Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How Effective Is Road Mitigation at Reducing Road-Kill? A Meta-Analysis

Road traffic kills hundreds of millions of animals every year, posing a critical threat to the populations of many species. To address this problem there are more than forty types of road mitigation measures available that aim to reduce wildlife mortality on roads (road-kill). For road planners, deciding on what mitigation method to use has been problematic because there is little good information about the relative effectiveness of these measures in reducing road-kill, and the costs of these measures vary greatly. We conducted a meta-analysis using data from 50 studies that quantified the relationship between road-kill and a mitigation measure designed to reduce road-kill. Overall, mitigation measures reduce road-kill by 40% compared to controls. Fences, with or without crossing structures, reduce road-kill by 54%. We found no detectable effect on road-kill of crossing structures without fencing. We found that comparatively expensive mitigation measures reduce large mammal road-kill much more than inexpensive measures. For example, the combination of fencing and crossing structures led to an 83% reduction in road-kill of large mammals, compared to a 57% reduction for animal detection systems, and only a 1% for wildlife reflectors. We suggest that inexpensive measures such as reflectors should not be used until and unless their effectiveness is tested using a high-quality experimental approach. Our meta-analysis also highlights the fact that there are insufficient data to answer many of the most pressing questions that road planners ask about the effectiveness of road mitigation measures, such as whether other less common mitigation measures (e.g., measures to reduce traffic volume and/or speed) reduce road mortality, or to what extent the attributes of crossing structures and fences influence their effectiveness. To improve evaluations of mitigation effectiveness, studies should incorporate data collection before the mitigation is applied, and we recommend a minimum study duration of four years for Before-After, and a minimum of either four years or four sites for Before-After-Control-Impact designs.
Political Marketing and Professionalized Campaigning: A Conceptual Analysis

During the last decade a number of scholars have argued that political campaigning has become professionalized, and that political marketing has become the new dominant campaign paradigm. However, the conceptual relationship between political marketing and the professionalization of political campaigning is unclear. Furthermore, the distinction between political marketing, market orientation, and marketing techniques is often blurred. At the same time, most of the literature is dominated by either an American or British perspective. This makes it unclear as to whether these concepts should be viewed as general concepts, or as concepts relevant primarily for countries that share some specific set of political institutions. In this backdrop, the purpose of this article is to analyze (1) the conceptual relationship between political marketing, market orientation, marketing techniques, and professionalization of political campaigning, and (2) whether contemporary concepts of political marketing and t.
Cognitive Medium Access: Exploration, Exploitation, and Competition

This paper considers the design of efficient strategies that allow cognitive users to choose frequency bands to sense and access among multiple bands with unknown parameters. First, the scenario in which a single cognitive user wishes to opportunistically exploit the availability of frequency bands is considered. By adopting tools from the classical bandit problem, optimal as well as low complexity asymptotically optimal solutions are developed. Next, the multiple cognitive user scenario is considered. The situation in which the availability probability of each channel is known is first considered. An optimal symmetric strategy that maximizes the total throughput of the cognitive users is developed. To avoid the possible selfish behavior of the cognitive users, a game-theoretic model is then developed. The performance of both models is characterized analytically. Then, the situation in which the availability probability of each channel is unknown a priori is considered. Low-complexity medium access protocols, which strike an optimal balance between exploration and exploitation in such competitive environments, are developed. The operating points of these low-complexity protocols are shown to converge to those of the scenario in which the availability probabilities are known. Finally, numerical results are provided to illustrate the impact of sensing errors and other practical considerations.
Posterior probability decoding, confidence estimation and system combination

In this paper the estimation of word posterior probabilities is discussed and their application in the CU-HTK system used in the March 2000 Hub5 Conversational Telephone Speech evaluation is described. The word lattices produced by the Viterbi decoder were used to generate confusion networks, which provide a compact representation of the most likely word hypotheses and their associated word posterior probabilities. These confusion networks were used in a number of post-processing steps. The 1-best sentence hypotheses extracted directly from the networks are shown to be significantly more accurate than the baseline decoding results. The posterior probability estimates were used as the basis for the estimation of word-level confidence scores. A new system combination technique is presented that uses these confidence scores and the confusion networks and performs better than the well-known ROVER technique.
A glimpse into the role of personal values within the restorative justice process: a qualitative study with restorative justice facilitators

