Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Talker specificity and the perception of grammatical variation

Language processing has been shown to be affected by both recent exposure to linguistic structures (priming effects) and non-linguistic, indexical information (talker effects). Three experiments explored two hypotheses: that sociolinguistically variable subject–verb agreement constructions are susceptible to grammatical priming, and that comprehension of these constructions is susceptible to talker-specificity effects. Experiment 1 tested for grammatical priming effects on the interpretation of two subject–verb agreement constructions, there's+NPSG/PL and NPSG/PL+don't. In a forced choice task, participants chose which of two images represented the subject noun that was in a sentence; participants read an unambiguous prime sentence and then heard an ambiguous target sentence. Experiment 1 found a priming effect: nonstandard primes increased participants’ perception of nonstandard agreement in target sentences. Experiment 2 tested whether this priming could be modulated by non-linguistic cues by manipulating whether the prime and target sentence were spoken by the same talker or by different talkers, cued by voice and photograph. Experiment 2 did not find a talker specificity effect. In an alternative design using identical prime and target sentences, Experiment 3 tested for talker-specific lexical repetition of subject nouns across primes and targets separated by intervening trials. Experiment 3 found a talker effect: participants were better at matching a subject noun in the target block to the subject noun in the prime block when the talker was identical than when the talker differed. These results are discussed in terms of competing linguistic and non-linguistic cues during language processing, and the activation of sociolinguistic representations.
EXAMINATION OF THE LEVELS OF BURNOUT OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION TEACHERS IN TERMS OF MOBBING 321

This study aims to determine the levels of occupational burnout of physical education (PE) teachers in terms of the mobbing variable. The research population is composed of 275 PE teachers working in the secondary and high schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Ordu province (centrum) and the relevant districts in the 2012-2013 school year. And a total of 163 PE teachers working in Ordu province (centrum) and the relevant districts that have been selected by random sampling method constitute the research sample. Personal Information Form and Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey Form (MBI-ES) were used as data collection tools. Also Kruskal Wallis test was used for comparing three or more groups and Mann Whitney U test was used to determine between which groups the significant differences were found in Kruskal Wallis test. Considering the research findings, it was determined that “personal accomplishment” and “emotional exhaustion” are not affected by PE teachers’ exposure to mobbing; while “depersonalization” level was found high.
Optimal immunization cocktails can promote induction of broadly neutralizing Abs against highly mutable pathogens

Significance The design of vaccination strategies that generate potent Abs directed against diverse strains of highly mutable pathogens, like HIV and malaria, will significantly impact global health. Such Abs are called broadly neutralizing Abs (bnAbs). Abs are produced by a Darwinian evolutionary process called affinity maturation. Induction of bnAbs will likely require vaccination with diverse mutant antigens. How affinity maturation occurs in the presence of multiple diverse antigens is not well-understood, thus hindering rational design of immunization strategies. We study this issue using computer simulations and statistical mechanical theory. Our results provide guides for the rational design of optimal vaccination strategies, and they reveal mechanistic principles at a crossroad of immunology and evolutionary biology. Strategies to elicit Abs that can neutralize diverse strains of a highly mutable pathogen are likely to result in a potent vaccine. Broadly neutralizing Abs (bnAbs) against HIV have been isolated from patients, proving that the human immune system can evolve them. Using computer simulations and theory, we study immunization with diverse mixtures of variant antigens (Ags). Our results show that particular choices for the number of variant Ags and the mutational distances separating them maximize the probability of inducing bnAbs. The variant Ags represent potentially conflicting selection forces that can frustrate the Darwinian evolutionary process of affinity maturation. An intermediate level of frustration maximizes the chance of evolving bnAbs. A simple model makes vivid the origin of this principle of optimal frustration. Our results, combined with past studies, suggest that an appropriately chosen permutation of immunization with an optimally designed mixture (using the principles that we describe) and sequential immunization with variant Ags that are separated by relatively large mutational distances may best promote the evolution of bnAbs.
Ultra‐High Expression of a Thermally Responsive Recombinant Fusion Protein in E. coli

