Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the metric distortion of nearest-neighbour graphs on random point sets

We study the graph constructed on a Poisson point process in $d$ dimensions by connecting each point to the $k$ points nearest to it. This graph a.s. has an infinite cluster if $k > k_c(d)$ where $k_c(d)$, known as the critical value, depends only on the dimension $d$. This paper presents an improved upper bound of 188 on the value of $k_c(2)$. We also show that if $k \geq 188$ the infinite cluster of $\NN(2,k)$ has an infinite subset of points with the property that the distance along the edges of the graphs between these points is at most a constant multiplicative factor larger than their Euclidean distance. Finally we discuss in detail the relevance of our results to the study of multi-hop wireless sensor networks.
Toward a Human Emotions Taxonomy (Based on Their Automatic vs. Reflective Origin)

Certain emotional processes “bypass the will” and even awareness, whereas others arise due to the deliberative evaluation of objects, states, and events. It is important to differentiate between the automatic versus reflective origins of emotional processes, and sensory versus conceptual bases of diverse negative and positive emotions. A taxonomy of emotions based on different origins is presented. This taxonomy distinguishes between negative and positive automatic versus reflective emotions. The automatic emotions are connected with the (a) homeostatic and (b) hedonistic regulatory mechanisms. The reflective emotions—uniquely human—are described in reference to deliberative processes and appraisals based on two types of conceptual and verbalized evaluative standards: (a) ideal self-standards and (b) general, axiological standards of good and evil.
Language acquisition and bilingualism: Consequences for a multilingual society

Language is the key interface between our social and cognitive worlds. As a social tool, it is the means by which human interactions occur, social position is determined, and educational opportunities are defined; as a cognitive instrument, it provides access to concepts and meanings, the logical system for problem solving, and creates the organizational basis for knowledge. It is not an accident that a significant portion of all developmental research is addressed to issues of language acquisition and language performance, that the primary focus of school curricula in the early years is on the language arts, and that an ongoing concern of parents is their children's language acquisition. Language has consequence. However, language acquisition occurs in a context, and differing environments are bound to influence the way language is learned and used by young children. Children growing up in bilingual environments will have different experiences than those who encounter only one language, and these differences may have a profound impact on children's social, cognitive, and linguistic development. Understanding how these linguistic environments affect children's development requires an examination of the interactions between the social and cognitive dimensions of development in different learning environments.
Transformation of Adaptation and Gain Rescaling along the Whisker Sensory Pathway

Neurons in all sensory systems have a remarkable ability to adapt their sensitivity to the statistical structure of the sensory signals to which they are tuned. In the barrel cortex, firing rate adapts to the variance of a whisker stimulus and neuronal sensitivity (gain) adjusts in inverse proportion to the stimulus standard deviation. To determine how adaptation might be transformed across the ascending lemniscal pathway, we measured the responses of single units in the first and last subcortical stages, the trigeminal ganglion (TRG) and ventral posterior medial thalamic nucleus (VPM), to controlled whisker stimulation in urethane-anesthetized rats. We probed adaptation using a filtered white noise stimulus that switched between low- and high-variance epochs. We found that the firing rate of both TRG and VPM neurons adapted to stimulus variance. By fitting the responses of each unit to a Linear-Nonlinear-Poisson model, we tested whether adaptation changed feature selectivity and/or sensitivity. We found that, whereas feature selectivity was unaffected by stimulus variance, units often exhibited a marked change in sensitivity. The extent of these sensitivity changes increased systematically along the pathway from TRG to barrel cortex. However, there was marked variability across units, especially in VPM. In sum, in the whisker system, the adaptation properties of subcortical neurons are surprisingly diverse. The significance of this diversity may be that it contributes to a rich population representation of whisker dynamics.
Cognitive Orthogonal Precoder for Two-Tiered Networks Deployment

In this work, the problem of cross-tier interference in a two-tiered (macro-cell and cognitive small-cells) network, under the complete spectrum sharing paradigm, is studied. A new orthogonal precoder transmit scheme for the small base stations, called multi-user Vandermonde-subspace frequency division multiplexing (MU-VFDM), is proposed. MU-VFDM allows several cognitive small base stations to coexist with legacy macro-cell receivers, by nulling the small- to macro-cell cross-tier interference, without any cooperation between the two tiers. This cleverly designed cascaded precoder structure, not only cancels the cross-tier interference, but avoids the co-tier interference for the small-cell network. The achievable sum-rate of the small-cell network, satisfying the interference cancelation requirements, is evaluated for perfect and imperfect channel state information at the transmitter. Simulation results for the cascaded MU-VFDM precoder show a comparable performance to that of state-of-the-art dirty paper coding technique, for the case of a dense cellular layout. Finally, a comparison between MU-VFDM and a standard complete spectrum separation strategy is proposed. Promising gains in terms of achievable sum-rate are shown for the two-tiered network w.r. t. the traditional bandwidth management approach.
Factors affecting adoption of e-government services: A conceptual model

