Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychometric Properties of Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised (DMQ-R) in Spanish Adolescents

The Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised (DMQ-R; Cooper, 1994) is the most widely used questionnaire to assess drinking motives. This research aimed to adapt and study the validity and reliability of the Spanish DMQ-R and its short form in a sample of adolescents. We assessed 504 drinkers at Time 1 (T1, Mage = 14.15, SD = 0.60, 52.38% female), of whom 238 participated in a 1-year follow-up (T2, Mage = 15.05, SD = 0.54, 58.82% female). They completed the DMQ-R at T1, the alcohol use measure at T1 and T2, and the alcohol-related problems questionnaire at T2. We performed Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFAs) to test the structure validity of the questionnaire, Cronbach’s alphas to test the internal consistencies of the scales, and path analyses to test the concurrent and predictive validity of motives on alcohol outcomes. CFA indicated that the short form of the 4-factor model best fitted the data. Cronbach’s alphas were . 70 or higher. Direct effects of the path analysis showed that social motives cross-sectionally predicted alcohol use, while coping motives prospectively predicted alcohol-related problems. Indirect effects showed that social motives prospectively predicted alcohol use and problems. To conclude, the DMQ-R short form appears to be reliable and valid to assess drinking motives among Spanish adolescents.
Transient expression of the Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus immediate-early gene, IE-N, is regulated by three viral elements

Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus (AcMNPV) is a double-stranded DNA virus that expresses several immediate-early genes under the control of different promoters. The expression of one of these transcription units, IE-N, is shown here, by a transient expression assay, to be regulated by both cis- and trans-acting viral elements. The steady-state levels of IE-N mRNA were very abundant soon after infection but were nearly undetectable during the late phase of the viral life cycle. Analysis of the transient expression of a reporter construct driven by the IE-N promoter (IE-NCAT) was conducted to define viral elements which regulate IE-N gene expression. Viral enhancer hr1 and two immediate-early genes, IE-1 and IE-N, were shown to affect relative levels of reporter enzyme activity produced by IE-NCAT. The hr1 enhancer stimulated the expression of IE-NCAT, independent of orientation and position relative to the promoter and in the absence of any trans-acting viral factors. Regulation of IE-NCAT expression by the IE-1 and IE-N genes required less than 290 bp of promoter sequences upstream of the site of transcription initiation and was not dependent upon the hr1 enhancer. Coexpression of the IE-N gene had an autostimulatory effect upon IE-NCAT activity, whereas coexpression of the IE-1 gene reduced levels of reporter activity. The levels of reporter activity measured upon coexpression of either immediate-early gene with IE-NCAT linked to the hr1 enhancer appear to be the combined result of both cis- and trans-regulatory elements influencing expression from IE-NCAT. These results suggest that IE-N gene expression in baculovirus infection may be influenced by the concerted activity of three AcMNPV regulatory elements.
Identifying Balance in a Balanced Scorecard System.

In recent years, strategic management concepts seem to be gaining greater attention from the academicians and the practitioner's alike. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) concept is one such management concepts that has spread in worldwide business and consulting communities. The BSC translates mission and vision statements into a comprehensive set of objectives and performance measures that can be quantified and appraised. Using current literature analysis, interpretation and review of corporate practices, this paper demonstrates whether the BSC can be seen as a 'necessary good' for modern organisations or is it just an addition to the existing management processes. The paper reviews whether there exists significant difference amongst the BSCs of organisations compared with others and reviews how ideally the BSCs are formulated and the shortcomings in the current BSC concepts.
Session Privacy Enhancement by Traffic Dispersion

