Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of Probability Perception Modeling and Defender Strategy Generation Algorithms in Repeated Stackelberg Games: An Initial Report

While human behavior models based on repeated Stackelberg games have been proposed for domains such as "wildlife crime" where there is repeated interaction between the defender and the adversary, there has been no empirical study with human subjects to show the effectiveness of such models. This paper presents an initial study based on extensive human subject experiments with participants on Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT). Our findings include: (i) attackers may view the defender’s coverage probability in a non-linear fashion; specifically it follows an S-shaped curve, and (ii) there are significant losses in defender utility when strategies generated by existing models are deployed in repeated Stackelberg game settings against human subjects.
Approaches to learning of management accounting students

Explores whether professional management accounting students adopt deep or surface Approaches to Learning. Using methodologies developed for research into higher education, suggests a model that focuses on students’ approaches to learning. It is important to stress that the concern of the model is with students’ perceptions, because it is these perceptions that will decide how the students approach their learning. The model is explored by using an Approaches to Studying Inventory questionnaire. Previous research in this area has largely been in the area of higher education. This empirical study is based on the students of a professional accounting body. The findings are presented in total and are then further analysed by gender, domicile and study method.
Use of heat shock for culturing Clostridium difficile from rectal swabs.

It is well established that selective agar and broth media are necessary for recovering Clostridium difficile from stool specimens or rectal swab specimens [1-4]. These methods were used for detecting C. difficile in rectal swab and stool specimens collected from surgical patients at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston as part of an epidemiologic study of C. difficile. During the course of this study, we discovered that occasionally culture of a swab specimen did not yield C. difficile whereas tissue culture assay of a stool specimen taken from the same patient on the same day was positive for cytotoxin B. We also noted cases in which culture of a swab
An Agent-Based Platform for Cloud Applications Performance Monitoring

The monitoring of the resources is one among the major challenges that the virtualization brings with it within the Cloud environments. In order to ensure scalability and dependability, the user's applications are often distributed on several computational resources, such as Virtual Machines, storages and so on. For this reason, the customer is able to retrieve information about the Cloud infrastructure only by acquiring monitoring services provided by the same vendor that is offering the Cloud resources, thus being forced to trust the Cloud provider about the detected performance indexes. In this work we present a complete architecture that covers all the monitoring activities that take place within a Cloud application lifecycle: we also propose an agent-based implementation of a particular module of the designed architecture that ensures high customization of the monitoring facility and more tolerance to network and resource failures.
A Novel Screening System for Claudin Binder Using Baculoviral Display

Recently, it became clear that claudin (CL) plays a pivotal role in tight junction (TJ) barrier function in epithelial cell, and we previously proved that CL can be a target for pharmaceutical therapy. Despite the presence of more than 20 CL family members, few ligands for CL have been identified because it is difficult to prepare CL in an intact form. In this study, we developed a method to screen for CL binders by using the budded baculovirus (BV) display system. CL4‐displaying BV interacted with a CL4 binder, the C‐terminal fragment of Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin (C‐CPE), but it did not interact with mutated C‐CPE that lost CL4‐binding region. C‐CPE did not interact with BV and CL1‐displaying BV. We used CL4‐displaying BV to select CL4‐binding phage in a mixture of a scFv‐phage and C‐CPE‐phage. The percentage of C‐CPE‐phage in the phage mixture increased after the selection, indicating that CL‐displaying BV may be useful for the selection of CL binders. We prepared a C‐CPE phage library by mutating the functional amino acids, and screened the library with CL4‐displaying BV. Then we found that the newly obtained CL4 binders also modulated the TJ barrier. These finding indicate that the CL‐displaying BV system may be a promising method to produce a novel CL binder and modulator.
Family caregiver social problem-solving abilities and adjustment during the inital year of the caregiving role.

