Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sensing Landscape History with an Interactive Location Based Service

This paper introduces the STEAD approach for interpreting data acquired by a “human sensor”, who uses an informal interactive location-based service (iLBS) to sense cultural-historic facts and anecdotes of, and in the landscape. This user-generated data is collected outdoors and in situ. The approach consists of four related facets (who, what, where, when). Three of the four facets are discussed and illustrated by user generated data collected during a Dutch survey in 2008. These data represent the personal cultural-historic knowledge and anecdotes of 150 people using a customized iLBS for experiencing the cultural history of a landscape. The “who” facet shows three dominant mentality groups (cosmopolitans, modern materialists and post modern hedonists) that generated user content. The “what” facet focuses on three subject types of pictures and four picture framing classes. Pictures of the place type showed to be dominant and foreground framing class was slightly favourite. The “where” facet is explored via density, distribution, and distance of the pictures made. The illustrations of the facets indirectly show the role of the “human sensor” with respect to the domain of interest. The STEAD approach needs further development of the when-facet and of the relations between the four facets. Finally the results of the approach may support data archives of iLBS applications.
Distinct Influences of Mothers and Fathers on Kindergartners’ Numeracy Performance: The Role of Math Anxiety, Home Numeracy Practices, and Numeracy Expectations

ABSTRACT The current study analyzed maternal and paternal differential influences on numeracy performance in kindergarten children. Participants were 180 Chilean children from backgrounds of low and high socioeconomic status (SES), their mothers, and their fathers. A path analysis was used to explore the influences of both maternal and paternal numeracy practices on children’s numeracy performance and the influences of maternal and paternal expectations and anxiety on those activities. Research Findings: Results showed that mothers and fathers who endorse higher numeracy expectations for their children and who report lower levels of math anxiety also report engaging more frequently in advanced numeracy practices with their children. Mothers’—but not fathers’—engagement in numeracy practices at home predicted children’s numeracy performance. Also, low-SES mothers engaged more frequently in numeracy practices with their children, and mothers in general engaged more often in numeracy activities with girls than with boys. Practice or Policy: These findings improve understanding of how maternal and paternal processes relate differently to numeracy performance in kindergarten children. Moreover, these results highlight the need to take into account parents’ numeracy attitudes and practices, as well as their SES, when designing interventions directed at increasing family support for math achievement.
Harmony : EEG / MEG source reconstruction in the neural basis of spherical harmonics

EEG/MEG source localization based on minimum-norm estimate is hindered by the two problems: the localization is non-unique (since the number of sources is much larger than the number of signals) and unstable (the solution is highly sensitive to sensor noise). A new source localization algorithm is presented, which addresses both problems in a simple manner. By using the neural basis of spherical harmonics (or spherical splines) instead of single dipoles the dimensionality of the inverse solution is greatly reduced without sacrificing the quality of the data fit. The smoothness of the resulting solution reduces the surface bias and spurious scattered sources, which plague many existing minimum-norm techniques, and allows to efficiently suppress the sensor noise. The algorithm, termed Harmony, showed excellent performance when applied to real data and showed better localization precision and solution coherence than other tested algorithms when applied to realistically simulated data.
Creation of classifier ensembles for handwritten word recognition using feature selection algorithms

The study of multiple classifier systems has become an area of intensive research in pattern recognition. Also in handwriting, recognition, systems combining several classifiers have been investigated. In the paper new methods for the creation of classifier ensembles based on feature selection algorithms are introduced. These new methods are evaluated and compared to existing approaches in the context of handwritten word recognition, using a hidden Markov model recognizer as basic classifier.
Canonical contextual distance for large-scale image annotation and retrieval

To realize generic image recognition, the system needs to learn an enormous amount of targets in the world and their appearances. Therefore, visual knowledge acquisition using massive amounts of web images has been studied recently, and search-based methods are now flourishing in this research field. However, in general, search process of such methods are conducted using similarity measures based on simple image features and suffer from the semantic-gap. This is a big problem and can be a bottleneck of the entire systems. In this paper, we propose a method of image annotation and retrieval based on the new similarity measure, Canonical Contextual Distance. This method effectively uses contexts of images estimated from multiple labels and learns the essential and discriminative latent space. Using the probabilistic structure, our similarity measure can reflect both appearance and semantics of samples. Because our learning method is highly scalable, it is even effective in a large web-scale dataset. Therefore, our similarity measure will be helpful to many other search-based methods. In the experiment, we show that our method outperforms previous works using the standard Corel benchmark. Next, we verify our method by applying it to 3.5 million web images.
Paradoxical Roles of Mineral Dust Induced Gene on Cell Proliferation and Migration/Invasion

