Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dimensional Assessment of Psychopathy and Its Relationship with Physiological Responses to Empathic Images in Juvenile Offenders

Objective: Many psychophysiological studies investigate whether psychopaths present low levels of electrodermal activity (EDA). However, despite evidence that varying degrees of psychopathy are normally distributed in the population, there is a paucity of EDA studies evaluating dimensionally. Moreover, although lack of empathy is a cornerstone of psychopathy, there has been a lack of studies using pictures of empathic emotional content to assess psychophysiological responses. Method: We studied a population of young male delinquents (n = 30) from a detention center, using the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) to determine if higher levels of psychopathy were related to lesser degrees of EDA in response to emotion-eliciting pictures of empathic content. Results: There were significant correlations (p < 0.05) between latency and peak of EDA responses to unpleasant pictures and factor 1 scores, as well as between lability of EDA responses and factor 2 scores. Conclusion: These results extend previous findings indicating direct relationship between EDA and psychopathy, and suggest that separate investigations of the two PCL-R factors have the potential to unravel more complex relationships between EDA and psychopathy. Also, by demonstrating such associations using emotion-provoking stimuli with empathic content, our results provide a link between levels of psychopathy and biological indices of empathic detachment.
Probabilistic Graphical Models for Boosting Cardinal and Ordinal Peer Grading in MOOCs

With the enormous scale of massive open online courses (MOOCs), peer grading is vital for addressing the assessment challenge for open-ended assignments or exams while at the same time providing students with an effective learning experience through involvement in the grading process. Most existing MOOC platforms use simple schemes for aggregating peer grades, e.g., taking the median or mean. To enhance these schemes, some recent research attempts have developed machine learning methods under either the cardinal setting (for absolute judgment) or the ordinal setting (for relative judgment). In this paper, we seek to study both cardinal and ordinal aspects of peer grading within a common framework. First, we propose novel extensions to some existing probabilistic graphical models for cardi- nal peer grading. Not only do these extensions give su- perior performance in cardinal evaluation, but they also outperform conventional ordinal models in ordinal eval- uation. Next, we combine cardinal and ordinal models by augmenting ordinal models with cardinal predictions as prior. Such combination can achieve further performance boosts in both cardinal and ordinal evaluations, suggesting a new research direction to pursue for peer grading on MOOCs. Extensive experiments have been conducted using real peer grading data from a course called “Science, Technology, and Society in China I” offered by HKUST on the Coursera platform.
Evaluation of Stability of Amylose Inclusion Complexes Depending on Guest Polymers and Their Application to Supramolecular Polymeric Materials

This paper describes the evaluation of the stability of amylose–polymer inclusion complexes under solution state in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) depending on guest polymers. The three complexes were prepared by the vine-twining polymerization method using polytetrahydrofuran (PTHF), poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL), and poly(l-lactide) (PLLA) as guest polymers. The stability investigation was conducted at desired temperatures (25, 30, 40, 60 °C) in DMSO solutions of the complexes. Consequently, the amylose–PTHF inclusion complex was dissociated at 25 °C, while the other complexes were stable under the same conditions. When the temperatures were elevated, the amylose–PCL and amylose–PLLA complexes were dissociated at 40 and 60 °C, respectively. We also found that amylose inclusion supramolecular polymers which were prepared by the vine-twining polymerization using primer-guest conjugates formed films by the acetylation of amylose segments. The film from acetylated amylose–PLLA supramolecular polymer had higher storage modulus than that from acetylated amylose–PTHF supramolecular polymer, as a function of temperature.
Body satisfaction, emotional intelligence, and the development of disturbed eating: a survey of Taiwanese students.

