Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An investigation on the relationships between immersion, body movements and extraversion in computer games play

This project report is submitted as an examination paper. No responsibility can be held by London University for the accuracy or completeness of the material therein. 2 Acknowledgments I would like to express my utmost gratitude and appreciation to the many people who supported me throughout this project. Thanks to your great passion for computer games, it was possible to conduct this study. I would also like to thank my supervisor Dr. Nadia Berthouze for her guidance and availability throughout the year. Special thanks to my sister Cladia who has shared with me the burden of this incredible work and to my mum who gave me the opportunity to live this beautiful experience. 3 Abstract Computer game controllers have continued to develop over time from the relatively simple ones to very sophisticated control pads. New trends in computer game development show that game designers are now looking for novel styles of interaction with the game, where the interaction is not only limited to a sequence of buttons press, but introduces body movements. There is no doubt that these novel styles of interaction play a relevant role on the immersive experience of the player. This study seeks to understand the relationships between body movements in gameplay and immersion and how these are influenced by different personalities. Among different personality traits this study will focus on extraversion. Results suggest that if players are allowed to move they will get more immersed in the game and will have a more pleasant and exciting experience. Furthermore, they support the hypothesises that the challenge and demand of attention of the game, as well as extroversion affect the style of interaction and typology of immersive experience.
The entropy and efficiency of a molecular motor model

In this paper we investigate the use of path-integral formalism and the concepts of entropy and traffic in the context of molecular motors. We show that together with time-reversal symmetry breaking arguments one can find bounds on efficiencies of such motors. To clarify this technique we use it on one specific model to find both the thermodynamic and the Stokes efficiencies, although the arguments themselves are more general and can be used on a wide class of models. We also show that by considering the molecular motor as a ratchet, one can find additional bounds on the thermodynamic efficiency.
Can N-dimensional convolutional neural networks distinguish men and women better than humans do?

Convolutional neural networks (CNN) were able to beat human performance in various areas of 2D image recognition, e.g., in the German Traffic Sign competition run by IJCNN 2011. While the majority of classical image processing techniques is based on carefully pre-selected image features, CNNs are designed to learn local features autonomously. A growing availability of high-dimensional object data, e.g., from medicine or forensic analysis, thus motivated us to develop a new variant of the classical CNN model. The introduced N-dimensional convolutional neural networks (ND-CNN) enhanced with an enforced internal knowledge representation allow to process general N-dimensional object data while supporting adequate interpretation of the found object characteristics. Experimental results obtained so far for gender classification of 3D face scans confirm an extremely strong power of the proposed neural classifier. The developed ND-CNNs significantly outperformed humans (by 33%) while still allowing for a transparent representation of the face features present and detected in the data.
Coding approaches for multiple antenna transmission in fast fading and OFDM

Multiple-antenna channel coding for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission over dispersive channels is reconsidered because with frequency interleaving, the effective channel characteristic across subcarriers is rather fast fading. The channel does not comply with the quasistatic model widely assumed for space-time trellis codes (STCs). For that reason, we first study the ideal fast-fading multiple transmit and receive antenna channel and then compare the performance of STCs with that of bit-interleaved coded modulation in fast fading. Mutual information of the ergodic channel is evaluated for numerous modulation scenarios, and capacity comparisons generate guidelines on how to jointly adjust coding rate and modulation cardinality. Bit-based coding offers large flexibility in rate adaptation, and simulation results show that it outperforms STCs in ideal fast fading and, finally, in a realistic OFDM application as well.
Improving Communication and Resolution Following Adverse Events Using a Patient-Created Simulation Exercise.

