Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ohanian's celebrity endorsers' credibility scale: evaluation and validation in the context of an emerging economy

This study is designed to validate Ohanian's (1990) celebrity endorsers' credibility scale in the context of an emerging economy. We used two Indian celebrities as stimuli and collected data from a sample of young Indians who are relatively more susceptible to celebrities' influence. The results support both convergent and discriminant validity for the scale after dropping two of the observed variables. The convergent and discriminant validity of the modified scale was established from a variety of methods, and robust support was found for the same. This study shows that the modified scale can be used in an Indian context as well as in countries similar to India for identifying the most suited celebrity endorser.
Fashion in the classroom III: Effects of instructor attire and immediacy in natural classroom interactions

This is the third of three studies using complementary designs to investigate the effects of teacher attire on student perceptions of instructors and instruction in contemporary college classrooms. In line with Studies One and Two, modest effects of attire on perceptions of extroversion and competence were found; however, previous conclusions that instructor attire has little meaningful, predictable effect on ratings of attributes related to either approachability or credibility were reinforced. Student judgements of such attributes were influenced far more by teacher use of immediacy behaviors than by attire. In particular, positive effects resulting from teachers’ choice of formal professional attire were not supported. This is the final study in a three‐part series designed to investigate the implications of instructor attire in the contemporary college classroom. Interest in this topic was sparked by collegial conversations regarding advice for new teaching assistants: What can they do to enhance cred.
Achieving efficient and stable comanipulation through adaptation to changes in human arm impedance

We focus on comanipulation, i.e. manipulation of an object simultaneously held by a robot and a human operator. In this domain, a major difficulty is raised by significant variations of human dynamics, which depend not only on the arm posture, but also on the muscular activity (muscular co-contraction) and more generally on the type of task being performed: fine positioning, gross and rapid movements, repeated movements, etc. An ideal comanipulation system should be able of adapting its behavior to the operator's functional intention, resulting in an intuitive assisting device. Toward this goal, we present in this paper first results of our research aimed at developing an instrumented handle mounted on a robot end-effector and held by an operator, that can be used for estimating the grasping force and for adapting the robot controller accordingly. We show first experimental evidences that changes in the grasping force drastically affect the robot controller performances. We thus propose a handle design and a gain scheduling strategy that result in a robot behavior adequate for any kind of grasps. This solution is successfully experimented with a 1 degree of freedom robot under largely variable comanipulation conditions, exhibiting a stable and efficiently adaptive behavior.
Selective Attention to Threat is Specific to Delusions in First-Episode Psychosis

People diagnosed with a psychotic disorder show a selective attention to threat bias. However, it is unknown whether this attentional bias is specifically related to delusions or more generally to psychosis since the absence of the bias has not been established in people with psychosis (without delusions). It is also unknown when this bias develops in the course of psychotic disorder. These issues are investigated in people with first episode psychosis (FEP). The Stroop task was administered to three participant groups: a FEP group with current delusions (n = 31), a FEP group without current delusions (n = 11), and a non-psychiatric control group (n = 25). The FEP with delusions group showed a selective attention to threat words compared to the other groups (p = .02). Selective attention to threat is specifically related to delusions, is present early in the course of psychosis and may be candidate for new cognitive-behavioural therapies to treat medication-resistant delusions.
Stakeholder Acceptance Capacity in Wildlife management

Abstract Capacity understanding has been a central driving force in both the biological and human dimensions of wildlife management. The concept of biological carrying capacity has been recognized for a long time. For many years, reference has been made to another form of carrying capacity, that of society to tolerate or accept the impacts of wildlife in particular situations. Attempts to articulate this concept have taken several forms, but all generally recognize the economic or attitudinal limits of society to “carry”; wildlife (e.g., risk perception and acceptance). We compare and contrast elements of the biological and human dimensions concepts of carrying capacity. We then describe the concept “stakeholder acceptance capacity”; in wildlife management and a theoretical model for weighting stakes, including algorithms to illustrate conceptually how stakes can be weighted in management decision making.
Production and Perception of Thematic Contrast in German

Variations in speech melody (intonation) can be used to express different meanings (e.g. question vs. statement, friendliness). Yet, intonational information is hardly used in presentday linguistic models. When intonational information is used, it is mostly based on introspection rather than on empirical investigation; almost exclusively, a one-to-one relation between accent types and semantic function is assumed. This book focuses on an empirical investigation of thematic contrast in German. Thematic contrast has received considerable attention in semantics because sentences with contrastive themes can be used to imply propositions of various kinds without saying them explicitly. In this book, first an acoustic comparison between sentences produced in contrastive and non-contrastive contexts is described. Intonational realisation is quantified in terms of the height and position of tonal targets. The perceptual reality of different productions and the relevance of different accoustic cues are tested by means of rating experiments. Finally, the data are prosodically annotated by a group of linguists to explore the validity and explanatory power of different accent categories for contrastive and non-contrastive themes in German.
ST segment depression in a VL: a sensitive marker for acute inferior myocardial infarction.