The authors examined the relation of social problem-solving abilities to trajectories of adjustment of family caregivers in the initial year of their caregiving role. Persons who recently assumed the caregiver role for a family member with a recent-onset spinal cord injury completed measures of problem solving, depression, anxiety, and health during the inpatient rehabilitation program and at 3 other times throughout the year. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that negative problem orientation explained significant variation in the rates of change in caregiver depressive behavior, anxiety, and health complaints. Caregivers with a greater negative orientation were at risk to develop psychological and health problems at a significantly higher rate over the year. Implications for psychological interventions and health policy concerning the needs of family caregivers and their care recipients are discussed.
Example-based machine translation using structural translation examples

This paper proposes an example-based machine translation system which handles structural translation examples. The structural translation examples have the potential advantage of high-usability. However, technologies which build such translation examples are still being developed. In such a situation, the comparison of the proposed system and the other approach systems is meaningful. This paper presents the system algorithm and its performance on the IWSLT04 Japanese-English unrestricted task.
Hand-Held Dynamometry: Adoption 1900–2005

The purpose of this brief report is to describe the adoption of handheld dynamometry, a procedure for documenting muscle strength. Between the early 1900s and the end of 2005, 478 research articles were published that documented use of hand-held dynamometry. The adoption of the procedure for research is consistent with the S-shaped curve described by Rogers. The extent to which hand-held dynamometry is used in clinical practice remains to be delineated.
Turbulence in human intracranial saccular aneurysms.

✓ Preliminary experiments with glass model bifurcation aneurysms demonstrated that turbulent flow pattern occurs in the sac of an aneurysm at a low flow rate (critical Reynolds number, 400 ± 10 S.E.M.). A prediction that flow is turbulent in the sac of human intracranial saccular aneurysms was confirmed in a clinical study. Bruits, indicative of turbulence, were recorded with a phonocatheter from the sacs of 10 out of 17 intracranial aneurysms exposed at surgery where the mean arterial pressures were above 50 mm Hg. The amplitude of the bruits varied with the pressure. All of the patients in whom no bruit was found had profound Arfonad hypotension at the time of recording. Turbulence causes vibration in the wall of a vessel. This vibration produces and accelerates degenerative changes in vascular tissue by a process similar to the structural fatigue of metals by vibration. The author proposes that the turbulent blood flow within an aneurysm contributes to the degeneration of the elastica, and the producti.
Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase 1/2 Activation Counteracts Morphine Tolerance in the Periaqueductal Gray of the Rat

Repeated administration of opioids produces long-lasting changes in μ-opioid receptor (MOR) signaling that underlie behavioral changes such as tolerance. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways, including MAPK extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK1/2), are modulated by opioids and are known to produce long-lasting changes in cell signaling. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that ERK1/2 activation contributes to the development and/or expression of morphine tolerance mediated by the periaqueductal gray (PAG). Changes in phosphorylated ERK1/2 expression were assessed with confocal microscopy and compared to behavioral measures of tolerance to the antinociceptive effects of chronic morphine administration. Repeated microinjection of morphine into the PAG produced tolerance and caused a significant increase in ERK1/2 phosphorylation, an effect not evident with acute morphine microinjection. Microinjection of the MAPK/ERK kinase inhibitor, 1,4-diamino-2,3-dicyano-1,4-bis(o-aminophenylmercapto)butadiene ethanolate (U0126), into the PAG had no effect on antinociception produced by acute morphine administration. However, repeated coadministration of U0126 and morphine into the PAG blocked ERK1/2 phosphorylation and enhanced the development of morphine tolerance. Coadministration of U0126 with morphine only on the test day also enhanced the expression of morphine tolerance. Administration of the irreversible opioid receptor antagonist β-chlornaltrexamine blocked the activation of ERK1/2 caused by repeated morphine microinjections, demonstrating that ERK1/2 activation was a MOR-mediated event. In summary, these studies show that chronic morphine administration alters ERK1/2 signaling and that disruption of ERK1/2 signaling enhances both the development and expression of morphine tolerance. Contrary to expectations, these data indicate that ERK1/2 activation opposes the development of morphine tolerance.
Moderately elevated serum troponin concentrations are associated with increased morbidity and mortality rates in surgical intensive care unit patients