OBJECTIVE The response to adverse events can lack patient-centeredness, perhaps because the involved institutions and other stakeholders misunderstand what patients and families go through after care breakdowns. STUDY SETTING Washington and Texas. STUDY DESIGN The HealthPact Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) created and led a five-stage simulation exercise to help stakeholders understand what patients experience following an adverse event. The half-day exercise was presented twice. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Lessons learned related to the development and conduct of the exercise were synthesized from planning notes, attendee evaluations, and exercise discussion notes. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS One hundred ninety-four individuals attended (86 Washington and 108 Texas). Take-homes from these exercises included the fact that the response to adverse events can be complex, siloed, and uncoordinated. Participating in this simulation exercise led stakeholders and patient advocates to express interest in continued collaboration. CONCLUSIONS A PFAC-designed simulation can help stakeholders understand patient and family experiences following adverse events and potentially improve their response to these events.
Recognition and Recall with Precuing and Postcuing

Abstract There is extensive evidence showing that, with short lists of items, tests of item recognition show mostly recency effects but serial recall shows marked primacy effects. However, these studies are generally precued so subjects know in advance the type of test they will get. Four experiments are reported in which recognition and recall are tested under comparable conditions but the type of test is either precued or postcued. When precued, the standard results are obtained. When postcued and recall and recognition tests are equiprobable, recall was essentially identical to that under the precued condition but the recognition functions showed no serial-position effects. When postcued and with the probability of a recognition test 10–30 times more probable than recall, the recall functions showed a substantial loss of primacy. The magnitude of these effects seem to depend in part on whether subjects are given time to develop strategies for recognition in isolation from serial recall. The theoretical implications are discussed.
The urban practitioner and participation in research within a streetwork context

Resumen Los autores de este articulo cuentan la historia de un trabajador del proyecto ‘Safe in the City’ en la Ciudad de Manchester, Bretan˜a, que le dieron el rol de asistencia por un equipo de investigacio´n universitario. Sus experiencias pasadas cuestionaron su consentimiento de aceptar la posicio´n de ayudante y de reclamar que e´l era un profesional con la contribucio´n de un profesional aportando sus propios conocimientos y habilidades con respecto al conducir entrevistas y al incluir a jo´venes. Sus experiencias de intentar introducir su posicio´n de profesional en los procesos de relaciones de la investigacio´n resultaron que e´l reflejo´ en co´mo cada comunidad de pra´ctica experimenta el otro y co´mo su posicio´n crea el dina´mico del proceso de investigacio´n. El profesional cuenta su historia a trave´s de los reflejos de las experiencias que compartio´ con su entrenador de aprendizaje. El entrenador de aprendizaje es el comentarista sobre el contexto. Por escribir este articulo ellos piensan articular su intere´s en la construccio´n social de investigacio´n, que ellos afirman, debe ser un proceso participativo. Quieren que los investigadores aprecien el conocimiento y las emociones traı´das por profesionales a la investigacio´n, y que no vean a profesionales involucrados en la investigacio´n como si no tuvieran habilidades, conocimientos y sentimientos.
Progesterone and Glucocorticoid Receptors Recruit Distinct Coactivator Complexes and Promote Distinct Patterns of Local Chromatin Modification

ABSTRACT It is well established that steroid receptor function requires interaction with coactivators. However, the mechanisms through which steroid receptors elicit precise assembly of coactivator complexes and the way the steroid activation signal is transduced remain elusive. Using a T47D cell line stably integrated with a mouse mammary tumor virus-chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (MMTV-CAT) reporter, we demonstrate that specific steroid receptors exhibit preferential recruitment of SRC-1 family coactivators, which determines the subsequent recruitment of specific downstream coregulator molecules. Upon ligand treatment, progesterone receptor (PR) interacted preferentially with SRC-1, which recruited CBP and significantly enhanced acetylation at K5 of histone H4. In contrast, activated glucocorticoid receptor (GR) preferentially associated with SRC-2 (TIF-2/GRIP-1), which subsequently recruited pCAF and led to specific modification of histone H3, suggesting that specific coactivators recruit distinct histone acetyltransferases to modulate the transcription of steroid-responsive genes. Loss-of-function experiments further support the predicted roles of SRC-1 and SRC-2 in, respectively, PR- and GR-mediated transcription on the MMTV promoter. This study indicates that differential recruitment of coactivators by nuclear receptors determines the assembly of coactivator complexes on target promoters to mediate specific transcription signals.
Prevalence of multidrug-resistant organisms and risk factors for carriage in long-term care facilities: a nested case-control study.