In a substantial percentage of patients with acute myocardial infarction, especially in those with inferior wall involvement, no ST elevation is detected on the electrocardiogram. In many of them, ST depression is found in leads oriented to remote segments of the heart. The importance of those reciprocal changes for early diagnosis of acute inferior myocardial infarction in patients without ST elevation has not been stressed. In order to find the prevalence of reciprocal ST depression, we evaluated the admission electrocardiograms of 107 consecutive patients with evolving first acute inferior myocardial infarction. Ninety-three patients had ST elevation of at least 0.1 mV in at least one of the inferior leads: II, III or aVF (group A) and in 14 patients ST displacement did not reach 0.1 mV in any of these leads (group B). In both groups, reciprocal ST depression occurred more frequently in aVL than in any other lead. Only three patients had no ST depression in aVL. In eight patients (7.5%) ST depression in aVL was the sole early electrocardiographic sign of the inferior infarction. aVL is the only lead that is facing the superior part of the left ventricle and thus is the only lead that is truly opponent to the inferior wall. It seems that ST depression in aVL, by contrast to that in the precordial leads, is found in the majority of patients with evolving inferior wall myocardial infarction and is not influenced by extension of the infarction to the right ventricle or to the posterior wall. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
GIM3E: condition-specific models of cellular metabolism developed from metabolomics and expression data

MOTIVATION Genome-scale metabolic models have been used extensively to investigate alterations in cellular metabolism. The accuracy of these models to represent cellular metabolism in specific conditions has been improved by constraining the model with omics data sources. However, few practical methods for integrating metabolomics data with other omics data sources into genome-scale models of metabolism have been developed. RESULTS GIM(3)E (Gene Inactivation Moderated by Metabolism, Metabolomics and Expression) is an algorithm that enables the development of condition-specific models based on an objective function, transcriptomics and cellular metabolomics data. GIM(3)E establishes metabolite use requirements with metabolomics data, uses model-paired transcriptomics data to find experimentally supported solutions and provides calculations of the turnover (production/consumption) flux of metabolites. GIM(3)E was used to investigate the effects of integrating additional omics datasets to create increasingly constrained solution spaces of Salmonella Typhimurium metabolism during growth in both rich and virulence media. This integration proved to be informative and resulted in a requirement of additional active reactions (12 in each case) or metabolites (26 or 29, respectively). The addition of constraints from transcriptomics also impacted the allowed solution space, and the cellular metabolites with turnover fluxes that were necessarily altered by the change in conditions increased from 118 to 271 of 1397. AVAILABILITY GIM(3)E has been implemented in Python and requires a COBRApy 0.2. x. The algorithm and sample data described here are freely available at: http://opencobra.sourceforge. net/ CONTACTS brianjamesschmidt@gmail.com
Synchrony in the voice-­over of Polish fiction genres

The increasing popularity of audiovisual translation in recent years has contributed to a better understanding of the audiovisual world. Nevertheless, some modalities such as voice-over have not received thorough attention. In Poland, where voice-over is the prevailing audiovisual, one voice talent reads out the entire dialogue list in a monotonous way. The translated version is subject to time and space restrictions, and both the original and the translated soundtracks are audible at the same time, making it interesting to analyze a key aspect of voice-over: the process of synchronization. Departing from a categorization which originated within the field of dubbing, and which was later extended and applied to the voice-over of non-fictional products by Franco, Matamala and Orero, this article aims to assess whether voice-over isochrony, literal synchrony, kinetic synchrony and action synchrony are maintained in the voice-over of fiction genres in Poland, and if so, what strategies are used to achieve this. The corpus is made up of four 15-minutes samples from movies belonging to four different genres: a comedy (Whatever Works, directed by Woody Allen 2009), a drama (Marvin’s Room, directed by Jerry Zaks 1996), an action movie (Spy Game, directed by Tony Scott 2001), and a musical (Nine, directed by Rob Marshall 2009). The study highlights the specificities of synchrony in fictional movies and opens the door for future research into this previously underestimated audiovisual transfer mode.
A survey of Internet access and usage among undergraduates in an African university

