Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
G oal P ursuit in the C ontext of C ulture

Summary Perceived feasibility differs across cultures in line with political system and cultural values. Whereas the cultural values of collectivism, large power differ-ential, and strong uncertainty avoidance are associated with low efﬁ cacy beliefs, the cultural values of individualism, small power distance, and weak uncertainty avoidance are associated with high efﬁ cacy beliefs. Most of the presented stud-ies investigated efﬁ cacy expectations in school children. Here, low efﬁ cacy beliefs strongly impede scholastic performances ( Schunk, 1991 ; Zimmerman & Kitsantas, 2005 ). Low scholastic performance in turn will hamper professional success, and thus may even suppress economic success on a societal level, as a nation’s wealth is also based on its people’s skills ( Heckman, 2006 ). But it is not only academic and professional skill development that should be dimin-ished by low efﬁ cacy beliefs but also non-cognitive skills such as perseverance and tenacity. Accordingly, individuals with low efﬁ cacy beliefs should be more reluctant to commit to challenging long-term goals geared at economic success (e.g., opening one’s own business, persistently pursuing a professional career) and thus further deprive a society from a vital motor of economic development. One may argue that the high efﬁ cacy beliefs, especially those in West Berlin children with low Raven scores may be simply unrealistic and thus detrimental in their effects on people’s everyday lives. However, Taylor (1989) has convinc-ingly argued and observed that optimism, even if illusory, beneﬁ ts motivation and success in the central life domains, such as achievement, interpersonal rela-tions, and health. The latter ﬁ ndings imply that children who need support by strengthened efﬁ cacy beliefs the most (e.g., children with low Raven scores) gain this essential motivational support to a greater extent in the cultures and political systems that tend toward individualism, low power distance, and weak uncertainty avoidance (e.g., in West Berlin more than in East Berlin). Supporting our ﬁ nding of less optimism in cultures with relatively more collectivism, power
Indirect control and making actions explicit in 3D drawing

This paper aims to broaden the understanding of computer mediated creativity from a material perspective, by emphasizing the qualities of resistance and making users' actions explicit in the design process. Resistance of material refers to the challenging nature of realizing one's intention through material during the design process. Materials are also instrumental in making user actions of creating artifacts explicit through temporary structures, residues and tools. By drawing on the accounts of craft work and design, the paper discusses how these two qualities can be deliberately addressed in the design of tools to support creative activity. The design approach is operationalized in a 3D drawing tool with the use of indirect control to control curves. The prototype was evaluated with industrial design students and practitioners in two stages, in recorded sessions and through self-documentation. The participant responses give insights into the concept of materiality in creativity support tools and in which cases these features were embraced or dismissed.
Description and verification of RTL designs using multiway decision graphs

Traditional OBDD-based methods of automated verification suffer from, the drawback that they require a binary representation of the circuit. Multiway Decision Graphs (MDGs) combine the advantages of OBDD techniques with those of abstract types. RTL designs can be compactly described by MDGs using abstract data values and uninterpreted function symbols. We have developed MDG-based techniques for combinational verification, reachability analysis, verification of behavioral equivalence, and verification of a microprocessor against its instruction set architecture. We report on the results of several verification experiments using our MDG package.
Psycho-social perspectives on living and working with violence in distressed and traumatised (dis-) organisations

The published work presented in this submission examines the nature and form of psychosocial processes that lead towards and away from mental health, social security and community and organisational cohesion. It demonstrates the application of psychosocial research methods to the problem of living and working with violence in a range of clinical and educational settings. The emergent work is described in 14 pieces of work; 8 peer-reviewed articles, 4 book chapters and 2 edited volumes. Each of these pieces of work is accompanied by short discussion and commentary on its impact and dissemination. The published work presented extends over a 15 year period and demonstrates learning derived from a 30 year professional and academic commitment to an in-depth exploration of the ways in which structural and cultural processes of inclusion/exclusion give rise to personal and interpersonal violence that poses significant risks of psychosocial harm. The work also explores the reciprocal nature of the violence played out between ‘identified clients’, the systems of care tasked with helping them and the wider society from whom these systems of care take their authority. A central concern of the presented work is to consider the often distressing and traumatising ways in which this reciprocal structural and behavioural violence impacts frontline workers and teams that comprise these organisations. The submission also draws upon psychosocial, group analytic, systems psychodynamic and educational theories of practice, to explore the ways in which reflective practice and team development interventions may be deployed to equip multi-disciplinary teams with the necessary resilience and reflective capacity to work with this psychosocial violence in more creative, thoughtful and collaborative ways. The impact of the published work and the implication for future professional clinical, educational and consultancy practice is also discussed.
A biomathematical approach to clinical tumor growth

