Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Design and Evaluation of High-Recall Retrieval Systems for Electronic Discovery

High-recall retrieval is an information retrieval task model where the goal is to identify, for human consumption, all, or as many as practicable, documents relevant to a particular information need. This thesis investigates the ways in which one can evaluate high-recall retrieval systems and explores several design considerations that should be accounted for when designing such systems for electronic discovery. The primary contribution of this work is a framework for conducting high-recall retrieval experimentation in a controlled and repeatable way. This framework builds upon lessons learned from similar tasks to facilitate the use of retrieval systems on collections that cannot be distributed due to the sensitivity or privacy of the material contained within. Accordingly, a Web API is used to distribute document collections, informations needs, and corresponding relevance assessments in a one-document-at-a-time manner. Validation is conducted through the successful deployment of this architecture in the 2015 TREC Total Recall track over the live Web and in controlled environments. Using the runs submitted to the Total Recall track and other test collections, we explore the efficacy of a variety of new and existing effectiveness measures to high-recall retrieval tasks. We find that summarizing the trade-off between recall and the effort required to attain that recall is a non-trivial task and that several measures are sensitive to properties of the test collections themselves. We conclude that the gain curve, a de facto standard, and variants of the gain curve are the most robust to variations in test collection properties and the evaluation of high-recall systems. This thesis also explores the effect that non-authoritative, surrogate assessors can have when training machine learning algorithms. Contrary to popular thought, we find that surrogate assessors appear to be inferior to authoritative assessors due to differences of opinion rather than innate inferiority in their ability to identify relevance. Furthermore, we show that several techniques for diversifying and liberalizing a surrogate assessor’s conception of relevance can yield substantial improvement in the surrogate and, in some cases, rival the authority. Finally, we present the results of a user study conducted to investigate the effect that three archetypal high-recall retrieval systems have on judging behaviour. Compared to using random and uncertainty sampling, selecting documents for training using relevance sampling significantly decreases the probability that a user will identify that document as relevant. On the other hand, no substantial difference between the test conditions is observed in the time taken to render such assessments.
Animals in their Nature

This article seeks to engage with contemporary debates on the social and ethical dimensions of genetically modified (GM) animals. Dominant policy ethical approaches and frameworks are criticized for failing radically to accommodate some of the most important dimensions of concern. Drawing on primary empirical data emphasizing existing embodied relationships to animals, the article analyses how people express ethical concern over GM animals, including their sense of the continuities and discontinuities between GM animals and those determined by conventional selective breeding practices. The findings suggest that GM animals are likely to become an issue of public controversy, especially in the animal testing domain, due to the ways in which they symbolize and give voice to underlying tensions between ‘moral’and ‘instrumental’approaches to animals.The article concludes that people reject GM animals as ‘going against nature’, and that such concerns reflect wider unease about science, about technological modernity, and about hubris.
Ethanol Regulation of Serum Glucocorticoid Kinase 1 Expression in DBA2/J Mouse Prefrontal Cortex

Background We previously identified a group of glucocorticoid-responsive genes, including Serum Glucocorticoid kinase 1 (Sgk1), regulated by acute ethanol in prefrontal cortex of DBA2/J mice. Acute ethanol activates the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis (HPA) causing release of glucocorticoids. Chronic ethanol dysregulates the HPA response in both humans and rodents, possibly contributing to important interactions between stress and alcoholism. Because Sgk1 regulates ion channels and learning and memory, we hypothesized that Sgk1 contributes to HPA-dependent acute and adaptive neuronal responses to ethanol. These studies characterized acute and chronic ethanol regulation of Sgk1 mRNA and protein and their relationship with ethanol actions on the HPA axis. Results Acute ethanol increased Sgk1 mRNA expression in a dose and time dependent manner. Three separate results suggested that ethanol regulated Sgk1 via circulating glucocorticoids: acute ethanol increased glucocorticoid receptor binding to the Sgk1 promoter; adrenalectomy blocked ethanol induction of Sgk1 mRNA; and chronic ethanol exposure during locomotor sensitization down-regulated HPA axis activation and Sgk1 induction by acute ethanol. SGK1 protein had complex temporal responses to acute ethanol with rapid and transient increases in Ser422 phosphorylation at 15 min. following ethanol administration. This activating phosphorylation had functional consequences, as suggested by increased phosphorylation of the known SGK1 target, N-myc downstream-regulated gene 1 (NDRG1). After repeated ethanol administration during locomotor sensitization, basal SGK1 protein phosphorylation increased despite blunting of Sgk1 mRNA induction by ethanol. Conclusions These results suggest that HPA axis and glucocorticoid receptor signaling mediate acute ethanol induction of Sgk1 transcription in mouse prefrontal cortex. However, acute ethanol also causes complex changes in SGK1 protein expression and activity. Chronic ethanol modifies both SGK1 protein and HPA-mediated induction of Sgk1 mRNA. These adaptive molecular responses of glucocorticoid-responsive gene expression and SGK1 in prefrontal cortex may contribute to mechanisms underlying behavioral responses to chronic ethanol exposure.
Neighborhood MinMax Projections