Abstract The study surveyed the use of Internet among undergraduate students at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. A total of 1000 questionnaires were distributed using a stratified sampling method to select the respondents. Ten faculties were covered. A total of 664 questionnaires were returned and all were usable. The findings revealed a high percentage use of the Internet. The access point for them is cyber cafes. The university library though linked to the Internet is yet to provide access to students. Respondents pay for the access time through their pocket money for food, books and assistance from friends. Their use of the Internet has not affected their use of the library. Some problems they face in their use of the Internet include slowness of the server and payment for the access time. The study recommends that the university should provide access points for students. The university library also should continue to aim at ensuring that it gets enough funds from the government and sponsors to be able to provide access points in the library for use by students and include the use of Internet in its library instruction course.
Implementation of floating-point CORDIC rotation and vectoring based on look up tables and multipliers

A unified design is presented that can execute floating-point CORDIC operations in both rotation and vectoring modes with significantly reduced computation latency. Unlike previous pipelined CORDIC implementations usually requiring a sequence of micro-rotation stages proportional to bit accuracy, the proposed design consists of only two stages, coarse and fine stages, with each stage realized using ROM, adders, and multipliers. The bit-widths of the composing hardware components are also optimized to minimize the cost while maintaining the computation accuracy. The proposed design can be applied to applications that require high-precision arithmetic operations with large data representation ranges, such as 3D graphics acceleration.
Researching emotions in speech

Many studies into affective computing cover similar ground or overlap, pointing to much duplication of effort. Two problem areas exist in the research. The first relates to the way in which emotions are defined and described. The second is in the techniques used to elicit samples of speech. Further, few studies are based on natural speech, ignoring social, contextual, cultural and agent characteristics and few take account of the affective state of the receiver. This paper presents a survey of the problem areas and proposes 1) a comprehensive model of affective communication; and 2) a set of ontologies of affective computing.
EDTA aggregates induce SYPRO orange-based fluorescence in thermal shift assay

Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) is widely used in the life sciences as chelating ligand of metal ions. However, formation of supramolecular EDTA aggregates at pH > 8 has been reported, which may lead to artifactual assay results. When applied as a buffer component at pH ≈ 10 in differential scanning fluorimetry (TSA) using SYPRO Orange as fluorescent dye, we observed a sharp change in fluorescence intensity about 20°C lower than expected for the investigated protein. We hypothesized that this change results from SYPRO Orange/EDTA interactions. TSA experiments in the presence of SYPRO Orange using solutions that contain EDTA-Na+ but no protein were performed. The TSA experiments provide evidence that suggests that at pH > 9, EDTA4- interacts with SYPRO Orange in a temperature-dependent manner, leading to a fluorescence signal yielding a “denaturation temperature” of ~68°C. Titrating Ca2+ to SYPRO Orange and EDTA solutions quenched fluorescence. Ethylene glycol tetraacetic acid (EGTA) behaved similarly to EDTA. Analytical ultracentrifugation corroborated the formation of EDTA aggregates. Molecular dynamics simulations of free diffusion of EDTA-Na+ and SYPRO Orange of in total 27 μs suggested the first structural model of EDTA aggregates in which U-shaped EDTA4- arrange in an inverse bilayer-like manner, exposing ethylene moieties to the solvent, with which SYPRO Orange interacts. We conclude that EDTA aggregates induce a SYPRO Orange-based fluorescence in TSA. These results make it relevant to ascertain that future TSA results are not influenced by interference between EDTA, or EDTA-related molecules, and the fluorescent dye.
Stochastic techniques in deriving perceptual knowledge

The paper argues on examples of selected past works that stochastic and knowledge-based approaches do not contradict each other. Frequency resolution of human hearing is decreasing with increasing frequency. Spectral basis designed for optimal discrimination among different phonemes of speech have similar property. Further, human hearing is most sensitive to modulations with frequency around 4 Hz. Filters on feature trajectories, designed for optimal discrimination among phonemes of speech are bandpass with central frequency around 4 Hz.
Short-Term Projects and Emergent Careers: Evidence from Hollywood

The Hollywood film industry is considered as a system of recurrent ties among the various major participants who usually work under short-term contracts for single films. This form of project-based organization in seen as a response to uncertainty and risk in the film industry. The Paper examines the ways in which independent contractors-producers, directors, cinematographers, and actors-organize and operate to reduce uncertainty and risk and to increase profits. The analysis of data from 2,430 films made in the period 1965-80 establishes patterns of recurrent ties among participants who are at comparable levels of cumulative productivity with respect to earnings, Oscars, Oscar nominations, and number of previous films. The paper also considers the degree to which film earnings are influenced by the past productivity of the major participants.
Heme Degradation in the Presence of Glutathione

