Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Between a rock and a hard place of geopolitically sensitive threats – critical incidents and decision inertia

ABSTRACT While the SAFE-T model of decision making emphasizes naturalistic decision making, its potential for cross-comparative analysis of incidents with global implications remains underutilized, which the current paper aims to address. To this end, it draws upon open-source reports from unclassified American, British and Russian intelligence reports to explore the management of three types of 10 high-profile geopolitically sensitive threats from across the globe (verifying potential terrorist identity, hostage rescue and national/international security). Defining features of such incidents include decision makers’ ability to prospectively model competing scenarios in which they must select between options and where every outcome looks aversive and high risk (‘damned if you do or damned if you don’t decisions’). A frequent consequence of such calculations is ‘decision inertia’ (a failure to execute an important, irrevocable decision resulting in non-optimal consequences), or ‘implementation failure’ (a failure to make a choice). Combining the benefit of the theoretical framework and hindsight knowledge of the analyzed incidents, the paper facilitates theoretical understanding of decision inertia and failures to act. Encouraging the consideration of multiple scenario endings contingent on a wide spectrum of factors and unique cultural-historical context, it also helps identify past decision errors in order to inform assessment and management of similar geopolitical threats in the future.
Satisfaction with Internet-Based Services: A Longitudinal Study

Satisfaction has been studied extensively in information systems. Most studies, however, focused on specific system characteristics, providing very little understanding of the process of satisfaction formation. Furthermore, very little is known about the evolution of satisfaction over time, as most previous studies were cross-sectional, implicitly assuming satisfaction to be static. In this research, we address these problems. We develop, operationalize, and empirically test a model that provides a better understanding of customer satisfaction formation in the context of Internet-based services. We also predict/explain the evolution of satisfaction over time from the stage of adoption of Internet-based services to the post-usage stage.
Importance Sampling and Adjoint Hybrid Methods in Monte Carlo Transport with Reflecting Boundaries

Adjoint methods form a class of importance sampling methods that are used to accelerate Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of transport equations. Ideally, adjoint methods allow for zero-variance MC estimators provided that the solution to an adjoint transport equation is known. Hybrid methods aim at (i) approximately solving the adjoint transport equation with a deterministic method; and (ii) use the solution to construct an unbiased MC sampling algorithm with low variance. The problem with this approach is that both steps can be prohibitively expensive. In this paper, we simplify steps (i) and (ii) by calculating only parts of the adjoint solution. More specifically, in a geometry with limited volume scattering and complicated reflection at the boundary, we consider the situation where the adjoint solution “neglects” volume scattering, whereby significantly reducing the degrees of freedom in steps (i) and (ii). A main application for such a geometry is in remote sensing of the environment using physics-based signal models. Volume scattering is then incorporated using an analog sampling algorithm (or more precisely a simple modification of analog sampling called a heuristic sampling algorithm) in order to obtain unbiased estimators. In geometries with weak volume scattering (with a domain of interest of size comparable to the transport mean free path), we demonstrate numerically significant variance reductions and speed-ups (figures of merit).
Extracting interesting association rules from toolbar data

Toolbar navigation logs provide rich data for enhancing information discovery on the Web. The value of this data resides in its scope, which goes beyond that of traditional query-mining data sources, such as search-engine logs. In this paper we present a methodology for extracting relevant association rules for queries, based on historic user navigational data. In addition, we propose a graph-based approach for extracting related queries and URLs for a given query.
Throughput analysis of hybrid single-packet and multiple-packet truncated type-II HARQ strategies with unreliable feedback channel

In this paper, we investigate different HARQ strategies with unreliable feedback channel. In classical approaches, retransmitted packets are different versions of the same user data. In order to improve HARQ performance, we propose to construct redundancy packets by jointly encoding several data packets. This strategy is referred to as HARQ Multiple Packet Incremental Redundancy (MP-IR). It can eliminate imperfect feedback effect on performance at medium to high Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) values. On the other hand, classical HARQ Single Packet Incremental Redundancy (SP-IR) strategy is more robust at low SNR. This motivates us to introduce a hybrid SP-IR and MP-IR strategy. This strategy can benefit from SP-IR performance at low SNR and MP-IR performance at medium to high SNR. The throughput of the different schemes is analyzed using renewal theory and an appropriate Markov model representation. Simulation results confirming the proposed throughput analysis are also presented.
The Physiology of Apple Pre-harvest Fruit Drop

As apples ripen they begin to produce large amounts of the ripening hormone, ethylene. Ethylene stimulates fruit softening and the formation of an abscission zone in the stem. Ethylene stimulates the production of enzymes (cellulase and polyglacturonase) that break down the cell walls and the glue that holds cell walls together in the abscission zone of the stem, leaving the fruit connected to the tree by only the vascular strands, which are easily broken.
You Sound So Down: Capturing Depressed Affect Through Depressed Language

