Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Moral Foundations and Voting Intention in Italy

Based on the view of morality proposed by the Moral Foundations Theory, this paper investigates whether voting intention is associated with moral foundation endorsement in not perfectly bipolar electoral contexts. Three studies carried out in Italy from 2010 to 2013, showed that controlling for ideological orientation, moral foundation endorsement is associated with voting intention. In Study 1 and 3, in fictitious and real national elections, intention to vote for right-wing political groups rather than for left-wing rivals was associated with Sanctity, confirming previous results obtained in the U.S. Furthermore, as a function of the specific competing political groups in each of the examined contexts other moral foundations predicted voting intention. In Study 1, Care and Authority predicted voting intention for the major political groups rather than for an autonomist party that aimed at decreasing central government’s fiscal power in favor of fiscal regional autonomy. In Study 3, Loyalty predicted the intention to vote for the major parliamentarian parties rather than for a movement that aimed at capturing disaffection towards traditional politics. In Study 2, at real regional elections, Loyalty predicted voting intention for the incumbent right-wing governor rather than for the challengers and Fairness predicted voting intention for left-wing extra-parliamentarian political groups rather than for the major left-wing party. Thus multiple moral concerns can be associated with voting intention. In fragmented and unstable electoral contexts, at each election the context of the competing political groups may elicit specific moral concerns that can contribute to affect voting intention beyond ideological orientation.
Digital Circuit Layout based on Graph Partitioning Technique using DNA Computing

After Adleman and Lipton have described the potential power of DNA computing, researchers have developed an interest in DNA computing for solving difficult computational problems like NP-complete problems. Partitioning of digital circuits also come under this category. Partitioning plays a key role in the design of a computer system. Existing conventional methods are unable to achieve the required breakthrough in terms of complexity, time and cost. This paper discusses how the potential of DNA can be used to solve the instances of circuit partitioning problem in an efficient way. A prototypical algorithm named DBACP is developed for solving the partitioning problem which is compared with SCAP approach on the small scale instances of circuit Benchmarks.
Using semantics of the arguments for predicate sense induction

We present an unsupervised learning system developed to recognize predicate sense distinctions that depend on the semantics of the arguments. We develop a sensetagged data set for 15 polysemous verbs selected for having such sense distinctions. We use this data set to evaluate the performance of our system in a word sense induction setting. Relative to the baselines, our system outperforms the best system in the SEMEVAL-2007 Task 2 on two out of three measures we use to evaluate the clustering solution.
A Logical Characterisation of Event Clock Automata

We show that the class of Event Clock Automata [2] admit a logical characterisation via an unrestricted monadic second order logic interpreted over timed words. The result is interesting in that it provides an unrestricted yet decidable logical characterisation of a non-trivial class of timed languages. A timed temporal logic considered earlier in the literature [11] is shown to be expressively complete with respect to the monadic logic.
MAS — an interactive synthesizer to support behavioral modelling in UML

Minimally Adequate Synthesizer (MAS) is an interactive algorithm that synthesizes UML statechart diagrams from sequence diagrams. It follows Angluin's framework of minimally adequate teacher to infer the desired statechart diagram by consulting the user. To minimize the consultations needed, MAS keeps track of the interaction with the user. Together with its general knowledge about sequence diagrams, this makes MAS to operate mostly without user's help, but allowing her to guide the process in the critical points. In this paper we discuss the MAS algorithm and its practical implementation, integrated with a real-world UML modeling tool, the Nokia TED. Moreover, we discuss the interaction between the algorithm and the user as a medium of improving the algorithm and further decreasing the amount of user consultations needed. Furthermore, we show how MAS can be used to incrementally synthesize sequence diagrams into an edited or a manually constructed statechart diagram. Totally automatic synthesis algorithms may result in a state machine that contains undesired generalizations. Because MAS consults the user during the synthesis process, the user can be confident that such generalizations do not appear in the resulting statechart diagram.
tert-Butyl 2-sulfanylidene-2,3-dihydro-1H-imidazole-1-carboxylate

