Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
East German women in management

Purpose – To address the research gap on East German women managers and to examine some of the experiences of post‐socialist East German women who entered management positions during 1990s. The discussion focuses on the nature of women's commitment to career and organisation.Design/methodology/approach – The study presented adopts a methodology based on a qualitative approach, the grounded theory approach as developed by Glaser. One‐to‐one, semi‐structured interviews were carried out in 2000 with 24 East German women managers and five human resource managers in eight companies located in Eastern Germany, headquartered in Western Germany.Findings – The case of post‐socialist East German women managers shows that gender can in fact become secondary criterion in employing women managers. It was revealed that opportunities for advancement were greater for East German female managers than West German managers due to the existence of childcare and women's programmes. The support structures, however, are current.
Possessions and the Extended Self

Our possessions are a major contributor to and reflection of our identities. A variety of evidence is presented supporting this simple and compelling premise. Related streams of research are identified and drawn upon in developing this concept and implications are derived for consumer behavior. Because the construct of extended self involves consumer behavior rather than buyer behavior, it appears to be a much richer construct than previous formulations positing a relationship between self-concept and consumer brand choice.
Experimental Analysis of Features for Replay Attack Detection - Results on the ASVspoof 2017 Challenge

This paper presents an experimental comparison of different features for the detection of replay spooﬁng attacks in Automatic Speaker Veriﬁcation systems. We evaluate the proposed countermeasures using two recently introduced databases, including the dataset provided for the ASVspoof 2017 challenge. This challenge provides researchers with a common framework for the evaluation of replay attack detection systems, with a particular focus on the generalization to new, unknown conditions (for instance, replay devices different from those used during system training). Our cross–database experiments show that, although achieving this level of generalization is indeed a challenging task, it is possible to train classiﬁers that exhibit stable and consistent results across different experiments. The proposed approach for the ASVspoof 2017 challenge consists in the score–level fusion of several base classiﬁers using logistic regression. These base classiﬁers are 2–class Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs) representing genuine and spoofed speech respectively. Our best system achieves an Equal Error Rate of 10 . 52% on the challenge evaluation set. As a result of this set of experiments, we provide some general conclusions regarding feature extraction for replay attack detection and identify which features show the most promising results.
The minimal group paradigm: Categorization into two versus three groups

The minimal group paradigm (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy and Flament, 1971) has been influential in the study of intergroup relations. Thus far, most minimal group experiments have divided the subjects either into two groups, or have categorized them on two separate dichotomous dimensions in cross-categorization experiments. This study examines the minimal group paradigm using three distinct and independent groups. Comparison of the results with three minimal groups with those of a baseline two-group experiment shows that with a three-group structure there is no significant ingroup bias. It is suggested that the two-group minimal group experiment shows ingroup bias because subjects access a dichotomous categorization, and that this dichotomous categorization primes a competitive orientation. A two-group context may be particularly efective in evoking an ‘us versus them’ contrast. Self-categorization as a group member is more likely to occur in the presence of two groups whereas three minimal groups renders an ‘us–them’ contrastive orientation less salient. The absence of intergroup discrimination found in the present minimal group study may be limited to the behaviour of minimal or artificially created groups. In the real world of intergroup relations discrimination towards multiple outgroups is a well-known phenomenon. While this study should be regarded as only preliminary research, further elaboration and specification of the conditions under which multiple group contexts may hinder intergroup discrimination is required.
In Vitro Fertilization and Development of Porcine Oocytes Matured in Follicular Fluid

Abstract This study was conducted to assess the fertilization and development of porcine oocytes matured in a solo follicular fluid (pFF) using different in vitro culture systems and insemination periods. Cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs), follicular cells (FCs), and pFF were collected from the follicles of ovaries. The pFF was used as a maturation medium (MpFF) after supplementation with follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and antibiotics. The COCs were matured in a 15 ml test tube containing 3.5 ml of MpFF with FCs (5.2 × 106 cells/ml; rotating culture system) or 2 ml of MpFF without FCs in a 35-mm petri dish (static culture system) for 44 to 48 h. After maturation culture, oocytes were co-incubated with frozen-thawed spermatozoa for 5 h and then cultured for 7 days. The total mean rates of sperm penetration, normal fertilization, male pronucleus (MPN) formation, cleavage, and development to the blastocyst stage of oocytes after insemination were significantly higher (P<0.01) in the rotating culture system than in the static culture system. In conclusion, compared with the static culture system, the rotating culture system is adequate for the production of developmentally competent porcine oocytes when MpFF is used as a maturation medium.
Underperformance in primary schools