PURPOSE This study explored the relationship between adolescents' emotional intelligence and the tendency to develop an eating disorder. METHODS Senior high school students in Taiwan were recruited for the study. A 3- part anonymous questionnaire measured demographic information, body weight satisfaction, and expectation of body weight. Students also completed the Adolescent Emotional Intelligence Scale and the Eating Disorders Attitude- 26 Test (EAT-26). Height and weight were also measured. RESULTS The mean of EAT-26 score was 8.66 ± 7.36, and 8.6% students were at high risk to develop eating disorders. Gender, body weight, body dissatisfaction and the expected body shape were significantly related to disturbed eating attitudes and behaviours. Scores of EAT-26 were positively correlated with emotional perception, emotional expression, and emotional application. CONCLUSIONS Disturbed eating behaviours exist among adolescents in Taiwan, and these behaviours may be related to emotional intelligence. However further studies with larger samples are needed.
AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMTs with TiO2 gate dielectric by using non-vacuum ultrasonic spray pyrolysis deposition

AlGaN/GaN metal-oxide-semiconductor high electron mobility transistors (MOS-HEMTs), grown on the Si substrate, with high-k TiO<sub>2</sub> gate dielectric (k = 53.6) formed by using non-vacuum ultrasonic spray pyrolysis deposition (USPD) method has been investigated. Pulse I-V and low-frequency noise spectra (1/f) are conducted to characterize the interface property. Enhanced device performances have been accomplished for the devised MOS-HEMT (Schottky-gate HEMT) for the gate dimensions of 1 × 100 μιη<sup>2</sup>, including drain-source current density (I<sub>DS</sub>) at V<sub>GS</sub> = 0 V (I<sub>DSS0</sub>) of 384 (342) mA/mm, maximum I<sub>DS</sub> (I<sub>DS, max</sub>) of 650 (511) mA/mm, maximum extrinsic transconductance (gm, max) of 107 (110) mS/mm, two-terminal gate-drain breakdown voltage (BV<sub>GD</sub>) of -155 (-105) V, turn-on voltage (V<sub>on</sub>) of 3.8 (1.8) V, on-state breakdown (BV<sub>DS</sub>) of 139 (94) V, gate-voltage swing (GVS) of 2.7 (1.7) V, and on/off current ratio (I<sub>on</sub>/I<sub>off</sub>) of 4.5 × 105 (3.5 × 102). Consequently, the present MOS-HEMT design by using the cost-effective USPD method is suitable for high-power RF circuit applications.
Depression of cardiovascular autonomic function is more pronounced after mitral valve surgery: evidence for direct trauma

The analysis of baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) and heart rate variability (HRV) leads to additional insights into patients' prognosis after cardiovascular events. The following study was performed to assess the differences in the post-operative recovery of autonomic regulation after mitral valve (MV) and aortic valve (AV) surgery with a heart–lung machine. Among the 43 consecutive male patients enrolled in a prospective study, 26 underwent isolated AV surgery and 17 isolated MV surgery. Blood pressure as well as ECG signals were recorded the day before, 24 hours after and one week after surgery. BRS was calculated according to the dual sequence method, and HRV was calculated using standard linear as well as nonlinear parameters. There were no major differences between the two groups in the pre-operative values. At 24 hours a comparable depression of HRV and BRS in both groups was observed, while at 7 days there was partial recovery in AV patients, which was absent in MV patients: p(AV versus MV)<0.001. While the response of the autonomic system to surgery is similar in AV and MV patients, there is obviously a decreased ability to recover in MV patients, probably attributed to traumatic lesions of the autonomic nervous system by opening the atria. Ongoing research is required for further clarification of the pathophysiology of this phenomenon and to establish strategies to restore autonomic function.
Nerve blocks in chronic pain therapy – are there any indications left?

Although diagnostic imaging is now highly developed, neural blockade provides another opportunity to test for a source of pain that may frequently leave no signature. Likewise, many neuropathic pains can not be tested by neurodiagnostic methods. This paper makes a case for the continued use of regional anesthesia to assist in the diagnosis and therapy of chronic pain. In particular, the example of autonomic blocks and blocks of the axial spine are emphasized. Nerve blocks require an understanding of the anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, and the ability to interpret critically their results.
Spontaneous Brain Activity in the Newborn Brain During Natural Sleep—An fMRI Study in Infants Born at Full Term