In the title molecule, C8H12N2O2S, the imidazole ring forms a dihedral angle of 5.9 (2)° with the mean plane of the carboxylate group. In the crystal, molecules are linked by pairs of N—H⋯S hydrogen bonds, forming inversion dimers.
Stable nuclear transformation of Chlamydomonas using the Chlamydomonas gene for nitrate reductase

We have developed a nuclear transformation system for Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, using micro-projectile bombardment to introduce the gene encoding nitrate reductase into a nit1 mutant strain which lacks nitrate reductase activity. By using either supercoiled or linear plasmid DNA, transformants were recovered consistently at a low efficiency, on the order of 15 transformants per microgram of plasmid DNA. In all cases the transforming DNA was integrated into the nuclear genome, usually in multiple copies. Most of the introduced copies were genetically linked to each other, and they were unlinked to the original nit1 locus. The transforming DNA and nit+ phenotype were stable through mitosis and meiosis, even in the absence of selection. nit1 transcripts of various sizes were expressed at levels equal to or greater than those in wild-type nit+ strains. In most transformants, nitrate reductase enzyme activity was expressed at approximately wild- type levels. In all transformants, nit1 mRNA and nitrate reductase enzyme activity were repressed in cells grown on ammonium medium, showing that expression of the integrated nit1 genes was regulated normally. When a second plasmid with a nonselectable gene was bombarded into the cells along with the nit1 gene, transformants carrying DNA from both plasmids were recovered. In some cases, expression of the unselected gene could be detected. With the advent of nuclear transformation in Chlamydomonas, it becomes the first photosynthetic organism in which both the nuclear and chloroplast compartments can be transformed.
AN APPLICATION OF MENTAL TESTS TO UNIVERSITY STUDENTS.

Resume. L'APPLICATION DE TESTS A DES ETUDIANTS D'UNIVERSITE. (II). Les resultats d'un questionnaire demontrent que ces etudiants qui reussissent mal des tests d'intelligence generale a “University College,” Londres, mais qui reussissent bien un examen d'universite subsequent, s'interessent plus a leur travail, et travaillent plus d'heures par jour selon des methodes plus intelligentes. Ils ne se laissent pas distraire par des preoccupations sociales mais se dirigent vers le but etroit academique. D'autre part ceux qui reussissent bien le test et mal l'examen ont des interets et des capacites plus larges, ils n'ont souvent pas la liberte de choisir personnellement leurs cours universitaires. Ils sont moins sains. Ils tendent a passer plus de temps aux distractions qu'offre la vie universitaire. Ils se laissent distraire par d'autres interets et tres souvent ils ne semblent pas avoir trouve leur veritable vocation. Ils sont penalises par le manque de pratique dans des branches relativement inconnues, ou par un enseignement erronne, ou par quelque incapacite intellectuelle. On recommande que ces derniers subissent un examen special de la Section Psychologique de l'universite. Pour diminuer le chiffre des etudiants faibles (20 per cent.) on devrait mettre a la disposition de chaque etudiant, qui entre a l'universite, les methodes scientifiques de selection et d'orientation professionnelles, on devrait peut-etre meme les y soumettre obligatoirement. Ubersicht. EINE ANWENDUNG DER INTELLIGENZPRUFUNG AUF STUDENTEN. II. TEIL. Die Ergebnisse eines Fragebogens zeigen, dass diejenigen Studenten, die bei der Allgemeinen Intelligenzprufung im University College, London, schlecht, bei einem spateren Universitatsexamen jedoch gut abschneiden, mehr Interesse an ihrer Arbeit haben und mehr Stunden pro Tag und mit besseren Methoden studieren als andere. Sie werden nicht durch gesellschaftliche Interessen abgelenkt, sondern konzentrieren sich auf das beschrankte akademische Ziel. Andererseits haben jene, die in der Intelligenzprufung gut, in einem folgenden Examen aber schlecht abschneiden, umfassendere Interessen und Fahigkeiten und gestalten haufig ihre Universitatsarbeit nicht nach ihren personlichen Bedurfnissen. Sie sind weniger gesund. Sie neigen dazu, enien grosseren Teil der Universitatszeit Unterhaltungen zu widmen; sie werden durch andere Interessen abgelenkt und haben haufig ihren Beruf nur unzulanglich vorausbestimmt. Sie sind benachteiligt, weil ihnen die Ubung in Fachern, die ihnen verhaltnismassig neu sind, fehlt oder weil sie in der Schule mangelhaft unterrichtet wurden oder weil sie geistig unfahig sind. Es wird empfohlen, dass diese letzteren speziell untersucht und von der Psychologischen Abteilung beraten werden. Um die Zahl der ungenugenden Studenten (20 Prozent) zu verringern, sollten die wissenschaftlichen Methoden der Berufswahl und der Berufsberatung allen neueintretenden Studenten zur Verfugung stehen und vielleicht sogar fur sie obligatorisch sein.
Issue Frame Ownership: The Partisan Roots of Campaign Rhetoric

