Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Notes on a Journey From Symbols to Multifractals: A Tribute to Guy Van Orden

Rejecting traditional cognitive science put us in a bind. On the one hand, traditional cognitive science is our heritage; our curiosity about the big questions of cognition led us initially to invest in the conventional approaches. On the other hand, we eventually became dissatisfied with the fundamentals of traditional cognitive science. Rather than criticize from the sidelines, we struggled for a new way to address the same problems with a new explanatory framework. Guy Van Orden spurred us forward on 2 counts. First, his work inspired us to consider fractal scaling as a new framework for exploring change in cognitive structure. Second, his provocative contrast between pink and white noises as diagnostic of interactions and components, respectively, intrigued us. Our struggle for a new direction became a struggle to understand what Guy meant and how his ideas might translate within our research domains. Guy helped us to forge a perspective that would have surprised us before, namely, the perspective that cognitive and, more generally, biological structure reflects turbulent flows structured over many different scales with multifractal fluctuations.
Instructor Support in Collaborative Multiplayer Serious Games for Learning - Game Mastering in the Serious Game 'Woodment'

In collaborative digital learning scenarios with small groups (3-6 users), the role of the instructor is vital as he/she is responsible for preparation of the setting, observation, coaching, moderation and adaptation. Currently, in multiplayer Serious Games, the role of the instructor is only insufficiently considered. Only very few approaches for integrating or supporting instructors in collaborative multiplayer Serious Games exist today, to the best of our knowledge. In this paper, we propose a concept for integration and support of instructors in team-based collaborative 3D multiplayer Serious Games. Our approach is based on Game Mastering principles known from roleplay games. It combines those principles with concepts for collaborative learning scenarios. We applied our concept to the existing 3D multiplayer Serious Game Woodment and tested it in a vocational school with 26 players in four groups (age: m= 19.12; sd= 2.03). Results indicate that an instructor using our Game Master framework to moderate and adapt the game at runtime can have a positive effect on both the playersâ learning success and perceived user experience. Moreover, a positive effect on playersâ gaming behavior can be observed.
Synchronization and Chip Multiprocessing (CMP)

Processor chips are becoming smaller and smaller. Personal computing needs are ever increasing while the silicon’s physical and thermal limitations are bound to be reached. With today’s transistor technology that limits the ability of single processors, manufacturers tend to switch on multiprocessors as a solution. This new revolution in computer architecture technology, which we now call Chip Multiprocessing (CMP) or simply multicore, is a combination of two or more independent processors into a single integrated circuit (IC) package. It allows the device to exhibit some sort of parallelism thread-level parallelism (TLP) and/or instruction level parallelism (ILP) while enjoying fewer components, lower cost, and less interconnection overheads. Multicore has its pros and cons. Although promising and advantageous, having multiple cores in a single chip presents several problems, cache coherencies and memory synchronization are among them. However, these concerns were similar to those addressed by multiprocessors and parallel processors since the late 1980s. Multiprocessing is not a new technology. Multiple processors communicate by way of sharing data structures. A standard problem in a system running multiple processes is how to control accesses to the shared data to ensure correct behavior and data consistency. Such can be addressed with synchronization, the coordination of simultaneous threads and processes accessing the same memory address space. Synchronization mechanisms, although mostly rely on userlevel software algorithms, also require support by hardware primitives.
Measurement Reliability, the Spearman-Jensen Effect and the Revised Thorndike Model of Test Bias

The Thorndike model of test fairness has recently been revised and used to argue that cognitive ability tests are biased against certain groups of test-takers because ability tests show larger mean differences across racial groups than do job performance measures. We discuss two critical factors that confound this new version of Thorndike's model, making it susceptible to false indications of test bias. Those factors are (a) measurement error (i.e., reliability) in both the predictor and criterion and (b) the Spearman-Jensen effect (i.e., the well-documented effect that group differences in observed g-saturated measures are directly proportional to the degree the manifest indicator reflects g). Finally, because the Spearman-Jensen effect is not well known within the applied literature, we present a brief simulation to better elucidate the implications of the Spearman-Jensen effect for personnel selection in general, and claims of bias in cognitive ability testing in particular.
Leadership Renewal: Towards the Philosophy of Wisdom

