Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic Simulation of Users for Interactive Information Retrieval

Hiring and engaging real users for conducting user studies is costly and time consuming. Therefore, simulating users has been proposed as a resource saving solution. Simulation helps to predict users' performance with retrieval systems and could provide researchers with much needed insights. There is a growing body of research in simulating users but most of the research conducted in the field is based only on data about how real users interact with the Information Retrieval System (IRS) leaving out aspects describing information seeking behaviours and individual differences. Consequently, essential data about users is not accounted thus the models are less realistic. To overcome this issue, an alternative approach is proposed. It concerns looking at user behaviour and analysing all the influencing factors that contribute to the user profile in order to produce representative user models. Thus, the aim of this research is to build real user profiles in order to produce more realistic user simulation. We will achieve that by capturing information seeking behaviour through user studies and selecting those factors and attributes that make our user models more realistic and operational at the same time. Furthermore, the proposed approach will allow to reduce the number of real users needed to evaluate the system.
Frequency domain blockiness measurement for image quality assessment

Block-based digital image and video compression could lead to visible distortions in the coded image or video, with dominant artifacts like blockiness. Subjective quality assessments [1] are reliable but they are too costly and not possible to be computerized. The objective quality meter is designed for evaluating the image quality. The blockiness is measured in frequency domain in which the ratio of harmonics to other AC components is calculated and used to estimate the blockiness artifact. Before blockiness estimation in frequency domain, the property of Human Visual System is applied in the form of edge cancellation and spatial masking in spatial domain. After the spatial masking of coded image according to the spatial activity of the reference image, the blockiness is calculated locally in frequency domain and accumulated in the end for a single quality metric. The results in the end show that this approach is very simple to implement and has easy calculations. The work is tested on 233 images from LIVE image database and the Pearson's Correlation Coefficient of 94% is obtained even without training on any image.
Existe-t-il un véritable altruisme basé sur les valeurs personnelles ?

Le veritable altruisme existe-t-il ? Les travaux de C.D. Batson ont mis en evidence un altruisme base sur l’empathie. Dans cette recherche, nous examinons une nouvelle forme de veritable altruisme qui serait base sur les valeurs personnelles. Dans un echantillon de benevoles (N = 183), nous avons trouve que 23 % des participants exprimaient une valeur personnelle Veritable Altruisme (VPVA) tres elevee (> 80 %). Une serie d’analyses de correlation a permis de mettre en evidence que la VPVA etait correlee positivement et significativement a des mesures de comportements pro-sociaux (r = .15 a .22 ; p <.05 ; d = .39 a .65). Ces premiers resultats supportent l’existence d’un altruisme veritable base sur les valeurs personnelles et indiquent la necessite de tester l’effet causal de la VPVA sur les comportements pro-sociaux.
Always at Odds?: Congruence in Faculty Beliefs about Teaching at a Research University

Using case studies of four research university departments, I explore the presence of instructional congruence, or department cultures in which individuals perceive that their teaching beliefs align with their institution. I map junior facultyÕs instructional networks to explain variability in levels of congruence and utilize interview data to identify possible contributors to network shapes.
From the Individual to the Community: Perspectives About Substance Abuse Services

This article argues that substance abuse interventions in distressed African American communities must be culturally tailored and must incorporate a framework targeting changes in both individual behavior and the community. This study employed concept mapping in conjunction with community-based participatory research principles to involve 100 community members, substance users, and service providers to examine the role of alcohol and other drugs in distressed African American communities. Findings reveal the way participants understand the role of drugs and alcohol in their community and their perceptions of substance abuse services. The article describes a collaborative approach to engage the community in addressing substance abuse.
Theoretical results on bet-and-run as an initialisation strategy

Bet-and-run initialisation strategies have been experimentally shown to be beneficial on classical NP-complete problems such as the travelling salesperson problem and minimum vertex cover. We analyse the performance of a bet-and-run restart strategy, where k independent islands run in parallel for t1 iterations, after which the optimisation process continues on only the best-performing island. We define a family of pseudo-Boolean functions, consisting of a plateau and a slope, as an abstraction of real fitness landscapes with promising and deceptive regions. The plateau shows a high fitness, but does not allow for further progression, whereas the slope has a low fitness initially, but does lead to the global optimum. We show that bet-and-run strategies with non-trivial k and t1 are necessary to find the global optimum efficiently. We show that the choice of t1 is linked to properties of the function. Finally, we provide a fixed budget analysis to guide selection of the bet-and-run parameters to maximise expected fitness after t = k · t1 + t2 fitness evaluations.
Negative emotional outcomes impair older adults’ reversal learning