Unstable hemoglobins and oxidative conditions tend to produce hemichromes which demonstrably release their heme to the erythrocyte membrane, with consequent lipid peroxidation and cell lysis. High levels of non-heme iron are also found in such circumstances, but the origin of this iron is uncertain. In the present work, we show that reduced glutathione (GSH) is able to degrade heme in solution with a pH optimum of 7. Degradation depended on the presence of oxygen and on heme and GSH concentrations. It was inhibited by catalase and superoxide dismutase, implicating the involvement of perferryl reactive species in the process of heme degradation. Heme degradation at pH 7 and 37°C is rapid (t1/2 = 70 s) and results in the release of iron from heme. Heme that was dissolved in red blood cell ghosts is also degraded by GSH with a concomitant increase in non-heme iron, most of which (75%) remains associated with the cell membrane. Loading of intact erythrocytes with heme was followed by time-dependent decrease of membrane-associated heme and caused an acceleration of the hexose monophosphate shunt due to the production of H2O2 and the oxidation of intracellular GSH. Most of the activation of the hexose monophosphate pathway was due to redox cycling of iron, since iron chelators inhibited it considerably. These results explain the origin of non-heme iron found in the membrane of sickle cells and the oxidative stress that is observed in these and other abnormal erythrocytes.
Reducing Cache Pollution via Dynamic Data Prefetch Filtering

In order to bridge the gap of the growing speed disparity between processors and their memory subsystems, aggressive prefetch mechanisms, either hardware-based or compiler-assisted, are employed to hide memory latencies. As the first-level cache gets smaller in deep submicron processor design for fast cache accesses, data cache pollution caused by overly aggressive prefetch mechanisms will become a major performance concern. Ineffective prefetches not only offset the benefits of benign prefetches due to pollution but also throttle bus bandwidth, leading to an overall performance degradation. In this paper, we propose and analyze a number of hardware-based prefetch pollution filtering mechanisms to differentiate good and bad prefetches dynamically based on history information. We designed three prefetch pollution filters organized as a one-level, two-level, or gshare style. In addition, we examine two table indexing schemes: per-address (PA) based and program counter (PC) based. Our prefetch pollution filters work in tandem with both hardware and software prefetchers. As our analysis shows, the cache pollution filters can reduce the ineffective prefetches by more than 90 percent and alleviate the excessive memory bandwidth induced by them. Also, the performance can be improved by up to 16 percent when our filtering mechanism is incorporated with aggressive prefetch filters as a result of reduced cache pollution and less competition for the limited number of cache ports. In addition, a number of sensitivity studies are performed to provide more understandings of the prefetch pollution filter design
Frequent Emergence of Resistance in Clostridium difficile during Treatment of C. difficile-Associated Diarrhea with Fusidic Acid

ABSTRACT Samples from patients with Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea (CDAD) that were randomized to fusidic acid (n = 59) or metronidazole (n = 55) therapy for 7 days were cultured for Clostridium difficile in feces on days 1, 8 to 13, and 35 to 40. Of the patients who were culture positive only before treatment, 77% (36/47) were permanently cured (no treatment failure and no clinical recurrence), compared to 54% (22/41) of those with persistence of C. difficile at one or both follow-ups (P = 0.03). A similar association between bacterial persistence and a worse outcome of therapy was seen in both treatment groups. Resistance to fusidic acid was found in 1 of 88 pretherapy isolates available, plus in at least 1 subsequent isolate from 55% (11/20) of patients who remained culture-positive after fusidic acid therapy. In 10 of these 11 patients, the resistant follow-up isolate(s) belonged to the same PCR ribotype as the susceptible day 1 isolate, confirming frequent emergence of resistance to fusidic acid during treatment. Despite this, 5 of these 11 patients were permanently cured with fusidic acid, relative to 5 of 9 patients with susceptible C. difficile at follow-up (P = 1.0). None of the 36 PCR ribotypes of C. difficile identified was associated with any particular clinical outcome or emergence of fusidic acid resistance. In conclusion, culture positivity for C. difficile was common after both fusidic acid and metronidazole therapy and was associated with treatment failure or recurrence of CDAD. Development of resistance in C. difficile was frequent in patients given fusidic acid, but it was without apparent negative impact on therapeutic efficacy in the actual CDAD episode.