Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Model Checking CTMDP against Temporal Specifications Characterized by Regular Expressions

Continuous time Markov decision process (CTMDP) permits probabilistic and nondeterministic choices, and can be employed as the semantics model of some high-level formalisms. This paper introduces a new action-based as well as state-based temporal logic as CSRL, which can be viewed as an extension of a CSL with path-based probability operator, and includes three additional reward operators in comparison with as CSL to reason about reward structures. The path-based properties are characterized by regular expressions over actions and state formulas. Moreover, as CSRL provides more abundant means to characterize reward-based properties, and this is very useful in performance evaluation about power, bandwidth, etc. We then discuss the model checking procedure under deterministic and nondeterministic policies.
Refinable Kernels

Motivated by mathematical learning from training data, we introduce the notion of refinable kernels. Various characterizations of refinable kernels are presented. The concept of refinable kernels leads to the introduction of wavelet-like reproducing kernels. We also investigate a refinable kernel that forms a Riesz basis. In particular, we characterize refinable translation invariant kernels, and refinable kernels defined by refinable functions. This study leads to multiresolution analysis of reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces.
Simplified Mesh Generation from Renders

Scientific visualization presents data or real-world objects in 3D to visually verify and observe results. It has been used in everything from car manufacture to seismic analysis. The 3D models used frequently have far too much detail to be rendered at acceptable frame-rates on current computers, and while the speed of graphics hardware continually increases, so does the resolution of stored data. Quite often, the models displayed include very high resolution submodels that were originally intended to be displayed on their own, like including a fully detailed pressure gauge with all mechanical parts on a large engine. While many methods exist to reduce the complexity of the regular meshes such objects are built from, they all require detailed knowledge of mesh data. The only way to get this data is to integrate extended data export into the tool used to produce the mesh, a task which is difficult unless the software is self-written or comes with full source code. Presented here is a new method to generate a well-formed approximate mesh with color and normal information, based on just the ability to draw the object on screen. The resulting mesh contains no hidden or intersecting surfaces and hence is perfectly suited for simplification.
Two Coincidence Detectors for Spike Timing-Dependent Plasticity in Somatosensory Cortex

Many cortical synapses exhibit spike timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) in which the precise timing of presynaptic and postsynaptic spikes induces synaptic strengthening [long-term potentiation (LTP)] or weakening [long-term depression (LTD)]. Standard models posit a single, postsynaptic, NMDA receptor-based coincidence detector for LTP and LTD components of STDP. We show instead that STDP at layer 4 to layer 2/3 synapses in somatosensory (S1) cortex involves separate calcium sources and coincidence detection mechanisms for LTP and LTD. LTP showed classical NMDA receptor dependence. LTD was independent of postsynaptic NMDA receptors and instead required group I metabotropic glutamate receptors and calcium from voltage-sensitive channels and IP3 receptor-gated stores. Downstream of postsynaptic calcium, LTD required retrograde endocannabinoid signaling, leading to presynaptic LTD expression, and also required activation of apparently presynaptic NMDA receptors. These LTP and LTD mechanisms detected firing coincidence on ∼25 and ∼125 ms time scales, respectively, and combined to implement the overall STDP rule. These findings indicate that STDP is not a unitary process and suggest that endocannabinoid-dependent LTD may be relevant to cortical map plasticity.
ModelingThree-Dimensional Microstructure in Heterogeneous Media

While it is now possible to image the three-dimensional structure of soil using high-resolution tomography, none of the techniques can simultaneously image the distribution of the resident soil microbes. This means that it is not possible to visualize soil microbes in their habitat. Consequently, the impact of soil structure on microbially mediated processes cannot be reliably modeled. Biological thin sections offer the opportunity to simultaneously image microbes in structure but are necessarily restricted to two dimensions. Therefore a methodology is required to simulate three-dimensional structures from two-dimensional thin sections of soil that is extendable to simulate the spatial distribution of a range of soil components. We developed a model that is capable of using data gathered from two-dimensional sections to predict the three-dimensional structure of soil. An object-oriented approach to modeling was used to allow the individual representation of each structure voxel. This allows the model to encapsulate both data, presented here, and the subsequent addition of components such as microbial distribution and related diffusion-respiration processes together in a three-dimensional lattice of voxels. The model was validated using data derived from three-dimensional x-ray tomography images of soil structure, and using two-dimensional sections through that data set to predict three-dimensional structure. A range of metrics was used to compare the modeled and imaged three-dimensional structures. The comparison shows that the metrics for the modeled structures agree with those derived from the three-dimensional images for higher porosities, but that systematic differences occur for the lowest porosity soils (<11%). This is due to problems relating to the prediction of rare events such as the presence of large connected pores in low-porosity samples.
‘If you take it personally you break’ Neglected voices on violence in secure units for adolescentssw

