Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prosocial Tendencies among Chinese American Children in Immigrant Families: Links to Cultural and Socio-demographic Factors and Psychological Adjustment

Author(s): Main, A; Zhou, Q; Liew, J; Lee, C | Abstract: © 2016 John Wiley a Sons Ltd The present study examined relations between prosocial tendencies (dispositional sympathy and prosocial behavior) and psychological adjustment using a multi-method and multi-informant approach in a socioeconomically diverse sample of first- and second-generation Chinese American children from immigrant families (N = 238, M age = 9.2 years). We tested the concurrent associations between: (a) children's dispositional sympathy (rated by parents, teachers, and children, and observed prosocial behavior), (b) psychological adjustment (parent- and teacher-reported externalizing problems and social competence); and (c) cultural and socio-demographic factors (children's Chinese and American orientations, family Socioeconomic Status (SES), only child status, and children's age, sex, and social desirability). Results from correlations and structural equation modeling suggested that different measures of prosocial tendencies related differently to children's psychological adjustment. Parent- and teacher-rated sympathy were associated with higher child social competence and lower externalizing problems within, but not across, reporter. By contrast, child-rated sympathy was associated with higher teacher-rated social competence, and observed prize donation was associated with lower teacher-rated externalizing problems. Different measures of prosocial tendencies also showed different relations to cultural and socio-demographic factors. These findings suggest that prosocial tendencies are not a unitary construct in Chinese American immigrant children: the manifestations of prosocial tendencies and their adjustment implications might depend on the context and/or targets of these tendencies.
Follicular Dendritic Cells Specifically Express the Long CR2/CD21 Isoform

This paper describes an antibody (mAb 7D6) that specifically recognizes human follicular dendritic cells (FDCs). By expression cloning, a cDNA clone encoding for the long human CR2/ CD21 isoform (CD21L) that contains an additional exon (10a) was isolated. We demonstrated that FDCs selectively express CD21L, while B cells selectively express the short CR2/CD21 lacking exon 10a (CD21S). By screening mouse Ltk− cells transfected with the CD21L cDNA, we further showed that the other two anti–human FDC mAbs DRC-1 and KiM4 also recognize CD21L. Thus, CD21L represents the first characterized human FDC-specific molecule, which may confer unique functions of FDCs in germinal center development.
Content and Structure of Clinical Problem Lists: A Corpus Analysis

In the interest of designing an automated high-level, longitudinal clinical summary of a patient record, we analyze traditional ways in which medical problems pertaining to the patient are summarized in the electronic health record. The patient problem list has become a commonly used proxy for a summary of patient history and automated methods have been proposed to generate it. However, little research has been conducted on how to structure the problem list in a manner most effective for supporting clinical care. This study analyzes the structure and content of the Past Medical History (PMH) sections of a large corpus of clinical notes, as a proxy for problem lists. Findings show that when listing patients history, physicians convey several semantic types of information, not only problems. Furthermore, they often group related concepts in a single line of the PMH. In contrast, traditional problem lists allow only a simple enumeration of coded terms. Content analysis goes on to reiterate the value of more complex representations as well as provide valuable data and guidelines for automated generation of a clinical summary.
Applying an Analytic Method for Matching Approach Selection

One of the main open issues in the ontology matching field is the selection of a current relevant and suitable matcher. The suitability of the given approaches is determined w.r. t the requirements of the application and with careful consideration of a number of factors. This work proposes a multilevel characteristic for matching approaches, which provides a basis for the comparison of different matchers and is used in the decision making process for selection the most appropriate algorithm.
A positive organizational behavior approach to work motivation : testing the core confidence model in China