A new algorithm, Neighborhood MinMax Projections (NMMP), is proposed for supervised dimensionality reduction in this paper. The algorithm aims at learning a linear transformation, and focuses only on the pairwise points where the two points are neighbors of each other. After the transformation, the considered pairwise points within the same class are as close as possible, while those between different classes are as far as possible. We formulate this problem as a constrained optimization problem, in which the global optimum can be effectively and efficiently obtained. Compared with the popular supervised method, Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), our method has three significant advantages. First, it is able to extract more discriminative features. Second, it can deal with the case where the class distributions aremore complex than Gaussian. Third, the singularity problem existing in LDA does not occur naturally. The performance on several data sets demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Developing Information Skills Test for Malaysian Youth Students Using Rasch Analysis.

This study explored the psychometric properties of a locally developed information skills test for youth students in Malaysia using Rasch analysis. The test was a combination of 24 structured and multiple choice items with a 4-point grading scale. The test was administered to 72 technical college students and 139 secondary school students. The data from the test were fitted to the Rasch partial credit model using the Winsteps program in which the unidimensionality, reliability and person-item distribution map of the test were examined. The analysis showed all 24 items meet the Rasch model expectation and thus have a potential in assessing information skills of youth students in Malaysia. The findings showed that Rasch analysis could help researchers to refine the developed test in a systematic and informed manner.
A Social Cognitive perspective on Positive Psychology

Abstract This article addresses positive psychology from the agentic perspective of social cognitive theory. There is a difference between pursuing happiness and achieving it through meaningful pursuits. Perceived well-being and satisfaction are derived from how one lives one's life not just from episodic good feelings or transient pleasures. Social cognitive theory addresses well-being and satisfaction in terms of commitment to a valued future and enablement to take the steps to realise it. The state of one's satisfaction and well-being is determined, in large part, relationally rather than solely by objective life conditions. Self-satisfaction and subjective well-being are rooted in temporal comparison on whether one's life is better or worse than in the past; social comparison on whether the quality of one's life compares favourably or unfavourably with the quality of life others enjoy; and aspirational comparison on how one's life status measures against the life ambition one set for oneself.
Collective Rights and Personal Freedoms: A Discursive Analysis of Participant Accounts of Authoritarianism

This article presents a discursive analysis of participant accounts of authoritarianism, with the aim of understanding how participants construct accounts about authority, when, and for what purposes. Participants completed a 30-item Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale and were then interviewed about how they went about this task. Analyses revealed that, despite an overall consistency when answering items on an authoritarianism scale, participants in this study did not consistently choose to produce authoritarian responses in contrast to the nonauthoritarian alternative. Instead, the construction and expression of authoritarian ideas was found to be directly related to two rhetorical features of conversing about authoritarianism: (1) the ideological dilemma of society versus individual and (2) the mobilization of arguments about social and personal threat that allowed participants to construct accounts about collective rights or personal freedoms. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for current debates about how authoritarianism should be theorized and studied.
Framework Proposal to Evaluate Trustworthiness in an Online Community

This work presents a proposal to evaluate members' trustworthiness in online communities. Both members’ interactions and the relevance of their contributions to the community are analyzed as trust evidences. To establish the relevance of a contribution, the community’s vocabulary is studied and its occurrence in each member's interaction is evaluated. We propose a framework that supports both the trust model and the creation of the community’s vocabulary. The software architecture extends current collaborative systems and the trust model uses information extracted from the artifacts generated by the online community. An experiment in the InVesalius community, available at Brazilian Public Software Portal, is presented.
The Importance of Factor-Trueness and Validity, Versus Homogeneity and Orthogonality, in Test Scales1

EVALUATION of the fitness of tests, in terms of parameters of validity and reliability, is nowadays beginning to be seen in a, new light. Elsewhere (Cattell, in press) it has been suggested that the nomenclature, which has been stationery since the work of the APA Committee a decade ago (1954) is in need of revision. Most of the impulse for this restructuring has come from the extension of psychological measurement beyond the achievement and ability fields into personality and motivation investigation, where the limitations of the concepts previously innocently developed in the more restricted
Teaching in the dark: The geopolitical knowledge and global awareness of the next generation of American teachers