To a large degree, the voices of staff running daily operations in secure units for adolescents, particularly on sensitive issues such as violence and abuse, have been missing. The aim of the present paper is to make these voices heard by investigating what forms of violence staff in secure units encounter in their day-to-day work and to deepen our understanding of how they handle it. The study uses two theoretical starting points. First, the secure unit is understood in terms of Berger and Luckmann’s concept of institutionalisation, emphasising how behaviour and practices develop through well-defined roles. Secondly, inspiration is drawn from Goffman’s notion of frontstage and backstage, highlighting how staff within an institution (i.e. secure unit) enter into different roles. Fifty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff at three different secure units for adolescents in Sweden. The material was organised through a thematic analysis, yielding six themes placed under two headings; ‘A violent scene? A matter of definition’ and ‘Handling violence: strategies employed’. The results show how staff describe youth as the violent party and how they suppress their own emotions. Additionally, staff articulated their own use of violence toward youth and their emotional stance, describing an interpersonal shield that protected them from violence. The results underline the importance of raising questions about the nature of violence in secure units for adolescents and how staff handle such violence in their everyday work.Keywords: Secure units, staff perspective, violence, front and backstage, institutionalisation
Contextualizing privilege and disadvantage: Lessons from women expatriates in the Middle East

This article explores how the simultaneity of privilege and disadvantage shapes the experiences of women expatriates in the Middle East. The article problematizes the simultaneity of being an elite group (e.g. expatriates) and a disadvantaged group (e.g. women) within the context of Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Drawing on the literature about women and work expatriation, the article analyses the narratives of women expatriates to highlight the complexity and multidimensionality of their experiences, positioning the discussion within the framework of gendered institutions. The article concludes that privilege and disadvantage are inseparable to the way the experiences of women expatriates unfold in the Middle East, and that institutional settings articulate this inseparability in order to regulate and help to maintain the gender social order. The article contributes a nuanced understanding of the experiences of women expatriates, challenging dominant views that present this group as generally privileged by virtue of their skilled and mobile status.
Radloimmunoassaysfor Type III ProcollagenAmino-TerminalPeptidesin Humans

antigeninthe propeptide assay; inthe Col 1 assay, however, serum and urine samples both generated inhibitioncurves having the same slope as that generated with the standard Col 1 peptide.Concentrations of human fragment Col 1 in serum samples as measured with the Col 1 assay were usually double those obtained with the human propeptide assay, which in tum were twoto threefoldthose obtained with the bovine antigen assay. In control subjects and alcoholiccirrhoticsthe concentrationsof antigenin urineand the daily excretion rates as measured with the assay for human Col 1 exceeded those reported previously. The presence of different antigen forms was demonstrated with both assays by gel-filtrationanalysis of serum and urine samples. The assay for human Cal 1 shouldbe suitablefor routine clinical chemical use.
Zebra: exploring users' engagement in fieldwork

Participatory Design is a design approach that provides a popular set of techniques for designing interactive systems in collaboration with end-users. Technology probes are one of such techniques, developed recently to encourage users' engagement with design ideas while capturing interaction. In this paper, we describe a technology probe called Zebra, which aimed at exploring the design of an observation tool for fieldwork with busy professionals. We deployed Zebra in the coffee room of our lab and observed researchers' reactions to the proposed concepts it embodied, both as researchers and as participants. We found that participants engaged with the probe in ways ranging from playful performances, through to abandoning the social space. Based on analysis of the collected qualitative and quantitative data, we present our reflections on the Zebra probe, how it eased the burden of engagement in the design process, and helped us better understand the potential of the observation tool for participatory design with busy professionals.
Frame selection of interview channel for NIST speaker recognition evaluation

In this paper, we study a front-end frame selection approach for the interview channel speaker recognition system. This new approach keeps the high quality speech frames and removes noisy and irrelevant speech frames for speaker modeling. For robust voice activity detection (VAD) under the different types of microphones located in the interview room, we adopt the spectral subtraction algorithm for noise reduction. An energy based frame selection algorithm is first applied to indicate the speech activity at the frame level. To overcome the summed channel effects in the interview condition, a study is conducted to effectively extract the relevant speaker's speech frames based on VAD Tags and ASR transcript Tags provided by NIST. The eigenchannel based GMM-SVM speaker recognition system is used to evaluate the proposed method. The experiments are conducted on the NIST 2008 and NIST 2010 Speaker Recognition Evaluation interview-interview conditions. It demonstrates that the approach provides an efficient way to select high quality speech frames and the relevant speaker's voice in the interview environment for speaker recognition.
‘The tide, change, nobody can stop it’: Metaphor for social action