We present a new composite indicator of depressed language and examine its utility to capture depressed affect among three nonclinical samples. Depressed individuals use more first person singular pronouns, more negatively valenced words, and fewer positively valenced words. Building on this previous research, we hypothesize that individuals under conditions of chronic or acute stress, a psychological state likely to evoke depressed affect, will evidence increased use of depressed language when compared with those not under stress. Across three studies examining different populations (university faculty, undergraduate college women, and gay men) using multiple markers of stress (perceived stress, stress appraisals, blood pressure), we find that depressed language is consistently positively associated with both acute and chronic stress. Our findings suggest that this measure of depressed language may serve as a useful tool for identifying depressed affect for both practitioners and researchers.
Evidence for a neuroprotective microRNA pathway in amnestic mild cognitive impairment

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) that regulate mRNA stability have been linked to amyloid production, tau phosphorylation, and inflammation in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, whether cerebral miRNA networks are dysregulated during the earliest stages of AD remains underexplored. We performed miRNA expression analysis using frontal cortex tissue harvested from subjects who died with a clinical diagnosis of no cognitive impairment (NCI), amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI, a putative prodromal AD stage), or mild AD. Analysis revealed that the miRNA clusters miR-212/132 and miR-23a/23b were down-regulated in the frontal cortex of aMCI subjects. Both miR-212/132 and miR23a/b are predicted to destabilize the message for sirtuin 1 (sirt1); hence, down-regulation of either miR-212/132 or miR-23a/b in frontal cortex should promote sirt1 mRNA expression in this region. qPCR studies revealed that frontal cortex levels of sirt1 were increased in aMCI. Given the ability of frontal cortex to respond to the onset of dementia by neuronal reorganization, these data suggest that miRNA-mediated up-regulation of the sirt1 pathway represents a compensatory response to the onset of the disease. By contrast, qPCR analysis of inferior temporal cortex, an area affected early in the progression of AD, showed no changes in miR-212/132, miR-23a/b, or sirt1 transcripts in the same aMCI subjects. In vitro mechanistic studies showed that coordinated down-regulation of miR-212 and miR-23a increased sirt1 protein expression and provided neuroprotection from β-amyloid toxicity in human neuronal cells. Taken together, these data suggest a novel miRNA-mediated neuroprotective pathway activated during the progression of AD that may be amenable to therapeutic manipulation.
is part of a running Theme Series entitled ‘ Interaction : Talk and Beyond ’ , which explores non-verbal dimensions of talk in interaction . A full

As the study of embodiment and multimodality in interaction grows in importance, there is a need for novel methodological approaches to understand how multimodal variables pattern together along social and contextual lines, and how they systematically coalesce in communicative meanings. In this work, we propose to adopt computational tools to generate replicable annotations of bodily variables: these can be examined statistically to understand their patterning with other variables across diverse speakers and interactional contexts, and can help organize qualitative analyses of large datasets. We demonstrate the possibilities thereby with a case study in head cant (side-to-side tilt of the head) in a dataset of video blogs and laboratory-collected interactions, computationally extracting cant and prosody from video and audio and analyzing their interactions, looking at gender in particular. We find that head cant indexes an orientation towards the interlocutor and a sense of shared understanding, can serve a ‘bracketing’ function in interaction (for speakers to create parentheticals or asides), and has gendered associations with prosodic markers and interactional discourse particles.
On the Transition Improvement of EV or HEV Induction Motor Propulsion Sensor Fault-Tolerant Controller

This technical paper deals with the transition performance improvement of a sensor fault-tolerant controller devoted to Electric (EV) or Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV). Indeed, improvements are brought over a previously developed technique that exhibit abrupt changes in the torque if a sensor fault is detected and after a transition from a control technique to another one [1]. The Fault-Tolerant Control (FTC) system firstly concerns the sliding mode control technique since better performances are obtained with an encoder to get the speed information. In the event of unavailability of the speed sensor, a sensorless fuzzy control technique is applied. In the proposed active fault-tolerant control approach a short and a smooth transition are achieved from the encoder-based control technique to the sensorless one using an appropriate fuzzy logic decision approach.
A Unified Probabilistic Approach to Error Concealment for Distributed Speech Recognition