Increased expression of mineral dust-induced gene (mdig, also named as mina53, MINA, or NO52) has been observed in a number of human cancers. The mechanism of how mdig contribute to the pathogenesis of cancer remains to be fully elucidated. In this report, we demonstrated that overexpression of mdig decreased the nuclear staining signal by 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI), along with a considerable enhancement in cell proliferation. Silencing mdig by shRNA resulted in a statistically significant decrease of cell proliferation. Intriguingly, mdig overexpression reduced the capacity of the cells in migration and invasion in vitro, whereas silencing mdig by shRNA/siRNA enhanced migration and invasion. Clinically, we found that increased expression of mdig in cancer tissues correlates with poorer overall survival of the lung cancer patients, esp., for those without lymph node metastasis. Taken together, our results suggest that mdig plays opposite roles on cell growth and motility, which possibly indicates the paradoxical effect of mdig at the different stages of carcinogenesis.
Plant Physiological, Morphological and Yield-Related Responses to Night Temperature Changes across Different Species and Plant Functional Types

Land surface temperature over the past decades has shown a faster warming trend during the night than during the day. Extremely low night temperatures have occurred frequently due to the influence of land-sea thermal difference, topography and climate change. This asymmetric night temperature change is expected to affect plant ecophysiology and growth, as the plant carbon consumption processes could be affected more than the assimilation processes because photosynthesis in most plants occurs during the daytime whereas plant respiration occurs throughout the day. The effects of high night temperature (HNT) and low night temperature (LNT) on plant ecophysiological and growing processes and how the effects vary among different plant functional types (PFTs) have not been analyzed extensively. In this meta-analysis, we examined the effect of HNT and LNT on plant physiology and growth across different PFTs and experimental settings. Plant species were grouped according to their photosynthetic pathways (C3, C4, and CAM), growth forms (herbaceous, woody), and economic purposes (crop, non-crop). We found that HNT and LNT both had a negative effect on plant yield, but the effect of HNT on plant yield was primarily related to a reduction in biomass allocation to reproduction organs and the effect of LNT on plant yield was more related to a negative effect on total biomass. Leaf growth was stimulated at HNT and suppressed at LNT. HNT accelerated plants ecophysiological processes, including photosynthesis and dark respiration, while LNT slowed these processes. Overall, the results showed that the effects of night temperature on plant physiology and growth varied between HNT and LNT, among the response variables and PFTs, and depended on the magnitude of temperature change and experimental design. These findings suggest complexities and challenges in seeking general patterns of terrestrial plant growth in HNT and LNT. The PFT specific responses of plants are critical for obtaining credible predictions of the changes in crop production, plant community structure, vegetation dynamics, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning of terrestrial biomes when asymmetric night temperature change continues.
An efficient design method for vector broadcast systems with common information

We consider the problem of determining an optimal transmission scheme for broadcasting a common message over vector channels, given (perfect) channel knowledge at both the receive and transmit ends. We provide an efficient method for jointly designing a linear transmitter and and a set of linear receivers so as to minimize a weighted mean square error (WMSE) of the data estimates. The computational efficiency follows from the convex formulations that we develop. These formulations enable utilization of highly efficient interior point methods. For diagonal channel matrices, which appear in multicarrier systems that employ cyclic prefixing, we show that the optimal transmitter is obtained by subcarrier allocation and power loading. The set of minimum MSE transceivers for a vector broadcast system is parametrized by a unitary matrix degree of freedom. For the case of diagonal systems, we show how this unitary matrix can be chosen so that the symbol error rate is minimized (over the given set). This optimal unitary matrix ensures that, for each receiver, the subcarrier signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) are all the same. Simulations indicate that our designs can provide significantly improved performance over standard designs.
THE ROLE OF EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION SETTINGS IN PROSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ACROSS INFANCY, TODDLERHOOD, AND EARLY CHILDHOOD

