Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiple sequential mediation in an extended uses and gratifications model of augmented reality game Pokémon Go

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanism by which uses and gratification (U&G) constructs predict continuance intention to play (ContInt) the augmented reality game Pokémon Go (PG), through multiple serial mediation technique, with enjoyment and flow as mediators. The model also integrates other motivational factors specific to PG, namely, network externality and nostalgia and investigates the process by which they influence ContInt through players’ inherent need-to-collect animated monsters and online community involvement, respectively.Design/methodology/approachThe model was tested using 362 validated responses from an online survey of PG players in Malaysia. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyse the data. The predictive relevance of the model was tested via partial least squares-Predict.FindingsContInt is influenced through various mechanisms. Enjoyment is the most important mediator, mediating three U&G predictor constructs (achievement, escapism, challenge and social interaction) and the outcome ContInt. Flow did not have any influence on ContInt unless coupled with enjoyment as a serial mediator. Network externality and nostalgia were found to only influence ContInt through mediators, online community involvement and need-to-collect Pokémon Monsters, respectively. Overall, the results show evidence of four indirect-only mediation paths and one complementary partial mediation path.Originality/valueProvides support for an integrated model incorporating psychological, social and gaming motivational factors. While most other studies focus on direct relationships, we focus on indirect relationships through multiple sequential mediation analysis, following the recent modern mediation analysis guidelines. Contrary to previous findings, flow was not an important factor in predicting ContInt for gaming and nostalgia does not link directly to ContInt.
Contrastive Variational Model-Based Reinforcement Learning for Complex Observations

Deep model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) has achieved great sample-efficiency and generalization in decision making for sophisticated simulated tasks, such as Atari games. However, real-world robot decision making requires reasoning with complex natural visual observations. This paper presents Contrastive Variational Reinforcement Learning (CVRL), an MBRL framework for complex natural observations. In contrast to the commonly used generative world models, CVRL learns a contrastive variational world model by maximizing the mutual information between latent states and observations discriminatively by contrastive learning. Contrastive learning avoids modeling the complex observation space and is significantly more robust than the standard generative world models. For decision making, CVRL discovers long-horizon behavior by online search guided by an actor-critic. CVRL achieves comparable performance with the state-of-the-art (SOTA) generative MBRL approaches on a series of Mujoco tasks, and significantly outperforms SOTAs on Natural Mujoco tasks, a new, more challenging continuous control RL benchmark with complex observations introduced in this paper.
Curvature-Dependant Global Convergence Rates for Optimization on Manifolds of Bounded Geometry

We give curvature-dependant convergence rates for the optimization of weakly convex functions defined on a manifold of 1-bounded geometry via Riemannian gradient descent and via the dynamic trivialization algorithm. In order to do this, we give a tighter bound on the norm of the Hessian of the Riemannian exponential than the previously known. We compute these bounds explicitly for some manifolds commonly used in the optimization literature such as the special orthogonal group and the real Grassmannian. Along the way, we present self-contained proofs of fully general bounds on the norm of the differential of the exponential map and certain cosine inequalities on manifolds, which are commonly used in optimization on manifolds.
Can WhatsApp benefit from debunked fact-checked stories to reduce misinformation?

WhatsApp was alleged to be widely used to spread misinformation and propaganda during elections in Brazil and India. Due to the private encrypted nature of the messages on WhatsApp, it is hard to track the dissemination of misinformation at scale. In this work, using public WhatsApp data, we observe that misinformation has been largely shared on WhatsApp public groups even after they were already fact-checked by popular fact-checking agencies. This represents a significant portion of misinformation spread in both Brazil and India in the groups analyzed. We posit that such misinformation content could be prevented if WhatsApp had a means to flag already fact-checked content. To this end, we propose an architecture that could be implemented by WhatsApp to counter such misinformation. Our proposal respects the current end-to-end encryption architecture on WhatsApp, thus protecting users' privacy while providing an approach to detect the misinformation that benefits from fact-checking efforts.
Network comparison and the within-ensemble graph distance

Quantifying the differences between networks is a challenging and ever-present problem in network science. In recent years, a multitude of diverse, ad hoc solutions to this problem have been introduced. Here, we propose that simple and well-understood ensembles of random networks—such as Erdős–Rényi graphs, random geometric graphs, Watts–Strogatz graphs, the configuration model and preferential attachment networks—are natural benchmarks for network comparison methods. Moreover, we show that the expected distance between two networks independently sampled from a generative model is a useful property that encapsulates many key features of that model. To illustrate our results, we calculate this within-ensemble graph distance and related quantities for classic network models (and several parameterizations thereof) using 20 distance measures commonly used to compare graphs. The within-ensemble graph distance provides a new framework for developers of graph distances to better understand their creations and for practitioners to better choose an appropriate tool for their particular task.
Quantifying mixing and available potential energy in vertically periodic simulations of stratified flows