In some primary schools, the average performance of pupils over several years is significantly below the level that could be expected of these pupils. There are several theories for this phenomenon, known as underperformance. Theory on opportunity to learn predicts that pupils in underperforming schools are not given sufficient opportunity to attain the minimum objectives of the curriculum. Contingency theory predicts that activities of principals, teachers, and school boards mediate insufficiently between the educational process and situational factors. The compensation hypothesis predicts that schools in disadvantaged areas first have to compensate for the fact that their pupils lag behind and provide for their basic needs before they can work on structural improvement of educational processes. The additivity hypothesis predicts that schools in disadvantaged areas have a higher risk of low output, even after correcting for social and economic background. Evidence can be found in support of each of these theories and hypotheses.
Graph-Based Iterative Hybrid Feature Selection

When the number of labeled examples is limited, traditional supervised feature selection techniques often fail due to sample selection bias or unrepresentative sample problem. To solve this, semi-supervised feature selection techniques exploit the statistical information of both labeled and unlabeled examples in the same time. However, the results of semi-supervised feature selection can be at times unsatisfactory, and the culprit is on how to effectively use the unlabeled data. Quite different from both supervised and semi-supervised feature selection, we propose a ldquohybridrdquoframework based on graph models. We first apply supervised methods to select a small set of most critical features from the labeled data. Importantly, these initial features might otherwise be missed when selection is performed on the labeled and unlabeled examples simultaneously. Next,this initial feature set is expanded and corrected with the use of unlabeled data. We formally analyze why the expected performance of the hybrid framework is better than both supervised and semi-supervised feature selection. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms both traditional supervised and state-of-the-art semi-supervised feature selection algorithms by at least 10% inaccuracy on a number of text and biomedical problems with thousands of features to choose from. Software and dataset is available from the authors.
Time-Series Data Analysis Using Sliding Window Based SVD for Motion Evaluation

A method based on singular value decomposition (SVD) is proposed for extracting features from motion time-series data observed with various sensing systems. Matrices consisting of the sliding window (SW) subsets of time-series data are decomposed, yielding singular vectors as the patterns of the motion, and the singular values as a scalar, by which the corresponding singular vectors describe the matrices. The sliding window based singular value decomposition was applied to analyze acceleration during walking. Three levels of walking difficulty were simulated by restricting the right knee joint in the measurement. The accelerations of the middles of the shanks and the back of the waist were measured and normalized before the SW-SVD was performed.The results showed that the first singular values inferred from the acceleration data of the restricted side (the right shank) significantly related to the increase of the restriction among all the subjects while there were no common trends in the singular values of the left shank and the waist. The SW-SVD was suggested to be a reliable method to evaluate walking disability. Furthermore, a 2D visualization tool is proposed to provide intuitive information about walking difficulty which can be used in walking rehabilitation to monitor recovery.
CCL2, CCL3 and CCL4 gene polymorphisms in pulmonary tuberculosis patients of South India

Polymorphisms in chemokine genes are important to determine the host–pathogen interactions which influence the chemokine levels. This study was carried out to find whether various CC chemokine gene polymorphisms, located in the promoter, exon‐2 and intron‐1 regions are associated with susceptibility or resistance to pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) in south Indian population. The polymorphisms in various CC chemokine genes, MCP‐1 (CCL2) [−2518A/G, 903C/T], MIP‐1α (CCL3) [−2021C/T, +740A/G] and MIP‐1β (CCL4) [−5725A/C] were studied in 295 healthy controls (HCs) and 303 patients with PTB using polymerase chain reaction‐based restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR‐RFLP). The allele and genotype frequencies of CCL2, CCL3 and CCL4 were not different between HCs and patients with PTB. However, a significantly decreased frequency of CCL2 −2518GG genotype was observed in male patients with PTB [P value = 0.015, P corrected (Bonferroni correction) Pc = 0.045, odds ratio (OR) 0.43 95% CI (0.21–0.86)], and a significantly increased frequency of the same genotype was observed among female patients with PTB [P value = 0.049, Pc = 0.147, OR 2.28 95% CI (1.00–5.27)]. The results suggest that −2518GG genotype may be associated with protection in males and susceptibility to PTB in females. Moreover, we also observed differences in the haplotype frequencies of these chemokine genes between HCs and patients with PTB. However, these polymorphisms are not associated with disease independently, probably in combination with other genes, they may be associated with susceptibility or resistance to TB in south Indian population.
Characterizing speech utterances for speaker verification with sequence kernel SVM

