Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New Hesperornithid and the Relationships of the Mesozoic Birds

One of the most important avian fossils is a nearly complete skeleton of a hesperornithid from the late Cretaceous Niobrara Chalk Formation of western Kansas found by H. T. Martin in 1894. Williston assigned it to Hesperornis gracilis, a form named by Marsh but never really diagnosed or illustrated. Because of the size and apparent completeness of Marsh's monumental work on the Mesozoic birds of North America, these birds have been largely ignored since its publication. This has largely been the fate of H. T. Martin's exceptional specimen, parts of which have been figured under both Hesperornis gracilis, and H. regalis. This specimen can now be shown to be a previously undescribed genus of hesperornithiform bird, that provides the basis for a re-evaluation of the relationships of the Hesperornithiformes to other Mesozoic birds. Archaeopteryx is a member of a side-branch of avian evolution, the subclass Sauriurae, which became extinct at the end of the Mesozoic. The hesperornithiform Enaliornis is the earliest bird which can be shown to belong to the subclass Omithurae to which all modem birds belong.
Learning Styles, Teaching Strategies and Academic Performance: Triangular Basis for a Faculty Development Program in Nursing Curriculum and Instruction

In the field of nursing, numerous studies which investigate the learning styles of the nursing students have been published, however, not a vast number of studies have been accomplished to correlate the students’ learning styles to their academic performance or to the teaching strategies employed to them. This descriptive-correlational study aimed to ferret out any relationships between learning styles, teaching strategies, and academic performance as a triangular basis for a development program in nursing curriculum and instruction. The samples were a cohort of 363 nursing students, 18-26 years old, chosen by cluster sampling, and 37 teachers in Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Bangkok, Thailand. The instruments were the Kolb's Learning Style Inventory Version 3.1 (KLSI 3.1) and a survey questionnaire of Nursing Teaching Strategies. It was found out that most of the students are Convergers based on David Kolb's classification of learning styles. Statistics proved that learning style is dependent on age having found that students within the same age bracket have mostly the same learning style (X2=33.102); gender dependent at X2=35.702 having found that most females are Convergers while most males are Accommodators; and that there is a significant difference in the learning style by year level at X2 =18.687. It was also found out that age, gender and year level are all related to academic performance. Neither learning style nor academic performance was found to have a direct relationship to teaching strategies, however, it was found out that learning style is related to academic performance.
Competencies of Performance Appraisal in a Dentistry School: A 6-Year Study

This study was performed to determine how senior students rate the importance of each competency of their performance and collect information on the self-perceived confidence levels pertaining to each competency. An anonymous survey was conducted on senior students of 6 consecutive years between 2012 and 2017. Students were asked to rate the importance of each competency and their self-confidences using a 5-point scale. Application of appropriate interpersonal and communication skills was ranked as the most important competency whereas developing a catastrophe preparedness plan for dental practice was ranked as having the lowest importance. Areas reported as weaker should be a warning sign for educators to develop strategies for better delivery and implementation of competencies and students’ performance.
Conspiracy theories, election rigging, and support for democratic norms

Under what conditions does conspiratorial rhetoric about election rigging change attitudes? We investigated this question using a survey experiment the day before and the morning of the 2016 US presidential election. We hypothesized that exposure to conspiratorial rhetoric about election interference would significantly heighten negative emotions (anxiety, anger) and undermine support for democratic institutions. Specifically, we expected that Democrats who read conspiratorial information about interference by the Russians in US elections, and that Republicans who read conspiratorial information about interference by the Democratic Party in US elections would express less support for key democratic norms. Our evidence largely supported our hypotheses. Americans exposed to a story claiming the election would be tampered with expressed less confidence in democratic institutions, and these effects were moderated by prior partisan beliefs about the actors most likely responsible for election meddling.
Written Corrective Feedback Strategies Employed by University English Lecturers: A Teacher Cognition Perspective

Examining EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers’ beliefs and cognition has become an essential area of research as teachers are seen as active decision makers. This study addresses teachers’ beliefs as specific to the strategies they employ when providing corrective feedback to students’ writing. Drawing on Ellis’s typology of written corrective feedback and Borg’s teacher cognition theory, this survey study investigated university EFL lecturers’ self-reported strategy use in the provision of feedback to students’ written compositions. A total of 254 respondents completed this survey from universities in Thailand, China, and Vietnam. The findings showed that the teachers provided different types of strategies, namely, high-demand (e.g., students’ response to feedback required), low-demand (e.g., correcting all errors), and no-demand feedback in relation to their students’ proficiency levels. Their choices of high-demand feedback strategies seemed to be associated with their pre- and in-service professional training experiences as well as contextual factors including local cultural influence and limited resources; whereas their uses of no-demand and low-demand feedback strategies seemed to be associated with their prior language learning experiences and classroom teaching practice. This study also revealed an inconsistency between teachers’ cognition about provision of feedback and their reported feedback strategy use. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research were also proposed.
How Large Is a Species' Geographic Range?