ABSTRACT Restorative justice is a process whereby offenders and their victims communicate to address the harm caused by the crime. Currently, there is little research looking at what characterises victims and offenders who are willing to participate in this process, who benefits, and what changes occur after participating. Personal values may be important in understanding such questions because they can influence human behaviour, appraisals of behaviour, and can change following life experiences. Hence, the aim of this study was to investigate the role that the values within Schwartz’s value theory may have in answering these questions. This was accomplished through a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 12 restorative justice facilitators. Consistently, the motivations they observed for both victims and offenders participating in restorative justice included themes of prosocial values. Additionally, prosocial values were among those highlighted as being important for the realisation of the benefits of restorative justice. There was also some preliminary evidence that this process may change what values are important for both victims and offenders. Overall, these findings have implications for restorative justice providers; a greater understanding of motivations, who will benefit, and how restorative justice can be presented to appeal to a wide audience.
Game, Motivation, and Effective Learning: An Integrated Model for Educational Game Design

As new technologies enable increasingly sophisticated game experiences, the potential for the integration of games and learning becomes ever more significant. Motivation has long been considered as an important step in learning. Researchers suggest Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Theory as a method for understanding and implementing motivation. This bears significance since games foster play, which produces a state of flow, which increases motivation, which supports the learning process. However, this relationship is not as straightforward as it first seems. Research also shows that reflection is an important part of the learning process and while in the state of flow, players rarely reflect on the learning that is taking place. This paper explains how games can act as effective learning environments by integrating reflection into the process of play, producing an endogenous learning experience that is intrinsically motivating.
Streptococcus agalactiae CspA Is a Serine Protease That Inactivates Chemokines

ABSTRACT Streptococcus agalactiae (group B Streptococcus [GBS]) remains a leading cause of invasive infections in neonates and has emerged as a pathogen of the immunocompromised and elderly populations. The virulence mechanisms of GBS are relatively understudied and are still poorly understood. Previous evidence indicated that the GBS cspA gene is necessary for full virulence and the cleavage of fibrinogen. The predicted cspA product displays homology to members of the extracellular cell envelope protease family. CXC chemokines, many of which can recruit neutrophils to sites of infection, are important signaling peptides of the immune system. In this study, we purified CspA and demonstrated that it readily cleaved the CXC chemokines GRO-α, GRO-β, GRO-γ, neutrophil-activating peptide 2 (NAP-2), and granulocyte chemotactic protein 2 (GCP-2) but did not cleave interleukin-8. CspA did not cleave a panel of other test substrates, suggesting that it possesses a certain degree of specificity. CXC chemokines also underwent cleavage by whole GBS cells in a cspA-dependent manner. CspA abolished the abilities of three representative CXC chemokines, GRO-γ, NAP-2, and GCP-2, to attract and activate neutrophils. Genetic and biochemical evidence indicated that CspA is a serine protease with S575 at its active site. D180 was also implicated as part of the signature serine protease catalytic triad, and both S575 and D180 were required for both N-terminal and C-terminal autocatalytic processing of CspA.
Dynamic Perceptual Changes in Audiovisual Simultaneity

Background The timing at which sensory input reaches the level of conscious perception is an intriguing question still awaiting an answer. It is often assumed that both visual and auditory percepts have a modality specific processing delay and their difference determines perceptual temporal offset. Methodology/Principal Findings Here, we show that the perception of audiovisual simultaneity can change flexibly and fluctuates over a short period of time while subjects observe a constant stimulus. We investigated the mechanisms underlying the spontaneous alternations in this audiovisual illusion and found that attention plays a crucial role. When attention was distracted from the stimulus, the perceptual transitions disappeared. When attention was directed to a visual event, the perceived timing of an auditory event was attracted towards that event. Conclusions/Significance This multistable display illustrates how flexible perceived timing can be, and at the same time offers a paradigm to dissociate perceptual from stimulus-driven factors in crossmodal feature binding. Our findings suggest that the perception of crossmodal synchrony depends on perceptual binding of audiovisual stimuli as a common event.
RC6 as the AES

Each of the finalist algorithms appears to offer adequate security, and each offers a considerable number of advantages. Any of the finalists could serve admirably as the AES. However, each algorithm also has one or more areas where it does not fare quite as well as some other algorithm; none of the finalists is outstandingly superior to the rest. – Nechvatal, Barker, Bassham, Burr, Dworkin, Foti, Roback [12]
Exploring the gender difference in fear of crime among older people