This study examines the geopolitical knowledge and global awareness of American upper-level undergraduate university students in a large teacher education program. The context for the study involves the educational implications to which scholars and policy-makers increasingly call attention. Many of the perceived implications of globalization suggest a challenging and significant role for teachers in a time of change. On measures of geopolitical knowledge, awareness of prominent international leaders and organizations, and salient demographic characteristics of major countries this exploratory survey suggests a high degree of inattention, insularity, and lack of awareness among the prospective teachers. There is little evidence of widely shared geopolitical referents that would serve as the basis of informed discussion or teaching about the meaning and ramifications of the diverse tendencies of globalization.
Spin coated TiO2 nanoparticle as a matrix for perovskite solar cells

A breakthrough in solar cells is made using organolead halide perovskites as light harvesters with low-cost fabrication techniques. Perovskites are capable of high light absorbance, have excellent charge transport properties and have tunable band gaps. In this work perovskite solar cell (PSC) based on titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin film by spin coating technique is working as the anode, sensitized with synthesized methyl ammonium lead iodide (CH3NH3PbI3) perovskite and a noble metal will work as the cathode. Here the role of sensitizer and electrolyte is handled by the perovskite material.
Ego depletion effects on mathematics performance in primary school students: why take the hard road?

Reduction in performance level following on from brief periods of self‐control is referred to as ego depletion. This study aimed to investigate if a brief ego depletion experience would impact upon primary school students working through an online mathematics exercise involving 40 computational trials. Seventy‐two students participated in the control group, and 80 students participated in the ego depletion group. The students were 10–14 years of age. A three‐minute task involving resistance to distraction was used as the depletion experience. Before each trial, participants selected task difficulty level. Control group students began by working at a moderate difficulty level and then progressed to work on more difficult items. Ego‐depleted students chose to work on easy problems throughout. Ego depletion did not markedly affect error rate after the first trial. Depletion effects can be evident in students’ academic application through encouraging students to undertake easier options.
Representation of Action Through Iconic Gesture in a Captive Lowland Gorilla

Alors que l'on dit souvent que seuls les chimpanzes ont un langage gestuel, l'etude des gestes iconiques (mouvement d'un individu suscitant l'action d'un second individu selon la volonte du premier) chez les gorilles du zoo de San Francisco revele neuf types de gestuelles : le toucher a proximite, la petite tape, le mouvement de tete, tapoter la poitrine, balancer les bras sous soi, serrer les bras sont des gestes silencieux exigeant l'attention preexistante de l'« interlocuteur » alors que frapper la poitrine ou tout autre objet sont produits pour attirer l'attention. Ces gestes ont ete analyses en fonction des contextes
Assessing the Effects of Teachers’ Reading Knowledge on Students’ Achievement Using Multilevel Propensity Score Stratification

This study investigated the relationship of teachers’ reading knowledge with students’ reading achievement using a direct teacher knowledge assessment rather than indirect proxies (e.g., certification). To address the inequitable distribution of teachers’ knowledge resulting from differences in teachers’ backgrounds and the disparities in how schools attract and cultivate knowledge, the study developed multilevel propensity score methods to identify comparable teachers on the basis of both teacher and school backgrounds. Results suggest that schools are complexly associated with differences in teachers’ knowledge and that comparisons which ignore the relevance of schools may be misleading. By comparing teachers with similar personal and school backgrounds, results show measured knowledge is significantly associated with students’ achievement in reading comprehension but not word analysis. The findings support policies which leverage school capacities to develop the specialized knowledge needed for teaching reading.
Unfounding Sexual Assault: Examining the Decision to Unfound and Identifying False Reports

One of the most controversial—and least understood—issues in the area of sexual violence is the prevalence of false reports of rape. Estimates of the rate of false reports vary widely, which reflects differences in way false reports are defined and in the methods that researchers use to identify them. We address this issue using a mixed methods approach that incorporates quantitative and qualitative data on sexual assault cases that were reported to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in 2008 and qualitative data from interviews with LAPD detectives assigned to investigate reports of sexual assault. We found that the LAPD was clearing cases as unfounded appropriately most, but not all, of the time and we estimated that the rate of false reports among cases reported to the LAPD was 4.5 percent. We also found that although complainant recantation was the strongest predictor of the unfounding decision, other factors indicative of the seriousness of the incident and the credibility of the victim also played a role. We interpret these findings using an integrated theoretical perspective that incorporates both Black's sociological theory of law and Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Kramer's focal concerns perspective.
Improved Power-Quality-Based Welding Power Supply With Overcurrent Handling Capability