Abstract Turbulent mixing exerts a significant influence on many physical processes in the ocean. In a stably stratified Boussinesq fluid, this irreversible mixing describes the conversion of available potential energy (APE) to background potential energy (BPE). In some settings the APE framework is difficult to apply and approximate measures are used to estimate irreversible mixing. For example, numerical simulations of stratified turbulence often use triply periodic domains to increase computational efficiency. In this set-up, however, BPE is not uniquely defined and the method of Winters et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 289, 1995, pp. 115–128) cannot be directly applied to calculate the APE. We propose a new technique to calculate APE in periodic domains with a mean stratification. By defining a control volume bounded by surfaces of constant buoyancy, we can construct an appropriate background buoyancy profile $b_\ast (z,t)$ and accurately quantify diapycnal mixing in such systems. This technique also permits the accurate calculation of a finite-amplitude local APE density in periodic domains. The evolution of APE is analysed in various turbulent stratified flow simulations. We show that the mean dissipation rate of buoyancy variance $\chi$ provides a good approximation to the mean diapycnal mixing rate, even in flows with significant variations in local stratification. When quantifying measures of mixing efficiency in transient flows, we find significant variation depending on whether laminar diffusion of a mean flow is included in the kinetic energy dissipation rate. We discuss how best to interpret these results in the context of quantifying diapycnal diffusivity in real oceanographic flows.
CONTROL OF HARMONIC MAP HEAT FLOW WITH AN EXTERNAL FIELD

We investigate the control problem of harmonic map heat flow by means of an external magnetic field. In contrast to the situation of a parabolic system with internal or boundary control, the magnetic field acts as the coefficients of lower order terms of the equation. We show that for initial data whose image stays in a hemisphere, with one control acting on a subset of the domain plus one that only depends on time, the state of the system can be steered to any ground state, i.e. any given unit vector, within any short time. To achieve this, in the first step a control is applied to steer the solution into a small neighborhood of the peak of the hemisphere. Then under stereographic projection, the original system is reduced to an internal parabolic control system with initial data sufficiently close to 0 so that the existing method for local controllability can be applied. The key process is to give an explicit solution of an underdetermined algebraic system such that the affine type control can be converted into an internal control.
Undergraduate students’ adoption of handheld devices and Web 2.0 applications to supplement formal learning experiences: Case studies in Australia, Ethiopia and Malaysia

This paper reports research into undergraduates’ adoption of handheld devices as supplementary learning tools. Students enrolled in Engineering and Business in Australia, Ethiopia and Malaysia volunteered to participate in a study of their use of the HP iPAQ from mid-2005 to late-2006. Researchers observed and analysed the participants’ commencing levels of technology adoption, and then there subsequent adoption and perceptions of the usefulness of the iPAQ and its Web 2.0 applications to supplement their formal learning experiences. This research addressed three principal questions. The first was about students’ commencing level of technology adoption in each location, and whether some students expressed greater interest than others in trying a new technology. The results show that internet access and ownership of all devices were similar for all groups. Some of the other findings were that female students were less likely to be interested in participating in the project (that is, trialling the new technology) than males; Engineering students were more likely to be interested than Business students; and students whose first language was not English were more likely to be interested than those for whom English was a first language. There was also a very marked difference in the level of interest in the three locations. The second and third questions focused on students’ adoptive behaviours. For these students, the iPAQ was not a vehicle recommended for learning because, using Roger’s reasons for adoption, it was trialable and observable but it failed to meet expectations. Finally, it had little relative advantage as its functions were already delivered somewhat better by desktops, laptops, and mobile phones. It is notable that it was the Ethiopian students who, despite undeveloped ICT infrastructure, were most open to continue to experiment and persist with the device regardless of trying circumstances.
Relative Effects of Climate and Water Use on Base‐Flow Trends in the Lower Klamath Basin 1