In their first few years of life, children develop prosocial behavior during everyday affective interactions with others, both within and outside their home environments. Early childcare and education (ECE) settings may be especially influential, but the mechanisms of prosocial development in these settings remain unknown. Three studies aim to inform our understanding of the social mechanisms of prosocial development in ECE contexts. Study 1 posits a structure-process-outcome model of prosocial development and explores how ECE structural and process characteristics predict the emergence of prosocial behavior at 24 months; Study 2 examines bidirectional associations between prosocial behavior and ECE caregiving across the third year; and Study 3 determines whether experiences in ECE contexts in toddlerhood predict prosocial behavior at school entry and across elementary school. Study 1 revealed warm and positive caregiving at 15 months, but not caregiver beliefs about childrearing, to be a robust predictor of prosocial behavior at 24 months. Warm and positive caregiving was higher in in-home and family daycare settings than in centers, and in ECE settings with lower caregiver-child ratios and smaller group sizes, but was not associated with caregiver education or training. Study 2 found prosocial behavior to increase from 24 to 36 months and show moderate relative stability. Warm and positive caregiving at 24 months did not explain change in prosocial behavior from 24 to 36 months, but prosocial behavior at 24 months did account for some of the change in warm and positive caregiving over the third year, suggesting that children who exhibit higher levels of prosocial behavior elicit more warm and positive caregiving from their caregivers. Study 3 demonstrated that levels of prosocial behavior remained flat across elementary school, and found that prosocial behavior at 36 months predicted prosocial behavior at school entry, such that children who were more prosocial in toddlerhood were also more prosocial in elementary school. Together, these findings begin to chart the developmental course of prosocial behavior from emergence through late childhood and underscore the important and nuanced role that early childcare settings play in the expression and development of prosociality across the lifespan.
A Self-Adaptive Intelligent Control System with Hierarchical Architecture

This paper presents an Intelligent Control System with Hierarchical Architecture, namely ICSHA. The advantages of three-layered ICSHA are able to carry out multiple tasks and to adjust its control rules automatically to adapt environments. The first layer, Planning Layer, we propose the ASGO (an extension version of Ant System with Genetic Operators) to determine the executing order of subtasks. The visiting schedule is then supervised by second layer, Executive Layer. The third layer, Behavior Layer, is to execute each subtask by using the proposed intelligent control module. While the control module cannot adapt the environment, the proposed iQGA (an improved Quantum Genetic Algorithm) is activated to explore better control actions for producing adaptable control rules. An application of robotic trash collection task is constructed to demonstrate the proposed methods. The simulation results showed that the performances of ASGO and iQGA are satisfied. Simulation result also reveals the adaptability of ICSHA.
Approaching the Distinction between Intuition and Insight

Intuition and insight share similar cognitive and neural basis. Though, there are still some essential differences between the two. Here in this short review, we discriminated between intuition, and insight in two aspects. First, intuition, and insight are toward different aspects of information processing. Whereas intuition involves judgment about “yes or no,” insight is related to “what” is the solution. Second, tacit knowledge play different roles in between intuition and insight. On the one hand, tacit knowledge is conducive to intuitive judgment. On the other hand, tacit knowledge may first impede but later facilitate insight occurrence. Furthermore, we share theoretical, and methodological views on how to access the distinction between intuition and insight.
Longitudinal study of human papillomavirus persistence and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2/3: critical role of duration of infection.

BACKGROUND The natural history of human papillomavirus (HPV) infections in older women is critical for preventive strategies, including vaccination and screening intervals, but is poorly understood. In a 7-year population-based cohort study in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, we examined whether women's age and the duration of carcinogenic HPV infections influenced subsequent persistence of infection and risk of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 (CIN 2) or worse disease. METHODS At enrollment, of the 9466 participants eligible for pelvic examination, 9175 were screened for cervical neoplasia using multiple methods; those with CIN 2 or worse disease were censored and treated. Participants at low risk of CIN 2 or worse (n = 6029) were rescreened at 5-7 years (passively followed), whereas higher-risk participants (n = 2115) and subsets of low-risk women (n = 540) and initially sexually inactive women (n = 410) were rescreened annually or semiannually (actively followed) for up to 7 years. HPV testing was done using a polymerase chain reaction-based method. We determined, by four age groups (18-25, 26-33, 34-41, and > or =42 years), the proportion of prevalent infections (found at baseline) and newly detected infections (first found during follow-up) that persisted at successive 1-year time points and calculated absolute risks of CIN 2 and CIN grade 3 (CIN 3) or worse during follow-up. P values are two-sided. RESULTS Regardless of the woman's age, newly detected infections were associated with very low absolute risks of persistence, CIN 2, or worse disease. For newly detected infections, the rate of progression to CIN 2+ (or CIN 3+), after 3 years of follow-up, was not higher for women aged 34 years and older than for younger women. Moreover, rates of newly detected infections declined sharply with age (in the actively followed group, at ages 18-25, 26-33, 34-41, and > or =42 years, rates were 35.9%, 30.6%, 18.1%, and 13.5%, respectively; P < .001). Among prevalent infections, persistent infections among older women (> or =42 years) was higher than that among younger age groups or new infections at any age (P < .01 for comparison of eight groups). Most (66 of 85) CIN 2 or worse detected during follow-up was associated with prevalent infections. Only a small subset (25 of 1128) of prevalent infections persisted throughout follow-up without apparent CIN 2 or worse. CONCLUSIONS The rate of new infections declines with age, and new infections typically do not progress to CIN 2 or worse disease in older women; thus, overall potential benefit of prophylactic vaccination or frequent HPV screening to prevent or detect new carcinogenic HPV infections at older ages is low.
TRIPLET PARTIALLY MARKOV CHAINS AND TREES