Campaigns can shape vote choice decisions by effectively framing issues for voters. I examine how campaigns do this by studying the content of issues appeals in television advertisements from U.S. House and Senate candidates. The use of issue frames is partisan. The two parties develop their own distinct rhetorical strategies on particular issues, showing that each party owns particular issue frames. In addition, campaign messages are sensitive to the partisanship of voters. Campaigns are more likely to use conservative frames in Republican-leaning districts and liberal frames in Democratic-leaning districts. Models of campaign strategy should incorporate not just what issues are discussed, but also the rhetorical choices campaigns make to address these issues.
Emotional Intelligence: A Critical Success Factor for Selling Funeral Policies

This study contributes to a deeper understanding of emotional intelligence as a critical success factor in the selling of funeral insurance policies. Insights are drawn from a quantitative study that adopted a convenience sampling approach. The study tested the extent to which emotional competencies are related to job performance of funeral policy sales agents. Thirty Eight (38) agents from an insurance firm in the Midlands province of Zimbabwe participated in this study. A Schutte emotional intelligence test was used to test their overall emotional intelligence as well as their four competencies of emotional intelligence. Agents also responded to questions that tested their ability to handle client rejection and supplied other relevant data, such as age and work experience. The data was analysed using SPSS, and the output revealed that there was a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and performance. The results also revealed that some of the competences on emotional intelligence were insignificantly related to sales agents’ performance while others, such as appraisal of emotion and social skills, were significant. The results confirm that emotional intelligence is an important critical success factor in the insurance industry and management should utilise it in planning. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014. v5n20p381
Suppression of Bedbug’s Reproduction by RNA Interference of Vitellogenin

Recent resurgence of the bedbug Cimex lectularius is a global problem on the public health. On account of the worldwide rise of insecticide-resistant bedbug populations, exploration of new approaches to the bedbug control and management is anticipated. In this context, gene silencing by RNA interference (RNAi) has been considered for its potential application to pest control and management, because RNAi enables specific suppression of target genes and thus flexible selection of target traits to be disrupted. In this study, in an attempt to develop a control strategy targeting reproduction of the bedbug, we investigated RNAi-mediated gene silencing of vitellogenin (Vg), a major yolk protein precursor essential for oogenesis. From the bedbug transcriptomes, we identified a typical Vg gene and a truncated Vg gene, which were designated as ClVg and ClVg-like, respectively. ClVg gene was highly expressed mainly in the fat body of adult females, which was more than 100 times higher than the expression level of ClVg-like gene, indicating that ClVg gene is the primary functional Vg gene in the bedbug. RNAi-mediated suppression of ClVg gene expression in adult females resulted in drastically reduced egg production, atrophied ovaries, and inflated abdomen due to hypertrophied fat bodies. These phenotypic consequences are expected not only to suppress the bedbug reproduction directly but also to deteriorate its feeding and survival indirectly via behavioral modifications. These results suggest the potential of ClVg gene as a promising target for RNAi-based population management of the bedbug.
Calculation of distance to fault and transition resistance on the fault place on electric power system lines