Based on critical approaches to discourse and metaphor, as well as on cognitive models of metaphorical creativity and recontextualization, this article analyses the origin and evolution of the marea (‘tide’) metaphor as a tool for social action within recent Spanish protest movements (2011–2016). From an initial image metaphor representing different protest groups, to the use of the expression to identify a number of grassroots political parties, among other new meanings, the metaphor has proved to be an important tool in the legitimation of recent social action and change in Spanish society since the eruption of the 15M movement in 2011. By tracking its development, the study explains not only how the source domain marea activates highly positive meanings and emotions within the targets social protest, political parties, change and so on, but also how this ideological, socio-culturally conditioned, cognitively situated metaphor is becoming entrenched in the community within a very specific socio-historical and cultural context.
Coping with Being Cut from the Team: Examining Grit, Resilience and Optimism in Response to Failure in College Athletes

This research investigated the ways in which optimism, grit and resilience are related to academic success and athletic participation for college students after they have gone through a significant negative event in their sport. Participants between the ages of 18 to 25 were evaluated on grit, optimism, resilience and coping strategies through the Grit Scale, the Life Orientation Test, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and the Ways of Coping questionnaire. All individuals had been either cut from or left a collegiate sports team. Respondents also completed an informational demographics questionnaire assessing age, college grades, any ongoing participation in a sport, and appraisal of and attributions about the experience of leaving their team. It was predicted that individuals with higher levels of optimism, grit and resilience, as well as better coping skills, would achieve similar or better grades after than before leaving the team and would continue to participate in their chosen sport (in some role) following the experience of being cut. Results indicated that continued participation in sport was not associated with any of the proposed predictor variables, and assessment of changes in grades, unfortunately, could not be analyzed. In contrast, multiple significant relationships were found between resilience and coping mechanisms, in addition to aspects of attributional style. Furthermore, both resilience and a combination of resilience and grit, but not optimism, predicted adaptive coping strategies in participants. This study may help to further determine what helps individuals succeed after hardship, and also could help confirm the importance of both preparing sports participants for failure experiences and also supporting their subsequent efforts at success.
Understanding millennial perceptions of human and nonhuman brands

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to obtain perceptions from three distinct millennial segments about human and nonhuman brands related to travel. Specifically, inter and intra relationships between human and nonhuman brand credibility and equity constructs were investigated.Design/methodology/approachThree millennial generational segments representing 571 respondents familiar with human and nonhuman brands, were investigated to explore their human and nonhuman brand credibility and equity perceptual issues. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the study hypotheses. Multi-group analysis was used to observe group differences.FindingsSelected millennial segments were found to have differences in their behavior pertaining to human and nonhuman brand constructs. All hypotheses of the overall model were accepted. For group differences, a significant difference was observed. Gen Z was found to be different in emulating humans and their linked nonhuman brands when compared to both younger and older Gen Y segments.Research limitations/implicationsStudy findings contribute to the marketing and tourism branding literature, as do findings related to generational differences.Practical implicationsThe authors suggested implications for hospitality and tourism marketing professionals under the headings of emotional attachment, entertaining content, use of social media and exploring brands online. Implications including multicultural, brands with strong values and engaging with brands can be helpful for hospitality managers in attracting millennials.Social implicationsSocial implications suggest behavioral differences related to three sub-groups of generational cohorts involving millennials.Originality/valueThis is the first study dedicated to observing millennial perceptions for human and nonhuman brands.
Preliminary Psychometrics of Responses to the Youth Externalizing Problems Screener

This brief report presents preliminary psychometrics of responses to the Youth Externalizing Problems Screener (YEPS), which is a 10-item self-report rating scale intended for use as a screening instrument. The YEPS was designed to function as a companion measure to the Youth Internalizing Problems Screener (YIPS), facilitating the screening of broad mental health problems among students in secondary school settings. Analyses presented herein were conducted with the same small, preliminary samples of urban high-school students as those reported on for the initial development and validation of the YIPS (Sample 1: n = 177, Sample 2: n = 219). Results suggest that responses to the YEPS showed a sound, unidimensional factor structure that is internally consistent, providing initial evidence for the purported internal structure of the measure. Findings also showed that YEPS scores had meaningful associations with other self-reported, theoretically relevant mental health variables, providing initial convergent evidence in favor of construct interpretation. Taken together, preliminary psychometrics support the validation argument for the interpretation and use of YEPS scores as a brief measure of adolescents’ general externalizing problems. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
Helicopter Parenting and Young Adults’ Well-Being: A Comparison Between United States and Finland