IRECT DATA relating to the natural growth D history of human neoplastic disease are intrinsically limited by the clinical availability of lesions for observation, study, and measurement. For a number of reasons, such a clinical observation span often covers but a small fraction of a tumor’s total period of existence. Time limitations are imposed not only by the occurrence of various gaps in patient awareness and co-operation, clinical acumen, or accessibility of measurable lesions but more fundamentally, as we shall see, by the very nature of neoplastic growth. Under such circumstances, conclusions concerning preclinical tumor growth characteristics and predictions of future course are, at best, hazardous and tentative. Any approach, therefore, offering to extend longitudinally our knowledge of tumor growth deserves careful study. A priori, the simplest growth pattern would be one marked by regularly recurring cell division at fixed intervals. One cell gives rise to 2, 2 to 4, 4 to 8, indefinitely, with the intermitotic “resting” phase remaining constant. When various limiting nutritive or environmental factors do not supervene, this pattern of growth is to be found in numerous biological systems and physical processes. Bacterial growth and, in a reverse direction, isotopic radioactive decay are but 2 typical instances. How adequately such a logically and conceptually simple geometric growth schema reflects the realities of human neoplastic disease will be the subject of this paper. Pioneering work in this direction has already been done-most notably by Collins, Loeffler, and TiveyG in their study of growth rates of radiographically measurable metastatic pulmonary disease in adults and in their
Body Image and Disordered Eating Patterns in African-American College Women

Currently, increasing scholarly attention is being given to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating. A bulk of the research on the issue has focused on Caucasian women. As a result, the body of research may be limited in its generalization to other racial and ethnic groups. This study, therefore, sought to study disordered eating among African-American college women. Two models based on research questions were tested. The first focused on how body mass index (BMI) impacted disordered eating, while the second focused on how the difference between perceived actual and ideal body image impacted disordered eating. Self-esteem was tested as a mediating factor for both models. Data were collected from a total sample of 21 African-American women from a large, private university on the east coast. Findings suggested that African-American college women had high self-esteem and a perceived actual and ideal body image that were similar. Results also demonstrated a low prevalence of eating disorders among this population, even though more than half of participants demonstrated a potential risk for developing an eating disorder. These findings have implications for counseling and student care centers by shedding light on typical attitudes about body image within this demographic and the eating behaviors that follow as a result.
Analisis perilaku earning management: motivasi minimalisasi income tax

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menganalisis apakah perusahaan Go Publik meminimalkan pajak dengan meminimalkan tingkat akrual. Metode yang digunakan untuk menganalisis perusahaan Go Publik ini adalah Model regresi berganda. Ada dua analisis yang dilakukan untuk menguji hipotesis penelitian yaitu uji nilai t dan uji beda dua rata-rata. Data yang digunakan adalah laporan keuangan perusahaan Go Publik yang terdaftar dalam LQ 45 tahun buku 1999 sampai dengan tahun buku 2003. Penelitian ini membuktikan bahwa perusahaan Go Publik yang terdaftar dalam LQ 45 menunjukkan bahwa nilai discretionary accrual tahun 2000 dan 2001 negatif tidak signifikan. Hal ini berarti bahwa tidak terdapat rekayasa akrual untuk meminimumkan pajak penghasilan.
Context adaptive image denoising through modeling of curvelet domain statistics

We perform a statistical analysis of curvelet coefficients, distinguishing between two classes of coefficients: those that con- tain a significant noise-free component, which we call the "signal of interest," and those that do not. By investigating the marginal statis- tics, we develop a prior model for curvelet coefficients. The analysis of the joint intra- and inter-band statistics enables us to develop an appropriate local spatial activity indicator for curvelets. Finally, based on our findings, we present a novel denoising method, in- spired by a recent wavelet domain method called ProbShrink. The new method outperforms its wavelet-based counterpart and pro- duces results that are close to those of state-of-the-art denoisers.
Phase 1 Evaluation of Vibrio choleraeO1, Serotype Inaba, Polysaccharide-Cholera Toxin Conjugates in Adult Volunteers