Introduction Leadership belongs more to moral philosophy than to scientific theory. If one analyses Plato’s central problems of the character of a well-governed city; the formation of its leaders; the pedagogy of their sensibility and vision; and the disposition of Callicles and Thrasymachus, it becomes evident that moral values are the central theme. Burns’ (1978) comprehensive study of leadership establishes that there is a difference in kind between the exercise of power and the exercise of leadership and that the difference is a moral one. Burns (1978: 46) concludes that ‘the ultimate test of moral leadership is its capacity to transcend the claims of the multiplicity of everyday needs and expectations, to respond to the higher levels of moral development and to relate leadership behaviour — its roles, choices, style and commitments, to a set of reasoned, relatively explicit, conscious values’. As early as 386 bc, Plato initiated one of the first leadership training centres in the world, an institute he called the Academy, in an attempt to create a new type of statesman, a person who would be able to withstand the unwieldy pressures of office. In the Apology, Plato (1956b) details the origins of Socrates’ humility in defence against the charge of impiety and corruption of the youth of Athens at his trial in 399 bc. In response to this puzzle, at the declaration of the Delphi oracle that none is wiser than he, Socrates replies that he visited a wise man and that after conversing with him, he went away thinking ‘I am wiser than this man: neither of us knows anything that is really worth knowing, but he thinks that he has knowledge when he has not, while I have no knowledge and do not think that I have’ (Plato, 1956b: 36). The Socratic ‘ignorance’ paradox serves as the basis for an understanding of philosophy as the search for wisdom. As a living absolute, the Socratic message is a continual movement of a freeing
Efficacy and Safety of Telavancin in Clinical Trials: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Introduction The epidemiology and antibiotic resistance of Staphylococcus aureus have evolved, underscoring the need for novel antibiotics, particularly against methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Telavancin is a bactericidal lipoglycopeptide with potent activity against Gram-positive pathogens. Objective To systematically review and synthesize the available evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating telavancin in the treatment of patients with infections due to Gram-positive organisms with the methodology of meta-analysis. Results Six RCTs comparing telavancin with vancomycin were included; 4 (2229 patients) referred to complicated skin and soft tissue infections (cSSTIs) and 2 (1503 patients) to hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP). Regarding cSSTIs, telavancin and vancomycin showed comparable efficacy in clinically evaluable patients (odds ratio [OR] = 1.10 [95% confidence intervals: 0.82–1.48]). Among patients with MRSA infection, telavancin showed higher eradication rates (OR = 1.71 [1.08–2.70]) and a trend towards better clinical response (OR = 1.55 [0.93–2.58]). Regarding HAP, telavancin was non-inferior to vancomycin in terms of clinical response in two Phase III RCTs; mortality rates for the pooled trials were comparable with telavancin (20%) and vancomycin (18.6%). Pooled data from cSSTIs and HAP studies on telavancin 10 mg/kg indicated higher rates of serum creatinine increases (OR = 2.22 [1.38–3.57]), serious adverse events (OR = 1.53 [1.05–2.24]), and adverse event-related withdrawals (OR = 1.49 [1.14–1.95]) among telavancin recipients. Conclusion Telavancin might be an alternative to vancomycin in cases of difficult-to-treat MRSA infections. The potent antistaphylococcal activity of telavancin should be weighted against the potential for nephrotoxicity.
10-Year Risk Estimation for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Coronary Heart Disease in Kuwait: A Cross-Sectional Population-Based Study

Background Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), coronary heart disease (CHD) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) are major healthcare problems in Kuwait. The present study was designed to determine the prevalence of MetS, and to estimate the 10-year risk for developing T2DM and CHD among the general population in Kuwait. Methods A descriptive, cross-sectional survey was undertaken in 1800 individuals without diabetes or a history of cardiovascular disease (CVD). They were selected from six governorates using two stage convenience sampling. The questionnaire was developed using the Finnish Diabetes Risk Score (FINDRISK), Framingham Risk Score [FRS] and the 2009 Joint Statement criteria for diagnosis of MetS as a framework. Descriptive and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used. Results The response rate was 89.4%. More than half (60.8%; 95% CI: 58.4–63.2) of responders were either overweight or obese. One hundred and ninety seven (12.2%) subjects had blood pressure (BP) ≥ 140/90 mm Hg. Almost three-in-ten (28.3%: 26.2–30.6) subjects had fasting plasma glucose (FPG) levels ≥ 5.6 mmol/l, of whom 86.0% and 14.0% had impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and screen detected T2DM, respectively. MetS was present in 512 (31.8%; 29.5–34.2) respondents. Just under one third (n = 481; 29.9%; 27.7–32.2) of participants were at moderate, high, or very high risk of developing T2DM, while 283 (17.6%: 15.8–19.6) were at moderate/high 10-year risk of developing CHD. Approximately one-in-ten (8.5%; 7.2–9.9) subjects were at moderate/high/very high 10-year risk of developing both T2DM/CHD. T2DM risk was higher for females compared to males (p < 0.001); however, the pattern was reversed in terms of the risk of developing CHD or T2DM/CHD. The risk of developing T2DM, CHD, or T2DM/CHD was greater among those aged ≥ 45 years, and those having MetS (p<0.001). Conclusions The current findings highlight the need for multifaceted interventions for prevention.
The Bitter End: The Ubiquitin-Proteasome System and Cardiac Dysfunction

