Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Moral emotions and the envisaging of mitigating circumstances for wrongdoing

Anger may be more responsive than disgust to mitigating circumstances in judgements of wrongdoing. We tested this hypothesis in two studies where we had participants envision circumstances that could serve to mitigate an otherwise wrongful act. In Study 1, participants provided moral judgements, and ratings of anger and disgust, to a number of transgressions involving either harm or bodily purity. They were then asked to imagine and report whether there might be any circumstances that would make it all right to perform the act. Across transgression type, and controlling for covariance between anger and disgust, levels of anger were found to negatively predict the envisioning of mitigating circumstances for wrongdoing, while disgust was unrelated. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings to less serious transgressions, using a continuous measure of mitigating circumstances, and demonstrated the impact of anger independent of deontological commitments. These findings highlight the differential relationship that anger and disgust have with the ability to envision mitigating factors.
An empirical study of an ER-model inspection meeting

A great benefit of software inspections is that they can be applied at almost any stage of the software development life cycle. We document a large-scale experiment conducted during an entity relationship (ER) model inspection meeting. The experiment was aimed at finding empirically validated answers to the question "which reading technique has a more efficient detection rate when searching for defects in an ER model". Secondly, the effect of the usage of roles in a team meeting was also explored. Finally, we investigate the reviewers' ability to find defects belonging to certain defect categories. The findings showed that the participants using a checklist had a significantly higher detection rate than the ad hoc groups. Overall, the groups using roles had a lower performance than those without roles. Furthermore, the findings showed that when comparing the groups using roles to those without roles, the proportion of syntactic and semantic defects found in the number of overall defects identified did not significantly differ.
Passive photography from a creative perspective: "If I would just shoot the same thing for seven days, it's like... What's the point?"

This paper aims to contribute with an understanding of meaningful experiences of photography, to support reflection upon the design of future camera devices. We have conducted a study of a passive camera device called Sensecam, which previously has been investigated as a memory aid, a combination of life-logging and memory tool and as a resource for digital narratives. We take a creative perspective and show that even if a camera is designed to be forgotten in use (i.e. is worn as a necklace and takes pictures automatically) it can still be part of an engaging or active photographic experience. Because Sensecam is different from film cameras, camera phones and other digital cameras, it involves a different type of photographic experience, for example when moving through different social contexts and how the resulting pictures are appreciated. The findings stem from people who used the camera for a week. This is complemented with reflections from the researcher, who has been using the camera for a month.
Estimating consumer willingness to pay for food quality with experimental auctions: the case of yellow versus fortified maize meal in Kenya: H. De Groote et al. / Agricultural Economics xx (2010) 1-16

Biofortification of maize with provitamin A carotenoids is a new approach to the alleviation of vitamin A deficiencies in Africa. Unfortunately these varieties are yellow or orange, while consumers generally prefer white. Consumer willingness to pay for yellow and fortified maize was compared in experimental auctions in three regions in Kenya. The premium that consumers are willing pay for fortified maize (24%) was higher than the discount they require to buy yellow maize (11%), and in one zone consumers prefer yellow. Yellow color is, therefore, not an impossible obstacle for biofortified maize, although it would clearly be easier to introduce this maize first in regions where yellow maize is currently grown.
Recruiting career-change professionals asteachers: the challenge of socialization into teaching

In many countries there is a shortage of quality teachers in areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). One solution has been to encourage mid-career professionals in the area of STEM to become school teachers. The transition of mid-career professionals to science and mathematics teaching in schools is thus becoming a common phenomenon. The assumption exists that their experiences and enthusiasm for their subject matter will inspire more students to achieve greater outcomes in school and to pursue careers in the sciences. Although the experiences of beginning teachers have been extensively studied for over half a century, there has been little research on career-change teachers and the particular challenges that they face in becoming school teachers. These career-changers have constructed professional identities and are accustomed to working within a culture of collaboration and inquiry. In contrast school cultures are quite different and often teaching is a lonely solitary affair with little opportunity for collegial relationships aimed at knowledge building in the context of teaching. This research was a longitudinal study that followed 17 teachers from the commencement of teaching. Most of these teachers left professional careers to become teachers. Seven remained in teaching after three years.
Hierarchical Exploration of Volumes Using Multilevel Segmentation of the Intensity-Gradient Histograms

Visual exploration of volumetric datasets to discover the embedded features and spatial structures is a challenging and tedious task. In this paper we present a semi-automatic approach to this problem that works by visually segmenting the intensity-gradient 2D histogram of a volumetric dataset into an exploration hierarchy. Our approach mimics user exploration behavior by analyzing the histogram with the normalized-cut multilevel segmentation technique. Unlike previous work in this area, our technique segments the histogram into a reasonable set of intuitive components that are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. We use information-theoretic measures of the volumetric data segments to guide the exploration. This provides a data-driven coarse-to-fine hierarchy for a user to interactively navigate the volume in a meaningful manner.
EDT: A specification notation for reactive systems