Traditional network routing uses the single (shortest) path paradigm. This paradigm leaves the session vulnerable to a variety of security threats, such as eavesdropping. We propose to overcome this via dispersive routing, conducted over multiple paths. This increases significantly the costs inflicted on an attacker who wishes to eavesdrop sessions by hijacking network links (or routers). We formulate the Security Traffic Manager (STM) problem (route session fragments, over multiple paths, so that protection against an attacker, with a known hijacking budget, is guaranteed) and the attacker problem (find the cheapest hijacking strategy). The problems are analyzed for cases in which the attacker must eavesdrop all the fragments as well for cases in which it must eavesdrop only a fraction of them. We analyze the theoretical complexity of these problems and offer algorithms for finding dispersive routes that guarantee security. Though some theoretical cases of the problem are shown to be NP-Hard, typical practical cases can be solved by polynomial time algorithms. We extend the STM problem to more practical situations where the goal of the STM is to guarantee privacy, using minimal number of limited-length paths. The algorithms are tested through simulation and shown to be efficient in many scenarios. The model and algorithms offered in this study can be used for deploying a “session enhanced security” service in packet networks. Keywords-component; traffic dipersion, security, eavesdrop, multi-path routing
Increasing Parental Decision-Making at the Individualized Educational Program Meeting

The purpose of this study was to develop a training package for parents and school staff to increase parent participation at the Individualized Educational Program (IEP) meeting. Fourteen parents with young handicapped children participated. The seven parents in the experimental group completed a developmental assessment on their child's present performance, recorded their family profile, and had a meeting with a school/community liaison person prior to their child's IEP meeting. The seven parents In the control group received a letter stating the purpose of the IEP meeting prior to their child's IEP conference. School staff who attended experimental group IEP meetings received summaries of the parent-generated developmental assessment and family profile. At the IEP meeting experimental parents presented their goals and concerns first. Statistical analyses indicated a significantly greater frequency in contributions, goals generated, and programming decisions made at IEP meetings by parents In the experimental group. School staff provided more home programming suggestions to parents In the experimental group and made more decisions for parents In the control group. All parents reported a high level of satisfaction with their child's IEP meeting on a follow-up questionnaire.
Estrogen-induced upregulation and 3′-UTR shortening of CDC6

3′-Untranslated region (UTR) shortening of mRNAs via alternative polyadenylation (APA) has important ramifications for gene expression. By using proximal APA sites and switching to shorter 3′-UTRs, proliferating cells avoid miRNA-mediated repression. Such APA and 3′-UTR shortening events may explain the basis of some of the proto-oncogene activation cases observed in cancer cells. In this study, we investigated whether 17 β-estradiol (E2), a potent proliferation signal, induces APA and 3′-UTR shortening to activate proto-oncogenes in estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancers. Our initial probe based screen of independent expression arrays suggested upregulation and 3′-UTR shortening of an essential regulator of DNA replication, CDC6 (cell division cycle 6), upon E2 treatment. We further confirmed the E2- and ER-dependent upregulation and 3′UTR shortening of CDC6, which lead to increased CDC6 protein levels and higher BrdU incorporation. Consequently, miRNA binding predictions and dual luciferase assays suggested that 3′-UTR shortening of CDC6 was a mechanism to avoid 3′-UTR-dependent negative regulations. Hence, we demonstrated CDC6 APA induction by the proliferative effect of E2 in ER+ cells and provided new insights into the complex regulation of APA. E2-induced APA is likely to be an important but previously overlooked mechanism of E2-responsive gene expression.
Scenarios in Business Ethics Research: Review, Critical Assessment, and Recommendations

A growing number of researchers in the business ethics field have used scenarios as a data gathering technique in their empirical investigations of ethical issues. This paper offers a review and critique of 26 studies that have utilized scenarios to elicit inferences of ethical reasoning, decision making, and/or intended behavior from managerial or student populations. The use of a theoretical foundation, the development of hypotheses, various characteristics germane to the use of scenarios, population and sampling issues, and the use of statistical measures are explored and assessed. In the interest of improving scenario-based research, ten recommendations are presented to guide future scenario research.
Decentralized localization for dynamic and sparse robot networks