Many patterns of community structure will not be understood without reference to processes operating at regional and geographical scales (Cornell 1985a, b, Ricklefs 1987, Brown and Maurer 1989, Lawton 1990). This realization doubtless has been a prime motivation behind many recent studies of patterns in the sizes of species geographic ranges, and how these interact with such characteristics as local abundances, body sizes and trophic habits (Brown 1984, Brown and Maurer 1987, 1989, Bowers 1988, Gaston 1990, Gaston and Lawton 1990a, b, Pagel et al. 1991). It is thus somewhat curious to find that few of these studies explicitly state what they believe the size of a species geographic range, measured by whatever method, actually represents. This situation is made the more troublesome because different studies seem to be measuring different things. Thus, whilst Reaka (1980) quantifies species geographic ranges in terms of the numbers of degrees of latitude and longitude over which they have been recorded, and regards the numbers of 50 X 5? quadrats in which they were recorded as a measure of another aspect of their distribution, Schoener (1987) and Ford (1990) use numbers of occupied quadrats as a measure of geographic range size. This paper examines some of the ways in which the size of species geographic ranges could be measured, what these measures mean, and how they relate to one another.
Influence of Internal Marketing Dimensions on Organizational Commitment: An Empirical Application in Ecuadorian Co-Operativism

Internal marketing involves planning, implementing, and assessing strategies focused on the internal customer (employee), who, at the same time, looks to strengthen their organizational commitment. In this context, leaders and managers should focus on human capital through policies which encourage the motivation and satisfaction of employees, in a way that they feel committed to the institution which, at the same time, will help the achievement of organizational targets. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to analyze internal marketing dimensions and their possible relationship with organizational commitment. To do so, fieldwork based on a research questionnaire has been developed, aimed at a very important area of the social economy: co-operativism in a developing country. A total of 2,499 surveys were distributed among employees, leaders, and managers of Ecuadorian cooperatives. To describe the possible mediating effect of the research variables, a hierarchical, multiple linear regression analysis was applied. The results reveal that the internal marketing dimensions present statistically significant correlations with the organizational commitment, with the internal communication dimension being its maximum relational exponent. It is also extracted from the study that sociodemographic and works position variables positively influence the relationship between both constructs, presenting higher relational levels when the employee is married, has higher studies and their work contract is temporary.
A novel GNAS-mutated human induced pluripotent stem cell model for understanding GNAS-mutated tumors

A missense mutation of the guanine nucleotide binding protein alpha stimulating activity polypeptide 1 (GNAS) gene, typically Arg201Cys or Arg201His (R201H/R201C), leads to constitutive activation of the Gsα-cyclic AMP (cAMP) signaling pathway that causes several diseases. However, no germline mutations of GNAS have been identified to date, likely due to their lethality, and no robust human cell models have been generated. Therefore, the aim of this study was to generate GNAS-mutated disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cells as a model for these diseases. We then analyzed the functionality of this induced pluripotent stem cell model and differentiated epithelial cells. We generated disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cells by introducing a mutation in GNAS with the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) nickase method, which has lower off-target effects than the conventional CRISPR/Cas9 method. We designed the target vector to contain the R201H mutation in GNAS, which was transfected into human control induced pluripotent stem cells (Nips-B2) by electroporation. We confirmed the establishment of GNASR201H-mutated (GNASR201H/+) induced pluripotent stem cells that exhibited a pluripotent stem cell phenotype. We analyzed the effect of the mutation on cAMP production, and further generated teratomas for immunohistochemical analysis of the luminal epithelial structure. GNAS-mutated induced pluripotent stem cells showed significantly higher levels of intracellular cAMP, which remained elevated state for a long time upon hormonal stimulation with parathyroid hormone or adrenocorticotropic hormone. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that several mucins, including MUC1, 2, and MUC5AC, are expressed in cytokeratin 18 (CK18)-positive epithelial cells. However, we found few CK18-positive cells in mutated induced pluripotent stem cell–derived teratoma tissues, and reduced MUCINs expression in mutated epithelial cells. There was no difference in CDX2 expression; however, mutated epithelial cells were positive for CEA and CA19-9 expression. GNASR201H-mutated induced pluripotent stem cells and GNASR201H-mutated epithelial cells have distinct phenotypic and differentiation characteristics. We successfully established GNASR201H-mutated human induced pluripotent stem cells with increased cAMP production. Considering the differentiation potential of induced pluripotent stem cells, these cells will be useful as a model for elucidating the pathological mechanisms of GNAS-mutated diseases.
Effects of Emotional Expressions, Gaze, and Head Orientation on Person Perception in Social Situations