ObjectiveTo determine the significance of moderate elevations of serum troponin I in a surgical intensive care unit patient population in terms of its impact on indexes of outcome including mortality, morbidity, and hospital and intensive care unit length of stay. DesignRetrospective chart review and analysis of clinical data. SettingA surgical intensive care unit at a tertiary care hospital. PatientsFrom the 27-month surgical intensive care unit database of admissions, 869 patients with serum troponin I determinations during their admission were identified. Patients who had cardiac surgery were excluded. InterventionsNone. Measurements and ResultsPatients were divided into four groups based on their maximum serum troponin I concentrations. Hospital mortality, incidence of myocardial infarction, and hospital and intensive care unit length of stays were compared. Patients with moderate elevations of serum troponin I (0.4–2.0 &mgr;g/L) had a significantly higher mortality rate (chi-square = 32.57, p < .0001) and longer length of intensive care unit and hospital stays (p < .0005) when compared with patients without similar elevations. Within the range of moderately elevated troponin concentrations, higher titers were associated with increasing mortality risk, longer hospital and intensive care unit stays, and a higher incidence of myocardial infarction. The use of a &bgr;-blocker and aspirin was associated with better survival for patients with maximum serum troponin concentrations ≥2 &mgr;g/L. ConclusionModerate elevations of serum troponin I, which are below the threshold required to diagnose overt myocardial infarction, may reflect ongoing myocardial injury in the critically ill and are associated with a higher mortality rate and longer hospital and intensive care unit length of stays. The use of &bgr;-blockers and aspirin is associated with better outcomes for this subset of patients.
Music researchers’ musical engagement

There is an increasing awareness of the importance of reflexivity across various disciplines, which encourages researchers to scrutinize their research perspectives. In order to contextualize and reflect upon research in music, this study explores the musical background, current level of musical engagement and the listening habits of music researchers. A total of 103 respondents of 17 different nationalities, working in music psychology, music science and related areas at various academic levels (e.g., doctoral students, professors and independent researchers), completed an internet survey. Questions addressed four major areas: (1) detailed demographic information and research interests; (2) musical training; (3) current musical activities (e.g., composing, conducting, improvising, listening, performing); (4) musical preferences and listening habits. Findings indicate that nearly all respondents to the survey had studied one or more musical instrument(s), and around 90% still enjoy performing music to some extent. A relatively high number of researchers had composed or improvised music, thus engaging in particularly creative musical activities. Respondents show stronger preferences for classical music and jazz/blues/RnB as compared with other musical genres. Contrary to notions of expert listening, emotional listening styles were rated as more important than analytical listening. Strong relationships between respondents’ musical practice and research were found, leading to the conclusion that music research is a highly practice-informed field.
How Math Anxiety Relates to Number–Space Associations

Given the considerable prevalence of math anxiety, it is important to identify the factors contributing to it in order to improve mathematical learning. Research on math anxiety typically focusses on the effects of more complex arithmetic skills. Recent evidence, however, suggests that deficits in basic numerical processing and spatial skills also constitute potential risk factors of math anxiety. Given these observations, we determined whether math anxiety also depends on the quality of spatial-numerical associations. Behavioral evidence for a tight link between numerical and spatial representations is given by the SNARC (spatial-numerical association of response codes) effect, characterized by faster left-/right-sided responses for small/large digits respectively in binary classification tasks. We compared the strength of the SNARC effect between high and low math anxious individuals using the classical parity judgment task in addition to evaluating their spatial skills, arithmetic performance, working memory and inhibitory control. Greater math anxiety was significantly associated with stronger spatio-numerical interactions. This finding adds to the recent evidence supporting a link between math anxiety and basic numerical abilities and strengthens the idea that certain characteristics of low-level number processing such as stronger number–space associations constitute a potential risk factor of math anxiety.
A Replication Study for Association of 53 Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in ScoliScore Test With Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis in French-Canadian Population

Study Design. A replication association study that used genomic data generated from French-Canadian case and control cohorts. Objectives. To determine whether the 53 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that were previously associated with spinal deformity progression in an American Caucasian cohort are similarly associated in French-Canadian population. Summary of Background Data. It is widely accepted that genetic factors contribute to adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. The identification of genetic variants associated with the predisposition or progression of curvature could facilitate diagnostic/prognostic tool development. Although 53 SNPs have been associated with spinal curve progression in Caucasian cohorts in the United States, these associations were not replicated in a large Japanese population study, arguing that such a discrepancy could be explained by ethnicity, thus raising the importance of a replication study in an independent Caucasian population of European descent. Methods. Genomic data were collected from the French-Canadian population, using the Illumina HumanOmni 2.5M BeadChip. Fifty-two SNPs, tested in ScoliScore or in high linkage disequilibrium with SNPs in the test, were selected to assess their association with scoliosis generally, and with spinal curve progression. One SNP in ScoliScore, rs16909285, could not be evaluated in our Genome-Wide association study. Results. None of the SNPs used in ScoliScore were associated with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis curve progression or curve occurrence in French-Canadian population. We evaluated 52 SNPs in severe patients by comparing risk allele frequencies with those in nonsevere patients and with those in control individuals. There was no significant difference between the severe group and the nonsevere group or between the severe group and the control group. Conclusion. Although the 52 SNPs studied here were previously associated with curve progression in an American population of European descent, we found no association in French-Canadian patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. This second replication cohort suggests that the lack of association of these SNPs in a Japanese cohort is not due to ethnicity. Level of Evidence: 4
Cyclic AMP-induced Conformational Changes in Mycobacterial Protein Acetyltransferases*