ABSTRACT Conjugate vaccines were prepared by binding hydrazine-treated lipopolysaccharide (DeALPS) from Vibrio cholerae O1, serotype Inaba, to cholera toxin (CT) variants CT-1 and CT-2. Volunteers (n = 75) were injected with either 25 μg of DeALPS, alone or as a conjugate, or the licensed cellular vaccine containing 4 × 109 organisms each of serotypes Inaba and Ogawa per ml. No serious adverse reactions were observed. DeALPS alone did not elicit serum LPS or vibriocidal antibodies in mice and only low levels of immunoglobulin M (IgM) anti-LPS in the volunteers. Recipients of the cellular vaccine had the highest IgM anti-LPS levels, but the difference was not statistically significant from that elicited by the conjugates. The conjugates elicited the highest levels of IgG anti-LPS (DeALPS-CT-2 > DeALPS-CT-1 > cellular vaccine). Both conjugates and the cellular vaccine elicited vibriocidal antibodies: after 8 months, recipients of cellular vaccine had the highest geometric mean titer (1,249), followed by DeALPS-CT-2 (588) and DeALPS-CT-1 (330). The correlation coefficient between IgG anti-LPS and 2-mercaptoethanol (2-ME)-resistant vibriocidal antibodies was 0.81 (P = 0.0004). Convalescent sera from cholera patients had a mean vibriocidal titer of 2,525 that was removed by treatment with 2-ME. The vibriocidal activities of sera from all vaccine groups and from the patients were absorbed (>75%) by LPS but not by either CT-1 or CT-2. Conjugate-induced IgG vibriocidal antibodies persisted longer than those elicited by the whole-cell vaccine. Both conjugates, but not the cellular vaccine, elicited IgG anti-CT.
An Insight into the Human Resource Management Practices Adopted by Entrepreneurs in South Africa

Entrepreneurs play a pivotal role in contributing to economic development in many countries. As such, it is within this construct that research within the discourse of entrepreneurship should advocate for the need to explore on Human Resource Management (HRM) initiatives that positively influence entrepreneurship. Therefore, this paper adopts a conceptual analysis of the HRM practices adopted by entrepreneurs’ in South Africa. The findings highlight four distinctcategories of entrepreneurship in HRM. The first category reveals the extent to whichHRM practices adopted by entrepreneurs in South Africa are changing. In the second category, the HRM functions are clearly delineated with areas such as training and development, recruitment and selection elaborated. In the third category, the role of government in fostering good HRM practices is highlighted. In the fourth category a diverse and multi-faceted area of HRM practice in entrepreneurship is highlighted. In conclusion and also taking into cognisance the four distinct categories an HRM centric model for entrepreneurship is presented which underscores the need for flexibility and pragmatism in the adoption of HRM policies and procedures.The results of this study will inform policy in terms of strategies, guidelines and tools for effective HRM practices by entreprenuers.
A 1.5-V, Constant-Gm, Rail-to-Rail Input Stage Operational Amplifier

In this paper, a 1.5 V supply, rail-to-rail operational amplifier has been designed. Because of low voltage operation we have been made to use input differential pair in weak inversion mode and consequently low frequency response is natural. To obtain a gm-constant transconductor in first stage we use from a different structure that achieves smaller gm variation than previously defined circuits. A new CMFB circuit, also proposed, which is very efficient and suitable for low voltage operations. This opamp is designed in 0.35 mum CMOS process, and simulated in HSPICE.
Online Consumer Retention: Development of New Habits

Prior research on online behaviour continuance modeled satisfaction and perceived usefulness as the only determinants of continued adoption, overlooking the important role of habit. We therefore extend the previous models to include online shopping habit as a moderator of the relationship between online shopping satisfaction and online repurchase intention. Most prior studies conceptualized habit as experience, providing little evidence on the distinction between these two constructs. To clarify this confusion, we compare the conceptualization and the effects of habit and experience on repurchase intention. The empirical results show that the inclusion of the moderating effects of both habit and experience strengthens the explanatory power of the model. Although there is sufficient evidence supporting the conceptual discrimination between habit and experience, their effects remain similar. We also identify important online shopping usefulness drivers, which should be of interest to practitioners.
PROBER: Ad-Hoc Debugging of Extraction and Integration Pipelines

Complex information extraction (IE) pipelines assembled by plumbing together off-the-shelf operators, specially customized operators, and operators re-used from other text processing pipelines are becoming an integral component of most text processing frameworks. A critical task faced by the IE pipeline user is to run a post-mortem analysis on the output. Due to the diverse nature of extraction operators (often implemented by independent groups), it is time consuming and error-prone to describe operator semantics formally or operationally to a provenance system. We introduce the first system that helps IE users analyze pipeline semantics and infer provenance interactively while debugging. This allows the effort to be proportional to the need, and to focus on the portions of the pipeline under the greatest suspicion. We present a generic debugger for running post-execution analysis of any IE pipeline consisting of arbitrary types of operators. We propose an effective provenance model for IE pipelines which captures a variety of operator types, ranging from those for which full or no specifications are available. We present a suite of algorithms to effectively build provenance and facilitate debugging. Finally, we present an extensive experimental study on large-scale real-world extractions from an index of ~500 million Web documents.
Learning Bregman Distance Functions for Semi-Supervised Clustering

