Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NEUROPHENOMENOLOGY A Methodological Remedy for the Hard Problem

This paper starts with one of Chalmers' basic points: first-hand experience is an irreducible field of phenomena. I claim there is no 'theoretical fix' or 'extra ingredient' in nature that can possibly bridge this gap. Instead, the field of conscious phenomena requires a rigorous method and an explicit pragmatics for its exploration and analysis. My proposed approach, inspired by the style of inquiry of phenomenology, I have called neurophenomenol- ogy. It seeks articulations by mutual constraints between phenomena present in experience and the correlative field of phenomena established by the cognitive sciences. It needs to expand into a widening research community in which the method is cultivated further. This paper responds to the issues raised by D.J. Chalmers (1995) by offering a research direction which is quite radical in the way in which some basic methodological principles are linked to the scientific studies of consciousness. Neuro-phenomenology is the name I am using here to designate a quest to marry modern cognitive science and a disciplined approach to human experience, thus placing myself in the lineage of the continental tradition of phenomenology. 1 My claim is that the so-called hard problem that animates these Special Issues of the Journal of Consciousness Studies can only be addressed productively by gathering a research community armed with new pragmatic tools ena- bling them to develop a science of consciousness. I will claim that no piecemeal empirical correlates, nor purely theoretical principles, will really help us at this stage. We need to turn to a systematic exploration of the only link between mind and consciousness that seems both obvious and natural: the structure of human experience itself. In what follows I open my proposal by briefly examining the current debate about consciousness in the light of Chalmers' hard problem. Next, I outline the (neuro)pheno- menological strategy. I conclude by discussing some of the main difficulties and conse- quences of this strategy.
Resveratrol Reverses Functional Chagas Heart Disease in Mice

Chronic chagasic cardiomyopathy (CCC) develops years after acute infection by Trypanosoma cruzi and does not improve after trypanocidal therapy, despite reduction of parasite burden. During disease, the heart undergoes oxidative stress, a potential causative factor for arrhythmias and contractile dysfunction. Here we tested whether antioxidants/ cardioprotective drugs could improve cardiac function in established Chagas heart disease. We chose a model that resembles B1-B2 stage of human CCC, treated mice with resveratrol and performed electrocardiography and echocardiography studies. Resveratrol reduced the prolonged PR and QTc intervals, increased heart rates and reversed sinus arrhythmia, atrial and atrioventricular conduction disorders; restored a normal left ventricular ejection fraction, improved stroke volume and cardiac output. Resveratrol activated the AMPK-pathway and reduced both ROS production and heart parasite burden, without interfering with vascularization or myocarditis intensity. Resveratrol was even capable of improving heart function of infected mice when treatment was started late after infection, while trypanocidal drug benznidazole failed. We attempted to mimic resveratrol’s actions using metformin (AMPK-activator) or tempol (SOD-mimetic). Metformin and tempol mimicked the beneficial effects of resveratrol on heart function and decreased lipid peroxidation, but did not alter parasite burden. These results indicate that AMPK activation and ROS neutralization are key strategies to induce tolerance to Chagas heart disease. Despite all tissue damage observed in established Chagas heart disease, we found that a physiological dysfunction can still be reversed by treatment with resveratrol, metformin and tempol, resulting in improved heart function and representing a starting point to develop innovative therapies in CCC.
Why Monitor Violent Websites? A Justification

The authors argue that the international community should continue working together to devise rules for monitoring specific Internet sites, as human lives are at stake. Preemptive measures could prevent the translation of murderous thoughts into murderous actions. Designated monitoring mechanisms for certain websites that promote violence and seek adherents for the actualization of murderous thoughts could potentially prevent such unfortunate events. Our intention is to draw the attention of the international community’s multi-agents (law-enforcement agencies, governments, the business sector, including Internet Service Providers, websites administrators and owners, civil society groups) to the urgent need of developing monitoring schemes for certain websites, in order to prevent violent crimes.
Virtues and limitations of commodity hardware transactional memory

Over the last years Transactional Memory (TM) gained growing popularity as a simpler, attractive alternative to classic lock-based synchronization schemes. Recently, the TM landscape has been profoundly changed by the integration of Hardware TM (HTM) in Intel commodity processors, raising a number of questions on the future of TM. We seek answers to these questions by conducting the largest study on TM to date, comparing different locking techniques, hardware and software TMs, as well as different combinations of these mechanisms, from the dual perspective of performance and power consumption. Our study sheds a mix of light and shadows on currently available commodity HTM: on one hand, we identify workloads in which HTM clearly outperforms any alternative synchronization mechanism; on the other hand, we show that current HTM implementations suffer of restrictions that narrow the scope in which these can be more effective than state of the art software solutions. Thanks to the results of our study, we identify a number of compelling research problems in the areas of TM design, compilers and self-tuning.
Linearized Bregman Iterations for Frame-Based Image Deblurring

