Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-term change in a behavioural trait: truncated spawning distribution and demography in Northeast Arctic cod

Harvesting may be a potent driver of demographic change and contemporary evolution, which both may have great impacts on animal populations. Research has focused on changes in phenotypic traits that are easily quantifiable and for which time series exist, such as size, age, sex, or gonad size, whereas potential changes in behavioural traits have been under‐studied. Here, we analyse potential drivers of long‐term changes in a behavioural trait for the Northeast Arctic stock of Atlantic cod Gadus morhua, namely choice of spawning location. For 104 years (1866–1969), commercial catches were recorded annually and reported by county along the Norwegian coast. During this time period, spawning ground distribution has fluctuated with a trend towards more northerly spawning. Spawning location is analysed against a suite of explanatory factors including climate, fishing pressure, density dependence, and demography. We find that demography (age or age at maturation) had the highest explanatory power for variation in spawning location, while climate had a limited effect below statistical significance. As to potential mechanisms, some effects of climate may act through demography, and explanatory variables for demography may also have absorbed direct evolutionary change in migration distance for which proxies were unavailable. Despite these caveats, we argue that fishing mortality, either through demographic or evolutionary change, has served as an effective driver for changing spawning locations in cod, and that additional explanatory factors related to climate add no significant information.
Predicting Attrition to Prevent Service Gaps in Serving Juvenile Offenders

Abstract Objective: The purpose of this study was to: (a) investigate differences in demographic variables, previous delinquent/criminal behavior variables, family system variables, juvenile court system variables, and subsequent delinquent behavior variables between youth who received services and those who did not among court-involved juvenile delinquent youth; and (b) create a predictive model that would correctly identify youth at the greatest risk of not receiving services. Method: The study employed an analysis of 244 youth, 182 (75%) service recipients and 62 (25%) non-recipients, randomly selected from a larger pool of 500 juvenile court-involved youth. Results: Analysis indicated that very few of the demographic variables, delinquent/criminal behavior variables, family system variables, and juvenile court system variables differentiated between service recipients and non-recipients. However, a logistic regression model was developed that correctly predicted service receipt for 78% of the sample, which represented a 52.4% improvement over chance. Conclusion: Implications of the findings for identifying court-involved youth at risk of receiving no services were explored and discussed.
Probabilistic Community Discovery Using Hierarchical Latent Gaussian Mixture Model

Complex networks exist in a wide array of diverse domains, ranging from biology, sociology, and computer science. These real-world networks, while disparate in nature, often comprise of a set of loose clusters(a.k.a communities), whose members are better connected to each other than to the rest of the network. Discovering such inherent community structures can lead to deeper understanding about the networks and therefore has raised increasing interests among researchers from various disciplines. This paper describes GWN-LDA (Generic weighted network-Latent Dirichlet Allocation) model, a hierarchical Bayesian model derived from the widely-received LDA model, for discovering probabilistic community profiles in social networks. In this model, communities are modeled as latent variables and defined as distributions over the social actor space. In addition, each social actor belongs to every community with different probability. This paper also proposes two different network encoding approaches and explores the impact of these two approaches to the community discovery performance. This model is evaluated on two research collaborative networks: CiteSeer and NanoSCI. The experimental results demonstrate that this approach is promising for discovering community structures in large-scale networks.
Bidirectional Hebbian Plasticity Induced by Low-Frequency Stimulation in Basal Dendrites of Rat Barrel Cortex Layer 5 Pyramidal Neurons

According to Hebb's original hypothesis (Hebb, 1949), synapses are reinforced when presynaptic activity triggers postsynaptic firing, resulting in long-term potentiation (LTP) of synaptic efficacy. Long-term depression (LTD) is a use-dependent decrease in synaptic strength that is thought to be due to synaptic input causing a weak postsynaptic effect. Although the mechanisms that mediate long-term synaptic plasticity have been investigated for at least three decades not all question have as yet been answered. Therefore, we aimed at determining the mechanisms that generate LTP or LTD with the simplest possible protocol. Low-frequency stimulation of basal dendrite inputs in Layer 5 pyramidal neurons of the rat barrel cortex induces LTP. This stimulation triggered an EPSP, an action potential (AP) burst, and a Ca2+ spike. The same stimulation induced LTD following manipulations that reduced the Ca2+ spike and Ca2+ signal or the AP burst. Low-frequency whisker deflections induced similar bidirectional plasticity of action potential evoked responses in anesthetized rats. These results suggest that both in vitro and in vivo similar mechanisms regulate the balance between LTP and LTD. This simple induction form of bidirectional hebbian plasticity could be present in the natural conditions to regulate the detection, flow, and storage of sensorimotor information.
Symbols, metaphors and similes in literature: A case study of Animal Farm

