration can provide valuable information about the underlying multiregional interactions essential for memory consolidation computations.
A particle-based computational model to analyse remodelling of the red blood cell cytoskeleton during malaria infections

Red blood cells can withstand the harsh mechanical conditions in the vasculature only because the bending rigidity of their plasma membrane is complemented by the shear elasticity of the underlying spectrin-actin network. During an infection by the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite mines host actin from the junctional complexes and establishes a system of adhesive knobs, whose main structural component is the knob-associated histidine rich protein (KAHRP) secreted by the parasite. Here we aim at a mechanistic understanding of this dramatic transformation process. We have developed a particle-based computational model for the cytoskeleton of red blood cells and simulated it with Brownian dynamics to predict the mechanical changes resulting from actin mining and KAHRP-clustering. Our simulations include the three-dimensional conformations of the semi-flexible spectrin chains, the capping of the actin protofilaments and several established binding sites for KAHRP. For the healthy red blood cell, we find that incorporation of actin protofilaments leads to two regimes in the shear response. Actin mining decreases the shear modulus, but knob formation increases it. We show that dynamical changes in KAHRP binding affinities can explain the experimentally observed relocalization of KAHRP from ankyrin to actin complexes and demonstrate good qualitative agreement with experiments by measuring pair cross-correlations both in the computer simulations and in super-resolution imaging experiments. Author summary Malaria is one of the deadliest infectious diseases and its symptoms are related to the blood stage, when the parasite multiplies within red blood cells. In order to avoid clearance by the spleen, the parasite produces specific factors like the adhesion receptor PfEMP1 and the multifunctional protein KAHRP that lead to the formation of adhesive knobs on the surface of the red blood cells and thus increase residence time in the vasculature. We have developed a computational model for the parasite-induced remodelling of the actin-spectrin network to quantitatively predict the dynamical changes in the mechanical properties of the infected red blood cells and the spatial distribution of the different protein components of the membrane skeleton. Our simulations show that KAHRP can relocate to actin junctions due to dynamical changes in binding affinities, in good qualitative agreement with super-resolution imaging experiments. In the future, our simulation framework can be used to gain further mechanistic insight into the way malaria parasites attack the red blood cell cytoskeleton.
Disruption of metapopulation structure effectively reduces Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease spread at the expense of abundance and genetic diversity

Metapopulation structure (i.e. the spatial arrangement of local populations and corridors between them) plays a fundamental role in the persistence of wildlife populations, but can also drive the spread of infectious diseases. While the disruption of metapopulation connectivity can reduce disease spread, it can also impair host resilience by disrupting gene flow and colonisation dynamics. Thus, a pressing challenge for many wildlife populations is to elucidate whether the benefits of disease management methods that reduce metapopulation connectivity outweigh the associated risks. Directly transmissible cancers are clonal malignant cell lines capable to spread through host populations without immune recognition, when susceptible and infected hosts become in close contact. Using an individual-based metapopulation model we investigate the effects of the interplay between host dispersal, disease transmission rate and inter-individual contact distance for transmission (determining within-population mixing) on the spread and persistence of a transmissible cancer, Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), from local to regional scales. Further, we explore population isolation scenarios to devise management strategies to mitigate disease spread. Disease spread, and the ensuing population declines, are synergistically determined by individuals’ dispersal, disease transmission rate and within-population mixing. Low to intermediate transmission rates can be magnified by high dispersal and inter-individual transmission distance. Once disease transmission rate is high, dispersal and inter-individual contact distance do not impact the outcome of the disease transmission dynamics. Isolation of local populations effectively reduced metapopulation-level disease prevalence but caused severe declines in metapopulation size and genetic diversity. The relative position of managed (i.e. isolated) populations within the metapopulation had a significant effect on disease prevalence, highlighting the importance of considering metapopulation structure when implementing metapopulation-scale disease control measures. Our findings suggests that population isolation is not an ideal management method for preventing disease spread in species inhabiting already fragmented landscapes, where genetic diversity and extinction risk are already a concern, such as the Tasmanian devil.
Phenotypic diversity created by a transposable element increases productivity and resistance to competitors in plant populations

An accumulating body of evidence indicates that natural plant populations harbour a large diversity of transposable elements (TEs). TEs provide genetic and epigenetic variation that can substantially translate into changes in plant phenotypes. Despite the wealth of data on the ecological and evolutionary effects of TEs on plant individuals, we have virtually no information on the role of TEs on populations and ecosystem functioning. On the example of Arabidopsis thaliana, we demonstrate that TE-generated variation creates differentiation in ecologically important functional traits. In particular, we show that Arabidopsis populations with increasing diversity of individuals differing in copy numbers of the ONSEN retrotransposon had higher phenotypic and functional diversity. Moreover, increased diversity enhanced population productivity and reduced performance of interspecific competitors. We conclude that TE-generated diversity can have similar effects on ecosystem as usually documented for other biological diversity effects.
Neural language processing across time, space, frequency and age: MEG-MVPA classification of intertrial phase coherence

Language is a key part of human cognition. Whereas many neurocognitive abilities decline with age, for language the picture is much less clear and how exactly language processing changes with aging is still unknown. To investigate this, we employed magnetoencephalography (MEG) and recorded neuromagnetic brain responses to auditory linguistic stimuli in healthy participants of younger and older age using a passive task-free paradigm and a range of different linguistic stimulus contrasts, which enabled us to assess neural language processes at multiple levels (lexical, semantic, morphosyntactic). By using machine learning-based classification algorithms to scrutinise intertrial phase coherence of MEG responses in source space, we found significant differences between younger and older participants across several frequency bands and for all tested processing types, which shows multiple changes in the brain’s neurolinguistic circuits which may be due to both healthy aging in general and compensatory processes in particular.
Neural basis for adaptive motor behavior during car driving