Many African governments have invested significant amounts of capital in e-government initiatives. This is mainly due to recognised potentials of e-government to help improve public service delivery and accountability. While the majority of e-government services in the continent are targeted at citizens in general, not many studies have been done to help understand factors that impact on citizen’s willingness to adopt e-government services. The objective of this paper is to explore factors that can help explain adoption of e-government services in general and using the findings to develop a conceptual model that shows how the various factors work together to influence adoption of e-government services. The proposed model builds on the constructs of the Technology acceptance model (TAM) as proposed by Davis in 1986. The proposed model will assist governments to understand factors that need to be managed in order to ensure adoption of e-government services by ordinary citizens. Key words: E-government, perceived risk, degree of intrusiveness, technological support, technology acceptance model, citizen adoption.
Comparing the pain of propofol via different combinations of fentanyl, sufentanil or remifentanil in gastrointestinal endoscopy.

PURPOSE To evaluate the pain on injection of propofol via different combinations of fentanyl, sufentanil or remifentanil in gastrointestinal endoscopy. METHODS Total 439 patients were randomly allocated into 6 groups. Propofol & fentanil (PF) group received 1 μg/kg fentanyl, propofol & sufentanil (PS) group received 0.1 μg/kg sufentanil and propofol & remifentanyl (PR) group received 1 μg/kg remifentanyl prior to administration of 1-2 mg/kg of propofol. The propofol & half-fentanil (Pf) group, propofol & half-sufentanil (Ps) group and propofol & half-remifentanyl (Pr) group were given 0.5 μg/kg fentanyl, 0.05 μg/kg sufentanil and 0.5 μg/kg remifentanyl, respectively and later administrated 1-2 mg/kg propofol. All patients were monitored for the blood pressure (MAP), heart rate (HR), and oxygen saturation (SpO2). Additionally, the pain intensity was assessed using a 4-point verbal rating scale (VRS) by professional doctors. RESULTS The incidence of pain due to propofol injection in Ps group (33.8%) was significantly lower than other 5 groups. The heart rate (HR) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) were maintained within the normal limits in all six groups and there was no hypotension or bradycardia encountered during the study period. CONCLUSION Propofol and sufentanil group was the most suitable program for painless gastroscopy.
Design and Evaluation of Scalable Concurrent Queues for Many-Core Architectures

As core counts increase and as heterogeneity becomes more common in parallel computing, we face the prospect of programming hundreds or even thousands of concurrent threads in a single shared-memory system. At these scales, even highly-efficient concurrent algorithms and data structures can become bottlenecks, unless they are designed from the ground up with throughput as their primary goal. In this paper, we present three contributions: (1) a characterization of queue designs in terms of modern multi- and many-core architectures, (2) the design of a high-throughput, linearizable, blocking, concurrent FIFO queue for many-core architectures that avoids the bottlenecks and pitfalls common in modern queue designs, and (3) a thorough evaluation of concurrent queue throughput across CPU, GPU, and co-processor devices. Our evaluation shows that focusing on throughput, rather than progress guarantees, allows our queue to scale to as much as three orders of magnitude (1000x) faster than lock-free and combining queues on GPU platforms and two times (2x) faster on CPU devices. These results deliver critical insights into the design of data structures for highly concurrent systems: (1) progress guarantees do not guarantee scalability, and (2) allowing an algorithm to block can increase throughput.
arly warning signals of regime shifts from cross-scale connectivity of and-cover patterns