In a typical reversal-learning experiment, one learns stimulus–outcome contingencies that then switch without warning. For instance, participants might have to repeatedly choose between two faces, one of which yields points whereas the other does not, with a reversal at some point in which face yields points. The current study examined age differences in the effects of outcome type on reversal learning. In the first experiment, the participants’ task was either to select the person who would be in a better mood or to select the person who would yield more points. Reversals in which face was the correct option occurred several times. Older adults did worse in blocks in which the correct response was to select the person who would not be angry than in blocks in which the correct response was to select the person who would smile. Younger adults did not show a difference by emotional valence. In the second study, the negative condition was switched to have the same format as the positive condition (to select who will be angry). Again, older adults did worse with negative than positive outcomes, whereas younger adults did not show a difference by emotional valence. A third experiment replicated the lack of valence effects in younger adults with a harder probabilistic reversal-learning task. In the first two experiments, older adults performed about as well as younger adults in the positive conditions but performed worse in the negative conditions. These findings suggest that negative emotional outcomes selectively impair older adults’ reversal learning.
Book Review: Social identifications: A social psychology of intergroup relations and group processes

Foreward. Preface. 1. Introduction 2. The social identity approach: context and content 3. Intergroup behaviour 4. From stereotyping to ideology 5. Intragroup behaviour: Processes within the groups 6. Social presence and social performance 7. Collective behaviour 8. Conformity and social influence 9. Language, speech, and communication 10. Conclusions References. Author index. Subject index.
Name-aware language model adaptation and sparse features for statistical machine translation

We propose approaches improving statistical machine translation (SMT) performance, by developing name-aware language model adaptations and sparse features, in addition to extracting name-aware translation grammar and rules, adding name phrase table, and name translation driven decoding. Chinese-English translation experiments showed that our proposed approaches produce an absolute gain of +2.3 BLEU on top of our previous high-performing, name-aware machine translation system.
Burnout and duration of service among Chinese voluntary workers

A survey study conducted among 226 Chinese voluntary workers in Hong Kong showed that satisfaction with voluntary work, integration into the voluntary institution, and burnout syndromes contributed to volunteers' expected duration of service. Regression analyses also showed that different sets of variables predicted different spans of expected duration of service. Work satisfaction was the most salient predictor for expected duration of service from six months to ten years. Lack of personal accomplishment predicted expected duration of service for six to twelve months, whereas emotional exhaustion and depersonalization influenced volunteers' expectation to continue in the service for five to ten years.
Ambiguity in German connectives: A corpus study

For deriving information on text structure (in the sense of coherence relations holding between neighbouring text spans), connectives are the most useful source of evidence on the text surface. However, many potential connectives also have a non-connective reading, and thus a disambiguation step is necessary. This problem has received only relatively little attention so far. We present the results of a corpus study on German connectives, designed to estimate the magnitude of the ambiguity problem and to prepare the development of disambiguation procedures.
Systolic blood pressure estimation using PPG and ECG during physical exercise

In this work, a model to estimate systolic blood pressure (SBP) using photoplethysmography (PPG) and electrocardiography (ECG) is proposed. Data from 19 subjects doing a 40 min exercise was analyzed. Reference SBP was measured at the finger based on the volume-clamp principle. PPG signals were measured at the finger and forehead. After an initialization process for each subject at rest, the model estimated SBP every 30 s for the whole period of exercise. In order to build this model, 18 features were extracted from PPG signals by means of its waveform, first derivative, second derivative, and frequency spectrum. In addition, pulse arrival time (PAT) was derived as a feature from the combination of PPG and ECG. After evaluating four regression models, we chose multiple linear regression (MLR) to combine all derived features to estimate SBP. The contribution of each feature was quantified using its normalized weight in the MLR. To evaluate the performance of the model, we used a leave-one-subject-out cross validation. With the aim of exploring the potential of the model, we investigated the influences of the inclusion of PAT, regression models, measurement sites (finger and forehead), and posture change (lying, sitting, and standing). The results show that the inclusion of PAT reduced the standard deviation (SD) of the difference from 14.07 to 13.52 mmHg. There was no significant difference in the estimation performance between the model using finger- and forehead-derived PPG signals. Separate models are necessary for different postures. The optimized model using finger-derived PPG signals during physical exercise had a performance with a mean difference of 0.43 mmHg, an SD of difference of 13.52 mmHg, and median correlation coefficients of 0.86. Furthermore, we identified two groups of features that contributed more to SBP estimation compared to other features. One group consists of our proposed features depicting beat morphology. The other comprises existing features depicting the dicrotic notch. The present work demonstrates promising results of the SBP estimation model during physical exercise.
Examining Missing Person Police Reports to Identify the Service Needs of Runaway Youth and Their Families