Finite-range sensing and communication are factors in the connectivity of a dynamic mobile robot network. State estimation becomes a difficult problem when communication connections for information exchange between all robots are not guaranteed. This paper presents a decentralized state estimation algorithm guaranteed to work in dynamic networks without connectivity requirements. We show that a robot only needs to consider its own knowledge of network topology in order to produce an estimate equivalent to the centralized state estimate whenever possible, while ensuring the same can be performed by all other robots in the network. Our technique is validated through simulations.
Seamless Support of Multimedia Distributed Applications Through a Cloud

We describe a cross-layer architecture we are developing in order to offer mobility support to wireless devices executing multimedia applications which require seamless communications. This architecture is based on the use of pairs of proxies, which enable the adaptive and concurrent use of different network interfaces during the communications. A cloud computing environment is used as the infrastructure to set up (and release) dynamically the proxies on the server-side, in accordance with the pay-as-you-go principle of cloud based services.
Factored language modeling for Russian LVCSR

The Russian language is characterized by very flexible word order, which limits the ability of the standard n-grams to capture important regularities in the data. Moreover, Russian is highly inflectional language with rich morphology, which leads to high out-of-vocabulary word rates. Recently factored language model (FLM) was proposed with the aim of addressing the problems of morphologically rich languages. In this paper, we describe our implementation of the FLM for the Russian language automatic speech recognition (ASR). We investigated the effect of different factors, and propose a strategy to find the best factor set and back-off path. Evaluation experiments showed that FLM can decrease the perplexity as much as 20%. This allows to achieve 4.0% word error rate (WER) relative reduction, which further increases to 6.9% when FLM is interpolated with the conventional 3-gram LM.
Path Loss Models for Air-to-Ground Radio Channels in Urban Environments

This paper provides new statistical models for air-to-ground channels in an urban environment. The model is derived to operate at frequencies from 200 MHz to 5 GHz. Issues such as path loss and shadowing are evaluated as a function of the elevation angle to the airborne platform, rather than the more usual separation distance used for terrestrial mobile communications. Results demonstrate the advantages of an air-to-ground channel for urban communication, and relayed peer-to-peer links in particular
EPIDEMIOLOGIC EVALUATION OF ELEPHANT ENDOTHELIOTROPIC HERPESVIRUS 3B INFECTION IN AN AFRICAN ELEPHANT (LOXODONTA AFRICANA)

Abstract This epidemiologic study follows a 5-yr-old male African elephant (Loxodonta africana) during an episode of hemorrhagic disease (HD) due to elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus 3B (EEHV3B) utilizing data from complete blood counts, electrophoresis and acute phase protein analysis, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of multiple body fluids during and after the clinical episode. The elephant presented with sudden onset of marked lethargy and inappetence followed by hypersalivation, hyperemia of the conjunctivae and focally on the tongue, and swellings on the head and ventrum. A moderate leukocytopenia with band neutrophilia, lymphopenia, monocytopenia, and thrombocytophilia was followed by a rise in all three cell types by day 10. Moderate increases in serum amyloid A and C-reactive protein were noted in the first weeks of illness. Conventional PCR of whole blood yielded a strong positive result for EEHV3B. Quantitative PCR revealed moderate viremia, which slowly returned to undetectable levels by day 35 of treatment. EEHV3B was shed in trunk wash samples starting at day 22 for 10 days at moderate levels, and then at low levels for up to 8.5 mo. All three female herd mates shed low levels of EEHV3B in trunk washes intermittently starting from day 28 of the calf's illness until over 7 mo afterward. The majority of saliva samples from the calf over the 8.5-mo period were also positive for EEHV3B. A subfraction of saliva samples from a female herdmate was positive from days 127–190 following disease onset in the calf. Four elephant gammaherpesviruses were detected sporadically from the calf and female herdmates during this same time period. Treatment was started at the onset of clinical signs and consisted of rectal and oral fluids and oral famciclovir. This is the first case of EEHV3B HD in an elephant species and the first thorough epidemiologic evaluation of EEHV HD in an African elephant.
The Realities of "Reaching Out": Enacting the Public-Facing Open Scholar Role with Existing Online Communities