BACKGROUND Long-term care facilities (LTCFs) are a potentially important reservoir of multidrug-resistant (MDR) organisms; however, limited data exist. METHODS A point-prevalence study was conducted in four co-located LTCFs in Australia. Nasal and rectal swabs were cultured for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) and MDR Gram-negative bacilli (GNB). Molecular typing and resistance detection were performed. Risk factors for colonization with an MDR organism were determined using a nested case-control study. RESULTS Consent was obtained from 115 (85%) of 136 eligible participants. Forty-one (36%) residents carried at least one type of MDR organism. The prevalence was 16% MRSA (n = 18), 6% VRE (n = 7) and 21% MDR GNB [n = 24; including extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia coli (n = 12) and Acinetobacter baumannii (n = 6)]. The majority of ESBL-producing E. coli and A. baumannii were clonal. Current wound management [adjusted OR (AOR) 8.81 (95% CI 2.78-27.94), P < 0.001], medical device in situ [AOR 5.58 (95% CI 1.34-23.32), P = 0.018] and pressure ulcer [AOR 3.69 (95% CI 1.06-12.86), P = 0.04] were independent risk factors for MDR organism colonization. Advanced dementia [AOR 3.54 (95% CI 1.23-10.23), P = 0.02] and prolonged antibiotic use [AOR 2.95 (95% CI 1.01-8.60), P = 0.047] were independently associated with MRSA colonization, whilst current wound management [AOR 15.59 (95% CI 4.85-50.10), P < 0.001] and fluoroquinolone use [AOR 4.27 (95% CI 1.20-15.25), P = 0.025] were risk factors for MDR GNB colonization. CONCLUSIONS LTCFs are an important reservoir of MDR organisms, with person-to-person transmissions being a potential issue. We have identified several predictors of colonization with MDR organisms, allowing a more targeted management of high-risk residents.
Striping-Aware Sequential Prefetching for Independency and Parallelism in Disk Arrays with Concurrent Accesses

Traditional studies on disk arrays have focused on parallelism or load balance of disks. However, this paper reveals that the independency of disks is more important than parallelism for concurrent reads of large numbers of processes in striped disk arrays, whereas parallelism is significant only for concurrent reads of small numbers of processes. We investigate and evaluate how much aligning sequential prefetch in strip or stripe boundaries affects the I/O performance by comparing with the proposed two types of sequential prefetching schemes, both of which are implemented in Linux kernel 2.6. 18. In the experiments in this study, the combination of our schemes outperforms the original sequential prefetching of Linux by 3.2 times for 128 clients and 2.4 times for a single sequential read.
VHDL Simulation of Magnetic Domain Wall Logic

The VHSIC hardware description language (VHDL) simulation of domain wall logic allows to validate magnetic circuits functionality early in the design stage. In this paper, we present two VHDL simulation techniques for domain wall (DW) logic. The first one, closer to the physics, uses models of components described at the behavioral level. It allows to study the basic functions and reveals the specificities of DW logic. The second one, closer to the logic, models components with logic gates and delays and it allows very fast simulation of complex circuits
Scalability and Energy Consumption of Optical and Electronic Packet Switching