Support vector machine (SVM) equipped with sequence kernel has been proven to be a powerful technique for speaker verification. A number of sequence kernels have been recently proposed, each being motivated from different perspectives with diverse mathematical derivations. Analytical comparison of kernels becomes difficult. To facilitate such comparisons, we propose a generic structure showing how different levels of cues conveyed by speech utterances, ranging from low-level acoustic features to highlevel speaker cues, are being characterized within a sequence kernel. We then identify the similarities and differences between the popular generalized linear discriminant sequence (GLDS) and GMM supervector kernels, as well as our own probabilistic sequence kernel (PSK). Furthermore, we enhance the PSK in terms of accuracy and computational complexity. The enhanced PSK gives competitive accuracy with the other two kernels. Fusing all the three kernels yields an EER of 4.83% on the 2006 NIST SRE core test.
EvoSuite: automatic test suite generation for object-oriented software

To find defects in software, one needs test cases that execute the software systematically, and oracles that assess the correctness of the observed behavior when running these test cases. This paper presents EvoSuite, a tool that automatically generates test cases with assertions for classes written in Java code. To achieve this, EvoSuite applies a novel hybrid approach that generates and optimizes whole test suites towards satisfying a coverage criterion. For the produced test suites, EvoSuite suggests possible oracles by adding small and effective sets of assertions that concisely summarize the current behavior; these assertions allow the developer to detect deviations from expected behavior, and to capture the current behavior in order to protect against future defects breaking this behavior.
A Catalog of Techniques that Predict Information about the Count or Rate of Field Defects

The Gamma modeling technique is a finite SRGM-based modeling technique. Prior w ork uses this technique to fit a SRGM based on the Gamma function using software process metrics that measure development defects and then uses the fitted model to make predictions. The cost of use of this technique is lower than typical. Overview Inputs • The occurrence time of each development defect or the defect count in each time interval during development Outputs • The predicted field defect rate Model This technique adjusts the and model parameters of the SRGM based on the Gamma function so that the SRGM describes the observed development defect information. Two mathematically equivalent forms of the SRGM, which are used to describe the f i ld defect rate and the field defect count, are: Field defect rate (for the t-th time interval) = t te β αβ − 2 , and Field defect count (aggregated from time 0 to time t) = ) ) 1 ( 1 ( t e t β β α − + − . The parameter roughly determines the scale of the model, and the parameter roughly determines the shape of the model. Gamma functions, which are used to predict the fiel d defect rate, and Gamma cumulative functions, which are used to predict the fie ld de ect count, with sample parameter values are in figures 1 and 2.
Does an observer belong in physics?

In this paper we comment on the opinions of great philosophers from various epochs on the relationship between computers and the human mind. We ponder over whether we might be able to gain an understanding of the human mind and a perception of the world from the scientific point of view. We focus on the relationship between these two issues.
The Stock Market and Investment

Changes in real stock-market prices have a lot of explanatory value of the growth rate of U.S. aggregate business investment, especially for long samples that begin in 1891 or 1921. Moreover, for the period since 1921 where data on a q-type variable are available, the stock market dramatically outperforms q. The change in real stock prices also retains its predictive value in the presence of a cash-flow variable, such as after-tax corporate profits. Basically similar results apply to Canadian investment, except that the U.S. stock market turns out to have move predictive power than the Canadian market. I discuss some possible explanations for this puzzling finding, but none of the explanations seem all that convincing.
EDUCATION AND AGE-RELATED COGNITIVE DECLINE: THE CONTRIBUTION OF MENTAL WORKLOAD

Few studies have examined why, in most reports, low education is related to accelerated cognitive decline in middle and old age. Intellectual abilities - whether or not innate - and the mental stimulation provided by the educational process itself are frequently hypothesized to be the most relevant mechanisms. Work characteristics, such as the mental workload of a job, may be another mechanism, as these may also be related to educational level. Moreover, these are more amenable to modification than intellectual abilities. First longitudinal data from the Maastricht Aging Study (MAAS) among 708 men and women aged 50 to 80 in 1993-1995 were used to quantify the contribution of adult mental workload to the associationbetween educational level and age-related cognitive decline. In the 3-year follow-up, persons with a low educational level experienced more decline in cognitive function (information processing speed, memory, and general cognitive function according to the Mini-Mental State Examination) compared to persons with a high educational level. The low prevalence of mental stimuli and challenges at work among the poorly educated subjects explained about 42% of this association. The contribution was independent of crystallized intellectual abilities and was similar across measures of cognitive function. Our findings indicate that the gap in the risk of age-related cognitive decline between the poorly and highly educated persons may be substantially narrowed by increasing work-related mental stimuli and challenges among the poorly educated subjects.
Fully Distributed Algorithms for Minimum Delay Routing Under Heavy Traffic