One of the aims of literary text is to say as much as possible as briefly as possible, means to say more in few words to achieve a maximum effectiveness. In this case, figures of speech, specifically symbol, metaphor and simile have an important role, as they include figurative meaning of words besides their literary meaning. In this article, symbols, metaphors and similes in George Orwell's‘Animal Farm’ were studied to find out the effect of using figures of speech on the writer's style and the addressee's understanding. For this aim, these three figures of speech were founded in the novel and their types were determined according to Newmark`s (1988b), Fromilhague`s (1995) and Rokni `s (2009) classifications, respectively. Key words: Literature, symbol, metaphor, simile, figurative language, ‘Animal Farm’.
Surging ahead to a new way forward: the metaphorical foreshadowing of a policy shift

The role of metaphor in political discourse has received significant attention in recent years. Expanding on the cognitive theory of metaphor developed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), scholars in the fields of sociolinguistics and discourse analysis have examined politicians' use of metaphorical concepts to justify policies and define events. The metaphors examined in these studies frequently have attained the status of idioms; they consequently pass unnoticed while retaining their ability to frame perspectives. However, political discourse does not limit itself to such lexicalized metaphors, but makes use of new metaphors (or new uses of existing metaphors) as well. Such uses are specifically designed to attract attention, which may become problematic if the metaphor is rejected, resulting in a classic `failure to launch'. This article examines such a case. Through an analysis of the metaphors used to describe President Bush's military plan to increase US forces in Iraq, I explore the mechanisms by which the meanings of novel metaphors are negotiated in the political arena, and demonstrate that, although their vivid imagery can generate persuasive force in political language, this effect may backfire when they encounter resistance.
Negotiating safe sex among women of Afro-Surinamese and Dutch Antillean descent in the Netherlands

Abstract Safe sex negotiation and communication about sexual risks with partners is important for women to ensure sexual risk reduction. This paper describes the results of a survey on safer sex and negotiation behavior, and the correlates of negotiation with partners among 128 women from Surinamese and Dutch Antillean descent in the Netherlands. The key findings are that 50% of the participants had negotiated sexual risk reduction with their partner, yet only 40% of the women who negotiated safer sex actually claimed practicing safe sex. Participants defined safe sex with steady partners primarily as negotiated safety and monogamy, and safe sex with casual partners primarily as condom use. Intentions to negotiate safer sex with steady partners were related to positive attitudes and perceived injunctive norms towards safe sex negotiation, and educational background. Intention to discuss safe sex with casual partners were primarily related to attitudes and perceived self-efficacy. STI/HIV prevention interventions targeting these women should incorporate awareness-raising of safety in different types of relationships, deciding on the appropriateness of relation-specific sexual risk reduction strategies, and building negotiation skills to accomplish the realization of these strategies.
State Unemployment Rates and Vocational Rehabilitation Outcomes

General labor market condition is an important contextual factor influencing employment opportunities and outcomes for people with disabilities and is particularly significant given the recent economic recession. Yet, longstanding data analytic strategies have focused only on individual predictors rather than the dynamic interaction among individual level and organizational/environmental level variables, such as considering the role of labor market conditions. This study used the Rehabilitation Services Administration Case Service Report (RSA-911) data for fiscal years 2005 and 2009 to represent two distinct time periods, one before and one during the U.S. economic recession, respectively. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the relationship between state unemployment rate and its interaction with personal factors influencing the employment outcomes of people with disabilities receiving state vocational rehabilitation services. Results found negligible between-state differences, but state unemployment rates were found to moderate the relationships between some demographic variables and successful competitive employment vocational rehabilitation (VR) case closure. Specifically, the significance and magnitude of those effect sizes varied by general economic context. These findings call attention for the need to consider the role of contextual variables, such as state unemployment rates, and their impact on the predictive strength of specific demographic and disability variables on employment outcomes for people with disabilities.
Combined Clinical and Cognitive Criteria to Identify Mild Cognitive Impairment in a Southern Chinese Community

Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is a recognized risk condition for clinical dementia. This paper attempted to explore the applicability of a combined cognitive and clinical approach to identify older Chinese adults at-risk of cognitive decline. Seven hundred forty randomly recruited community dwelling participants (aged 60 or over) were assessed at baseline and 2 years with Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) and a cognitive battery. Baseline MCI groups were categorized by CDR-MCI, cognitive function (Cog-MCI), and a combined CDR-Cog approach. The cognitive approach adopted the Mayo clinic criteria. For the combined approach, nonamnestic MCI combined CDR 0.5 plus nonmemory cognitive deficits. The overall concordance between CDR and Cognitive test ratings were 65.3% (&khgr;2 =256.4, P<0.001, &kgr;=0.44). With a combined approach, 424(57%) participants were classified as normal. CDR-MCI group had higher cognitive scores compared with MCI groups by other criteria (1 way analysis of variance or ANOVA). At 2 years, the combined CDR-Cog MCI group identified all dementia (N=24) converters although group differences were not significant. Cognitive function and CDR identified participants potentially at-risk for furthermore decline, but exhibited some differences in detection profiles. A combined approach may be more practical in screening for MCI participants with diverse educational and cultural background.
Genetic programming approach on evaporation losses and its effect on climate change for Vaipar Basin

Climate change is the major problem that every human being is facing over the world. The rise in fossil fuel usage increases the emission ofgreenhouse' gases, particularly carbon dioxide continuously into the earth's atmosphere. This causes a rise in the amount of heat from the sun withheld in the earth's atmosphere that would normally radiated back into space. This increase in heat has led to the greenhouse effect, resulting in climate change and rise in temperature along with other climatological parameters directly affects evaporation losses. Accurate modelling and forecasting of these evaporation losses are important for preventing further effects due to climate change. Evaporation is purely non-linear and varying both spatially and temporally. This needs suitable data driven approach to model and should have the ability to take care of all these non-linear behaviour of the system. As such, though there are many empirical and analytical models suggested in the literature for the estimation of evaporation losses, such models should be used with care and caution. Further, difficulties arise in obtaining all the climatological data used in a given analytical or empirical model. Genetic programming (GP) is one such technique applied where the non-linearity exist. GP has the flexible mathematical structure which is capable of identifying the non-linear relationship between input and output data sets. Thus, it is easy to construct 'local' models for estimating evaporation losses. The performance of GP model is compared with Thornthwaite method, and results from the study indicate that the GP model performed better than the Thornthwaite method. Forecasting of meteorological parameters such as temperature, relative humidity and wind velocity has been performed using Markovian chain series analysis subsequently it is used to estimate the future evaporation losses using developed GP model. Finally the effect of possible future climate change on evaporation losses in Pilavakkal reservoir scheme, India has been discussed.
Fluency of speech and self‐awareness of memory deficit in alzheimer's disease

Although gradual global progression is one of the cardinal features of primary degenerative dementia of the Alzheimer type, clinical observation of patients suggested that there is some variability in the degree and rapidity of decline of different symptoms of this illness. In particular, it appeared that language fluency and self‐awareness of memory problems did not decline simultaneously. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that an inverse relationship exists between self‐awareness and fluency in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Thirty‐two patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease were divided into two groups on the grounds of presence or absence of self‐awareness of memory handicaps. These patients were also assessed in regard to fluency using a three‐point scale devised for this purpose. A significant inverse association was found between self‐awareness and fluency. This appeared to be a specific relationship, unrelated to global indicators of function including Mini‐Mental Status Evaluation, Aphasia Screening Test scores or demographic features. Possible implications of this with reference to intracerebral localization issues in mild‐moderate Alzheimer's disease are discussed.
Perceptual constancy for phonemic categories: a developmental study with normal and language impaired children

ABSTRACT Six synthesized consonant-vowel syllables, three containing the phoneme /b/ in different vowel contexts and three the phoneme /d/, were presented randomly to developmental dysphasics and normal children. The ability to recognize that these six acoustically different stimuli shared two common phonemic categories (perceptual constancy) was investigated using nonverbal operantly conditioned response techniques. Results showed that although several children in both groups had difficulty with the task, the dysphasic group's performance was significantly poorer than the controls. Whereas the normal children improved significantly with age, the dysphasics did not. The results of this study suggest that speech perception, rather than being fully developed in infancy, changes throughout language development. By using procedures which have proven suitable for testing infants, with young children at various stages of language development, more might be learned about how the acoustic signal is encoded into speech and language and how this encoding changes throughout development or is disturbed in language disorders.
Multimedia Analysis and Retrieval System (MARS) Project

To address the emerging needs of applications that require access to and retrieval of multimedia objects, we have started a Multimedia Analysis and Retrieval Systems (MARS) project at the University of Illinois. The project brings together researchers interested in the elds of computer vision, compression, information management and database systems with the singular goal of developing an e ective multimedia database management system. As a rst step towards the project, we have designed and implemented an image retrieval system. This paper describes the novel approaches towards image segmentation, representation, browsing, and retrieval supported by the developed system. Also described are the directions of future research we are pursuing as part of the MARS project.
Black Students on White Campuses: Toward a Two-Dimensional Model of Black Acculturation