Car driving is supported by motor skills trained through continuous daily practice. One of the skills unique to expert drivers is the ability to detect abrupt changes in the driving environment and then quickly adapt their operation mode to the changes. Previous functional neuroimaging studies on motor control investigated the mechanisms underlying behaviors adaptive to changes in control properties of simple experimental devices such as a computer mouse or a joystick. The switching of multiple internal models mainly engages adaptive behaviors and underlies the interplay between the cerebellum and frontoparietal network (FPN) regions as the neural process. However, it remains unclear whether the neural mechanisms identified through an experimental paradigm using such simple devices also underlie practical driving behaviors. In the current study, we measure functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activities while participants control a realistic driving simulator inside the MRI scanner. Here, the accelerator sensitivity of a virtual car is abruptly changed, requiring participants to respond to this change as quickly as possible. We first compare brain activities before and after the sensitivity change. As a result, sensorimotor areas, including the left cerebellum, increase their activities after the sensitivity change. Moreover, after the change, activity significantly increases in the inferior parietal lobe and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, parts of the FPN regions. By contrast, the posterior cingulate cortex, a part of the default mode network, deactivates after the sensitivity change. Our results suggest that the neural bases found in previous experiments using the simpler devices can serve as the foundation of adaptive car driving. At the same time, this study also highlights the unique contribution of non-motor-related regions to addressing the high cognitive demands of driving.
Regulation of blood–brain barrier integrity by microbiome-associated methylamines and cognition by trimethylamine N-oxide

Background Communication between the gut microbiota and the brain is primarily mediated via soluble microbe-derived metabolites, but the details of this pathway remain poorly defined. Methylamines produced by microbial metabolism of dietary choline and l -carnitine have received attention due to their proposed association with vascular disease, but their effects upon the cerebrovascular circulation have hitherto not been studied. Results Here, we use an integrated in vitro/in vivo approach to show that physiologically relevant concentrations of the dietary methylamine trimethylamine N -oxide (TMAO) enhanced blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity and protected it from inflammatory insult, acting through the tight junction regulator annexin A1. In contrast, the TMAO precursor trimethylamine (TMA) impaired BBB function and disrupted tight junction integrity. Moreover, we show that long-term exposure to TMAO protects murine cognitive function from inflammatory challenge, acting to limit astrocyte and microglial reactivity in a brain region-specific manner. Conclusion Our findings demonstrate the mechanisms through which microbiome-associated methylamines directly interact with the mammalian BBB, with consequences for cerebrovascular and cognitive function. Video abstract
No-Reference Image Quality Assessment Based on Edge Pattern Feature in the Spatial Domain

This paper proposes a general-purpose no-reference image quality assessment (NR-IQA) method that investigates the image’s structure information from a new aspect, i.e., the characteristic of image edge profiles that depict the directional property of adjacent edge points in the spatial domain of the image. More specifically, we extracted the image’s edge map based on Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) filtration and zero-crossing (ZC) detection and refined the edge map to be 1-pixel wide. We then explored the edge map by investigating edge profiles’ statistics in a local window with a $5\times 5$ -pixel size. Considering the consensus that natural images consist of directional structures, we found that the spatial distribution property of adjacent edge points can be represented through several edge profiles called edge patterns, which are selected from natural images with a proposed smooth criterion. With the proposed edge patterns and their statistical histogram for the image and the support vector regression technique, we proposed the NR-IQA model based on the edge patterns in the spatial domain, named EPISD. The proposed method has been extensively validated on the LIVE, CSIQ, TID2013, MDID2017, SIQAD, and SCID databases. The experimental results showed that EPISD has a competitive performance with state-of-the-art methods and works stably across different databases.
Broadband Instantaneous Multi-Frequency Measurement Based on a Fourier Domain Mode-Locked Laser

Broadband instantaneous multi-frequency measurement based on frequency-to-time mapping using a Fourier domain mode-locked (FDML) laser source is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. An electrically controlled silicon microdisk resonator (MDR) with an ultra-narrow linewidth of 60 pm (~7.5 GHz) functioning as a fast tunable optical filter is used to implement the FDML to generate a linearly chirped optical waveform (LCOW) with a wide frequency-sweeping range of 0.5 nm. The LCOW is then mixed at a modulator with a microwave signal with its frequency to be measured, detected at a low-speed photodetector (PD) and sent to a narrow bandpass filter (BPF). When the difference between the instantaneous frequency of the LCOW and that of the signal to be measured is equal to the center frequency of the BPF, a short-duration temporal signal is produced, and the time location of the temporal signal represents the frequency of the signal to be measured. A proof-of-concept experiment is carried out. Both single and multi-tone microwave frequency measurements are experimentally demonstrated. The measurement range is as large as 20 GHz with a measurement resolution of 200 MHz and an accuracy better than ±100 MHz. The proposed method showcases a new method for instantaneous frequency measurement (IFM) with high performance in terms of multi-frequency identification, real-time measurement, and high measurement speed compared with traditional approaches, which is attractive for applications in modern radar, electronic warfare, communication, and cognitive radio systems.