Background: cAMP allosterically regulates protein lysine acetyltransferases in mycobacteria. Results: cAMP binding alters dynamics of the cyclic AMP binding domain and the interdomain linker in these proteins. Conclusion: cAMP action is mediated by increased ordering upon binding without intricate allosteric networks. Significance: Effects mediated by cAMP in these proteins are distinct from relays seen in cAMP binding proteins characterized thus far. The activities of a number of proteins are regulated by the binding of cAMP and cGMP to cyclic nucleotide binding (CNB) domains that are found associated with one or more effector domains with diverse functions. Although the conserved architecture of CNB domains has been extensively studied by x-ray crystallography, the key to unraveling the mechanisms of cAMP action has been protein dynamics analyses. Recently, we have identified a novel cAMP-binding protein from mycobacteria, where cAMP regulates the activity of an associated protein acetyltransferase domain. In the current study, we have monitored the conformational changes that occur upon cAMP binding to the CNB domain in these proteins, using a combination of bioluminescence resonance energy transfer and amide hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry. Coupled with mutational analyses, our studies reveal the critical role of the linker region (positioned between the CNB domain and the acetyltransferase domain) in allosteric coupling of cAMP binding to activation of acetyltransferase catalysis. Importantly, major differences in conformational change upon cAMP binding were accompanied by stabilization of the CNB and linker domain alone. This is in contrast to other cAMP-binding proteins, where cyclic nucleotide binding has been shown to involve intricate and parallel allosteric relays. Finally, this powerful convergence of results from bioluminescence resonance energy transfer and hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry reaffirms the power of solution biophysical tools in unraveling mechanistic bases of regulation of proteins in the absence of high resolution structural information.
Determinants of Income in Informal Self-Employment: New Evidence From a Long African Panel

This article investigates the returns to workers’ productive assets, in the form of physical capital, human capital and labour, in an African labour market. We specify a model for the income-generating process grounded in the literature on firms’ production technology, hence abridging the gap between the analysis of individual earnings and the study of firms’ value added. Identification in the empirics is achieved by means of panel estimators that are suitable to address the endogeneity of input choices, which derives from both time-varying and time-invariant unobservable heterogeneity. The use of these estimators is made feasible by the length of a newly constructed Ghanaian household panel dataset at CSAE. We further explore issues of endogeneity in the selection of different technologies, defined by their capital and labourintensity. Finally, we analyse the shape of returns to capital, with the aim to detect potential non-convexities in technology. The results evidence that capital and work-experience play the strongest role in income-generation, while the shares of value-added attributed to labour and to formal schooling are low. Marginal returns to investment are high at low capital levels, but they decrease very rapidly, pointing against the existence of non-convexities due to minimum-scale requirements and implying that real income gains resulting from micro-investment are modest. JEL Codes: J24, J31, O12, O17 *This paper uses data from the six rounds of the Ghana Urban Household Panel Survey, conducted by the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE). The dataset forms part of ongoing CSAE research into urban African labour markets funded by the ESRC, RECOUP, IDRC, DFID and the Gates Foundation. We are greatly indebted to Moses Awoonor-Williams and members of the Ghana Statistical Office, who assisted in the data collection. Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford, E-mail: paolo.falco@economics.ox. ac.uk
Prefix stripping re-revisited

Abstract Taft and Forster (1975) enriched serial search models of lexical access with a prefix-stripping module, hypothesizing that prefixal morphology is functional in the sense that it leads to more efficient lexical processing. A detailed investigation of the lexical statistics of prefixation and pseudo-prefixation in English and Dutch shows, however, that the addition of a prefix stripping module to a serial search model leads to a substantial decrease in its processing efficiency, defined as the number of search steps required for accessing words in the mental lexicon. This reversal is attributed to the high token frequencies with which pseudo-prefixed words occur. We also briefly discuss and compare the lexical statistics of a similar model in which obligatory segmentation takes place, the metrical segmentation theory proposed by Cutler and Norris (1988). Methodological implications for the testing of psychological models of language processing are discussed.