Abstract This study examined situational and demographic characteristics in a sample of 47 children missing person police reports obtained from a law enforcement agency to identify the service needs of runaway youth and their families. Results show that runaways represented the only category of missing children contained in the data. The present findings are consistent with national data which suggest that: a typical runaway youth is most likely engaging in acting out rebellious behavior; more girls than boys ran away; most were 14 or 15 years old and most had a prior history of running away. These results support the need for a comprehensive integration between social work research and practice and are used to provide recommendations for the service needs of runaway children and their families. Social work practice recommendations include: (1) community campaigns, (2) training, and (3) increased collaboration between law enforcement and child welfare agencies.
Representation of Competencies in Multidimensional IRT Models with Within-Item and Between-Item Multidimensionality

Multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) holds considerable promise for the development of psychometric models of competence. It provides an ideal foundation for modeling performance in complex domains, simultaneously taking into account multiple basic abilities. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the relations between a two-dimensional IRT model with between-item multidimensionality and a nested-factor model with within-item multidimensionality, and the different substantive meanings of the ability dimensions in the two models. Both models are applied to empirical data from a large-scale assessment of reading and listening comprehension in a foreign language. In the between-item model, performance in the reading and listening items is modeled by two separate dimensions. In the within-item model, one dimension represents the abilities common to both tests, and a second dimension represents abilities specific to listening comprehension. Distinct relations of external variables, such as gender and c.
Mentoring and career development

Purpose – This special issue seeks to examine mentoring relationships and offer new perspectives and frameworks, suggesting exciting avenues for future research on mentoring and career development.Design/methodology/approach – In the last two decades, the workplace has been dramatically transformed. Individuals traditionally had careers entrenched in organizations, relying on the paternalistic firm for career development. Increasingly now, individuals are enacting careers outside organizational boundaries, defining career success on their own terms rather than by the organizational measures of salary and rank. Rapid technological change and globalization have intensified the decoupling of individual careers from organizations, putting more emphasis on individuals for their own career development and creating an even greater need for mentoring.Findings – Although much research has been done on the impact of mentoring on subjective and objective career success, there are still many unexamined and under‐expl.
Anatomy and Adaptations of the Chewing Muscles in Daubentonia (Lemuriformes)

The extractive foraging behavior in aye‐ayes (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is unique among primates and likely has led to selection for a specialized jaw adductor musculature. Although this musculature has previously been examined in a subadult, until now, no one has reported the fascicle length, weight, and physiological cross‐sectional area (PCSA) for these muscles in an adult aye‐aye specimen. For the present study, we dissected an adult wild‐born aye‐aye from the Tsimbazaza Botanical and Zoological Park, Antananarivo, Madagascar. The aye‐aye follows the general strepsirrhine pattern in its overall jaw adductor muscle anatomy, but has very large muscles and PCSA relative to body size. Fascicle length is also relatively great, but not nearly as much as in the juvenile aye‐aye previously dissected. Perhaps chewing muscle fascicles begin relatively long, but shorten through use and growth as connective tissue sheets expand and allow for pinnation and increased PCSA. Alternately, it may be that aye‐ayes develop fascicular adaptation to wide gapes early in ontogeny, only to increase PCSA through later development into adulthood. The functional demands related to their distinctive manner of extractive foraging are likely responsible for the great PCSA in the jaw adductor muscles of the adult aye‐aye. It may be that great jaw adductor PCSA in the adult, as compared to the juvenile, is a means of increasing foraging efficiency in the absence of parental assistance. Anat Rec, 297:308–316, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Extremely Lexicalized Models for Accurate and Fast HPSG Parsing

This paper describes an extremely lexicalized probabilistic model for fast and accurate HPSG parsing. In this model, the probabilities of parse trees are defined with only the probabilities of selecting lexical entries. The proposed model is very simple, and experiments revealed that the implemented parser runs around four times faster than the previous model and that the proposed model has a high accuracy comparable to that of the previous model for probabilistic HPSG, which is defined over phrase structures. We also developed a hybrid of our probabilistic model and the conventional phrase-structure-based model. The hybrid model is not only significantly faster but also significantly more accurate by two points of precision and recall compared to the previous model.
Automated Analysis for Detecting Beams in Laser Wakefield Simulations