Elastin‐like polypeptides (ELPs) are recombinant peptide‐based biopolymers that contain repetitive sequences enriched in glycine, valine, proline, and alanine. Because of the unusually large fraction of these amino acids in ELPs as compared to other cellular proteins, we hypothesized that intracellular pools of these amino acids can be selectively depleted and limit protein yields during expression. In this study, we examined how culture conditions and individual medium components affect protein yields by monitoring cell growth and protein expression kinetics of E. coli expressing an ELP tagged with a green fluorescent protein (GFP). By determining the underlying principles of superior fusion protein yields generated by the hyperexpression protocol, we further improved protein yields through the addition of glycerol and certain amino acids such as proline and alanine and found that amino acid concentrations and the type of basal medium used strongly influenced this beneficial effect. Surprisingly, amino acids other than those that are abundant in ELPs, for example, asparagine, aspartic acid, glutamine, and glutamic acid, also enhanced protein yields even in a nutrient‐rich medium. Compared to commonly used Luria‐Bertani medium, the protein yield was improved by 36‐fold to the remarkable level of 1.6 g/L in shaker flask cultures with a modified medium and optimized culture conditions, which also led to a 8‐fold reduction in the cost of the fusion protein. To our knowledge, this is the highest yield of an ELP‐fusion protein purified from E. coli cultured in shaker flasks. This study also suggests a useful strategy to improve the yields of other ELP fusion proteins and repetitive polypeptides.
The Balance of Life: Two Case Studies on Falls and Fall-Prevention in Older Persons

The study was performed with the aim of understanding personal and professional strategies for fall-prevention. Using the case study as the research design, two cases with embedded units of analysis were investigated. The points of reference were two community dwelling older persons, who had both experienced falling accidents. Data was collected by interviewing the two narrators and five health and social workers, and analysing documents. The stories of falling accidents were told with fall as a metaphor for death. The two protagonists' understanding and prevention of falling accidents depended on their backgrounds, life experiences, living conditions, and the circumstances of old age, as they attempted to re-establish balance in life. The study showed no direct relationship between the staff's professional efforts to prevent falls and the narrators' own strategies, but indirectly, the professionals created a supportive network; a platform of continuity where the efforts of the staff and older persons complemented each other. The staff had no clear approaches to addressing the issues raised by the accidental falls or to the prevention of falls. To strengthen fall-prevention efforts nurses could be used to contribute both person-centred and narrative approaches by incorporating evidence-based knowledge and reflective knowhow.
Gabor-scale binary pattern for face recognition

In this paper, a novel face descriptor, the Gabor-scale binary pattern (GSBP), is proposed to explore the neighboring relationship in spatial, frequency and orientation domains for the purpose of face recognition. In order to extract the GSBP feature, the Gabor-scale volume and the Gabor-scale vector are introduced by using a group of Gabor wavelet coefficients with a special orientation. Moreover, the Gabor-scale length pattern and the Gabor-scale ratio pattern are proposed. Compared with the existed methods, GSBP utilizes the deep relations between neighboring Gabor subimages instead of directly combining Gabor wavelet transform and local binary pattern. For estimating the performance of GSBP, we compare the proposed method with the related methods on several popular face databases, including LFW, FERET, AR, Yale and Extended YaleB databases. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms several popular face recognition methods.
Lossy communication of correlated sources over multiple access channels

A new approach to joint source-channel coding is presented in the context of communicating correlated sources over multiple access channels. Similar to the separation architecture, the joint source-channel coding system architecture in this approach is modular, whereby the source encoding and channel decoding operations are decoupled. However, unlike the separation architecture, the same codeword is used for both source coding and channel coding, which allows the resulting coding scheme to achieve the performance of the best known schemes despite its simplicity. In particular, it recovers as special cases previous results on lossless communication of correlated sources over multiple access channels by Cover, El Gamal, and Salehi, distributed lossy source coding by Berger and Tung, and lossy communication of the bivariate Gaussian source over the Gaussian multiple access channel by Lapidoth and Tinguely. The proof of achievability involves a new technique for analyzing the probability of decoding error when the message index depends on the codebook itself. Applications of the new joint source-channel coding system architecture in other settings are also discussed.
Trends in the Incidence of Atypical Femoral Fractures and Bisphosphonate Therapy

Purpose. To report the trends in the incidence of typical and atypical femoral fractures (AFF) in patients aged >50 years from 2009 to 2014 and in the prescription of bisphosphonates for osteoporosis from 2001 to 2013 in Australia. Methods. 175 patients aged >50 years presenting to our hospital with an AO type 32 femoral shaft fracture between October 2009 and October 2014 were identified using a trauma database. Of them, 21 male and 110 female patients with a mean age of 75 years were reviewed. Radiographs were reviewed by 2 investigators blinded to the use of bisphosphonates. The femoral shaft fractures were classified as typical or atypical using the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research definition, and their annual incidence was compared. The trend and number of prescriptions for various bisphosphonates in Australia was determined using the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme statistics from 2001 to 2013. Results. Of the 131 femoral shaft fractures, 65 were typical and 66 were atypical subtrochanteric (n=19) or diaphyseal (n=47) fractures that were complete (n=60) or incomplete (n=6). Four patients had sequential bilateral AFF. The 66 AFFs accounted for 5% of hip and shaft fractures. Women accounted for 80% of all femoral shaft fractures and 95% of AFF. The proportion of AFF was higher in women than men (63/110 vs. 3/21, relative risk=3.95, 95% CI=1.37–11.39, p=0.0006). The mean length of hospital stay was 9.7 days shorter in the AFF patients (14.1 vs. 23.8 days, 95% CI=2.6–16.8 days, p=0.008). Patients with AFF were 8 years younger than those with proximal femoral fracture (73 vs. 81 years, p<0.0001). There was no trend in the annual incidence or proportion of AFF from 2009 to 2014 (p=0.70). The bisphosphonate usage was highest in 2007 with 260 000 yearly patient treatments and had declined by 30% by the end of 2013. Conclusion. AFF accounted for half of all femoral shaft fractures in patients aged >50 years. Women accounted for 80% of all femoral shaft fractures and 95% of AFF. The incidence of AFF was no longer increasing possibly related to decreased prescription of bisphosphonates in preceding years.
Renomo—a Design Tool for Evaluations