This article conceptualizes Black students' adaptation to a predominantly White institution in terms of a model of acculturation that includes one orientation toward maintaining the cultural heritage and identity of one's own group and a second one tapping relations with the majority group. This approach acknowledges that acculturation need not entail exchanging one's cultural heritage for a new one. The present research developed an instrument to measure these orientations. In Study 1, factor analysis of responses from Black students (N = 216) revealed two factors: Culture, Heritage, and Identity (CHI) and Out-Group Comfort (OC). Study 2 (n = 83), found that CHI was positively associated with measures of Black identity and collective self-esteem and that OC was associated with intergroup anxiety. In Study 3 (n = 143), CHI was independently associated with viewing education as affording opportunities for success and recognizing that discrimination might temper those opportunities. Both aspects of acculturation were related in predicted ways with the Racelessness Scale. Implications of the results for Black college students' adjustment are discussed.
What Effect Does Measuring Children under Anesthesia Have on the Blood Oxygenation Level–Dependent Signal? A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Visual Cortex

We performed functional magnetic resonance measurements involving visual stimuli on 10 children. Half of the children were measured awake, the other half were measured under light Sevoflurane anesthesia corresponding to 0.5 mean alveolar concentration. Each child was presented with a flashed and a reversing checkerboard, which previous investigations have shown to induce identical increases in cerebral blood flow. The latter stimulus activated double the number of neurons as the former so that cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen consumption (CMRO2) was doubled, leading to an effective rise of the oxygen extraction fraction. We measured the extent of activation by counting the number of activated pixels and assessed the change in CMRO2 by measuring the change in the local deoxyhemoglobin (HbR) concentration, using change in spin relaxivity. In both groups of children, the extent of activation was larger for the flashed than the reversing checkerboard, although the absolute number of activated voxels was smaller for the children who were measured under anesthesia. The HbR concentration was significantly higher during the presentation of the reversing compared with the flashed checkerboard. The relative change in the HbR concentration to the flashed and reversing checkerboard was the same in the children who were measured under anesthesia as in the children who were measured awake. We conclude that light levels of anesthesia may reduce the extent of activation but does not unduly influence either CMRO2 or cerebral blood flow, thus preserving the blood oxygenation level–dependent signal amplitude.
Is English A Form of Imperialism? A Study of Academic Community’s Perceptions at Yogyakarta Universities in Indonesia

Abstract The paper highlights Indonesian university stakeholders’ perceptions of English in relation to identity. The questions addressed are whether or not English is viewed as a manifestation of imperialism, and whether or not English is seen as influencing national and religious identities. This is important because earlier research frequently “neglected, dismissed, denigrated, or proscribed” speakers’ viewpoints (Kroskrity, 2004). Also, the context of study is significant since previous studies have found that English is in contest with Islam (Karmani, 2003, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c; Rahman, 2005; Widiyanto, 2005), the religion held by most Indonesians. The data collection was carried out at nine prominent universities in Yogyakarta Indonesia in 2009. Forty-three individual interviewees and 305 questionnaire participants were involved in the study. The interviewees consisted of Rectors, Vice Rectors for Academic Affairs, English Lecturers, Lecturers of subjects other than English, and students. The questionnaires were distributed randomly among students from these nine universities. The participants were found to perceive English positively. They view English as somewhat imposed upon them, yet the positives English clearly offers outweigh the negatives since they expressed a desire to learn and use the language. It was found that the participants continuously negotiate their identity as Indonesians and their desire to communicate in an international language for the sake of advancement, regardless of their beliefs.
Organizational and Industrial Response to Market Liberalization: The Interaction of Pace, Incentive and Capacity to Change

This paper draws on prior research on organizational change to link the pace of macroeconomic reforms in a transition economy to the ability of domestic firms and industries to face new foreign competition. We argue that if the pace of economic reforms exceeds the pace at which organizations can adopt appropriate strategies, those organizations will not be able to survive, even if they have the potential to do so otherwise. A comparison of the Polish and Chinese television manufacturing industries grounds our model that relates the pace of adaptation to environmental change, managerial incentives and organizational capacity to the likelihood that incumbent firms will be able to survive in newly liberalized markets. In Poland, domestic television producers were decimated by foreign entrants after the government implemented `big-bang' reform measures. China's `go-slow' approach to reform, in contrast, allowed managers in some but not all state-owned enterprises to make and implement strategic changes that enabled them to compete successfully with foreign firms. This interaction between the speed of environmental shifts and the internal pace of organizational change suggests important implications for research and policy making in transition economies and other contexts in which industries are being opened to new competitive pressures.