Many elements contribute to congestive heart failure: changes in perfusion, hemodynamic stresses, alterations in calcium metabolism, and dysregulation of cell signaling pathways. Intervention in these processes forms the basis for current heart failure therapies. Nevertheless, heart failure is primarily a disease of wear and tear; despite everything we know about cardiac physiology and the clinical manifestations of heart failure, only in rare instances does therapy for heart failure normalize cardiac function. Proteins are especially prone to the forces of wear and tear in the heart because they are the primary mechanisms for stress sensing and force generation. Recent evidence supports a role for protein damage and impaired clearance of damaged proteins in the pathophysiology of human heart failure syndromes. The process of monitoring and protecting cardiac cells from accumulation of damaged proteins is known as protein quality control, and the molecular chaperone and ubiquitin-proteasome systems are the primary effectors of this process. Insights from protein quality-control strategies may lead to new concepts about prevention and treatment of human heart failure. This review provides a general overview of these pathways and their known and postulated roles in human heart failure syndromes, with a focus on providing a clinically oriented understanding of these fundamental mechanisms.
An Interactive System for Exploring Community Question Answering Forums

We present an interactive system to provide effective and efficient search capabilities in Community Question Answering (cQA) forums. The system integrates state-of-the-art technology for answer search with a Web-based user interface specifically tailored to support the cQA forum readers. The answer search module automatically finds relevant answers for a new question by exploring related questions and the comments within their threads. The graphical user interface presents the search results and supports the exploration of related information. The system is running live at http://www.qatarliving. com/betasearch/.
An evaluation of TRACA's generalisation performance

TRACA (Temporal Reinforcement learning and Classiica-tion Architecture) is a learning system intended for robot-navigation problems (Mitchell 2000). One problem in this area is the input-generalisation problem. Input generalisation requires learning a small set of internal states which represent useful abstractions of the much larger set of actual states. As such, the input-generalisation problem is fundamentally similar to the classical problems of classiication, concept learning and discrimination. However, for on-line robot-learning tasks diierent evaluation criteria is applied than that for batch clas-siication tasks. Speciically, a small number of trials is desirable to reduce the risks of damage to the agent and/or its environment. This may come at the cost of more computation during learning and slightly lower predictive accuracy. Other requirements are the abililty to learn on-line without predeened classes (i.e classes must be learned during training), an eecient adaptable representation and minimal parameter tuning. This paper describes TRACA's generalisation mechanism in detail and evaluates its performance on a number of common classiication tasks. The ability of TRACA to use short-term memory to represent hidden-state is ignored in this comparison as in all the following tasks perceptual aliasing can be overcome by including additional features. On most tasks, TRACA's pre-dictive accuracy is within a few percent of the best performing systems compared and TRACA's result is often achieved with less training experience. The experiments also support claims by Holte (Holte 1993) that a high predictive accuracy (above 90 percent in these experiments) can easily be achieved on many well-known classiication tasks which are often used for evaluating learning systems.
The General Secretory Pathway of Burkholderia gladioli pv. agaricicola BG164R Is Necessary for Cavity Disease in White Button Mushrooms

ABSTRACT Cavity disease in white button mushrooms is caused by Burkholderia gladioli pv. agaricicola. We describe the isolation and characterization of six mutants of the strain BG164R that no longer cause this disease on mushrooms. The mutations were mapped to genes of the general secretory pathway (GSP). This is the first report of the association of the type II secretion pathway with a disease in mushrooms. Phenotypes of the six avirulent mutants were the following: an inability to degrade mushroom tissue, a highly reduced capacity to secrete chitinase and protease, and a reduced number of flagella. Using these mutants, we also made the novel observation that the factors causing mushroom tissue degradation, thereby leading to the expression of cavity disease, can be separated from mycelium inhibition because avirulent mutants continued to inhibit the growth of actively growing mushroom mycelia. The GSP locus of B. gladioli was subsequently cloned and mapped and compared to the same locus in closely related species, establishing that the genetic organization of the gsp operon of B. gladioli pv. agaricicola is consistent with that of other species of the genus. We also identify the most common indigenous bacterial population present in the mushroom fruit bodies from a New Zealand farm, one of which, Ewingella americana, was found to be an apparent antagonist of B. gladioli pv. agaricicola. While other investigators have reported enhanced disease symptoms due to interactions between endogenous and disease-causing bacteria in other mushroom diseases, to the best of our knowledge this is the first report of an antagonistic effect.
WHOSE IMPARTIALITY? AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF VEILED STAKEHOLDERS, INVOLVED SPECTATORS AND DETACHED OBSERVERS