The purpose of this study was to evaluate anew fear of crime scale that accurately reflects the current criminal experiences of older people and test gender differences in fear of crime in a number of items, in the item wording, and in choice response categories. A series of chi-square tests compared the fear of crime scale of older people according to their gender, and then logistic regression models were created and tested between males and females. The finding presents the odds ratios, which suggest that older female odds were 168% higher than older men odds of the item ‘Someone forcibly taking your property’. They were 43% lower than older men odds of the item ‘Some strangers wandering around your home at midnight’ and were 170% higher than older men odds of the item ‘Some drag racing adolescents trying to hurt you’. Odds were 141% higher in older women than in older men of the item “Someone trying to abduct you”. In conclusion, older women are more afraid of crime than older men. This study suggests that the fear of crime in older women focuses more on bodily injury than in property damage.
Tactile processing in human somatosensory and auditory cortices

Tactile sensation plays an important role in everyday life. While the somatosensory system has been studied extensively, the majority of information has come from studies using animal models. Recent development of high-resolution anatomical and functional imaging techniques has enabled the non-invasive study of human somatosensory cortex and thalamus. This thesis provides new insights into the functional organization of the human brain areas involved in tactile processing using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The thesis also demonstrates certain optimizations of MEG and fMRI methods. Tactile digit stimulation elicited stimulus-specific responses in a number of brain areas. Contralateral activation was observed in somatosensory thalamus (Study II), primary somatosensory cortex (SI; I, III, IV), and post-auditory belt area (III). Bilateral activation was observed in secondary somatosensory cortex (SII; II, III, IV). Ipsilateral activation was found in the post-central gyrus (area 2 of SI cortex; IV). In addition, phasic deactivation was observed within ipsilateral SI cortex and bilateral primary motor cortex (IV). Detailed investigation of the tactile responses demonstrated that the arrangement of distal-proximal finger representations in area 3b of SI in humans is similar to that found in monkeys (I). An optimized MEG approach was sufficient to resolve such fine detail in functional organization. The SII region appeared to contain double representations for fingers and toes (II). The detection of activations in the SII region and thalamus improved at the individual and group levels when cardiac-gated fMRI was used (II). Better detection of body part representations at the individual level is an important improvement, because identification of individual representations is crucial for studying brain plasticity in somatosensory areas. The posterior auditory belt area demonstrated responses to both auditory and tactile stimuli (III), implicating this area as a physiological substrate for the auditorytactile interaction observed in earlier psychophysical studies. Comparison of different smoothing parameters (III) demonstrated that proper evaluation of co-activation should be based on individual subject analysis with minimal or no smoothing. Tactile input consistently influenced area 3b of the human ipsilateral SI cortex (IV). The observed phasic negative fMRI response is proposed to result from interhemispheric inhibition via trans-callosal connections.
Cluster tree based hybrid semantic similarity measure for social tagging systems

As the social tagging systems becoming prevalent, it remains a critical question that how to make explicit the semantics for tags to fully facilitate Web2.0 applications. This paper establishes a cluster tree based semantic similarity measure for social tagging systems, combines it with traditional statistics based measures into a hybrid one, tailors the hybrid measure according to the effectiveness requirement of intelligent search application, and presents a case study using the empirical data retrieved from delicious website. Comparing to the traditional statistics based measures, our hybrid measure is capable of evaluating similarities between random tags even not co-occurred, can better reflect the structural influence of the network of tag co-occurrence, and is feasible for applications like intelligent search in user-centric Web2.0 environment.
Some solvable subclasses of structural recognition problems

During the last decades a lot of applied struc- tural recognition problems came to light which might be re- duced to consistent labelling problems. The consistent la- belling problem and its appropriate fuzzy and probabilistic modifications became a proper formalism for a unified for- mulation of such problems regardless of their specific applied contents. On the other hand there is no formal construction for a unified solution of these problems because they proved to be not polynomially solvable. Despite of the complexity of the whole class of labelling problems there are rather wide subclasses of applied interest which are polynomially solvable. In this paper we describe several examples of such subclasses of labelling problems. All these subclasses have a common property: It is possible to introduce several mechanisms of equivalent transforma- tions of the problems. The algorithm solving a problem has then the form of succesive equivalent transformations of the initial problem until it turns into a problem with a quite evi- dent solution.
An Energy-Efficient Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents a new energy-efficient routing protocol (EERP) in the construction of wireless sensor network, in which the residual energy makes the nodes with more energy become the cluster-head preferentially, and the cluster radius decreases with the decrease of the distance between the cluster and the sink. Simulation results indicate that the EERP effectively balances the energy consumption and achieves an improvement on the network lifetime.
Leveraging temporal, contextual and ordering constraints for recognizing complex activities in video