Helicopter parenting, defined as a form of overinvolved parenting of young adult children, is shown to be associated with young adult children’s well-being. Furthermore, the phenomenon of helicopter parenting is increasingly evident across various cultures. In this study, the association between helicopter parenting and young adult children’s well-being problems was examined, and the associations were compared between samples of American and Finnish young adults. With a sample of 441 American and 306 Finnish university students, results from path models suggested that maternal and paternal helicopter parenting was associated with university students’ symptoms of anxiety and depression, life dissatisfaction, and emotional dysregulation. Furthermore, even though the mean levels of helicopter parenting were lower among Finnish parents as compared with American parents, the associations between helicopter parenting and young adults’ well-being problems were, in general, equally significant. The implications for university students, parents of students, educators, and university administrators from different cultural backgrounds were also discussed.
DEVELOPING ANDROID APPLICATION BASED ON AUGMENTED REALITY TECHNOLOGY FOR TEACHING DESCRIPTIVE TEXTS IN GRADE VII OF MTSN 6 SLEMAN

This study is aimed at 1) describing the target needs and learning needs of grade VII students of the Junior High School in terms of teaching descriptive texts; and 2) developing suitable augmented reality for teaching descriptive texts to grade VII students of the Junior High School. The study is research and development (R&D) using the 4-D model by Thiagarajan. In the first phase, defining, initial needs are defined. Second, in developing, a prototype of the augmented reality application is developed together with the teacher’s book. Third, in validation, the developed product is subjected to reviews by experts and feedback is obtained. Finally, in dissemination, result of the study is published in the website. The research subjects were grade VII students of MTsN 6 Sleman, Class VII A consisting of 33 students. Data were analyzed quantitatively by using descriptive statistics in the forms of numbers and percentages. Findings show that the developed product is rated as very good and is considered appropriate to be used in class. Keywords: augmented reality, descriptive texts
A usage-based model for the online induction of constructions from phoneme sequences

According to usage-based approaches to language acquisition, linguistic knowledge is represented in the form of constructions as pairings of meaning and form at multiple levels of abstraction and complexity. The emergence of syntactic knowledge in infants is assumed to be a result of the gradual abstraction of lexically specific and item-based knowledge. In this paper, we present a computational usage-based model accounting for the gradual emergence of a network consisting of constructions at varying degrees of complexity given ambiguous input examples of phoneme sequences coupled with a symbolic representation of the visual context. We provide empirical results on the RoboCup dataset, showing that the model can acquire a compact construction grammar which generalizes successfully to unseen data in an online fashion, with one pass over the data.
UBM data selection for effective speaker modeling

This paper presents a UBM data selection method for robust training. We know that there is no promise that more training data guarantee better results. Therefore, the way of sub-sampling and effective training become important. The proposed method uses the feature vector selection with the maximum-entropy criterion. The maximum-entropy shows the diverse characters of speaker and minimum redundant information as well. The UBM training data is investigated on three datasets to compare the proposed method with the conventional sub-sampling approaches. We conducted experiments on the 2008 NIST Speaker Recognition Evaluation corpus shows that the proposed method outperforms the conventional one in speaker recognition.
The Trade-offs with Space Time Cube Representation of Spatiotemporal Patterns

Space time cube representation is an information visualization technique where spatiotemporal data points are mapped into a cube. Fast and correct analysis of such information is important in for instance geospatial and social visualization applications. Information visualization researchers have previously argued that space time cube representation is beneficial in revealing complex spatiotemporal patterns in a dataset to users. The argument is based on the fact that both time and spatial information are displayed simultaneously to users, an effect difficult to achieve in other representations. However, to our knowledge the actual usefulness of space time cube representation in conveying complex spatiotemporal patterns to users has not been empirically validated. To fill this gap we report on a between-subjects experiment comparing novice users error rates and response times when answering a set of questions using either space time cube or a baseline 2D representation. For some simple questions the error rates were lower when using the baseline representation. For complex questions where the participants needed an overall understanding of the spatiotemporal structure of the dataset, the space time cube representation resulted in on average twice as fast response times with no difference in error rates compared to the baseline. These results provide an empirical foundation for the hypothesis that space time cube representation benefits users when analyzing complex spatiotemporal patterns.