We present an experiment designed to investigate three different mechanisms to achieve impartiality in distributive justice. We consider a first-person procedure, inspired by the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, and two third-party procedures, an involved spectator and a detached observer. First-person veiled stakeholders and involved spectators are affected by an initially unfair distribution that, in the stakeholders’ case, is to be redressed. We find substantial differences in the redressing task. Detached observers propose significantly fairer redistributions than veiled stakeholders or involved spectators. Risk preferences partly explain why veiled stakeholders propose less egalitarian redistributions. Surprisingly, involved spectators, who are informed about their position in society, tend to favour stakeholders holding the same position as they do after the initial distribution.
TimeFlip: Scheduling network updates with timestamp-based TCAM ranges

Network configuration and policy updates occur frequently, and must be performed in a way that minimizes transient effects caused by intermediate states of the network. It has been shown that accurate time can be used for coordinating network-wide updates, thereby reducing temporary inconsistencies. However, this approach presents a great challenge; even if network devices have perfectly synchronized clocks, how can we guarantee that updates are performed at the exact time for which they were scheduled? In this paper we present a practical method for implementing accurate time-based updates, using TIMEFLIPs. A TimeFlip is a time-based update that is implemented using a timestamp field in a Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM) entry. TIMEFLIPs can be used to implement Atomic Bundle updates, and to coordinate network updates with high accuracy. We analyze the amount of TCAM resources required to encode a TimeFlip, and show that if there is enough flexibility in determining the scheduled time, a TimeFlip can be encoded by a single TCAM entry, using a single bit to represent the timestamp, and allowing the update to be performed with an accuracy on the order of 1 microsecond.
Rethinking pedagogy for the times: a change infusion pedagogy

This doctoral dissertation research reports on the exploration of higher education academics' pedagogical responses to complex societal postindustrial change. The topic arises from a deep personal interest in processes of societal change and the need for such processes to be in the professional practices of academics. The research problem that guides the study is: In what way(s) and to what extent can University instructors be assisted to incorporate change-based concepts in their pedagogical practices through application of a conceptual framework for change infusion? In response to the problem, a change infusion model (CIM) arises from an analysis of authoritative literature on change. Change infusion is an educational process that utilises key concepts from theories of change to provide a meaningful context for pedagogical practice in times where pervasive societal transformation is the norm. Gay's (1995) multiple stages of infusion are of particular importance in the CIM. The generation of the theoretical definition of infusion in the CIM provides practising academics with an explanatory system that enables them to infuse significant elements of change into pedagogical practices. In essence, the CIM purports to guide instructors to move beyond teaching about change to teaching for change. The research design includes the cognitive-constructivist theoretical foundations, with particular reference to Dewey (1933), Piaget (1951), Lewin (1951), Schon (1983, 1987), Calderhead (1988), and Patton (2002). Of particular importance is the analysis of opinions concerning pedagogical practice of a small number of University practitioners after engaging with the CIM during each of the three stages of trials. The trials utilize the cognitive constructivist quality of reflection as a means to link theory to practice. The conclusions from the research support a conceptual model, such as the CIM, for use to teach for change. As a result of the Stage 3 trial research in particular, the conceptual model from the beginning point of the study is refined, thereby hopefully providing a useful tool for academics in a wide range of contexts and disciplines to respond in meaningful ways to the process of major change that impinge upon them and their work.
A study of whether video scoring is a reliable option for blinded scoring of the Gross Motor Function Measure-88

Objective: To investigate the agreement between live and video scores of the Gross Motor Function Measure-88. Design: Reliability study. Subjects: Forty children with bilateral spastic cerebral palsy. Interventions: Fifty evaluations were administered according to the test guidelines, and were videotaped. After a minimum interval of one month, the video recordings were again rated by the same assessor. Two physical therapy students also each scored the recordings twice, with a minimal interval of one month. Main measures: Agreement between live and video scores as well as inter-rater and intra-rater agreement of the video scores were assessed using intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC), standard error of measurements (SEM), and smallest detectable changes (SDC). Weighted kappa coefficients were used to analyse individual items. Results: The live and video scores from the same assessor showed good to very good agreement for the total score (ICC, 0.973; SEM, 2.28; SDC, 6.32) and dimensions B (ICC, 0.938), D (ICC, 0.965), and E (ICC, 0.992) but lower agreement for A (ICC, 0.720) and C (ICC, 0.667). Live-versus-video agreement for the total score was higher than inter-rater agreement by video (ICC, 0.949; SEM, 3.15; SDC, 8.73) but lower than intra-rater agreement by video (ICC, 0.989; SEM, 1.42; SDC, 3.96). Conclusion: The Gross Motor Function Measure-88 can be reliably scored using video recordings. The agreement between live and video scores is lower than the intra-rater reliability using video recordings only. Future clinical trial results should be interpreted using the appropriate SEM and SDC values.