Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Agony or Ecstasy: A Mixed Methods Study of the Accelerated Reader Program and Students' Attitudes Toward Reading

The impetus for this study was to determine how Accelerated Reader influences the reading attitudes of fourth grade students of varied reading proficiencies who had been exposed to Accelerated Reader since kindergarten. Interested in students’ attitudes and motivation toward reading, I examined fourth grade students’ reading motivation among two award winning Blue Ribbon Schools in East Tennessee, one of which used Accelerated Reader as the pathway to literacy success while the other did not. Comparisons between the two schools were made in order to determine if there were differences in students’ attitudes and motivation toward reading. This explanatory mixed methods study incorporated both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Data were generated through the Motivation to Read Profile-Revised survey and semistructured individual interviews. The quantitative results indicated that in relation to the overall MRP-R survey, there were no statistically significant differences between students who participate in Accelerated Reader and those who do not. There was not a statistical difference between the AR school and the school without AR regarding survey questions aligned to selfconcept. There was a significant difference found on the subcategory of value of reading among the two schools. The AR school produced higher scores on the survey questions aligned to value of reading. After the initial quantitative analysis was conducted, interview questions were formulated to delve more deeply into these findings. When incorporating Explanatory Sequential Models, the qualitative phase follows the quantitative analysis to more fully elucidate the narrative behind the numbers generated. The results obtained from these differing methods of research produced findings that were sometimes contradictory. These contradictions were discovered through the
On Cultural, Textual and Experiential Aspects of Music Mood

We study the impact of the presence of lyrics on music mood perception for both Canadian and Chinese listeners by conducting a user study of Canadians not of Chinese origin, Chinese-Canadians, and Chinese people who have lived in Canada for fewer than three years. While our original hypotheses were largely connected to cultural components of mood perception, we also analyzed how stable mood assignments were when listeners could read the lyrics of recent popular English songs they were hearing versus when they only heard the songs. We also showed the lyrics of some songs to participants without playing the recorded music. We conclude that people assign different moods to the same song in these three scenarios. People tend to assign a song to the mood cluster that includes “melancholy” more often when they read the lyrics without listening to it, and having access to the lyrics does not help reduce the difference in music mood perception between Canadian and Chinese listeners significantly. Our results cause us to question the idea that songs have “inherent mood”. Rather, we suggest that the mood depends on both cultural and experiential context.
Language specific listening of Japanese geminate consonants: a cross-linguistic study

Various aspects of linguistic experience influence the way we segment, represent, and process speech signals. The Japanese phonetic and orthographic systems represent geminate consonants (double consonants, e.g., /ss/, /kk/) in a unique way compared to other languages: one abstract representation is used to characterize the first part of geminate consonants despite the acoustic difference between two distinct realizations of geminate consonants (silence in the case of e.g., stop consonants and elongation in the case of fricative consonants). The current study tests whether this discrepancy between abstract representations and acoustic realizations influences how native speakers of Japanese perceive geminate consonants. The experiments used pseudo words containing either the geminate consonant /ss/ or a manipulated version in which the first part was replaced by silence /_s/. The sound /_s/ is acoustically similar to /ss/, yet does not occur in everyday speech. Japanese listeners demonstrated a bias to group these two types into the same category while Italian and Dutch listeners distinguished them. The results thus confirmed that distinguishing fricative geminate consonants with silence from those with sustained frication is not crucial for Japanese native listening. Based on this observation, we propose that native speakers of Japanese tend to segment geminated consonants into two parts and that the first portion of fricative geminates is perceptually similar to a silent duration. This representation is compatible with both Japanese orthography and phonology. Unlike previous studies that were inconclusive in how native speakers segment geminate consonants, our study demonstrated a relatively strong effect of Japanese specific listening. Thus the current experimental methods may open up new lines of investigation into the relationship between development of phonological representation, orthography and speech perception.
Assessing Exercise Limitation Using Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing

The cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) is an important physiological investigation that can aid clinicians in their evaluation of exercise intolerance and dyspnea. Maximal oxygen consumption (V˙O2max) is the gold-standard measure of aerobic fitness and is determined by the variables that define oxygen delivery in the Fick equation (V˙O2 = cardiac output × arterial-venous O2 content difference). In healthy subjects, of the variables involved in oxygen delivery, it is the limitations of the cardiovascular system that are most responsible for limiting exercise, as ventilation and gas exchange are sufficient to maintain arterial O2 content up to peak exercise. Patients with lung disease can develop a pulmonary limitation to exercise which can contribute to exercise intolerance and dyspnea. In these patients, ventilation may be insufficient for metabolic demand, as demonstrated by an inadequate breathing reserve, expiratory flow limitation, dynamic hyperinflation, and/or retention of arterial CO2. Lung disease patients can also develop gas exchange impairments with exercise as demonstrated by an increased alveolar-to-arterial O2 pressure difference. CPET testing data, when combined with other clinical/investigation studies, can provide the clinician with an objective method to evaluate cardiopulmonary physiology and determination of exercise intolerance.
Tomographic Reconstruction and Alignment Using Matrix Norm Minimization