Laser wakefield particle accelerators have shown the potential to generate electric fields thousands of times higher than those of conventional accelerators. The resulting extremely short particle acceleration distance could yield a potential new compact source of energetic electrons and radiation, with wide applications from medicine to physics. Physicists investigate laser-plasma internal dynamics by running particle-in-cell simulations; however, this generates a large dataset that requires time-consuming, manual inspection by experts in order to detect key features such as beam formation. This paper describes a framework to automate the data analysis and classification of simulation data. First, we propose a new method to identify locations with high density of particles in the space-time domain, based on maximum extremum point detection on the particle distribution. We analyze high density electron regions using a lifetime diagram by organizing and pruning the maximum extrema as nodes in a minimum spanning tree. Second, we partition the multivariate data using fuzzy clustering to detect time steps in a experiment that may contain a high quality electron beam. Finally, we combine results from fuzzy clustering and bunch lifetime analysis to estimate spatially confined beams. We demonstrate our algorithms successfully on four different simulation datasets.
ANUPLACE: A SYNTHESIS AWARE VLSI PLACER

In Deep Sub Micron (DSM) technologies, circuits fail to meet the timings estimated during synthesis after completion of the layout which is termed as ‘Timing Closure’ problem. This work focuses on the study of reasons for failure of timing closure for a given synthesis solution. It was found that this failure is due to nonadherence of synthesizer’s assumptions during placement. A synthesis aware new placer called ANUPLACE was developed which adheres to assumptions made during synthesis. The new algorithms developed are illustrated with an example. ANUPLACE was applied to a set of standard placement benchmark circuits. There was an average improvement of 53.7% in the Half-Perimeter-Wire-Lengths (HPWL) with an average area penalty of 12.6% of the placed circuits when compared to the results obtained by the existing placement algorithms reported in the literature.
The Association between Environmental Lead Exposure and Bone Density in Children

Osteoporosis is a decrease in bone mineral density (BMD) that predisposes individuals to fractures. Although an elderly affliction, a predisposition may develop during adolescence if a sufficient peak BMD is not achieved. Rat studies have found that lead exposure is associated with decreased BMD. However, human studies are limited. We hypothesized that the BMD of children with high lead exposure would be lower than the BMD of children with low lead exposure. We collected data on 35 subjects; 16 had low cumulative lead exposure (mean, 6.5 μg/dL), and 19 had high exposure (mean, 23.6 μg/dL). All were African American; there was no difference between the groups by sex, age, body mass index, socioeconomic status, physical activity, or calcium intake. Significant differences in BMD between low and high cumulative lead exposure were noted in the head (1.589 vs. 1.721 g/cm2), third lumbar vertebra (0.761 vs. 0.819 g/cm2), and fourth lumbar vertebra (0.712 vs. 0.789 g/cm2). Contrary to our hypothesis, subjects with high lead exposure had a significantly higher BMD than did subjects with low lead exposure. This may reflect a true phenomenon because lead exposure has been reported to accelerate bony maturation by inhibiting the effects of parathyroid hormone–related peptide. Accelerated maturation of bone may ultimately result in a lower peak BMD being achieved in young adulthood, thus predisposing to osteoporosis in later life. Future studies need to investigate this proposed model.
Passing an Enhanced Turing Test – Interacting with Lifelike Computer Representations of Specific Individuals

Abstract This article describes research to build an embodied conversational agent (ECA) as an interface to a question-and-answer (Q/A) system about a National Science Foundation (NSF) program. We call this ECA the LifeLike Avatar, and it can interact with its users in spoken natural language to answer general as well as specific questions about specific topics. In an idealized case, the LifeLike Avatar could conceivably provide a user with a level of interaction such that he or she would not be certain as to whether he or she is talking to the actual person via video teleconference. This could be considered a (vastly) extended version of the seminal Turing test. Although passing such a test is still far off, our work moves the science in that direction. The Uncanny Valley notwithstanding, applications of such lifelike interfaces could include those where specific instructors/caregivers could be represented as stand-ins for the actual person in situations where personal representation is important. Possible areas that come to mind that might benefit from these lifelike ECAs include health-care support for elderly/disabled patients in extended home care, education/training, and knowledge preservation. Another more personal application would be to posthumously preserve elements of the persona of a loved one by family members. We apply this approach to a Q/A system for knowledge preservation and dissemination, where the specific individual who had this knowledge was to retire from the US National Science Foundation. The system is described in detail, and evaluations were performed to determine how well the system was perceived by users.
A dissimilarity measure for ALC concept descriptions

This work presents a dissimilarity measure for Description Logics that are the theoretical counterpart of the standard representations for ontological knowledge. The focus is on the definition of a dissimilarity measure for ALC concept descriptions, based both on the syntax and on the semantics of the descriptions. An extension of the measure is proposed for involving individuals and then for evaluating their dissimilarity.