We present a scalable approach to recognizing and describing complex activities in video sequences. We are interested in long-term, sequential activities that may have several parallel streams of action. Our approach integrates temporal, contextual and ordering constraints with output from low-level visual detectors to recognize complex, long-term activities. We argue that a hierarchical, object-oriented design lends our solution to be scalable in that higher-level reasoning components are independent from the particular low-level detector implementation and that recognition of additional activities and actions can easily be added. Three major components to realize this design are: a dynamic Bayesian network structure for representing activities comprised of partially ordered sub-actions, an object-oriented action hierarchy for building arbitrarily complex action detectors and an approximate Viterbi-like algorithm for inferring the most likely observed sequence of actions. Additionally, this study proposes the Erlang distribution as a comprehensive model of idle time between actions and frequency of observing new actions. We show results for our approach on real video sequences containing complex activities.
Bulk Scattering Properties for the Remote Sensing of Ice Clouds. Part II: Narrowband Models

Abstract This study examines the development of bulk single-scattering properties of ice clouds, including single-scattering albedo, asymmetry factor, and phase function, for a set of 1117 particle size distributions obtained from analysis of the First International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project Regional Experiment (FIRE)-I, FIRE-II, Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program intensive observation period, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Kwajalein Experiment (KWAJEX), and the Cirrus Regional Study of Tropical Anvils and Cirrus Layers (CRYSTAL) Florida Area Cirrus Experiment (FACE) data. The primary focus is to develop band-averaged models appropriate for use by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imager on the Earth Observing System Terra and Aqua platforms, specifically for bands located at wavelengths of 0.65, 1.64, 2.13, and 3.75 μm. The results indicate that there are substantial differences in the bulk scattering properties of ice clouds formed in areas of deep convectio.
Determinants of research-based spin-offs survival

Existing literature has shown that research-based spin-offs firms usually exhibit lower death risks than other start-ups. However, few studies have focused on the survival determinants of these particular firms. From a unique self-collected database of the population of research-based spin-offs created in Portugal from 1995 up to 2007 we analyze if founding conditions, parent organization characteristics and location characteristics play a role on their survival. Our results show that start-up size, firm age, parent reputation and region characteristics are key determinants of research-based spin-offs survival, casting doubts on the role played by the incubation process and the social ties with the parent organization as advanced in previous studies.
Magnetic field amplification in Tycho and other shell-type supernova remnants

It is shown that amplification of the magnetic field in supernova remnants (SNRs) occurs in all six objects where morphological measurements are presently available in the hard X-ray continuum at several keV. For the three archetypical objects (SN 1006, Cas A and Tycho's SNR) to which nonlinear time-dependent acceleration theory has been successfully applied up to now, the global theoretical and the local observational field strengths agree very well, suggesting in addition that all young SNRs exhibit the amplification effect as a result of very efficient acceleration of nuclear cosmic rays (CRs) at the outer shock. Since this appears to be empirically the case, we may reverse the argument and consider field amplification as a measure of nuclear CR acceleration and it has indeed been argued that acceleration in the amplified fields allows the CR spectrum from SNRs to reach the knee in the spectrum or, in special objects, even beyond. The above results are furthermore used to investigate the time evolution of field amplification in young SNRs. Although the uncertainties in the data do not allow precise conclusions regarding this point, they rather clearly show that the ratio of the magnetic field energy density and the kinetic energy density of gas flow into the shock is of the order of a few percent if the shock speed is high enough Vs > 10 3 km s −1 , and this ratio remains nearly constant during the SNR evolution. The escape of the highest energy nuclear particles from their sources becomes progressively important with age, reducing also the cutoff in the π 0 -decay gamma-ray emission spectrum with time after the end of the sweep-up phase. Simultaneously the leptonic gamma-ray channels will gain in relative importance with increasing age of the sources.
Trinidad and Tobago: inter-industry wage differentials

Conventional labour economics argues that the typical firm is a wage taker and that wages are determined by the interaction of labour supply and the aggregate demand for labour. Under these conditions, markets clear, and non-frictional unemployment cannot feature in the long run. The persistently high levels of unemployment in the Caribbean present a significant challenge to this critical prediction of neoclassical economics. Efficiency wage theories argue that wages are endogenously determined by firms, which pick wage levels that minimize the average per unit cost of “efficiency labour”. Among the important conclusions of these theories is the possibility of persistent non-frictional unemployment. This paper presents evidence suggesting the existence of long-term inter-industry wage differentials in Trinidad and Tobago. This is a possible indication of the applicability of efficiency wage theories in explaining labour market phenomena in the twin-island Republic.