Cryo electron tomography is the only imaging modality that can capture individual cellular structures in situ at nanometer resolution. By using subtomogram averaging, a technique for simultaneous alignment and clustering, high-resolution reconstructions of macromolecules can often be achieved. Two main challenges of subtomogram averaging are a low SNR and missing frequency components that can lead to distortions in random directions in the reconstructed macromolecules. To cope with these challenges, we explore formulating the subtomogram averaging problem as a low-rank matrix recovery problem subject to constraints on the misfit to the Radon measurements. The rank minimization problem is relaxed to a nuclear-norm minimization problem that simultaneously reconstructs the three-dimensional structures and recovers the alignment parameters. The resulting reconstructions using small synthetic 32 × 32 × 32 data sets are denoised and refined versions of the target structures which are clustered very accurately. However, due to the increased computational complexity, the method is currently not able to align larger data sets.
“Inhabitants of the Earth”: Reasoning About Folkbiological Concepts in Wichi Children and Adults

ABSTRACT Across the world, people form folkbiological categories to capture their commonsense organization of the natural world. Structured in accordance with universal principles, folkbiological categories are also shaped by experience. Here we provide new evidence from the Wichi—an understudied indigenous community who live in the Chaco rainforest and speak their heritage language. A total of 44 Wichi (6- to 8-year-olds, 9- to 12-year-olds, adults) participated in an induction task designed to identify how broadly they attribute an invisible biological property (e.g., an internal organ) from 1 individual (either a human, nonhuman animal, or plant) to other humans, nonhuman animals, plants, natural kinds, and artifacts. Research Findings: These results (a) clarify the content of the Wichi’s categories and the words they use to describe them, (b) showcase the power of covert (unnamed) categories, and (c) fortify the view that human-centered reasoning is not a universal starting point for reasoning about nature. Practice or Policy: Implications of these findings for early science education are discussed. In particular, we discuss (a) how the Wichi’s construal of the natural world may be best integrated when they reach the (Western science–inspired) classroom and (b) how the current results bear on central issues in early science education more broadly.
Pretrial Settlement with Fairness

We introduce fairness into three models of pretrial settlement and find that it increases the incidence of trial in each. This is true despite the fact that the fairness taste parameter is common knowledge. In the standard model, the party who makes the final offer can extract essentially all of her bargaining partner's trial cost through this offer. A taste for fairness is reflected in the percentage of their own trial costs a party is willing to give up in accepting this final offer. In the Bebchuk (1984) and Reinganum and Wilde (1986) models a taste for fairness on the part of the defendant lowers the costs of rejected offers to the plaintiff and so increases the incidence of trial. In the Shavell (1982) model, a taste for fairness reduces and may eliminate the contract zone, thereby increasing the incidence of trial.
Security algorithm of face recognition based on local binary pattern and random projection

With the growing applications of biometrics, there are many concerns about the security and privacy of the biometrics data. This paper proposes a security algorithm of face recognition, which bases on the local binary pattern (LBP) and random projection. Feature extraction is first performed on face images by LBP operator. Random projection is done using the random matrix which is generated by user specific key. All the above successive procedures produce the cancelable and non-invertible feature data, which is stored in template databases and can achieve the protection of biometrics data. In extensive experiments with publicly available face datasets ORL, YALE and FERET, higher recognition accuracy is reached, which demonstrates that the proposed approach is able to not only protect the biometrics data, but also is robust to various complex conditions, such as illumination, changes in the pose and expression, etc.
Associations of Behavior Inhibition, Fun-seeking, Fighting, and Freezing Response in Patients with Internet Gaming Disorder and those in Remission

目標：評估原增強理論、修正後增強理論與網路遊戲障礙症的緩解之間的關聯性。 方法：我們招募了各85 位網路遊戲障礙症病人和緩解者。 受試者皆經過診斷性會談，並完成行為抑制與激發量表、酬賞敏感理論量表。 結果：整體而言，相較於網路遊戲障礙症病人，緩解者具較低的行為抑制 (20.27 ± 2.87 vs. 21.27 ± 3.38, p ＜ 0.05) 及愉悅追求 (11.34 ± 2.10vs. 12.41 ± 2.48, p ＜ 0.01)。 同為學生族群，緩解者具較低的行為抑制性，若為非學生族群，緩解者的愉悅追求明顯較低。 利用修正後增強理論進行分析，網路遊戲障礙症的緩解者，其戰鬥反應較低 (31.48 ± 4.20 vs. 33.56 ± 4.26, p ＜ 0.01)，針對學生族群分析，緩解者的戰鬥反應與僵直反應明顯較低的。 結論：較低的行為抑制、愉悅追求、戰鬥反應及僵直反應與網路遊戲障礙症的緩解顯具關連性。 若能進行介入治療，降低其焦慮、戰鬥反應，提升自我控制力、區辨現實的能力，或能有助於疾患的緩解。
Infliximab versus Cyclosporine Treatment for Severe Corticosteroid-Refractory Ulcerative Colitis: A Korean, Retrospective, Single Center Study