Real images usually have sparse approximations under some tight frame systems derived from framelets, an oversampled discrete (window) cosine, or a Fourier transform. In this paper, we propose a method for image deblurring in tight frame domains. It is reduced to finding a sparse solution of a system of linear equations whose coefficient matrix is rectangular. Then, a modified version of the linearized Bregman iteration proposed and analyzed in [J.-F. Cai, S. Osher, and Z. Shen, Math. Comp., to appear, UCLA CAM Report (08-52), 2008; J.-F. Cai, S. Osher, and Z. Shen, Math. Comp., to appear, UCLA CAM Report (08-06), 2008; S. Osher et al., UCLA CAM Report (08-37), 2008; W. Yin et al., SIAM J. Imaging Sci., 1 (2008), pp. 143-168] can be applied. Numerical examples show that the method is very simple to implement, robust to noise, and effective for image deblurring.
Ontology Based Automatic Attributes Extracting and Queries Translating for Deep Web

Normal 0 7.8 磅 0 2 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Search engines and web crawlers can not access the Deep Web directly. The workable way to access the hidden database is through query interfaces. Automatic extracting attributes from query interfaces and translating queries is a solvable way for addressing the current limitations in accessing Deep Web. However, the query interface provides semantic constraints, some attributes are co-occurred and the others are exclusive sometimes. To generate a valid query, we have to reconcile the key attributes and semantic relation between them. We design a framework to automatically extract attributes from query interfaces taking full advantage of instances information and enrich the attribute sets embedded in the semantic query interface by Ontology technique. Each attribute is extended into a candidate attribute expressed by a hierarchy tree and describes the semantic relation of the attributes. We carry out our experiments in the real-world domain and results showed the validation of query translation framework.
The relationship of parenting style to older adolescent life-skills development in the United States

At a large, mid-south university in the USA, 660 university freshmen (mean age = 17.9 years; 68.2% female; 86.5% non-Hispanic white) were surveyed regarding their perceptions of their parents’parenting behaviors and their perceptions of their own life-skills development. The parenting style index consisted of the two parenting style dimensions: responsiveness and demandingness. The Life-skills Development Inventory-College Form was used to measure life skills in four domains: interpersonal communication, decision making, health maintenance, and identity development. Simultaneous regression results indicated that parental responsiveness significantly predicted life-skills development in all four domains even when age, gender, and socioeconomic status were taken into account; whereas, parental demandingness was not a significant predictor in any of the four domains of life-skills development. The results of this study suggest that positive life-skills development in older adolescents is related to having been reared by a parenting style high in responsiveness. Recommendations are included regarding the need to disseminate this information.
Rickettsia conorii Transcriptional Response within Inoculation Eschar

Background Rickettsia conorii, the causative agent of the Mediterranean spotted fever, is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected ticks Rhipicephalus sanguineus. The skin thus constitutes an important barrier for the entry and propagation of R. conorii. Given this, analysis of the survival strategies used by the bacterium within infected skin is critical for our understanding of rickettsiosis. Methodology/Principal Findings Here, we report the first genome-wide analysis of R. conorii gene expression from infected human skin biopsies. Our data showed that R. conorii exhibited a striking transcript signature that is remarkably conserved across patients, regardless of genotype. The expression profiles obtained using custom Agilent microarrays were validated by quantitative RT-PCR. Within eschars, the amount of detected R. conorii transcripts was of 55%, this value being of 74% for bacteria grown in Vero cells. In such infected host tissues, approximately 15% (n = 211) of the total predicted R. conorii ORFs appeared differentially expressed compared to bacteria grown in standard laboratory conditions. These genes are mostly down-regulated and encode proteins essential for bacterial replication. Some of the strategies displayed by rickettsiae to overcome the host defense barriers, thus avoiding killing, were also pointed out. The observed up-regulation of rickettsial genes associated with DNA repair is likely to correspond to a DNA-damaging agent enriched environment generated by the host cells to eradicate the pathogens. Survival of R. conorii within eschars also involves adaptation to osmotic stress, changes in cell surface proteins and up-regulation of some virulence factors. Interestingly, in contrast to down-regulated transcripts, we noticed that up-regulated ones rather exhibit a small nucleotide size, most of them being exclusive for the spotted fever group rickettsiae. Conclusion/Significance Because eschar is a site for rickettsial introduction, the pattern of rickettsial gene expression observed here may define how rickettsiae counteract the host defense.
6 D SLAM – Mapping Outdoor Environments