Determination of exact distance to faulted place on electric power lines is of extreme importance for shortening of no voltage states in electric power system, minimizing losses and making easier finding of faulted place and transportation of servicemen to it. Many methods have been developed according to existing technologies with the only one aim: to make calculation of distance to fault more accurate. Here presented method is offering fast calculation of distance to fault eliminating influence of transition resistance on the place of the fault and eliminating influence of DC and harmonic components existing in electrical signals during transient process caused by the fault.
Toxoplasma gondii Soluble Tachyzoite Antigen Triggers Protective Mechanisms against Fatal Intestinal Pathology in Oral Infection of C57BL/6 Mice

Toxoplasma gondii induces a potent IL-12 response early in infection that results in IFN-γ-dependent control of parasite growth. It was previously shown that T. gondii soluble tachyzoite antigen (STAg) injected 48 hr before intraperitoneal infection reduces lipoxin A4 and 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO)-dependent systemic IL-12 and IFN-γ production as well as hepatic immunopathology. This study investigated the ability of STAg-pretreatment to control the fatal intestinal pathology that develops in C57BL/6 mice orally infected with 100 T. gondii cysts. STAg-pretreatment prolonged the animals’ survival by decreasing tissue parasitism and pathology, mainly in the ilea. Protection was associated with decreases in the systemic IFN-γ levels and IFN-γ and TNF message levels in the ilea and with increased TGF-β production in this tissue, but protection was independent of 5-LO and IL-4. STAg-pretreatment decreased CD4+ T cell, NK cell, CD11b+ monocyte and CD11b+CD11c+ dendritic cell numbers in the lamina propria and increased CD8+ T cells in the intestinal epithelial compartment. In parallel, decreases were observed in iNOS and IL-17 expression in this organ. These results demonstrate that pretreatment with STAg can induce the recruitment of protective CD8+ T cells to the intraepithelial compartment and decrease proinflammatory immune mechanisms that promote intestinal pathology in T. gondii infection.
TRANSFORMING AN ARBITRARY MINSUM PROBLEM INTO A BINARY ONE

In this report we show, that an arbitrary MinSum problem (i.e. a MinSum problem with an arbitrary finite set of states) can be adequately transformed into a binary one (i.e. into a MinSum problem with only two states). Consequently all known results for binary MinSum problems can be easily extended to the general case. For instance it gives the possibility to solve exactly submodular MinSum problems with more than two states by using MinCut-MaxFlow based technics. CONTENTS
DOES GOVERNMENT SPENDING GROWTH EXCEED ECONOMIC GROWTH IN SAUDI ARABIA

This study was carried out to examine Wagner’s Law in case of Saudi Arabia. A time series data covering period from 1969 to 2013 was analyzed for the said purpose. Bivariate cointegration analysis was conducted to see how economic growth influence government spending. Unit root tests identified non-stationarity when variables were taken at levels. These tests verified that order of integration of study variables is one. Cointegration technique was applied to check long run relationship. This technique assured the presence of long run relation between government spending and economic growth. The long run estimates showed that GDP growth as well as per capita growth has positive significant effect on government spending and magnitude of coefficient of both is high than unity confirming existence of Wagner’s Law. Causality analysis confirmed that a unidirectional causality is running from economic growth to government spending in long run.
Light-Evoked Calcium Responses of Isolated Melanopsin-Expressing Retinal Ganglion Cells