Increasing external pressures from human activities and climate change can lead to desertification, affecting the livelihood of more than 25% of the world’s population. Thus, determining proximity to transition to desertification is particularly central for arid regions before they may convert into deserts, and recent research has focused on devising early warning signals for anticipating such regime shifts. We here draw the attention to some emerging land-cover cross-scale patterns with a historical characteristic sequence of different regimes in arid or semi-arid Mediterranean regions that could indicate an impending transition to the tightening and extension of desertification processes. Inflexibility of land administration may, in turn, reinforce desertification processes, erode the resilience and promote regime shifts and collapse instead of the adaptability required to counter surprises due to climate change. Various theoretical studies have designated the increase in spatial connectivity as the leading indicator of early warning for an impending critical transition of regime shifts. We show that a potential way to address early warning signals of regime shifts to monitor and predict changes is to look at current land-cover regime within a simple framework for interpreting cross-scale spatial patterns. We provide examples of this approach for the Apulia region in southern Italy with desertification processes in place, and discuss what a crossscale land-cover pattern could mean, what it says about the condition of socio-ecological landscapes, and what could be the effects of changing observed conditions ought to, for instance, climate change. We took advantage of the rich information provided by cross-scale pattern analysis in the pattern transition space provided by classic neutral landscape models. We show potentially dramatic shifts of connectivity at low land-cover composition below certain thresholds, and suggest that the degree to which the observed pattern departs from a particular neutral model can indicate early warning signals of regime shifts, and how those landscapes might evolve/react to additional land-cover variation. Moreover, as the land-cover pattern mostly depends on social-economic factors, we argue that we have to change societal values at the root of inflexibility. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Sampling-Based Motion Planning Using Predictive Models

Robotic motion planning requires configuration space exploration. In high-dimensional configuration spaces, a complete exploration is computationally intractable. Practical motion planning algorithms for such high-dimensional spaces must expend computational resources in proportion to the local complexity of configuration space regions. We propose a novel motion planning approach that addresses this problem by building an incremental, approximate model of configuration space. The information contained in this model is used to direct computational resources to difficult regions, effectively addressing the narrow passage problem by adapting the sampling density to the complexity of that region. In addition, the expressiveness of the model permits predictive edge validations, which are performed based on the information contained in the model rather then by invoking a collision checker. Experimental results show that the exploitation of the information obtained through sampling and represented in a predictive model results in a significant decrease in the computational cost of motion planning.
Resonance within and between linguistic beings

Pickering & Garrod (P&G) deserve appreciation for their cogent argument that dialogue merits greater scientific consideration. Current models make little contact with behaviors of dialogue, motivating the interactive alignment theory. However, the theory is not truly “mechanistic. ” A full account requires both representations and processes bringing those representations into harmony. We suggest that Grossberg's (1980) adaptive resonance theory may naturally conform to the principles of dialogue.
Longest Prefix Match and updates in Range Tries

In this paper, we describe an IP-Lookup method for network routing. We extend the basic Range Trie data-structure to support Longest Prefix Match (LPM) and incremental updates. Range Tries improve on the existing Range Trees allowing shorter comparisons than the address width. In so doing, Range Tries scale better their lookup latency and memory requirements with the wider upcoming IPv6 addresses. However, as in Range Trees, a Range Trie does not inherently support LPM, while incremental updates have a performance and memory overhead. We describe the additions required to the basic Range Trie structure and its hardware design in order to store and dynamically update prefixes for supporting LPM. The proposed approach is prototyped in a Virtex4 FPGA and synthesized for 90-nm ASICs. Range Trie is evaluated using Internet Routing Tables and traces of updates. Supporting LPM roughly doubles the memory size of the basic Range Trie, which is still half compared to the second best related work. The proposed design performs one lookup per cycle and one prefix update every four cycles.
Gamma Oscillatory Firing Reveals Distinct Populations of Pyramidal Cells in the CA1 Region of the Hippocampus

Hippocampal place cells that fire together within the same cycle of theta oscillations represent the sequence of positions (movement trajectory) that a rat traverses on a linear track. Furthermore, it has been suggested that the encoding of these and other types of temporal memory sequences is organized by gamma oscillations nested within theta oscillations. Here, we examined whether gamma-related firing of place cells permits such discrete temporal coding. We found that gamma-modulated CA1 pyramidal cells separated into two classes on the basis of gamma firing phases during waking theta periods. These groups also differed in terms of their spike waveforms, firing rates, and burst firing tendency. During gamma oscillations one group's firing became restricted to theta phases associated with the highest gamma power. Consequently, on the linear track, cells in this group often failed to fire early in theta-phase precession (as the rat entered the place field) if gamma oscillations were present. The second group fired throughout the theta cycle during gamma oscillations, and maintained gamma-modulated firing at different stages of theta-phase precession. Our results suggest that the two different pyramidal cell classes may support different types of population codes within a theta cycle: one in which spike sequences representing movement trajectories occur across subsequent gamma cycles nested within each theta cycle, and another in which firing in synchronized gamma discharges without temporal sequences encode a representation of location. We propose that gamma oscillations during theta-phase precession organize the mnemonic recall of population patterns representing places and movement paths.
Schema Change Without Schema Therapy: The Role of Early Maladaptive Schemata for a Successful Treatment of Major Depression