Abstract: Since the 1940s, snow water equivalent (SWE) has decreased throughout the Pacific Northwest, while water use has increased. Climate has been proposed as the primary cause of base‐flow decline in the Scott River, an important coho salmon rearing tributary in the Klamath Basin. We took a comparative‐basin approach to estimating the relative contributions of climatic and non‐climatic factors to this decline. We used permutation tests to compare discharge in 5 streams and 16 snow courses between “historic” (1942‐1976) and “modern” (1977‐2005) time periods, defined by cool and warm phases, respectively, of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. April 1 SWE decreased significantly at most snow courses lower than 1,800 m in elevation and increased slightly at higher elevations. Correspondingly, base flow decreased significantly in the two streams with the lowest latitude‐adjusted elevation and increased slightly in two higher‐elevation streams. Base‐flow decline in the Scott River, the only study stream heavily utilized for irrigation, was larger than that in all other streams and larger than predicted by elevation. Based on comparison with a neighboring stream draining wilderness, we estimate that 39% of the observed 10 Mm3 decline in July 1‐October 22 discharge in the Scott River is explained by regional‐scale climatic factors. The remainder of the decline is attributable to local factors, which include an increase in irrigation withdrawal from 48 to 103 Mm3/year since the 1950s.
Motivations, understandings, and experiences of open‐access mega‐journal authors: Results of a large‐scale survey

Open‐access mega‐journals (OAMJs) are characterized by their large scale, wide scope, open‐access (OA) business model, and “soundness‐only” peer review. The last of these controversially discounts the novelty, significance, and relevance of submitted articles and assesses only their “soundness. ” This article reports the results of an international survey of authors (n = 11,883), comparing the responses of OAMJ authors with those of other OA and subscription journals, and drawing comparisons between different OAMJs. Strikingly, OAMJ authors showed a low understanding of soundness‐only peer review: two‐thirds believed OAMJs took into account novelty, significance, and relevance, although there were marked geographical variations. Author satisfaction with OAMJs, however, was high, with more than 80% of OAMJ authors saying they would publish again in the same journal, although there were variations by title, and levels were slightly lower than subscription journals (over 90%). Their reasons for choosing to publish in OAMJs included a wide variety of factors, not significantly different from reasons given by authors of other journals, with the most important including the quality of the journal and quality of peer review. About half of OAMJ articles had been submitted elsewhere before submission to the OAMJ with some evidence of a “cascade” of articles between journals from the same publisher.
Forecasting Photovoltaic Power Production using a Deep Learning Sequence to Sequence Model with Attention

Rising penetration levels of (residential) photovoltaic (PV) power as distributed energy resource pose a number of challenges to the electricity infrastructure. High quality, general tools to provide accurate forecasts of power production are urgently needed. In this article, we propose a supervised deep learning model for end-to-end forecasting of PV power production. The proposed model is based on two seminal concepts that led to significant performance improvements of deep learning approaches in other sequence-related fields, but not yet in the area of time series prediction: the sequence to sequence architecture and attention mechanism as a context generator.The proposed model leverages numerical weather predictions and high-resolution historical measurements to forecast a binned probability distribution over the prognostic time intervals, rather than the expected values of the prognostic variable. This design offers significant performance improvements compared to common baseline approaches, such as fully connected neural networks and one-block long short-term memory architectures. Using normalized root mean square error based forecast skill score as a performance indicator, the proposed approach is compared to other models. The results show that the new design performs at or above the current state of the art of PV power forecasting.
Hydrolysis of dextran by Penicillium notatum dextranase and identification of final digestion products

The basic hydrolysis parameters, i.e. molecular weight of substrate, reaction time, pH, temperature, and enzyme and substrate concentration, were standardized to maximize sugar yield from dextran. Thus, a 74% conversion of 4% dextran to sugar syrup was reached in 12 h using 6 dextranase units g − hydrolysed substrate. The high concentrations of sucrose in the reaction medium did not affect the hydrolysis eaeciency nor the activity of Penicillium notatum dextranase. Action patterns of dextranase from P. notatum on dextran were investigated. Analysis of the dextran hydrolysis end products indicated that P. notatum dextranase was a typical endo-enzyme, and isomaltose and isomaltotriose were identified as the primary final products of dextran hydrolysis.
Genetic Pedigree Reconstruction Detects Bias in Largemouth Bass Nest Sampling Procedures

AbstractFish recruitment can be influenced by the direct effects of and interactions among biological, environmental, and anthropogenic factors. However, interpretation of data that quantify associations between recruitment during early ontogenetic stages and potential underlying causal factors at whole-population scales can be confounded by the uncertainties associated with data collection. For nest-building species, biases may result from observational methods used to locate nests and determine nest-specific offspring survival. Such biases may hinder efforts to associate estimates of individual reproductive success or failure with recruitment variation at the population level. During spring 2010, Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides nests in a 24-ha Michigan lake were surveyed using established observational methods, and genetic data and pedigree reconstruction were used to assess the reliability of those methods. We georeferenced observed nests, visually assessed whether eggs from nests survived to th.
Why is Fiscal Policy Often Procyclical