Background/Aims In patients with corticosteroid-refractory ulcerative colitis (UC), cyclosporine or infliximab may be added to the treatment regimen to induce remission. Here, we aimed to compare the efficacy of cyclosporine and infliximab. Methods Between January 1995 and May 2012, the medical records of 43 patients with corticosteroid-refractory UC who received either infliximab or cyclosporine as a rescue therapy at a tertiary care hospital in Korea were reviewed. Results Among the 43 patients, 10 underwent rescue therapy with cyclosporine and the remaining 33 patients received infliximab. A follow-up of 12 months was completed for all patients. The colectomy rate at 12 months was 30% and 3% in the cyclosporine and the infliximab groups, respectively (p=0.034). However, the Cox proportional hazard model indicated that the treatment of rescue therapy was not an independent associate factor for preventing colectomy (p=0.164). In the subgroup analysis, infliximab with azathioprine was superior to cyclosporine for preventing colectomy (hazard ratio of infliximab with azathioprine compared with cyclosporine only, 0.073; 95% confidence interval, 0.008 to 0.629). Conclusions No difference between infliximab and cyclosporine with respect to preventing colectomy was noted. However, infliximab with azathioprine may be more effective than cyclosporine alone for preventing colectomy.
Context-aware Dialog Strategies for Multimodal Mobile Dialog Systems

Multimodal mobile dialog systems face new challenges which do not exist in traditional spoken dialog systems. A mobile dialog system should provide robust task management during network loss, and intelligent assistance in new environments. To provide these capabilities, a system must sense changes in the user environment, and communicate them effectively to the user. In the field of human-computer interaction, such systems are referred to as context-aware systems. Two possible approaches have been explored: in one, the user requests information when needed (information pull), and in the other, the system automatically offers relevant information (information push). In this paper, we present our dialog management strategy for context-awareness using an information push model. A preliminary evaluation conducted in both labaratory and driving environments shows that context-awareness significantly improved user performance.
The moderating role of HR practices on the career adaptability–job crafting relationship: a study among employee–manager dyads

Abstract This study aims to investigate whether career adaptability could enhance an employee’s work engagement through job crafting behaviors and to address the role of HR practices in this relationship. Based on career construction theory, we first examine whether career adaptability, as a self-regulatory competency may trigger enhanced job crafting behaviors, which in turn increase employee’s work engagement. Second, we propose a moderation model in which different implemented high-performance work practices (HPWPs) moderate the relationship between career adaptability and job crafting. The results show that job crafting mediated the positive relationship between career adaptability and work engagement. The results support the hypothesized moderation only for opportunity-enhancing HPWPs. The relationship between career adaptability and job crafting is positive and significant for medium and high opportunity-enhancing HPWPs, but not for low levels of this HPWPs domain. The results imply that through the implementation of opportunity-enhancing HPWPs organizations can create a room for employees to express their adaptability at work through crafting their jobs, which in turn relates to work engagement.
Separation of overlapped Rayleigh and SH waves using intrinsic coherence function

This paper focuses on passive polarized wave separation. A new approach is proposed against overlapped Rayleigh and SH waves. The information given by the two three-component sensors is sufficient for the identification of mixing matrix and the estimation of target parameters, such as incident angle, time-delay and the axial ratio of particle motion trajectory. Although the two polarized waves may be coherent, wave separation is realized with the help of intrinsic coherence function based on second order statistics. The feasibility of this algorithm is verified by applying it to emulation continuous Rayleigh and SH waves.
Summarizing Blog Entries versus News Texts

As more and more people are expressing their opinions on the web in the form of weblogs (or blogs), research on the blogosphere is gaining popularity. As the outcome of this research, different natural language tools such as query-based opinion summarizers have been developed to mine and organize opinions on a particular event or entity in blog entries. However, the variety of blog posts and the informal style and structure of blog entries pose many difficulties for these natural language tools. In this paper, we identify and categorize errors which typically occur in opinion summarization from blog entries and compare blog entry summaries with traditional news text summaries based on these error types to quantify the differences between these two genres of texts for the purpose of summarization. For evaluation, we used summaries from participating systems of the TAC 2008 opinion summarization track and updated summarization track. Our results show that some errors are much more frequent to blog entries (e.g. topic irrelevant information) compared to news texts; while other error types, such as content overlap, seem to be comparable. These findings can be used to prioritize these error types and give clear indications as to where we should put effort to improve blog summarization.
Visualization and pattern discovery of social interactions and repost propagation in Sina Weibo