A core tenet of the open educational resources (OER) movement has long been that 'the world's knowledge is a public good' (Smith & Casserly, 2006, p.2) and should be available for everyone to use, reuse and share. However, this vision of openness and of the connection between OER and social justice, which McAndrew and Farrow (2013) observe is currently re-emerging, is limited by the fact that OER-provision is typically top-down, driven by higher education suppliers with the needs of higher education (HE) in mind. As a consequence, the OER that are released can be hard to find for potential users outside HE and often fail to meet those potential users' needs in respect of the content, size, format and level of the OER. Seeking to increase the impact of OER and open educational practices (OEP) beyond higher education we conceptualised a new role for academics - the public-facing open scholar. The role involves academics working with online communities outside HE to source OER to meet the specific needs of those communities. Having developed detailed guidelines for performing the role we piloted it within a voluntary sector child welfare community in order to explore its viability. To date, our pilot findings indicate that the role of public-facing open scholar is both viable and well-received by the case study community. However, the pilot process, conducted in a community which requires all participants to be anonymous, has also highlighted the need to be aware of the impact of privacy constraints when choosing a community with which to work. In addition, the pilot indicated that listening to a community's needs involves more than noting requests for advice and includes attentiveness to a community's culture and typical modes of participation. This, in turn, can help the public-facing open scholar to fit in with the community and gain members' trust. The implications of these findings are wide-ranging. Voluntary sector online communities offer one platform for the public-facing open scholar to realise the transformative potential of open education, raising awareness and increasing the use and reuse of OER by people outside HE. However, the scope for the role is not limited to the voluntary sector and academics could find opportunities to perform the role in many different types of community. Furthermore, whilst we have concentrated on the role of the individual academic, institutional dimensions are also relevant. For example, higher education institutions which formally recognise the public-facing open scholar role as an important component of academic output, rather than an activity which is in tension with the demands of paid employment, may themselves be seen as taking on the role of a benevolent academy that is contributing to a global movement for free and open access to knowledge.
Active people recognition using thermal and grey images on a mobile security robot

In this paper we present a vision-based approach to detect, track and identify people on a mobile robot in real time. While most vision systems for tracking people on mobile robots use skin color information, we present an approach using thermal images and a fast contour model together with a particle filter. With this method a person can be detected independently from current light conditions and in situations where no skin color is visible (the person is not close or does not face the robot). Tracking in thermal images is used as an attention system to get an estimate of the position of a person. Based on this estimate we use a pan-tilt camera to zoom to the expected face region and apply a fast face tracker in combination with face recognition to identify the person.
Family Involvement in High School: Predictors and Effects

Reports from more than 11,000 parents of high school seniors and 1,000 high school principals were analyzed to learn about high school, family, and community partnerships. Analyses revealed that regardless of students’ background and prior achievement, various parenting, volunteering, and home learning activities positively influenced student grades, course credits completed, attendance, behavior, and school preparedness. When educators guided parents and solicited their participation, parents responded with increased involvement to support student success.
Guidelines for using in vitro methods to study the effects of phyto-oestrogens on bone

These guidelines review the relevant literature on the way plant phyto-oestrogens act on bone and the responsiveness of different bone cell systems to phyto-oestrogenic compounds. The primary emphasis is on the experimental conditions used, the markers available for assessing osteoblast and osteoclast function, and their expected sensitivity. Finally, we assess the published results to derive some general recommendations for in vitro experiments in this area of research.
Minimum energy control for in vitro neurons