This paper compares the scalability and energy consumption of switch fabrics for optical and electronic packet switching. In particular, arrayed-waveguide-grating (AWG)-based switches, semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) gate arrays, electro-optic phased-array switches, and microresonator-based switches are compared with state-of-the-art electronic switch fabrics. The analysis includes the key contributors to energy consumption and the scaling capabilities of each technology. To provide a fair comparison, the analysis takes into account the optical-to-electronic and electronic-to-optical converters and the multiplexers and demultiplexers needed in electronic packet switches. We show that optical switch fabrics generally become more energy efficient as the data rate increases, and AWG and microresonator-based switches consume marginally less energy than electronic switch fabrics at bit rates above about 100 Gb/s. However, optical packet switches do not appear to offer significant throughput improvements or energy savings compared to electronic packet switches. A key impediment to the scaling of optical switch fabrics is the energy consumed in the electronic circuits that drive the individual optical devices in the switch fabric and the energy consumed by the network of control lines that feed these electronic drivers. Ultimately, the energy consumption of optical packet switches is limited by the optical-to-electronic and electronic-to-optical converters required for packet header recognition and header replacement.
Moving Beyond the Administrative: Supervisors' Perspectives on Clinical Supervision in Child Welfare

This study contributes to the emerging knowledge base of child welfare supervision. An exploratory study examined the beliefs, practices, and experiences of 51 child welfare supervisors in Ontario, Canada. Eight focus groups were held with supervisors from a range of settings cross the province. The study identified a number of interwoven factors at the organizational, supervisory, and practice level that affect the nature of supervision offered. Implications are drawn for child welfare practice, models of supervision which integrate administrative, clinical and educational features, organizational culture, and training new supervisors.
A hybrid time-domain model of electromagnetic induction from conducting, permeable targets

Electromagnetic induction (EMI) is a popular technique to detect and discriminate buried unexploded ordnance (UXO). However, modeling of the EMI response from many types of UXO is difficult due to the small skin depth of the interior fields. In grid-based numerical methods, meshing the target volume or surface to resolve the skin depth is often highly impractical, yet a failure to do so yields inaccurate results. This paper addresses the problem with a time-domain hybrid technique based on thin-skin approximation (TSA) that is very accurate for small skin depths. The TSA method is applied to axisymmetric problems and is shown to be both fast and accurate when the skin depth is small. The method is compared with analytical results, and excellent agreement is obtained. For magnetic materials (such as steel), the TSA method is accurate for the complete time-domain EMI response. In such cases, the TSA method provides an improved accuracy along with an order-of-magnitude reduction in CPU time compared to a dense-mesh finite-element method (FEM). For nonmagnetic materials, the TSA loses accuracy as time progresses and must be combined with a coarse-mesh FEM. In such cases, the combined method still provides greater accuracy with comparable CPU time
Lymphoma risk and occupational exposure to pesticides: results of the Epilymph study

Objectives We investigated the role of occupational exposure to specific groups of agrochemicals in the aetiology of lymphoma overall, B cell lymphoma and its most prevalent subtypes. Methods In 1998–2003, 2348 incident lymphoma cases and 2462 controls were recruited to the EPILYMPH case-control study in six European countries. A detailed occupational history was collected in cases and controls. Job modules were applied for farm work including specific questions on type of crop, farm size, pests being treated, type and schedule of pesticide use. In each study centre, industrial hygienists and occupational experts assessed exposure to specific groups of pesticides and individual compounds with the aid of agronomists. We calculated the OR and its 95% CI associated with lymphoma and the most prevalent lymphoma subtypes with unconditional logistic regression, adjusting for age, gender, education and centre. Results Risk of lymphoma overall, and B cell lymphoma was not elevated, and risk of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) was elevated amongst those ever exposed to inorganic (OR=1.6, 95% CI 1.0 to 2.5) and organic pesticides (OR=1.5, 95% CI 1.0 to 2.1). CLL risk was highest amongst those ever exposed to organophosphates (OR=2.7, 95% CI 1.2 to 6.0). Restricting the analysis to subjects most likely exposed, no association was observed between pesticide use and risk of B cell lymphoma. Conclusions Our results provide limited support to the hypothesis of an increase in risk of specific lymphoma subtypes associated with exposure to pesticides.
Clinical implications of microRNAs in human glioblastoma