Recent progress in functional neuroimaging research has provided the opportunity to probe at the brain's intrinsic functional architecture. Synchronized spontaneous neuronal activity is present in the form of resting-state networks in the brain even in the absence of external stimuli. The objective of this study was to investigate the presence of resting-state networks in the unsedated infant brain born at full term. Using functional MRI, we investigated spontaneous low-frequency signal fluctuations in 19 healthy full-term infants. Resting-state functional MRI data acquired during natural sleep was analyzed using independent component analysis. We found five resting-state networks in the unsedated infant brain born at full term, encompassing sensory cortices, parietal and temporal areas, and the prefrontal cortex. In addition, we found evidence for a resting-state network that enclosed the bilateral basal ganglia.
Learning Non-Rigid 3D Shape from 2D Motion

This paper presents an algorithm for learning the time-varying shape of a non-rigid 3D object from uncalibrated 2D tracking data. We model shape motion as a rigid component (rotation and translation) combined with a non-rigid deformation. Reconstruction is ill-posed if arbitrary deformations are allowed. We constrain the problem by assuming that the object shape at each time instant is drawn from a Gaussian distribution. Based on this assumption, the algorithm simultaneously estimates 3D shape and motion for each time frame, learns the parameters of the Gaussian, and robustly fills-in missing data points. We then extend the algorithm to model temporal smoothness in object shape, thus allowing it to handle severe cases of missing data.
Worker training: what we've learned from the NLSY79

ow individuals obtain their skills andhow they are paid for the use of thoseskills are concepts that are fundamentalto the field of labor economics. Productive skillsare often referred to as “human capital. ” Thebasic idea of human-capital theory is thatworkers invest in their own skills in order toearn higher wages, much as persons invest infinancial or physical assets to earn income.Although this idea goes back at least to AdamSmith, modern human-capital research wasoriginated in the late 1950s by economistsTheodore Schultz, Jacob Mincer, and GaryBecker. Their ideas, focusing on investmentsin and returns to education and training, haveprovided the theoretical and empirical basis fordecades of ensuing research.
Lien entre climat éthique et comportement éthique du vendeur : rôle déterminant du management commercial. Une application au domaine industriel

L'objectif de ce travail est de mettre en evidence le lien entre climat ethique et comportement ethique du vendeur et de souligner, en particulier, le role determinant du management commercial, dimension du climat ethique de l'entreprise, sur ce comportement. Afin de mesurer le comportement ethique du vendeur, l'auteur a choisi d'utiliser la theorie des vertus comme cadre d'analyse de ce concept et la methode des scenarios comme cadre methodologique. Le climat ethique a ete mesure a travers quatre dimensions : les normes, le comportement des pairs, les pratiques de vente et le plan de remuneration, ce qui a permis a l'auteur de construire une echelle de mesure de ce concept. Une methodologie en deux temps a ete adoptee : apres la selection de deux entreprises, supports de la recherche, une etude qualitative a ete menee aupres des vendeurs d'une entreprise specialisee dans le domaine de la bureautique et des hautes technologiques ; puis une etude quantitative a ete realisee permettant ainsi de verifier les hypotheses de la recherche. Les resultats, obtenus par l'approche des moindres carres PLS, indiquent d'une part, que le climat ethique influence de maniere significative le comportement ethique du vendeur, ce qui n'est pas le cas des variables individuelles. D'autre part, il apparait que ce sont les pratiques de vente et le plan de remuneration, composantes du management commercial de l'entreprise, qui sont determinantes sur le comportement ethique du vendeur.
An Evaluation of Methods for Inferring Boolean Networks from Time-Series Data

Regulatory networks play a central role in cellular behavior and decision making. Learning these regulatory networks is a major task in biology, and devising computational methods and mathematical models for this task is a major endeavor in bioinformatics. Boolean networks have been used extensively for modeling regulatory networks. In this model, the state of each gene can be either ‘on’ or ‘off’ and that next-state of a gene is updated, synchronously or asynchronously, according to a Boolean rule that is applied to the current-state of the entire system. Inferring a Boolean network from a set of experimental data entails two main steps: first, the experimental time-series data are discretized into Boolean trajectories, and then, a Boolean network is learned from these Boolean trajectories. In this paper, we consider three methods for data discretization, including a new one we propose, and three methods for learning Boolean networks, and study the performance of all possible nine combinations on four regulatory systems of varying dynamics complexities. We find that employing the right combination of methods for data discretization and network learning results in Boolean networks that capture the dynamics well and provide predictive power. Our findings are in contrast to a recent survey that placed Boolean networks on the low end of the “faithfulness to biological reality” and “ability to model dynamics” spectra. Further, contrary to the common argument in favor of Boolean networks, we find that a relatively large number of time points in the time-series data is required to learn good Boolean networks for certain data sets. Last but not least, while methods have been proposed for inferring Boolean networks, as discussed above, missing still are publicly available implementations thereof. Here, we make our implementation of the methods available publicly in open source at http://bioinfo.cs. rice.edu/.
Markerless Visual Tracking for Augmented Books