The transmission errors in a wireless or packet oriented network may dramatically decrease the performance of a distributed speech recognition DSR) system. Error concealment has been shown to be an effective way to mantain an acceptable word error rate when dealing with error prone communication channels. In this paper we propose an extension of our previously introduced soft features approach for the case that the soft-output of the channel decoder is not available at the server side of the DSR system. We found a simple method to estimate bit reliability information which still gives good speech recognition results. It is shown that some other error concealment schemes turn out to be special cases of the method proposed here.
Self-Care for Helping Professionals: Students' Perceived Stress, Coping Self-Efficacy, and Subjective Experiences

Little has been published regarding BSW students' perceived stress, coping self-efficacy, and self-care. A preexperimental study, with one qualitative question, was used to determine the effects of a self-care course on students' perceived stress scores (PSS), coping self-efficacy scores (CSES), and subjective experiences. Nineteen undergraduate students participated. Mean age of participants was 25, 90% were female, and most were Caucasian. The average CSES was 161.42 (SD=41.57) at pretest and 180.72 (SD=34.97) at posttest. A statistically significant difference in mean scores was found (t=−2.109, p=.05). The average PSS was 17.58 (SD=8.50) at pretest and 14.83 (SD=5.607) at posttest. Students' subjective experiences with the course were positive, and 79% noted that their understanding of self-care changed. Despite the small sample and lack of diversity, the study's contribution is noteworthy. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of a 3-credit course on self-care for B.
Bypassing Network Flooding Attacks using FastPass

We describe the design and implementation of FastPass, a next-generation network architecture that thwarts bandwidth flooding attacks by providing destinations with finegrained control over their upstream network capacity. Prior attempts to achieve network flood resilience have required destinations to successfully receive an initial unprotected packet (capability-based designs) or have relied upon global cooperation (filtering-based designs). FastPass requires neither. Instead, it allows destinations to distribute cryptographic availability tokens to potential senders that instruct routers to prioritize a limited rate of traffic from the sender in the case of network congestion. In contrast to prior architectures, we show that availability tokens provide two highly desirable DoS resilience properties: (1) hosts capable of identifying legitimate users can quickly communicate regardless of the size of the attack directed against them; and (2) hosts unable to differentiate between legitimate and malicious senders can strictly limit the ability of attackers to overwhelm incoming network capacity.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 env Clones from Acute and Early Subtype B Infections for Standardized Assessments of Vaccine-Elicited Neutralizing Antibodies

ABSTRACT Induction of broadly cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies is a high priority for AIDS vaccine development but one that has proven difficult to be achieved. While most immunogens generate antibodies that neutralize a subset of T-cell-line-adapted strains of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), none so far have generated a potent, broadly cross-reactive response against primary isolates of the virus. Even small increments in immunogen improvement leading to increases in neutralizing antibody titers and cross-neutralizing activity would accelerate vaccine development; however, a lack of uniformity in target strains used by different investigators to assess cross-neutralization has made the comparison of vaccine-induced antibody responses difficult. Thus, there is an urgent need to establish standard panels of HIV-1 reference strains for wide distribution. To facilitate this, full-length gp160 genes were cloned from acute and early subtype B infections and characterized for use as reference reagents to assess neutralizing antibodies against clade B HIV-1. Individual gp160 clones were screened for infectivity as Env-pseudotyped viruses in a luciferase reporter gene assay in JC53-BL (TZM-bl) cells. Functional env clones were sequenced and their neutralization phenotypes characterized by using soluble CD4, monoclonal antibodies, and serum samples from infected individuals and noninfected recipients of a recombinant gp120 vaccine. Env clones from 12 R5 primary HIV-1 isolates were selected that were not unusually sensitive or resistant to neutralization and comprised a wide spectrum of genetic, antigenic, and geographic diversity. These reference reagents will facilitate proficiency testing and other validation efforts aimed at improving assay performance across laboratories and can be used for standardized assessments of vaccine-elicited neutralizing antibodies.
The Children’s Developmental Play Instrument (CDPI): An Extended Validity Study

ABSTRACT This is an extended construct validity study of the Children’s Developmental Play Instrument (CDPI), a multidimensional scale to measure play activity among mainstream children based on the psychoanalytic concepts of coping and defensive strategies. The sample included 160 children. Ten-minute videotapes were collected of children between the ages of 1.3 years and 8.5 years at play. The foci of this extended study were six “core” variables comprising the functional level of the CDPI consisting of the following scales: play engagement, symbolic functioning, adaptive play style, inhibited/conflicted play style, impulsive/aggressive play style, and disorganized play style. Good to excellent reliability was achieved by ratings of two independent raters. Regression analysis revealed the five predictors, as a set, were very strong correlates of adaptive play style. Component analysis reduced the six core functional variables to two components clarifying the relationships between the six core variables as organized along two continuums. One continuum is discussed to briefly illustrate the structure of play styles reflected in the play activity of one child.
Microphone Arrays for Acoustic Detection during Laser Welding of Cold-Rolled Steel Strip