6D SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) of mobile robots considers six dimensions for the robo t pose, namely, thex, y and z coordinates and the roll, yaw and pitch angles. Robot motion and localization on natural surfaces, e.g., when driving with a mobile robot outdoor, must regard these degrees of freedom. This paper presents a robot ic mapping method based on locally consistent 3D laser range scans. Scan matching, combined with a heuristic for closed loop detection and a global relaxation method, results in a highly precise mapping system for outdoor environments. The mobile robot Kurt3D was used to acquire data of the Schloss Birlinghoven campus. The resulting 3D map is compared with ground truth, given by an aerial photograph.
Snapshot localisation of multiple jammers based on receivers of opportunity

The detection and localisation of multiple GNSS jammers in densely populated areas seems to be already a need due to the availability and proliferation of very cheap and small GNSS jammers (together with the raise of the privacy awareness), and the increasing number of services and applications relying on the GNSS signals for its operation. Densely populated areas do not only introduce the possibility to have several jamming devices in close locations, but also the availability of a relatively large number of users and devices that could be exploited as Receivers of Opportunity (RoO) for detecting and localising jammers located in the same area. In this context, the evolution of the Internet of Things and cloud computing, with devices connected to the Internet and applications running in the cloud, makes possible to think about a cloud-based localisation of jammers exploiting the signal snapshots gathered by those RoOs. This paper presents and discusses the snapshot localisation of multiple jammers based on the estimation of TDOA and FDOA measurements between RoOs, and the clustering process necessary to be performed before the multiple jammers can be localised, process that is proposed to be done in the position domain. The simulation results presented show that the localisation of multiple jammers, even in close locations, is feasible, and accuracies in the order of few meters should be achievable.
cHanging iMplicit attitudes by contrasting tHe selF witH otHers

When using evaluative conditioning (EC) procedures for changing implicit attitudes, the self is a particularly efficient unconditioned stimulus (US). So far, in previous studies in which the self has been used as a US, a comparison category has usually been present, either as the generic category “others” or as specific individuals. As such, it is unclear what the influence is, if any, of the presence of a comparison category “others” or other comparison stimuli. In this contribution, we present three studies with the aim of disentangling the effects of self versus others by using the two types of US separately (Study 1), and by manipulating positivity, concreteness (Study 2), level of differentiation, and heterogeneity (Study 3) of the category “others. ” Overall, these studies provide evidence that whereas the self is an effective US, the category “others,” when used in conjunction with self, fails to provide a detectable influence.
The role of community in teachers' knowledge development

Technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) provides a theoretical lens which attempts to identify the nature of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching. While there have been hundreds of studies that have used TPACK to examine what teachers need to know about technology as part of their classroom practice, including the nationally funded teaching teachers for the future (TTF) project, there has been little research specifically on the processes that underpin this knowledge acquisition, especially relating to in-service secondary teachers. This paper describes TPACK and argues that academics have been calling for research into the processes of acquisition for over a quarter of a century. The paper then proposes how the situated learning theory of Communities of Practice may provide a more nuanced understanding of the factors influencing teachers’ TPACK acquisition through their socially mediated relationships with colleagues.
The Empire Meets the New Deal: Interwar Encounters in Conservation and Regional Planning

British imperial and American experiences in conservation and planning are providing fresh interdisciplinary challenges for university teaching and research. The Roosevelt administration's ‘New Deal’ included government-sponsored interventions in soil erosion and water management and sophisticated regional development agendas. Reviewing samples of the latter areas of concern, this article explores the proposition that, although the British Empire was scarcely bereft of comparable interwar programmes and was becoming somewhat preoccupied with centrifugal tendencies, persistent porosity, exhausting struggles with postwar reconstruction, and comprehensive economic depression, New Deal evangelism was in fact variously anticipated, harnessed, challenged and ignored. A discussion of widely separated national and regional examples locates a layered interplay between uneven imperial and US pulsations, independent local manoeuvres, and critical inputs from key individual agents. The most important filters included the presence of comparatively robust bureaucratic infrastructures and the cultivation of international relationships by scientists and technologists. Encounters with convergent revisionism suggest cautionary leads for students, researchers and teachers alike. Reconstructions of selected contexts underline the presence of familiar posturing, opportunism, and astute patriotic deployment during the emergence of modern styles of globalization.
Mutual Self-Enhancement in Japan and the United States