This paper proposes a power-factor-corrected canonical switching cell (CSC) converter-based switched-mode power supply for arc-welding applications. In the proposed arc-welding power supply (AWPS), CSC converter operating in discontinuous inductor current mode (DICM) is used to attain inherent power factor correction. The DICM operation substantially reduces the complexity of the control and effectively regulates the dc-link voltage. At the back end, a pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) isolated full bridge dc-dc converter is used to provide a high-frequency isolation, which is mandatory for the arc-welding process. A dual-loop control scheme is utilized to incorporate overcurrent protection and to regulate dc voltage at the output making it suitable for arc-welding applications. Test results are presented to confirm the viability of the proposed AWPS. The performance of the proposed AWPS is evaluated on the basis of total harmonic distortion (THD) of the supply current, power factor, dynamic response, and voltage regulation to prove its effectiveness.
Changibles: analyzing and designing shape changing constructive assembly

Advances in shape changing assemblies have been made in reconfiguration algorithms, hardware designs and interaction techniques. However no tools exist for guiding designers in building those modular devices and especially for choosing the shape of the units. The task becomes even more complex when the units themselves can change their shapes to animate the entire assembly. In this paper, we contribute with the first analysis tool which helps the designer to both choose the right subset of forms for the units and to create an assembly with maximum accuracy from the set of given objects. We introduce the concept of Changibles that are interactive wireless units that can reshape themselves and be attached together to create an animated assembly. We present a use case to demonstrate the use of our tool, with an instantiation of six Changibles that are used to construct a pulsing heart assembly.
Community Readiness Survey: Norm Development Using a Q-Sort Process

SUMMARY This study reports on norms developed for the Minnesota Institute of Public Health's (1999) Community Readiness Survey. Prevention experts from ten states and the Red Lake Nation sorted data from 50 communities into high and low readiness groups using a Q-sort process. High inter-rater agreement was achieved on communities sorted. Tests of significance between the high and low readiness groups resulted in significant differences on the five scales of readiness: community members' perception of an alcohol, tobacco, and other drug problem; permissiveness of attitudes toward substance use; support for prevention; perceived access of alcohol and tobacco products for adolescents; and overall community commitment. Communities that implement a readiness assessment can use these results to target resources to areas in which high readiness is indicated and seek to increase readiness in areas in which lower scale scores are evidenced.
Received signal strength-based underwater acoustic localization considering stratification effect

Source localization is one of the essential tasks for underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs). The sound speed in water environments varies with depth, therefore the sound waves do not propagate along a straight line, this phenomenon is described as stratification effect. Some range-based UASNs localization algorithms with stratification compensation have been proposed. All these algorithms need to measure the propagation delays for exchanged messages among the nodes. However, these time-based algorithms usually suffer from synchronization errors caused by the node clock skew and clock offset. Thus, we propose a received signal strength (RSS)-based UASNs localization algorithm with stratification compensation (NRA-WSE). In NRA-WSE, urick propagation model is introduced to characterize the RSS, and the stratification effect is modeled by using ray tracing method, then, we adopt the Newton-Raphson algorithm to solve the source location. Finally, we compare our solution to the localization method based on a straight-line propagation model (NRA-NSE). Simulation results show that NRA-WSE performs superbly and meets the Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB).
Transstadial Transfer of West Nile Virus by Three Species of Ixodid Ticks (Acari: Ixodidae)

Abstract Larvae and/or nymphs of four species of ixodid ticks, Ixodes scapularis Say, Amblyomma americanum (L.), Dermacentor andersoni Stiles, and Dermacentor variabilis Say, were fed to completion on laboratory hamsters or mice which had been inoculated with a West Nile (WN) virus isolate from Culex pipiens L. captured in Connecticut USA. Maximum titers in mice and hamsters were ≈5 and two logs, respectively, lower than recorded (10 logs) in a naturally infected American crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos Brehm. WN virus was isolated in Vero cell culture from ticks and detected by TaqMan RT-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in ticks that had completed their feeding as larvae or nymphs, and in I. scapularis, D. andersoni, and D. variabilis that had molted into the next stage of development. Naïve hosts, fed upon by nymphs that as larvae had fed on viremic hosts, did not become infected. WN virus was isolated in Vero cell culture from one female I. scapularis and was detected by TaqMan RT-PCR in 24 adult I. scapularis, one D. andersoni, and two D. variabilis adults that had fed to completion as larvae on viremic hosts and as nymphs on naïve mice or hamsters. Three species of ixodid ticks acquired WN virus from viremic hosts and transstadially passed the virus, but vector competency was not demonstrated.