Requirements of reactive systems express the relationship between sensors and actuators and are usually described in a natural language and a mix of state-based and stream-based paradigms. Translating these into a formal language is an important pre-requisite to automate the verification of requirements. The analysis effort required for the translation is a prime hurdle to formalization gaining acceptance among software engineers and testers. We present Expressive Decision Tables (EDT), a novel formal notation designed to reduce the translation efforts from both state-based and stream-based informal requirements. We have also built a tool, EDTTool, to generate test data and expected output from EDT specifications. In a case study consisting of more than 200 informal requirements of a real-life automotive application, translation of the informal requirements into EDT needed 43% lesser time than their translation into Statecharts. Further, we tested the Statecharts using test data generated by EDTTool from the corresponding EDT specifications. This testing detected one bug in a mature feature and exposed several missing requirements in another. The paper presents the EDT notation, comparison to other similar notations and the details of the case study.
THE MASS FUNCTION OF DARK MATTER HALOES IN A COSMOLOGICAL MODEL WITH A RUNNING PRIMORDIAL POWER SPECTRUM

We present the first study on the mass functions of Jenkins et al. (J01) and an estimate of their corresponding largest virialized dark halos in the Universe for a variety of dark-energy cosmological models with a running spectral index. Compared with the PL–CDM model, the RSI–CDM model can raise the mass abundance of dark halos for small mass halos at lower redshifts, but it is not apparent on scales of massive mass halos. Particularly, this discrepancy increases largely with the decrease of redshift, and the RSI–CDM model can suppress the mass abundance on any scale of halo masses at higher redshift. As for the largest mass of virialized halos, the spatially flat ΛCDM models give more massive mass of virialized objects than other models for both of PL–CDM and RSI–CDM power spectral indexs, and the RSI–CDM model can enhance the mass of largest virialized halos for all of models considered in this paper. So we probably distinguish the PL–CDM and RSI–CDM models by the largest virialized halos in the future survey of cluster of galaxies.
Application of the Webqual Instrument to Three Australian B2C Websites: An Exploratory Investigation

Assessing the quality of a Website has received growing attention from academics and practitioners. The objective of this study is to apply the WebQualTM framework developed by Loiacono, Watson and Goodhue (2002) to determine whether any differences exist between three Australian industry groups across the Website Quality constructs. This study delineates the Website Quality model into its latent dimensions and examines for differences between three B2C Websites. This extends previous research on the WebQualTM instrument by presenting some preliminary findings in the Australian setting. Relevant implications for managing Website quality are highlighted, with directions for future research discussed.
Small-scale biocomplexity in coastal Atlantic cod supporting a Darwinian perspective on fisheries management

Harvesting of marine resources raises concerns about how to identify and preserve biocomplexity, including the diversity of life histories found within and among wild populations of a species. In order to fully accomplish this, there is a need to elucidate the underlying causes of phenotypic variation, and how this variation responds to environmental changes. In general, both evolutionary (genetic) and nonevolutionary (plastic) responses may occur. Plastic responses to environmental change are expected to shift the phenotype along a reaction norm, while an evolutionary response is expected to shift the reaction norm itself. Here, we assess the maturation patterns of coastal Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in Skagerrak, where studies using neutral markers have revealed genetically differentiated populations of this harvested fish within tens of kilometres of coastline. Our results suggest that physiological state prior to the spawning season, as well as juvenile growth, both influence the probability of completing sexual maturation at a given age. Furthermore, our results point towards a spatial structuring of this plasticity (i.e. the maturation reaction norms) comparable with population connectivity inferred from neutral markers. We argue that such fine‐scale biocomplexity calls for a Darwinian approach to fisheries management.
Report on the Static Analysis Tool Exposition (SATE) IV