Many countries, especially developing ones, follow procyclical fiscal policies, namely spending goes up (taxes go down) in booms and spending goes down (taxes go up) in recessions. We provide an explanation for this suboptimal fiscal policy based upon political distortions and incentives for less-than-benevolent government to appropriate rents. Voters have incentives similar to the "starving the Leviathan" classic argument, and demand more public goods or fewer taxes to prevent governments from appropriating rents when the economy is doing well. We test this argument against more traditional explanations based purely on borrowing constraints, with a reasonable amount of success.
Connectivity and Age Distribution of the Baltic Common Guillemot Uria aalge Population: Evidence from Morphometry and Ringing Recoveries

In evolutionary ecology, environmental monitoring and conservation management, reliable information on phenotypic and demographic traits in marine seabirds is highly wanted, but difficult to acquire. Therefore, freshly dead Common Guillemots Uria aalge (n = 149) incidentally drowned in salmon drift gill nets in the Baltic Sea, during October—November, were studied. We noted age, sex, moult pattern and fat status, and took morphometric measurements to compare with data from the Northeast Atlantic population. Only minor phenotypic differences were found. The birds had slightly longer wings than expected at the latitude where they were collected, probably due to their newly grown primaries and/or observer differences, rather than a genetic divergence. The Baltic Guillemot appears not to be a distinct subspecies, but only the marginal member of a deme. Ringing recoveries also suggest intermittent exchange of birds between the Baltic and the North Sea. Young birds did not seem to be over-represented in gill net bycatches. Our found age distribution — with a heavy dominance of adult birds, but few immature/juveniles — deviated from that reported earlier, and suggests that the population is more vulnerable to adult mortality through bycatch in gill nets than previously believed.
Modified pheromone traps help reduce bycatch of bark‐beetle natural enemies

1 Thanasimus formicarius and Temnochila caerulea, two of the main predators of Ips sexdentatus, a well‐known forest pest in Southern Europe, are captured in high numbers when trapping I. sexdentatus as a result of the kairomonal effect of the lures used. 2 A preliminary field trial showed that predators could survive for at least 1 week within trapping containers, although predator mutilation and high predator death rates were observed. 3 Different modifications of conventional multiple funnel and slot traps with the objective of reducing natural enemy entrance into trap containers were bioassayed in field experiments conducted over four seasons. Based on the larger sizes of predators, different designs using welded wire‐mesh screens improved performance to different extents. Providing escape windows just above the screen on multiple funnel traps gave the most promising results, including when effect sizes among all tested designs were compared. 4 Thus, a simple modification of the lowest funnel of the multiple funnel traps would reduce the bycatch of T. formicarius and T. caerulea, hence improving the efficiency of trapping programmes by lowering the likely impact on natural populations of these predators.
Unbonded post-tensioned shear walls of calcium silicate element masonry

CASIEL masonry consists of prefabricated calcium silicate elements (CASIELs) that are bonded by thin-layer mortar. In Northwest Europe, CASIEL masonry is popular for application in shear walls in low- to medium-rise buildings. Theoretically, the horizontal load capacity of such shear walls can be increased by a prestressing technique called unbonded post-tensioning (UPT). The research described in this dissertation was aimed at collecting experimental evidence for the mechanical behaviour of UPT CASIEL masonry shear walls and at developing mechanical models and design rules for such shear walls. The investigation was confined to UPT by means of high-strength steel tendons, monotonic horizontal loading and two types of CASIELs with a high compressive strength. The following aspects of UPT CASIEL masonry shear walls are considered in this dissertation: - Prestress loss due to creep and shrinkage of high-strength CASIEL masonry; - Mechanical behaviour of UPT CASIEL masonry shear walls acting as a cantilever, with particular attention to activation of the UPT tendons due to uplift of the wall; - Redistribution of horizontal load among shear walls in a building upon cracking. Based on the results of these investigations, recommendations are made for design rules and construction guidelines of UPT CASIEL masonry shear walls, followed by general conclusions and recommendations for further research.
Impact of Paternal Investment Among Women in Sandzak

An evolutionary model of facultative reproductive strategies explains much of women’s life history strategy in terms of the absence or presence of their fathers and parental investment they made. This paper assesses direct paternal investment and behavioral outcomes in 164 women in the Sandzak region, using human behavioral ecology approach, with a special emphasis on female reproductive strategy. Key words: paternal investment, women, Sandzak, human behavioral ecology