Objective. To demonstrate the applicability of optimal control theory for designing minimum energy charge-balanced input waveforms for single periodically-firing in vitro neurons from brain slices of Long-Evans rats. Approach. The method of control uses the phase model of a neuron and does not require prior knowledge of the neuron’s biological details. The phase model of a neuron is a one-dimensional model that is characterized by the neuron’s phase response curve (PRC), a sensitivity measure of the neuron to a stimulus applied at different points in its firing cycle. The PRC for each neuron is experimentally obtained by measuring the shift in phase due to a short-duration pulse injected into the periodically-firing neuron at various phase values. Based on the measured PRC, continuous-time, charge-balanced, minimum energy control waveforms have been designed to regulate the next firing time of the neuron upon application at the onset of an action potential. Main result. The designed waveforms can achieve the inter-spike-interval regulation for in vitro neurons with energy levels that are lower than those of conventional monophasic pulsatile inputs of past studies by at least an order of magnitude. They also provide the advantage of being charge-balanced. The energy efficiency of these waveforms is also shown by performing several supporting simulations that compare the performance of the designed waveforms against that of phase shuffled surrogate inputs, variants of the minimum energy waveforms obtained from suboptimal PRCs, as well as pulsatile stimuli that are applied at the point of maximum PRC. It was found that the minimum energy waveforms perform better than all other stimuli both in terms of control and in the amount of energy used. Specifically, it was seen that these charge-balanced waveforms use at least an order of magnitude less energy than conventional monophasic pulsatile stimuli. Significance. The significance of this work is that it uses concepts from the theory of optimal control and introduces a novel approach in designing minimum energy charge-balanced input waveforms for neurons that are robust to noise and implementable in electrophysiological experiments.
TDFA/Raman hybrid amplifiers covering the entire S-band pumped by a single laser

Hybrid amplifier configurations are reported cascading one Raman and one or two Tm/sup 3+/-doped fiber stages, using a single pump at 1426 nm, allowing seamless amplification of the entire S-band (1460-1530 nm). Different configurations were studied, with gain over the entire band width and peak gain up to 24 dB. Noise figure as low as 7 dB was achieved.
Applying semantic similarity measures to enhance topic-specific web crawling

As the Internet grows rapidly, finding desirable information becomes a tedious and time consuming task. Topic-specific web crawlers, as utopian solutions, tackle this issue through traversing the Web and collecting information related to the topic of interest. In this regard, various methods are proposed. Nevertheless, they hardly consider desired sense of the given topic which would certainly play an important role to find relevant web pages. In this paper, we attempt to improve topic-specific web crawling by disambiguating the sense of the topic. This would avoid crawling irrelevant links interlaced with other senses of the topic. For this purpose, by considering links hypertext semantic, we employ Lin semantic similarity measure in our crawler, named LinCrawler, to distinguish topic sense-related links from the others. Moreover, we compare LinCrawler against TFCrawler which only considers frequency of terms in hypertexts. Experimental results show LinCrawler outperforms TFCrawler to collect more relevant web pages.
From infinite urn schemes to decompositions of self-similar Gaussian processes

We investigate a special case of infinite urn schemes first considered by Karlin (1967), especially its occupancy and odd-occupancy processes. We first propose a natural randomization of these two processes and their decompositions. We then establish functional central limit theorems, showing that each randomized process and its components converge jointly to a decomposition of certain self-similar Gaussian process. In particular, the randomized occupancy process and its components converge jointly to the decomposition of a time-changed Brownian motion $\mathbb B(t^\alpha), \alpha\in(0,1)$, and the randomized odd-occupancy process and its components converge jointly to a decomposition of fractional Brownian motion with Hurst index $H\in(0,1/2)$. The decomposition in the latter case is a special case of the decompositions of bi-fractional Brownian motions recently investigated by Lei and Nualart (2009). The randomized odd-occupancy process can also be viewed as correlated random walks, and in particular as a complement to the model recently introduced by Hammond and Sheffield (2013) as discrete analogues of fractional Brownian motions.