Evaluators designing evaluation studies that are responsive to the interests of the different stakeholding audiences have to cope with conflicts and constraints from the very beginning of their work. This article describes a tool for a stakeholder-orientated evaluation approach which combines Nominal Group Techniques and the Moderation Method. The tool is presented in a detailed scenario for an evaluation design context. The paper concludes with an assessment of the utility and areas of application of the RENOMO instrument.
Stent treatment for coarctation of the aorta: intermediate term follow up and technical considerations

OBJECTIVE To report the initial and intermediate term results of stent implantation in children with coarctation of the aorta. PATIENTS AND DESIGN 17 patients with coarctation of the aorta underwent stent implantation (median age 11 years, range 0.4–15 years); six were treated for isolated coarctation, nine for recurrent coarctation (five after surgical repair and four after balloon dilatation), and two for complex long segment coarctation. INTERVENTIONS The procedure was guided by a second catheter placed transseptally in the left ventricle or the aorta proximal to the coarctation site, for angiographic and haemodynamic monitoring during the procedure. Twenty two stents were implanted in 17 patients. One of the patients with long segment coarctation received four stents and the other three. Palmaz 4014 stents were placed in 11 patients, Palmaz 308 in five, and Palmaz 154 in one. RESULTS Immediately after stent implantation the peak systolic gradient (mean (SD)) fell from 50.0 (24.5) to 2.1 (2.4) mm Hg (p < 0.05). The diameter of the stenotic lesion increased from 5.1 (1.5) mm to 13.9 (2.4) mm (p < 0.05). There were no deaths or procedure related complications. At a median follow up of 33 months, no cases of recoarctation were identified, either clinically (0/17; 0%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0% to 19%) or angiographically (0/13; 0%, 95% CI 0% to 25%). CONCLUSIONS Stent implantation for the treatment of coarctation of the aorta appears to have very low morbidity and mortality, and reasonable intermediate term results. Long term freedom from recoarctation using this method remains to be determined in comparison with simple balloon dilatation.
Integrated Framework for Software Requirement Analysis

Requirement elicitation is a very critical step in software development. In order to develop adequate software which answers to user’s needs, it is essential to understand the real-world environment, the users themselves, goals, constraints, and risks and its possible solutions. Unable to describe correct requirements can lead to a massive software development failure. This paper aims to propose an integrated framework for requirement elicitation which combines the characteristics of goal-based requirement engineering methods, Problem Frame (PF), and Message Sequence Chart (MSC). The proposed framework uses i* framework to describe the dependency relationships between actors, PF to analyze the constraints that exist in the real world, KAOS’ to analyze obstacles, and MSC to show the dynamic behavior of the system.
MRSA prevalence in a teaching hospital in Western Saudi Arabia.

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization in our institution. METHODS A 5-day period prevalence study of all adult and pediatric patients. Excluded areas were the adult intensive care unit (screened on admission and weekly thereafter), the outpatient hemodialysis population (screened monthly), and newborns. Our facility is a referral/teaching hospital for the National Guard population and their dependants in Western Saudi Arabia. A total of 240 patients were screened. Nasal sampling was carried out and isolation/identification of MRSA was performed using standard microbiological methods. RESULTS The total number of patients sampled was 240 and of those 10 (4%) were colonized. The 10 positives were found in 4 patient care areas; adult male medicine 5, adult male oncology 3, adult female medicine one, adult high dependency unit one. These patients care areas had 69 patients (42 males and 27 females). Ten (14%) were colonized by MRSA; 9 males (21%) and one female (3%). Statistical analysis Chi Square for discontinuous variables, "F" test for continuous variables found that one), male gender (p=0.04), 2) the presence of a long term invasive device (p=0.04), 3), length of stay (p=0.004) were predictive of MRSA colonization. CONCLUSION The overall prevalence of MRSA colonization in our hospital was low, however a sub-segment of the population identified as male, having long term invasive devices, and hospitalized more than 2 weeks, were frequently colonized. Any strategy, in our hospital, to control the spread of MRSA should include the testing of this population.
Filtered Text and Direction Discrimination Training Improved Reading Fluency for Both Dyslexic and Normal Readers