An augmented book is an application that augments such multimedia elements as virtual 3D objects, movie clips, or sound clips to a real book using AR technologies. It is intended to bring additional education effects or amusement to users. For augmented books, this paper presents a markerless visual tracking method which recognizes the current page among numerous pages and estimates its 6 DOF pose in real-time. Given an input image by a camera, the tracking method first recognizes a page and performs wide-baseline keypoint matching at the same time. For that purpose,a generic randomized forest (GRF) is proposed which extends the randomized forest (RF) proposed by Lepetit et al. which only performs wide-baseline keypoint matching. The proposed GRF is capable of simultaneous page recognition and wide-baseline keypoint matching. Once a page is recognized, the tracking method executes the page tracking process without page recognition until the page is turned. The page tracking process selects a keyframe of the page adequate for tracking and employs a coarse-to-fine approach. As a result, the tracking method shows robustness to viewpoint and illumination variations and performance of more than 30 fps for augmented books.
Indirect food web interactions mediated by predator–rodent dynamics: relative roles of lemmings and voles

Production cycles in birds are proposed as prime cases of indirect interactions in food webs. They are thought to be driven by predators switching from rodents to bird nests in the crash phase of rodent population cycles. Although rodent cycles are geographically widespread and found in different rodent taxa, bird production cycles appear to be most profound in the high Arctic where lemmings dominate. We hypothesized that this may be due to arctic lemmings inducing stronger predator responses than boreal voles. We tested this hypothesis by estimating predation rates in dummy bird nests during a rodent cycle in low-Arctic tundra. Here, the rodent community consists of a spatially variable mix of one lemming (Lemmus lemmus) and two vole species (Myodes rufocanus and Microtus oeconomus) with similar abundances. In consistence with our hypothesis, lemming peak abundances predicted well crash-phase nest predation rates, whereas the vole abundances had no predictive ability. Corvids were found to be the most important nest predators. Lemmings appear to be accessible to the whole predator community which makes them particularly powerful drivers of food web dynamics.
New convergence results on the generalized Richardson extrapolation process GREP for logarithmic sequences

Let a(t) ∼ A + φ(t) Σi=0∞ βiti as t → 0+, where a(t) and φ(t) are known for 0 0, but A and the βi are not known. The generalized Richardson extrapolation process GREP(1) is used in obtaining good approximations to A, the limit or antilimit of a(t) as t → 0+. The approximations An(j) to A obtained via GREP(1) are defined by the linear systems a(tl) = An(j) + φ(tl) Σi=0n-1 β'itli, l=j,j+1,. ,j + n, where {tl}l=0∞ is a decreasing positive sequence with limit zero. The study of GREP(1) for slowly varying functions a(t) was begun in two recent papers by the author. For such a(t) we have φ(t) ∼ αtδ as t → 0+ with δ possibly complex and δ ≠ 0, -1, -2,. In the present work we continue to study the convergence and stability of GREP(1) as it is applied to such a(t) with different sets of collocation points tl that have been used in practical situations. In particular, we consider the cases in which (i) tl are arbitrary, (ii) liml→∞ tl+1/tl = 1, (iii) tl ∼ cl-q as l → ∞ for some c,q > 0, (iv) tl+1/tl ≤ ω ∈ (0, 1) for all l, (v) liml → ∞ tl+1/tl = ω ∈ (0, 1), and (vi) tl+1/tl= ω ∈ (0, 1) for all l.
Improving Domain Ontologies by Mining Semantics from Text