The authors address the debate on pancultural self-enhancement by suggesting that some Japanese enhance their self-worth by praising and receiving praise from others included in the self. The authors call this process “mutual self-enhancement” and validated a scale for its measurement in Japan and the United States. Mutual self-enhancement was positively correlated with including others in the self, relational self-construal, family support, and sympathy. Mutual self-enhancement was not related to the interdependent self, collectivism, and approval from others, confirming that the process involves including others in the self via self-expansion rather than fitting into an interdependent relationship network. Future studies based on the self-expansion model will consider the inclusion of in-group members in the self as an important part of mutual self-enhancement that predicts well-being in East Asian countries such as Japan.
Bandwidth-enhancing ultralow-profile compact patch antenna

A novel method to extend the operation bandwidth and reduce the size of the ultralow-profile patch antenna is presented in this paper. The designed results indicate that two orthogonal modes of TM/sub 10/ and TM/sub 01/ can be excited simultaneously in the antenna, resonate at two close frequencies, and also are matched well. Thus, a bandwidth-enhancing characteristic is achieved. The size reduction is obtained due to utilizing the slot-loading technique. Because most patch currents of the two modes flow in the same direction, the similar radiation characteristics is observed at two resonance frequencies. The significantly high cross polarization makes the proposed antenna applicable for the wireless communication in multipath environment.
Towards multimodal error responses: a passive BCI for the detection of auditory errors

The study presented here introduces a Passive BCI detecting responses of the subjects brain on the perception of correct and erroneous auditory signals. 10 experts in music theory who actively play an instrument listened to cadences, sequences of chords, that could have an unexpected, erroneous ending. In consistence with previous studies from the neurosciences we evoked an event-related potential, mainly consisting of an early right anterior negativity reflecting syntatcic error processing followed by a stronger negativity in erroneous trials at 500 ms, induced by semantic processing. We could identify single trials of these processes with a standardized, crossvalidated offline classification scheme, resulting in an accuracy of 75.7%. The here presented system is a further step towards a multimodal, BCI-based Human-Computer Interaction, also inclduing auditory feedback channels.
‘What do you mean?’ The importance of language in developing interdisciplinary research

Unity between human and physical geography continues to be debated widely. However, if geography is to take advantage of its unique positioning between the natural and social sciences, geographers need to be able to communicate more effectively and efficiently across human and physical specialisms. In this paper we focus on the significance and uses of language in interdisciplinary research practice. Interdisciplinary research faces a range of challenges in achieving effective communication between discipline-based experts, of which language is key. This paper draws on a discussion developing the initial ideas for a research application and a field day to familiarize the group members with the study area. Dialects, metaphor and articulation are identified as three overlapping aspects of language which play an important role in developing understandings between different disciplines. These three different aspects of language are illustrated through the analysis of three situations focusing on the words dynamic, mapping and catchment. We conclude that interdisciplinary projects must allocate time to the development of shared vocabularies and understandings. Common understanding derived from shared languages in turn plays a vital role in enhancing the relations of trust that are necessary for effective interdisciplinary working.
The approximation power of priority algorithms

Greedy-like algorithms have been a popular approach in combinatorial optimization, due to their conceptual simplicity and amenability to analysis. Surprisingly, it was only recently that a formal framework for their study emerged. In particular, Borodin, Nielsen and Rackoff introduced the class of priority algorithms as a model for abstracting the main properties of (deterministic) greedy-like algorithms; they also showed limitations on the approximation power of such algorithms for various scheduling problems. In this thesis we extend and modify the priority-algorithm framework so as to make it applicable to a wider class of optimization problems and settings. More precisely, we first derive strong lower bounds on the approximation ratio of priority algorithms for two well studied problems, namely facility location and set cover. These are problems for which several greedy-like algorithms with good performance guarantees exist. Subsequently, we address the issue of randomization in priority algorithms, and show how to prove bounds on the power of greedy-like algorithms with access to random bits. Finally, we propose a model for priority algorithms in the context of graph theoretic optimization problems; the later class of problems turns out to be of particular interest, since it poses certain conceptual challenges when studying priority algorithms. Our goal is to define a model in which it is possible to filter out certain overly powerful algorithms, while still capturing a very rich class of greedy-like algorithms. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
A burden of proof: Stereotype relevance and gender differences in math performance.

Three studies explored gender differences in mathematics performance by investigating the possibility that men and women have different concerns when they take standardized math tests, and that when these gender-specific performance concerns are made relevant, performance may suffer. Results of 3 studies supported these hypotheses. In Study 1, women who believed a math test would indicate whether they were especially weak in math performed worse on the test than did women who believed it would indicate whether they were exceptionally strong. Men, however, demonstrated the opposite pattern, performing worse on the ostensible test of exceptional abilities. Studies 2 and 3 further showed that if these gender-specific performance concerns are alleviated by an external handicap, performance increases. Traditional interpretations of male-female differences on standardized math tests are discussed in light of these results.