Glioblastoma (GBM) is one of the most common and dismal brain tumors in adults. Further elucidation of the molecular pathogenesis of GBM is mandatory to improve the overall survival of patients. A novel small non-coding RNA molecule, microRNA (miRNA), appears to represent one of the most attractive target molecules contributing to the pathogenesis of various types of tumors. Recent global analyses have revealed that several miRNAs are clinically implicated in GBM, with some reports indicating the association of miRNA dysregulation with acquired temozolomide (TMZ) resistance. More recent studies have revealed that miRNAs could play a role in cancer stem cell (CSC) properties, contributing to treatment resistance. In addition, greater impact might be expected from miRNA-targeted therapies based on tumor-derived exosomes that contain numerous functional miRNAs, which could be transferred between tumor cells and surrounding structures. Tumor-derived miRNAs are now considered to be a novel molecular mechanism promoting the progression of GBM. Establishment of miRNA-targeted therapies based on miRNA dysregulation of CSCs could provide effective therapeutic strategies for TMZ-resistant GBM. Recent progress has revealed that miRNAs are not only putative biological markers for diagnosis, but also one of the most promising targets for GBM treatment. Here in, we summarize the translational aspects of miRNAs in the diagnosis and treatment of GBM.
Warren County, NC, and the Emergence of the Environmental Justice Movement: Unlikely Coalitions and Shared Meanings in Local Collective Action

Warren County, North Carolina, is heralded as a watershed event of contemporary environmentalism, as the birthplace of the environmental justice movement. This article identifies four requirements for the emergence of a social movement (cultural frames, social networks, disruptive action, and political opportunities) and argues that all four were met in the Warren County situation. The article then illustrates how the master frame of environmental justice emerged out of the specific collective action in Warren County. Lastly, the article shows how criteria for waste management decisions have shifted as a result and how these decision processes have become more participatory.
Is perception of a dance phrase affected by physical movement training and experience?

Recent neuroimaging evidence has suggested that expert dancers have stronger activation than novices in areas of parietal cortex while watching dance. The role of parietal cortex in the processing of spatial information could suggest that expert dancers are more attuned than novice dancers to spatial cues while watching dance. Instead of focusing on the perceiving of the expert, this study sought to extend the findings from neuroscience by assessing what is consciously perceived by the expert. Twelve expert and 12 novice dancers watched a 30 s contemporary dance phrase and then completed a questionnaire that assessed memory in four different categories: Shape, Space, Time, and Effort. Results showed that, overall, experts recalled the phrase with greater accuracy than novices. It was further shown that there was a statistically significant difference between novices and experts in accuracy of recall in the category of Space. This difference was not present in any of the other three categories. Implications on deliberate practice in dance education and the broader role of spatial awareness in theories of simulation are discussed.
A Compact Wideband MIMO Antenna With Two Novel Bent Slits

A compact wideband multiple-input- multiple-output (MIMO) antenna is presented. The MIMO antenna consists of two symmetric monopoles with edge-to-edge separation of nearly 0.083 λ0 at 2.5 GHz. Two novel bent slits are etched into the ground plane. At the lower frequencies, the bent slits can reduce the mutual coupling and have slight effect on the reflection coefficient. At the higher frequencies, the slits can be considered as slit antennas to widen the impedance bandwidth because the two slits are coupled fed by two 50-Ω microstrip lines, respectively. Two triangles are cut from the ground plane. In this way, the reflection coefficient and isolation of the two slit antennas can be improved. A bandwidth of 92.7% with |S11| ≤ -10 dB and |S21 | ≤ -18 dB from 2.4 to 6.55 GHz is achieved. In order to provide quantifications for the performance of the MIMO antenna in real-world usage conditions, the effects of human hand and head on the performance of the MIMO antenna are investigated. The results show that the MIMO antenna serving as a phone antenna can provide spatial and pattern diversity to combat multipath fading.