When an observer perceives and judges two persons next to each other, different types of social cues simultaneously arise from both perceived faces. Using a controlled stimulus set depicting this scenario (with two persons identified respectively as “target face” and “looking face”), we explored how emotional expressions, gaze, and head direction of the looking face affect the observers’ eye movements and judgments of the target face. The target face always displayed a neutral expression, gazing directly at the observer (“direct gaze”). The looking face showed either a direct gaze, looked toward the target face, or averted it. A total of 52 undergraduate students (25 males) freely viewed these scenes for 5 s while their eye movements were recorded, which was followed by collecting ratings of attractiveness and trustworthiness. Dwell times on target faces were longer when accompanied by a looking face with direct gaze, regardless of its emotional expression. However, participants looked longer on faces looking toward the target in the approach condition and fixated more often on target faces that were either next to an angry-looking face directly looking at them or to a happy-looking averted face. We found no gaze effect on faces that were looked at by another face and no significant correlation between observers’ dwell time and attractiveness or trustworthiness ratings of the target and looking face, indicating dissociated perception and judgment processes. Irrespective of the gaze direction, as expected, happy faces were judged as more attractive and trustworthy than angry faces. Future studies will need to examine this dynamic interplay of social cues in triadic scenes.
Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer in subclinical obsessive–compulsive disorder

Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) refers to the effect of stimuli that have been associated with a pleasant or aversive event on instrumental behaviors. Given that obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is linked to excessive compulsions, which in the laboratory can be tested via testing instrumental responses, we assessed PIT effects in individuals with subclinical levels of OCD. Participants from a nonclinical population were separated in groups with low (OC−) and high (OC+) levels of OCD. Participants learned to associate one button press (R1) with the cancellation of an aversive outcome (O1) and another button press (R2) with the cancellation of another aversive outcome (O2). Subsequently, they watched stimuli of five different colors (S1–S5) that were followed by O1, O2, a novel negative outcome (O3: video of a house on fire), or two neutral outcomes (O4: plus sign; O5: caret symbol), respectively. In the last phase, participants saw S1–S5 while they were allowed to press the R1 or the R2 button. Contrary to predictions, the OC− compared to OC+ group showed somewhat stronger specific PIT effects, indicated by more R1 and R2 responses during the presentation of the S1 and S2, respectively. No reliable evidence was found for general PIT.
Ecological versions of Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection

In this paper we derive versions of Fisher's Fundamental Theorem of natural selection for the case of a single density—regulated population, and for the case of 2 species engaged in standard ecological interactions. Selection is assumed to be weak and the selective values of genotypes to depend only on the total densities of species in the ecosystems, not on the densities of specific genotypes. Our results enable us to draw some general conclusions about the way in which natural selection, of the type we consider, affects the densities of species in an ecosystem. Evolution within a single species tends to increase the density of individuals in the age—group to which density—dependent factors respond. For a pair of competing species, we conclude that often, but not invariably, the densities of both species will be increased by selection. In an exploiter—victim system, the exploiter tends to increase in density whereas the victim will increase only if the exploiter is strongly self—regulating. It will otherwise remain stationary or even decrease.
Toward an Understanding of University Students’ Continued Intention to Use MOOCs: When UTAUT Model Meets TTF Model

This study tries to propose a unified model integrating the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model, task–technology fit (TTF) model, and user satisfaction to investigate the determinants that affect university students’ continued intention of using massive open online courses (MOOCs). Based on the data of a survey on 464 respondents, structural equation modeling is adopted to assess the model. The results reveal that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and user satisfaction are the crucial predictors of university students’ continued intention. TTF has an indirect influence on continued intention through user satisfaction. Performance expectancy is affected both by effort expectancy and TTF. Facilitating conditions do not directly influence continued intention; however, they present indirect influences in that they play a mediating role for user satisfaction. The findings help researchers and practitioners to attain a better understanding of university students’ continued usage intention of MOOCs. The implications and limitations of this study are also described.
An empirical study of the first contributions of developers to open source projects on GitHub