In order to achieve the quality control for the cold-rolled steel strip, it was required to monitor the laser welding processing. Acoustic signal detecting based on microphone is wildly applied in the welding processing. However, traditionally single microphone was limited by hostile background noise in the realistic industry environment. In this paper, a microphone array consisting of 7 microphones was employed to sample the acoustic signal generated by the laser welding. In order to reduce the background noise and extract the clean welding acoustic signal, the Constant Modulus Algorithm was used to the array beam former. Meanwhile, power spectrum density estimation and wavelet packet transform methods were applied to analyze the original acoustic signal and the beam former output signal. By comparing the two signals, it was obviously shown that the beam former output signal could effectively reduce the power spectrum density of the background noise at lower frequency bands. And the energy contribution was concentrated in the 15 kHz frequency range. Meanwhile, the frequency characteristic of the acoustic signal during the penetration welding processing by the modulated laser beam was explained.
Blood Pressure Response to Submaximal Exercise Test in Adults

Background. The assessment of blood pressure (BP) response during exercise test is an important diagnostic instrument in cardiovascular system evaluation. The study aim was to determine normal values of BP response to submaximal, multistage exercise test in healthy adults with regard to their age, gender, and workload. Materials and Methods. The study was conducted in randomly selected normotensive subjects (n = 1015), 512 females and 498 males, aged 18–64 years (mean age 42.1 ± 12.7 years) divided into five age groups. All subjects were clinically healthy with no chronic diseases diagnosed. Exercise stress tests were performed using Monark bicycle ergometer until a minimum of 85% of physical capacity was reached. BP was measured at rest and at peak of each exercise test stage. Results. The relations between BP, age, and workload during exercise test were determined by linear regression analysis and can be illustrated by the equations: systolic BP (mmHg) = 0.346 × load (W) + 135.76 for males and systolic BP (mmHg) = 0.103 × load (W) + 155.72 for females. Conclusions. Systolic BP increases significantly and proportionally to workload increase during exercise test in healthy adults. The relation can be described by linear equation which can be useful in diagnostics of cardiovascular diseases.
The Response to Rural-to-Urban Migration and Other Life Stressors in Shanghai: Effects on Physical and Psychological Well-Being Among Parents of Young Children

This study examined the association between rural-to-urban migration in combination with other stressful life events and levels of depression and physical well-being in parents of first-grade children in Shanghai China (n = 2,077). The study also explored the buffering effects of resources previously identified in prior studies, such as socioeconomic status, social support, and marital satisfaction. Respondents who had migrated were found to have the highest levels of depression and physical ailments, particularly in combination with having experienced other stressful life events. Family socioeconomic status and social support were found to moderate the consequences of migration and other stressful life events on individuals’ psychological and physical well-being. Although marital satisfaction was related to physical and psychological well-being, it had no moderating role for individuals who had migrated from rural areas to Shanghai. Implications for practice and policy as well as future research directions are discussed.
Essential role for the TRF2 telomere protein in adult skin homeostasis

TRF2 is a component of shelterin, the protein complex that protects the ends of mammalian chromosomes. TRF2 is essential for telomere capping owing to its roles in suppressing an ATM‐dependent DNA damage response (DDR) at chromosome ends and inhibiting end‐to‐end chromosome fusions. Mice deficient for TRF2 are early embryonic lethal. However, the role of TRF2 in later stages of development and in the adult organism remains largely unaddressed, with the exception of liver, where TRF2 was found to be dispensable for maintaining tissue function. Here, we study the impact of TRF2 conditional deletion in stratified epithelia by generating the TRF2∆/∆‐K5‐Cre mouse model, which targets TRF2 deletion to the skin from embryonic day E11.5. In marked contrast to TRF2 deletion in the liver, TRF2∆/∆‐K5‐Cre mice show lethality in utero reaching 100% lethality perinataly. At the molecular and cellular level, TRF2 deletion provokes induction of an acute DDR at telomeres, leading to activation of p53 signaling pathways and to programed cell death since the time of Cre expression at E11.5. Unexpectedly, neither inhibition of the NHEJ pathway by abrogation of 53BP1 nor inhibition of DDR by p53 deficiency rescued these severe phenotypes. Instead, TRF2 deletion provokes an extensive epidermal cell death accompanied by severe inflammation already at E16.5 embryos, which are independent of p53. These results are in contrast with conditional deletion of TRF1 and TPP1 in the skin, where p53 deficiency rescued the associated skin phenotypes, highlighting the comparatively more essential role of TRF2 in skin homeostasis.