The NIST Software Assurance Metrics And Tool Evaluation (SAMATE) project conducted the fourth Static Analysis Tool Exposition (SATE IV) to advance research in static analysis tools that find security defects in source code. The main goals of SATE were to enable empirical research based on large test sets, encourage improvements to tools, and promote broader and more rapid adoption of tools by objectively demonstrating their use on production software. Briefly, eight participating tool makers ran their tools on a set of programs. The programs were four pairs of large code bases selected in regard to entries in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) dataset and approximately 60 000 synthetic test cases, the Juliet 1.0 test suite. NIST researchers analyzed approximately 700 warnings by hand, matched tool warnings to the relevant CVE entries, and analyzed over 180 000 warnings for Juliet test cases by automated means. The results and experiences were reported at the SATE IV Workshop in McLean, VA, in March, 2012. The tool reports and analysis were made publicly available in January, 2013. SATE is an ongoing research effort with much work still to do. This paper reports our analysis to date which includes much data about weaknesses that occur in software and about tool capabilities. Our analysis is not intended to be used for tool rating or tool selection. This paper also describes the SATE procedure and provides our observations based on the data collected. Based on lessons learned from our experience with previous SATEs, we made the following major changes to the SATE procedure. First, we introduced the Juliet test suite that has precisely characterized weaknesses. Second, we improved the procedure for characterizing vulnerability locations in the CVE-selected test cases. Finally, we provided teams with a virtual machine image containing the test cases properly configured to compile the cases and ready for analysis by tools. This paper identifies several ways in which the released data and analysis are useful. First, the output from running many tools on production software is available for empirical research. Second, our analysis of tool reports indicates the kinds of weaknesses that exist in the software and that are reported by the tools.
The Value of Investment in Education: Theory, Evidence, and Policy.

This article presents a broad overview of human capital theory and presents highlights of the most recent evidence on the private and social returns to education. A distinction is made between the narrow social returns, as traditionally estimated in the economics of education literature, and the wide social returns that include externalities. The distributive implications of particular education finance policies are discussed. It is concluded that the education finance policies most conducive to social welfare are those that give priority to investment in the lower levels of education, including preschool, and the acquisition of general, rather than occupation-specific, skills.
Optimal Beam Subset and User Selection for Orthogonal Random Beamforming

The throughput performance of orthogonal random beamforming (ORBF) with a finite number of users is limited due to the increasing amount of residual interference. In this letter, we find the optimal beam subset, the optimal user set, and the optimal number of random beams to maximize the sum throughput of the ORBF. The proposed scheme provides the best trade-off between the multiplexing gain and the multiuser interference by the determination of the optimal number of random beams as well as the beam selection diversity gain due to the selection of the optimal beam subset. In addition, two efficient suboptimal schemes are presented to reduce the computational complexity and the feedback overhead of the optimal method.
Robust optimal motion planning for vibration reduction of free-floating flexible manipulator system

This paper deals with the motion planning method for vibration reduction of a flexible manipulator with state uncertainty. The motion planning model, which takes account of a robust performance index related to the variances and means of state error, is proposed firstly. To calculate the robust performance index, a linear covariance method is applied and validated using Monte Carlo simulation. And then, the motion planning problem, which belongs to optimal control problem, is transformed into a non-linear parameter optimization by using the direct shooting method. A hybrid optimization algorithm incorporating genetic algorithm (GA) and sequential quadratic programming algorithm (SQP) is then proposed to solve the parameter optimization problem. GA is employed to seek an approximate solution as an initial guess, and the optimal solution is then determined by SQP with this initial guess. To ensure the rapid convergence in solving, different knot points in GA and SQP is chosen. Illustrative examples are given and obtained results indicate that the proposed approach is effective for the residual vibration reduction.
Non-Contrast-Enhanced MR Angiography at 3 Tesla in Patients with Advanced Peripheral Arterial Occlusive Disease

Purpose The aim of this study was to assess the diagnostic performance of ECG-gated non-contrast-enhanced quiescent interval single-shot (QISS) magnetic resonance angiography at a magnetic field strength of 3 Tesla in patients with advanced peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD). Method and Materials A total of 21 consecutive patients with advanced PAOD (Fontaine stage IIb and higher) referred for peripheral magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) were included. Imaging was performed on a 3 T whole body MR. Image quality and stenosis diameter were evaluated in comparison to contrast-enhanced continuous table and TWIST MRA (CE-MRA) as standard of reference. QISS images were acquired with a thickness of 1.5 mm each (high-resolution QISS, HR-QISS). Two blinded readers rated the image quality and the degree of stenosis for both HR-QISS and CE-MRA in 26 predefined arterial vessel segments on 5-point Likert scales. Results With CE-MRA as the reference standard, HR-QISS showed high sensitivity (94.1%), specificity (97.8%), positive (95.1%), and negative predictive value (97.2%) for the detection of significant (≥50%) stenosis. Interreader agreement for stenosis assessment of both HR-QISS and CE-MRA was excellent (κ-values of 0.951 and 0.962, respectively). As compared to CR-MRA, image quality of HR-QISS was significantly lower for the distal aorta, the femoral and iliac arteries (each with p<0.01), while no significant difference was found in the popliteal (p = 0.09) and lower leg arteries (p = 0.78). Conclusion Non-enhanced ECG-gated HR-QISS performs very well in subjects with severe PAOD and is a good alternative for patients with a high risk of nephrogenic systemic fibrosis.
New conditioning model for robots