Background: Over 67% of children in 4th grade are reading below grade level, which means they are twice as likely to drop out of school. Previous research has found that children who are slow readers have reduced contrast sensitivity for detecting the direction of movement, and that improving their movement contrast sensitivity by training with sinusoidal gratings moving relative to fixed background gratings significantly increases their reading fluency. Since observers having reduced contrast sensitivity show much faster reading speeds when text is sharpened with digital filters, it is likely that children will also read filtered text more quickly than unfiltered text. Methods: Orientation discrimination contrast thresholds were measured for both dyslexic and normal readers in grades kindergarten through third grade and used to construct individualized digital image enhancement filters. Computer-based reading speeds were measured for both unfiltered and filtered grayscale text before and after training on direction discrimination. Following training, reading speeds for both unfiltered and filtered equiluminant colored text were measured as well. Results: Reading rates were twice as fast when utilizing filtered text to compensate for losses in orientation discrimination contrast sensitivity compared to unfiltered text, both before and after direction discrimination training. Both filtered and unfiltered colored text was read at least 30% more slowly than filtered or unfiltered equiluminant grayscale text. The effects of training on direction discrimination were also significant for both dyslexic and normal readers (p < 0.008), doubling reading rates for both dyslexics and normal readers. Following training on direction discrimination, contrast sensitivity functions improved an average of fourfold for normal readers and five-fold for dyslexics, showing rapid perceptual learning in children aged 5 to 8 years. Conclusions: Finding much faster reading speeds for filtered text shows the value of individualized contrast enhancement to improve reading skills. These image enhancement filters are unique and work well to improve the reading performance of children with contrast sensitivity losses. Moreover, training on direction discrimination improved the reading fluency of both dyslexic and normal readers. Furthermore, the fact that colored text was always read much more slowly than equiluminant grayscale text may also suggest that the colored backgrounds produced by the Irlen lenses do not improve reading fluency. Finally, both digital image enhancement and direction discrimination training provide effective, convenient, and relatively inexpensive tools to improve reading.
Automatic generation control of two area interconnected power system using Genetic algorithm

The present work proposes three intelligent Load frequency controllers to control and regulate the power output and system frequency by controlling the speed of generator. Controllers are tested on two area thermal thermal interconnected power system. A multi objective function is created by two criterions Integral Square Error (ISE), and Integral of Time Multiplied Absolute value of the Error (ITAE). All of these objective functions are optimized by using Genetic algorithm (GA). Parameters for an area are determined by using these two controllers; both controllers use GA and the third controller's parameters are calculated by an objective function which is formed by the combination of conventional objective functions. The aim of proposed controller is to restore the frequency to its nominal value in very short time. However proposed controller is tested and aimed for shortest settling time and minimum peak overshoot. It is found that the proposed controllers exhibit satisfactory over all dynamic performance when compared with conventional controllers. Two sets of observations are generated, in first observation set robustness of controller is tested by the step change in load, second observation test gives the effect of speed regulation on the frequency response. It is found that proposed controller provides a satisfactory balance between frequency deviations and transient oscillations.
Nonrigid Structure-from-Motion: Estimating Shape and Motion with Hierarchical Priors

This paper describes methods for recovering time-varying shape and motion of nonrigid 3D objects from uncalibrated 2D point tracks. For example, given a video recording of a talking person, we would like to estimate the 3D shape of the face at each instant and learn a model of facial deformation. Time-varying shape is modeled as a rigid transformation combined with a nonrigid deformation. Reconstruction is ill-posed if arbitrary deformations are allowed, and thus additional assumptions about deformations are required. We first suggest restricting shapes to lie within a low-dimensional subspace and describe estimation algorithms. However, this restriction alone is insufficient to constrain reconstruction. To address these problems, we propose a reconstruction method using a Probabilistic Principal Components Analysis (PPCA) shape model and an estimation algorithm that simultaneously estimates 3D shape and motion for each instant, learns the PPCA model parameters, and robustly fills-in missing data points. We then extend the model to represent temporal dynamics in object shape, allowing the algorithm to robustly handle severe cases of missing data.
Patterns for Overlapping Communication and Computation

Parallel applications commonly face the problem of sitting idle while waiting for remote data to become available. Even for problems where plenty of parallelism is available and good load balance is achievable, performance may be disappointing if local work cannot be overlapped with communication. We describe three patterns for achieving the overlap of communication with computation: overdecomposition, non-blocking communication, and speculation.