The creation and maintenance of domain ontologies is a costly and time-consuming task. With the advent of ontologies being used in many different fields of computer science, developing appropriate algorithms and methods to support or automatize ontology engineering have become an increasingly important goal. Hence, we present a connectionist approach to visualize semantic relations inherent in free-from text documents related to a specific domain. In particular, we exploit word co-occurrences to capture relatedness of words in order to generate numeric representations of the words' contexts. We use the self-organizing map, a well-known neural network model with unsupervised learning function, to map the high-dimensional data onto a two-dimensional representation for convenient browsing. This intuitive view on the domain vocabulary supports the construction and enrichment of domain ontologies by making relevant concepts and their relations evident. We underline this approach with an example from the tourism domain.
The STATIS Method

STATIS is a generalization of principal component analysis (PCA) whose goal is to analyze several sets of variables collected on the same set of observations. It is attributed to Escouffier (1980) and L’Hermier des Plantes (1976, see also Lavit et al., 1994), a related approach is known as procrustes matching by congruence coefficients in the English speaking community (Korth & Tucker, 1976). The goal of STATIS is 1) to compare and analyze the relationship between the different data sets, 2) to combine them into a common structure called a compromise which is then analyzed via PCA to reveal the common structure between the observations, and finally 3) to project each of the original data sets onto the compromise to analyze communalities and discrepancies. STATIS is used in very different domains such as sensory evaluation (e.g., Qannari et al., 1995; Schlich, 1996; Chaya et al., 2003), molecular imaging (Coquet et al., 1996) brain imaging (e.g., Kherif et al., 2003), ecology (Thioulouse et al.,), and chemometrics (Stanimirova et al., 2004).
A Constraint Solver for PHP Arrays

In previous works, we have proposed Praspel, a framework for contract-based testing in PHP. Among others, it includes a specification language and a unit test generator which automatically generates test data from formal preconditions. The generator sometimes rejects data, when they do not satisfy parts of the preconditions. In many cases, generation with rejection is not efficient enough. Thus we investigate practical contexts where more efficient generation algorithms can be designed and we extend Praspel with their implementation. After strings, that we have already considered, the most frequent data type in PHP is arrays. They cover most of the needs for collections, because they can store key-value pairs of any kind, they do not have a specific length or depth, and they are efficiently implemented. In this paper, we report on a study to know what are the most popular constraints on PHP arrays. Then we formalize these constraints and we present an implementation in PHP of a constraint solver for these constraints. In this context, the constraint-based approach removes all the rejections.
Lifestyle Changes in Young Adulthood and Middle Age and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease and All‐Cause Mortality: The Doetinchem Cohort Study

Background The associations between overall lifestyle profile and cardiovascular disease (CVD) and death have been mainly investigated in cross‐sectional studies. The full benefits of a healthy lifestyle may therefore be underestimated, and the magnitude of benefits associated with changes in lifestyle remains unclear. We quantified the association of changes in lifestyle profiles over 5 years with risk of CVD and all‐cause mortality. Methods and Results Lifestyle factors (ie, diet, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption) and body mass index were assessed and dichotomized as healthy/unhealthy among 5263 adults ages 26 to 66 in 1993–1997 and 5 years later (1998–2002). Multivariable‐adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated to quantify associations of change in lifestyle with fatal/nonfatal CVD and all‐cause mortality that occurred 8 to 15 years after 1998–2002. Independent of baseline lifestyles, each decrement in number of healthy lifestyle factors was, on average, associated with 35% higher risk of CVD (HR, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.12–1.63) and 37% higher risk of all‐cause mortality (HR, 1.37; 95% CI, 1.10–1.70); no association was noted with increase in the number of healthy lifestyle factors (P>0.5). Individuals who maintained 4 to 5 healthy lifestyle factors had 2.5 times lower risk of CVD (HR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.25–0.63) and all‐cause mortality (HR, 0.40; 95% CI, 0.22–0.73) than those who maintained only 0 to 1 healthy lifestyle factor. Conclusions Our findings suggest that the benefits of healthy lifestyles may be easier lost than gained over a 5‐year period. This underscores the need for efforts to promote maintenance of healthy lifestyles throughout the life course.