The popularity of Open Source Software (OSS) is at an all-time high and for it to remain so it is vital for new developers to continually join and contribute to the OSS community. In this paper, to better understand the first time contributor, we study the characteristics of the first pull request (PR) made to an OSS project by developers. We mine GitHub for the first OSS PR of 3501 developers to study certain characteristics of PRs like language and size. We find that over 1/3rd of the PRs were in Java while C++ was very unpopular. A large fraction of PRs didn’t even involve writing code, and were a mixture of trivial and non-trivial changes.
Exploring the Relationship between Dockerfile Quality and Project Characteristics

Dockerfile plays an important role in the Docker-based software development process, but many Dockerfile codes are infected with quality issues in practice. Previous empirical studies showed the existence of association between code quality and project characteristics. However, the relationship between Dockerfile quality and project characteristics has never been explored. In this paper, we seek to empirically study this relation through a large dataset of 6,334 projects. Using linear regression analysis, when controlled for various variables, we statistically identify and quantify the relationship between Dockerfile quality and project characteristics.
Heaps'n Leaks: How Heap Snapshots Improve Android Taint Analysis

The assessment of information flows is an essential part of analyzing Android apps, and is frequently supported by static taint analysis. Its precision, however, can suffer from the analysis not being able to precisely determine what elements a pointer can (and cannot) point to. Recent advances in static analysis suggest that incorporating dynamic heap snapshots, taken at one point at runtime, can significantly improve general static analysis. In this paper, we investigate to what extent this also holds for taint analysis, and how various design decisions, such as when and how many snapshots are collected during execution, and how exactly they are used, impact soundness and precision. We have extended FlowDroid to incorporate heap snapshots, yielding our prototype Heapster, and evaluated it on DroidMacroBench, a novel benchmark comprising real-world Android apps that we also make available as an artifact. The results show (1) the use of heap snapshots lowers analysis time and memory consumption while increasing precision; (2) a very good trade-off between precision and recall is achieved by a mixed mode in which the analysis falls back to static points-to relations for objects for which no dynamic data was recorded; and (3) while a single heap snapshot (ideally taken at the end of the execution) suffices to improve performance and precision, a better trade-off can be obtained by using multiple snapshots.
A Study on the Lifecycle of Flaky Tests

During regression testing, developers rely on the pass or fail outcomes of tests to check whether changes broke existing functionality. Thus, flaky tests, which nondeterministically pass or fail on the same code, are problematic because they provide misleading signals during regression testing. Although flaky tests are the focus of several existing studies, none of them study (1) the reoccurrence, runtimes, and time-before-fix of flaky tests, and (2) flaky tests in-depth on proprietary projects. This paper fills this knowledge gap about flaky tests and investigates whether prior categorization work on flaky tests also apply to proprietary projects. Specifically, we study the lifecycle of flaky tests in six large-scale proprietary projects at Microsoft. We find, as in prior work, that asynchronous calls are the leading cause of flaky tests in these Microsoft projects. Therefore, we propose the first automated solution, called Flakiness and Time Balancer (FaTB), to reduce the frequency of flaky-test failures caused by asynchronous calls. Our evaluation of five such flaky tests shows that FaTB can reduce the running times of these tests by up to 78% without empirically affecting the frequency of their flaky-test failures. Lastly, our study finds several cases where developers claim they “fixed” a flaky test but our empirical experiments show that their changes do not fix or reduce these tests' frequency of flaky-test failures. Future studies should be more cautious when basing their results on changes that developers claim to be “fixes”.
Unsuccessful Story about Few Shot Malware Family Classification and Siamese Network to the Rescue

To battle the ever-increasing Android malware, malware family classification, which classifies malware with common features into a malware family, has been proposed as an effective malware analysis method. Several machine-learning based approaches have been proposed for the task of malware family classification. Our study shows that malware families suffer from several data imbalance, with many families with only a small number of malware applications (referred to as few shot malware families in this work). Unfortunately, this issue has been overlooked in existing approaches. Although existing approaches achieve high classification performance at the overall level and for large malware families, our experiments show that they suffer from poor performance and generalizability for few shot malware families, and traditionally downsampling method cannot solve the problem. To address the challenge in few shot malware family classification, we propose a novel siamese-network based learning method, which allows us to train an effective MultiLayer Perceptron (MLP) network for embedding malware applications into a real-valued, continuous vector space by contrasting the malware applications from the same or different families. In the embedding space, the performance of malware family classification can be significantly improved for all scales of malware families, especially for few shot malware families, which also leads to the significant performance improvement at the overall level.