Learning distance functions with side information plays a key role in many data mining applications. Conventional distance metric learning approaches often assume that the target distance function is represented in some form of Mahalanobis distance. These approaches usually work well when data are in low dimensionality, but often become computationally expensive or even infeasible when handling high-dimensional data. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme of learning nonlinear distance functions with side information. It aims to learn a Bregman distance function using a nonparametric approach that is similar to Support Vector Machines. We emphasize that the proposed scheme is more general than the conventional approach for distance metric learning, and is able to handle high-dimensional data efficiently. We verify the efficacy of the proposed distance learning method with extensive experiments on semi-supervised clustering. The comparison with state-of-the-art approaches for learning distance functions with side information reveals clear advantages of the proposed technique.
Isolation and characterization of novel EST-derived genic markers in Pisum sativum (Fabaceae)1

Premise of the study: Novel markers were developed for pea (Pisum sativum) from pea expressed sequence tags (ESTs) having significant homology to Medicago truncatula gene sequences to investigate genetic diversity, linkage mapping, and cross-species transferability. Methods and Results: Seventy-seven EST-derived genic markers were developed through comparative mapping between M. truncatula and P. sativum in which 75 markers produced PCR products and 33 were polymorphic among 16 pea genotypes. Conclusions: The novel markers described here will be useful for future genetic studies of P. sativum; their amplification in lentil (Lens culinaris) demonstrates their potential for use in closely related species.
New Features for Sentiment Analysis: Do Sentences Matter?

In this work, we propose and evaluate new features to be used in a word polarity based approach to sentiment classification. In particular, we analyze sentences as the first step before estimating the overall review polarity. We consider different aspects of sentences, such as length, purity, irrealis content, subjectivity, and position within the opinionated text. This analysis is then used to find sentences that may convey better information about the overall review polarity. The TripAdvisor dataset is used to evaluate the effect of sentence level features on polarity classification. Our initial results indicate a small improvement in classification accuracy when using the newly proposed features. However, the benefit of these features is not limited to improving sentiment classification accuracy since sentence level features can be used for other important tasks such as review summarization.
Development of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) hollow fiber membranes by novel thermally induced phase separation

Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) has received growing attention in hollow fiber membrane preparation for water production and wastewater treatment due to its excellent physical and chemical properties. Currently, PVDF hollow fiber membranes prepared via the conventional non-solvent phase separation (NIPS) method are often subjected to the formation of macrovoids, resulting in a broad pore size distribution and weak mechanical strength. Another method—thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) has gained renewed interest as it can produce robust membrane with a narrow pore size distribution. However, limited studies on TIPS were focused on the control over the surface pore structure, which is the key to the selectivity and permeability of membranes. Therefore, the development of a novel method to fabricate membranes with tailorable surface pore size and strengthened structure is critical for the membranes applied in the water industry. This research aims to develop PVDF-based hollow fiber membranes via novel thermally induced phase separation. Firstly, the basic understanding of TIPS process was acquired by fabricating the hollow fiber membranes prepared using mild diluents. Subsequently, hydrophobically enhanced hollow fiber membranes with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) addition were developed via TIPS method for direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD). Further, a novel hybrid method involving NIPS and TIPS (N-TIPS) was explored by using mixed diluents. Finally, the N-TIPS method was used to develop hydrophilically enhanced hollow fiber membranes with improved antifouling property by immobilizing Pluronic F127 particles.
Exploiting high-speed sequences for background subtraction

Observing the world in high speed can give rise to systems for e.g., tracking with super-human capabilities or extremely low latency human-computer interaction. However, the demand on computational power grows with the increased framerate, limiting the usefulness of such systems. In this paper we propose a background subtraction method aimed at high-speed video which enables higher level algorithms to focus on the interesting regions in the image. We show through experiments on high-speed video that where using conventional background subtraction methods in high-speed videos fail, the proposed method successfully detects the foreground in the image.
Probabilistic Planning via Heuristic Forward Search and Weighted Model Counting

We present a new algorithm for probabilistic planning with no observability. Our algorithm, called Probabilistic-FF, extends the heuristic forward-searchmachinery of Conformant-FF to problems with probabilistic uncertainty about both the initial state and action effects. Specifically, Probabilistic-FF combines Conformant-FF's techniques with a powerful machinery for weighted model counting in (weighted) CNFs, serving to elegantly define both the search space and the heuristic function. Our evaluation of Probabilistic-FF shows its fine scalability in a range of probabilistic domains, constituting a several orders of magnitude improvement over previous results in this area. We use a problematic case to point out the main open issue to be addressed by further research.