Early maladaptive schemata (EMS) have repeatedly been shown to be associated with several psychopathological conditions, including depression. Schema therapy proposes interventions that aim at altering EMS. In the present study, we examined the effect of an integrative psychodynamic inpatient therapy without explicit focus on EMS in a sample with major depression. Forty-seven (38 female, 9 male) patients filled out the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R) and the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ) at the beginning and end of the treatment. Results revealed that EMS were significantly reduced in three out of five schema domains. Strong endorsement of EMS at the beginning of treatment tended to predict symptom reduction. More importantly, the reduction of symptom distress during treatment was strongly associated with a reduction in EMS of the schema domain Impaired Autonomy/Performance. We discuss that changes in EMS are highly relevant for changes in symptom distress but that EMS can not only be changed by schema therapy but also by other approaches, like psychodynamic therapy.
What Users Care About: A Framework for Social Content Alignment

With the rapid proliferation of social media, more and more people freely express their opinions (or comments) on news, products, and movies through online services such as forums, discussion groups, and microblogs. Those comments may be concerned with different aspects (topics) of the target Web document (e.g., a news page). It would be interesting to align the social comments to the corresponding subtopics contained in the Web document. In this paper, we propose a novel framework that is able to automatically detect the subtopics from a given Web document, and also align the associated social comments with the detected subtopics. This provides a new view of the Web standard document and its associated user generated content through topics, which facilitates the readers to quickly focus on those hot topics or grasp topics that they are interested in. Extensive experiments show that our proposed framework significantly outperforms the existing state-of-the-art methods in social content alignment.
Promoting pro-environmental attitudes and reported behaviors of Malaysian pre-service teachers using green chemistry experiments

Environmental degradation is a general problem but it is often more serious in developing nations where levels of awareness are lower than in industrialized countries. There is, therefore, a need particularly in developing countries to increase pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. In this paper, we report the results of a quasi-experimental study designed to change environmental attitudes and environmental behaviors among 263 science pre-service teachers. The treatment consisted in the form of a green chemistry curriculum. We found statistically reliable changes in environmental attitudes, as measured by the New Ecological Paradigm, and in eight self-reported environmental behaviors. The Bayesian t-test suggests that the evidence for the changes to have been the result of the green chemistry curriculum is decisive. We conclude that the green chemistry curriculum constitutes a suitable context: (a) for supporting pre-service teachers in their development of pro-environmental attitudes and (b) for changing the levels of self-reported pro-environmental actions.
Creating a self-rating instrument for second language writing: from idea to implementation

This article reports on the development of a self-rating instrument for writing. The instrument engages learners in responding to a writing task and assessing their own proficiency against a set of benchmarks. The technical and conceptual framework for the instrument is the DIALANG project, a diagnostic language assessment system for 14 languages on the internet. The report comprises a description of the self-rating procedure, an account of instrument development, a report on a usability study with six learners of Finnish as a second language, and our test-developer analysis of the process and products of the self-rating instrument. The data consists of records of task and benchmark development, participant background data, the texts that the learners wrote, video recordings of their screen actions during the self-rating process, immediate retrospective interviews with the learners, and teacher ratings of the learner texts. The discussion concentrates on the concepts that underlie the self-rating process and the potential offered by this approach for the learning, teaching, and assessment of second language writing.
Is Intention to Return a Valid Proxy for Actual Repeat Visitation?

Intention to return is often used as a surrogate measure for actual repeat propensity, especially in loyalty studies. A direct, predictive correlation is assumed to exist between intention and actual repeat visitation rates in accordance with the principles of the theory of planned behavior. However, the existence of such a relationship has rarely if ever been tested empirically in a tourism context, and as such, the validity of this assumption is open to question. This article examines that relationship through an analysis of secondary data provided by a number of National Tourism Organizations. Two tests are conducted, one using longitudinal data from 30 markets that visited either Hong Kong or New Zealand, and a second one using cross-sectional data from 152 markets that visited 16 destinations. The study determined that no statistically significant correlation exists between intention and actual repeat visitation rates, primarily because intention is typically measured as a vague aspiration and not in a probabilistic manner.