Hidden Markov models (HMM), like c hains or trees considered in this paper, are widely used in different situations. Such models, in which the hidden process X is a Markov one, allow one e stimating the latter from an observed process Y , which can be seen as a noisy version of X . This is possible once the distribution of X conditional on Y is a Markov distribution. These models have been recently generalized to Pairwise Markov models (PMM), in which one a ssumes the markovianity of ) , ( Y X , and Triplet Markov models (TMM), in which the distribution of ) , ( Y X is the marginal distribution of an
Long gamma-ray bursts and their host galaxies at high redshift

Motivated by the recent observational and theoretical evidence that long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are likely associated with low metallicity, rapidly rotating massive stars, we examine the cosmological star formation rate (SFR) below a critical metallicity Z crit ∼ 1/10-1/5 Z ⊙ , to estimate the event rate of high redshift long GRB progenitors. To this purpose, we exploit a galaxy formation scenario already successfully tested on a wealth of observational data on (proto)spheroids, Lyman break galaxies, Lyman a emitters, submm galaxies, quasars and local early-type galaxies. We find that the predicted rate of long GRBs amounts to about 300 events yr -1 sr -1 , of which about 30 per cent occur at 2 ≥ 6. Correspondingly, the GRB number counts well agree with the bright SWIFT data, without the need for an intrinsic luminosity evolution. Moreover, the above framework enables us to predict the properties of the GRB host galaxies. Most GRBs are associated with low-mass galaxy haloes M H ≤ 10 11 M ⊙ , and effectively trace the formation of small galaxies in such haloes. The hosts are young, with age smaller than 5 x 10 7 yr, gas rich, but poorly extincted (A v ≤ 0.1) because of their chemical immaturity; this also implies high specific SFR and quite extreme α-enhancement. Only the minority of hosts residing in large haloes with M H ≥ 10 12 M ⊙ has larger extinction (A v ∼ 0.7-1), SFRs exceeding 100 M ⊙ yr -1 and can be detected at submm wavelengths. Most of the hosts have ultraviolet magnitudes in the range -20 ≤ M 1350 ≤ -16, and Lyman a luminosity in the range 2 x 10 40 ≤ Layman α ≤ 2 x 10 42 erg s -1 . GRB hosts are thus tracing the faint end of the luminosity function of Lyman break galaxies and Lyman a emitters. Finally, our results imply that the population of 'dark' GRBs occur mostly in faint hosts at high redshift, rather than in dusty hosts at low redshift.
Antiproliferative, Antibacterial and Antifungal Activity of the Lichen Xanthoria parietina and Its Secondary Metabolite Parietin

Lichens are valuable natural resources used for centuries throughout the world as medicine, food, fodder, perfume, spices and dyes, as well as for other miscellaneous purposes. This study investigates the antiproliferative, antibacterial and antifungal activity of the acetone extract of the lichen Xanthoria parietina (Linnaeus) Theodor Fries and its major secondary metabolite, parietin. The extract and parietin were tested for antimicrobial activity against nine American Type Culture Collection standard and clinically isolated bacterial strains, and three fungal strains. Both showed strong antibacterial activity against all bacterial strains and matched clinical isolates, particularly against Staphylococcus aureus from standard and clinical sources. Among the fungi tested, Rhizoctonia solani was the most sensitive. The antiproliferative effects of the extract and parietin were also investigated in human breast cancer cells. The extract inhibited proliferation and induced apoptosis, both effects being accompanied by modulation of expression of cell cycle regulating genes such as p16, p27, cyclin D1 and cyclin A. It also mediated apoptosis by activating extrinsic and intrinsic cell death pathways, modulating Tumor Necrosis Factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) and B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), and inducing Bcl-2-associated agonist of cell death (BAD) phosphorylation. Our results indicate that Xanthoria parietina is a major potential source of antimicrobial and anticancer substances.
Too Far to Go On? Distance to School and University Participation

Abstract This study assesses the role of distance to school in the probability of attending university shortly after high school. Students who grow up near a university may avoid moving and added living costs by commuting from home to attend the local university. The distance between the homes of high school students and the nearest university is calculated by combining household survey data and a database of Canadian university postal codes. Students living ‘out of commuting distance’ are far less likely to attend university than students living ‘within commuting distance’. Students from lower‐income families are particularly disadvantaged by distance.