We study a minimum delay routing problem in the context of distributed networks with and without partial load information. Even though a general minimum delay routing problem is NP hard, assuming uniformly distributed K source-destination (SD) pairs at random, we provide a lower bound on the average delay and demonstrate by simulation that it is tight for a certain classes of regularly deployed networks. We also show that some routing in a distributed manner is enough to achieve asymptotically optimal load balancing with high probability as K tends to infinity. In order to set such routing, however, each SD pair should know global load information, which is unrealistic for most networks. We propose novel predetermined path routing algorithms in which each SD pair chooses its routing path only among a set of predetermined paths. We then propose an efficient way of distributed construction for predetermined paths that are able to distribute traffic over a network. Our predetermined path routing algorithms work in a fully distributed manner with very limited load information or without any load information. In various network models, we demonstrate by simulation that the delay of the predetermined path routing algorithms quickly converges to that of the distributed routing with global load information.
Minimum Leadfield-Variance Beamformer with Voxel-Wise Orthonormal Leadfield

In biomagnetic inverse problem, the estimated signal source distribution is practically required to provide with sharpness, smoothness, bias-free, high resolution, etc. Some of the requirements conflict each other. We propose the newly developed biomagnetic signal source estimation method, the minimum leadfield-variance beamformer (MLVB) with the voxel-wise orthonormal leadfield (VWOL) for compromising the requirements. This method consists of two techniques: VWOL) leadfields are reconstructed for orthonormalization both in signal source space and in MEG data space; and MLVB) the minimum variance beamformer (MVB) is modified with the covariance matrix based on forward model. Simulation was performed for evaluating MLVB with VWOL and for comparing with the weighted minimum L 2 norm (WMN) solu- tion and the standardized low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) solution. MLVB with VWOL solution was shaper and smoother than WMN solution, and moreover was bias-free. However, MLVB with VWOL dose not produce feasible solutions. Although MLVB with VWOL solution is quite similar to sLORETA solution, MLVB with VWO is apt to slightly emphasize the resolution of the estimated signal source distribution comparing with sLORETA solution. On the other hand, VWOL itself, a modified leadfields, can be used with other biomagnetic inverse techniques. Keywords—biomagnetic inverse problem, leadfield, magnetoen- cephalography, minimum norm estimation, minimum variance beamformer, standardized low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography.
Synchronization on Complex Networks of Networks

In this paper, pinning synchronization on complex networks of networks is investigated, where there are many subnetworks with the interactions among them. The subnetworks and their connections can be regarded as the nodes and interactions of the networks, respectively, which form the networks of networks. In this new setting, the aim is to design pinning controllers on the chosen nodes of each subnetwork so as to reach synchronization behavior. Some synchronization criteria are established for reaching pinning control on networks of networks. Furthermore, the pinning scheme is designed, which shows that the nodes with very low degrees and large degrees are good candidates for applying pinning controllers. Then, the attack and robustness of the pinning scheme are discussed. Finally, a simulation example is presented to verify the theoretical analysis in this paper.
Effects of freely accessible computerized test systems on the spontaneous behaviors and stress level of Guinea baboons (Papio papio)

Fagot and Paleressompoulle [Fagot and Paleressompoulle (2009) Behav Res Methods 41: 396–404] described a new automated learning device for monkeys (ALDM) to test the cognitive functions of nonhuman primates within their social groups. However, the impact of the ALDM procedure on animal well‐being needs to be investigated. The present study assessed the consequences of ALDM testing on the behavioral repertoire of Guinea baboons (Papio papio) and their stress levels as inferred from measurements of saliva cortisol. Accessibility to ALDM test computers reduced the number of resting periods as well as the number of stereotypies. Lower cortisol levels were also found during ALDM testing. These findings and others demonstrate that ALDM testing has a positive impact on animal well‐being and can be considered as a means for behavioral enrichment in captive primates. Am. J. Primatol. 76:56–64, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Hiding in Plain Sight: An Exploration of the Illegal(?) Activities of a Drugs Newsgroup

: The Internet2 is undoubtedly one of the most important communication advances of recent times, with the World Wide Web constituting the part that draws the most attention. Other components such as Usenet and Internet Relay Chat, however, largely remain abstruse. This article provides an examination of a drugs' newsgroup, which revealed that its activities provided a fertile environment to learn how to manufacture and distribute synthetic drugs and their precursors. This adds a new dimension to the way in which drugs are made available to consumers. While existing laws support the possible prosecution of group members, official attention to newsgroups with regard to preventing or reducing drug offending remains largely unknown, at least in the public domain.