We present a neural network for the prediction of rewards in a conditioning model. It is based on two noisy-or and one noisy-and nodes and update rules inspired from BANNER technique. In specific cases, we show that the computation is similar to Rescorla-Wagner's equation, which inspired many computational models in the domain of conditioning.
Sterilization and the Capital Inflow Problem in East Asia, 1987-97

During the capital inflow episode of 1987 97, the monetary authorities of East Asia (i.e., Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand) took various measure to sterilize the expansionary effect of reserve inflows on the growth of monetary aggregates. Econometric tests based on quarterly data suggest that the set of various sterilization measures pursued were effective in limiting the growth of narrow and broad money. This may have promoted additional capital inflows by keeping the level of domestic interest rates high, or caused disintermediation and expanded the volume of assets in the poorly supervised nonbank financial sector. In either case, the potential risk of capital inflows in East Asia was likely magnified by the active policy of sterilization. 1 The authors thank Leonard Cheng, Takatoshi Ito, Ryuzo Miyao, Carmen Reinhart, Hiroshi Shibuya, Kazuo Yokokawa and Mahani Zainal-Abidin for useful comments. Needless to say, the authors alone assume responsibility for any remaining errors. The views expressed in the paper do not necessarily reflect those of the Economic Planning Agency or the Government of Japan. 2 Osaka University 3 Osaka University
Implementation of Smart Power Management and Service System on Cloud Computing

This paper plays a role for electricity providers, who are actively developing digital meters and power management systems, and develops an energy management system by using service-oriented architecture. In addition to a power management system, the policy has changed from the traditional way in Taiwan by using energy-saving appliances. Therefore, the solution is to design devices that are more intelligent and energy saving at the same time. Moreover, computers can control the mechanism of the smart devices. The system uses a service-oriented architecture approach to construct services and utilize common virtualization technologies on cloud infrastructure. This work also applies distributed storage technologies to store and distribute data in order to make sure the system can meet massive loads of demands for services. Finally, we not only show provided services and hardware control in the implementation but also conduct performance tests of the distributed database.
Sequential Summarization: A New Application for Timely Updated Twitter Trending Topics

The growth of the Web 2.0 technologies has led to an explosion of social networking media sites. Among them, Twitter is the most popular service by far due to its ease for realtime sharing of information. It collects millions of tweets per day and monitors what people are talking about in the trending topics updated timely. Then the question is how users can understand a topic in a short time when they are frustrated with the overwhelming and unorganized tweets. In this paper, this problem is approached by sequential summarization which aims to produce a sequential summary, i.e., a series of chronologically ordered short subsummaries that collectively provide a full story about topic development. Both the number and the content of sub-summaries are automatically identified by the proposed stream-based and semantic-based approaches. These approaches are evaluated in terms of sequence coverage, sequence novelty and sequence correlation and the effectiveness of their combination is demonstrated.
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and response of antioxidants as ROS-scavengers during environmental stress in plants

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) were initially recognized as toxic by-products of aerobic metabolism. In recent years, it has become apparent that ROS plays an important signaling role in plants, controlling processes such as growth, development and especially response to biotic and abiotic environmental stimuli. The major members of the ROS family include free radicals like O2● −, OH● and non-radicals like H2O2 and 1O2. The ROS production in plants is mainly localized in the chloroplast, mitochondria and peroxisomes. There are secondary sites as well like the endoplasmic reticulum, cell membrane, cell wall and the apoplast. The role of the ROS family is that of a double edged sword; while they act as secondary messengers in various key physiological phenomena, they also induce oxidative damages under several environmental stress conditions like salinity, drought, cold, heavy metals, UV irradiation etc., when the delicate balance between ROS production and elimination, necessary for normal cellular homeostasis, is disturbed. The cellular damages are manifested in the form of degradation of biomolecules like pigments, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and DNA, which ultimately amalgamate in plant cellular death. To ensure survival, plants have developed efficient antioxidant machinery having two arms, (i) enzymatic components like superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), guaiacol peroxidase (GPX), glutathione reductase (GR), monodehydroascorbate reductase (MDHAR) and dehydroascorbate reductase (DHAR); (ii) non-enzymatic antioxidants like ascorbic acid (AA), reduced glutathione (GSH), α-tocopherol, carotenoids, flavonoids and the osmolyte proline. These two components work hand in hand to scavenge ROS. In this review, we emphasize on the different types of ROS, their cellular production sites, their targets, and their scavenging mechanism mediated by both the branches of the antioxidant systems, highlighting the potential role of antioxidant