Many researchers focus on analysis of social interactions and information propagation, but they do not provide results in an intuitive way that helps people understand easily. In this paper, we aim to visualize social interactions of a group of users and repost propagation in Sina Weibo, and seek for patterns from visualization. We propose a new definition to formulate the relationship between users, which reflects their social interactions. We then visualize the data with the help of multidimensional scaling. The result shows an interesting pattern that social interactions among people change corresponding to significant events. Moreover, we visualize repost propagation of hot weibo posts in Sina Weibo. We discover that repost propagation is explosive in the very first time period. And authorized user accounts are helpful for faster and wider propagation. We later choose another popular repost case to support our finding.
BabyGlove: a device to study hand motion control development in infants

DataGlove input devices provide natural input control of interaction in virtual, multimodal and telepresence environments as they can monitor the dexterity and flexibility characteristics of the human hand motion. In this paper a new miniature hand input device named the “Baby Glove” is presented. In contrast to the current Dataglove applications this miniature device was developed to study the sensorimotor control development in half to one year old infants and their ability to imitate. To meet the requirements of this application a device with a total mass of 5=40g including all the control hardware has been developed. An increased mobility wireless interface to the simulation computer is provided. This was realised with the employment of the Bluetooth radio technology.
Hedging in Chinese Commodity Futures Markets

Chinese commodity futures markets have become some of the most important derivative markets worldwide. This paper studies the optimal hedge ratios on two popular contracts in China, soybeans and copper, by employing copula functions. Our empirical results suggest that the proposed copula hedging strategy outperforms the simple regression method and dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) method by most appropriately capturing the joint dependence between spot and futures returns. Additionally, the optimal hedging horizon for soybeans is four and five months to maturity given the unique Chinese time-dependent margin rule, not the nearby month as with many other futures contracts.
Privacy-preserving PKI design based on group signature

Nowadays, Internet becomes a part of our life. We can make use of numerous services with personal computer, lap-top, tablet, smart phone or smart TV. These devices with network make us enjoy ubiquitous computing life. Sometimes, on-line services request us authentication or identification for access control and authorization, and PKI technology is widely used because of its security. However the possibility of privacy invasion will increase, if we’re identified with same certificate in many services and these identification data are accumulated. For privacy-preserving authentication or anonymous authentication, there have been many researches such as group signatures, anonymous credentials, etc. Among these researches, group signatures are very practical because they provide unlinkability and traceability as well as anonymity. In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving PKI based on group signature, with which users’ privacy can be kept in services. Because of traceability, their identities can be traced if they abuse anonymity such as cybercrime. Moreover, we will also discuss open issues for further studies.
Research paradigms in computer science

This paper explores the ramifications of four influential definitions of computer science: 1. Computer science is the study of phenomena related to computers, Newell, Perlis and Simon, 1967 2. Computer science is the study of algorithms, Knuth, 1968 3. Computer science is the study of information structures, Wegner, 1968, Curriculum 68 4. Computer science is the study and management of complexity, Dijkstra, 1969. The first definition reflects an empirical tradition since it asserts that computer science is concerned with the study of a class of phenomena. The second and third definitions reflect a mathematical tradition since algorithms and information structures are two abstractions from the phenomena of computer science. The fourth definition reflects the great complexity of engineering problems encountered in managing the construction of complex software-hardware systems. It is argued in section 1 that computer science was dominated by empirical research paradigms in the 1950s, by mathematical research paradigms in the 1960s and by engineering oriented paradigms in the 1970s. Section 2 illustrates how these three phases of development are reflected in the field of programming languages. The remaining sections consider in greater detail how empirical, mathematical and engineering research paradigms have affected the development of computer science. Section 3 indicates that although the phenomena of computer science are created by man they can be studied using the empirical techniques of the natural sciences. Section 4 distinguishes between “micro computer science” concerned with the study of individual algorithms and “macro computer science” concerned with the study of mechanisms and notations for specifying all algorithms; and between intensional “how” specifications and extensional “what” specifications for programs and computing systems. Section 5 distinguishes between the uses of the term “complexity” in software engineering and the analysis of algorithms and suggests that different terms be used to denote these two kinds of complexity. In a final section it is argued that the diversity of research paradigms in computer science may be responsible both for our difficulties in deciding how computer scientists should be trained and for divergences of opinion concerning the nature of computer science research.