A small number (<2%) of mammalian retinal ganglion cells express the photopigment melanopsin and are intrinsically photosensitive (ipRGCs). Light depolarizes ipRGCs and increases intracellular calcium levels ([Ca2+]i) but the signaling cascades underlying these responses have yet to be elucidated. To facilitate physiological studies on these rare photoreceptors, highly enriched ipRGC cultures from neonatal rats were generated using anti-melanopsin-mediated plate adhesion (immunopanning). This novel approach enabled experiments on isolated ipRGCs, eliminating the potential confounding influence of rod/cone-driven input. Light induced a rise in [Ca2+]i (monitored using fura-2 imaging) in the immunopanned ipRGCs and the source of this Ca2+ signal was investigated. The Ca2+ responses were inhibited by 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate, SKF-96365 (1–2-(4-methoxyphenyl)-2-[3-(4-methoxyphenyl)propoxy]ethyl-1H-imidazole), flufenamic acid, lanthanum, and gadolinium, consistent with the involvement of canonical transient receptor potential (TRP) channels in ipRGC phototransduction. However, the contribution of direct Ca2+ flux through a putative TRP channel to ipRGC [Ca2+]i was relatively small, as most (∼90%) of the light-induced Ca2+ responses could be blocked by preventing action potential firing with tetrodotoxin. The L-type voltage-gated Ca2+ channel (VGCC) blockers verapamil and (+)-cis-diltiazem significantly reduced the light-evoked Ca2+ responses, while the internal Ca2+ stores depleting agent thapsigargin had negligible effect. These results indicate that Ca2+ influx through VGCCs, activated after action potential firing, was the primary source for light-evoked elevations in ipRGC [Ca2+]i. Furthermore, concurrent Ca2+ imaging and cell-attached electrophysiological recordings demonstrated that the Ca2+ responses were highly correlated to spike frequency, thereby establishing a direct link between action potential firing and somatic [Ca2+]i in light-stimulated ipRGCs.
Learning Distributed Representations for Statistical Language Modelling and Collaborative Filtering

With the increasing availability of large datasets machine learning techniques are be- coming an increasingly attractive alternative to expert-designed approaches to solving complex problems in domains where data is abundant. In this thesis we introduce several models for large sparse discrete datasets. Our approach, which is based on probabilistic models that use distributed representations to alleviate the effects of data sparsity, is applied to statistical language modelling and collaborative filtering. We introduce three probabilistic language models that represent words using learned real-valued vectors. Two of the models are based on the Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) architecture while the third one is a simple deterministic model. We show that the deterministic model outperforms the widely used n-gram models and learns sensible word representations. To reduce the time complexity of training and making predictions with the deterministic model, we introduce a hierarchical version of the model, that can be exponentially faster. The speedup is achieved by structuring the vocabulary as a tree over words and taking advantage of this structure. We propose a simple feature-based algorithm for automatic construction of trees over words from data and show that the resulting models can outperform non-hierarchical neural models as well as the best n-gram models. We then turn our attention to collaborative filtering and show how RBM models can be used to model the distribution of sparse high-dimensional user rating vectors efficiently, presenting inference and learning algorithms that scale linearly in the number of observed ratings. We also introduce the Probabilistic Matrix Factorization model which is based on the probabilistic formulation of the low-rank matrix approximation problem for partially observed matrices. The two models are then extended to allow conditioning on the identities of the rated items whether or not the actual rating values are known. Our results on the Netflix Prize dataset show that both RBM and PMF models outperform online SVD models.
Word Alignment for English-Turkish Language Pair

Word alignment is an important step for machine translation systems. Although the alignment performance between grammatically similar languages is reported to be very high in many studies, the case is not the same for language pairs from different language families. In this study, we are focusing on English-Turkish language pairs. Turkish is a highly agglutinative language with a very productive and rich morphology whereas English has a very poor morphology when compared to this language. As a result of this, one Turkish word is usually aligned with several English words. The traditional models which use word-level alignment approaches generally fail in such circumstances. In this study, we evaluate a Giza++ system by splitting the words into their morphological units (stem and suffixes) and compare the model with the traditional one. For the first time, we evaluate the performance of our aligner on gold standard parallel sentences rather than in a real machine translation system. Our approach reduced the alignment error rate by 40% relative. Finally, a new test corpus of 300 manually aligned sentences is released together with this study.
Mobilising everyday literacy practices within the curricula

Abstract New Literacy Studies is the theoretical basis for this research, providing a social view of literacy. Recent work in New Literacy Studies has extended further the notion of literacy and demonstrated the ways in which people engage in practices in their everyday lives that do not always get translated into their studies. This article draws on research within the Teaching and Learning Research Programme that attempts to explore these issues in the context of further education in the United Kingdom. It draws upon data collected over the last year to illustrate, first, how rich the students' home-based literacy practices are and, secondly, how these are differently mobilised within their curriculum. The article argues that an understanding of literacy as embedded in social practice could result in practices that enhance students' learning.