Positive organizational behavior (POB) provides a new, positive approach to work motivation by developing and managing people’s strengths and psychological capacities. Based upon the POB construct, Stajkovic and Luthans have developed a Core Confidence Model that integrates the four widely recognized human strengths of self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resiliency into one latent factor. This integrated factor is proposed as key in understanding motivation in the workplace. Because all four individual indicators meet the unique POB criteria of being measurable, open-todevelopment, and manageable for performance and leadership improvement, the Core Confidence Model seems to be exceptionally well suited for today’s rapidly changing political, cultural, and economic environment. The purpose of this study is to test this Core Confidence Model in the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) of the transitional country of the People’s Republic of China. For this study, the sample consisted of the production workers in a Chinese SOE. Two hundred thirty nine workers from Luoyong Copper Working Group, a typical Chinese SOE with approximately 10,000 employees, participated in this study. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the questionnaire survey data. Factor analysis was also used to suggest the optimal outcome of the latent variable, the core confidence factor, proposed in the model. Statistical analysis provided the correlations and their significance levels among the individual observed variables and that between the latent core confidence factor and predicted performance. The results of the analysis indicate the latent core confidence factor (derived from the four components of self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resiliency) provided a significant positive impact on performance. The impact of the integrated latent core confidence factor was, in fact, more effective than derived from any one individual component, as well as any core trait-like self-evaluations such as self-esteem, general efficacy, internal locus of control, and emotional stability. The results also revealed that resiliency has a significantly positive relationship with performance. This study provides initial empirical support for the core confidence model as a positive approach to work motivation in a Chinese SOE. The analysis indicated the latent core confidence factor, consisting of state-like positive psychological capacities, to be significantly related to employee performance. In particular, the important role that psychological strengths may play in motivating employees in the relatively difficult context of Chinese SOEs was demonstrated. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
The role of the transient outward current in action potential repolarization: A simulation study

The potassium transient outward current (Ito) is active only during the early plateau of the action potential (AP) and, therefore, its role in governing APD is controversial. The goal of this work is to characterize Ito from patch-clamp experiments in canine ventricular epicardial cells and demonstrate its influence in cardiac restitution using an AP mathematical model. Data from our experiments has been used to define a new mathematical model for Ito, which has been then inserted in the Decker et al. model for canine epicardial AP, substituting the original formulation of Ito. The new model predicts an increase in action potential duration (APD) when Ito is blocked, in accordance with recent experimental evidence. Inspection of the ionic currents in the simulations show that the blockade of Ito may indirectly affect other plateau ionic currents like L-type Calcium current (ICaL) and the rapid component of the rectifier potassium current (IKr), producing an increment in the APD. These novel findings emphasize the importance of Ito in repolarization and suggest a potential role of Ito blockade in arrhythmogenesis.
Word-Phrase-Entity Recurrent Neural Networks for Language Modeling

The recently introduced framework of Word-Phrase-Entity language modeling is applied to Recurrent Neural Networks and leads to similar improvements as reported for n-gram language models. In the proposed architecture, RNN LMs do not operate in terms of lexical items (words), but consume sequences of tokens that could be words, word phrases or classes such as named entities, with the optimal representation for a particular input sentence determined in an iterative manner. We show how auxiliary techniques previously described for n-gram WPE language models, such as token-level interpolation and personalization, can also be realized with recurrent networks and lead to similar perplexity improvements.
A Prospect Theory Explanation of the Disposition to Trade Losing Investments for Less Than Market Price

Investors have a proven general reluctance to realize losses. The theory of “mental accounting” suggests that losses are easier to accept when mentally integrated with either preceding losses or with compensatory gains. Mental integration is made easier when a failed asset is exchanged against a new, apparently profitable, acquisition. The alternative is to sell the existing asset on the open market before re-investing the proceeds as desired. This is emotionally less appealing than “rolling over” a losing investment into a new venture by way of an asset trade. The psychological benefits of exchanging rather than selling a failed asset come at a cost. It is typical of trade-in arrangements, e.g., where one trades an old car against a new one, that the effective sale price of the existing asset is less than current market value. Acceptance of this low price adds to the investor's total monetary loss on the existing asset but is essential to an overall package deal apart from which that asset would often remain belatedly unsold.
Effects of Emotional Contents on Explicit Memory Process

In two experiments, a recognition test was used to investigate the effects of emotional words and pictures on explicit memory. In Experiment 1, participants viewed a list of positive, negative, and neutral pictures and in Experiment 2, a list of positive, negative, and neutral words was shown to participants. A recognition test was conducted after a 30 minute interval. Results showed that pictures were remembered better than words. Positive emotional contents had an advantage in explicit memory when compared to negative contents. There was also evidence to suggest that explicit memory was suppressed when contents were negative. The findings provided evidence for the significant role of valence on explicit memory recognition processes.
A new geometrical blind separation of sources algorithm.

In this paper we present a new blind separation of sources (BSS) algorithm based on second order statistics (SOS) and geometrical approaches. The new algorithm can separate multisources from their instantaneous mixtures obtained by multisensors. In the case of $p$ sources and $p$ sensors, the algorithm can be decomposed into $p$ steps: First, one should transform the mixing signals to orthogonal signals using mainly the SOS of the mixing signals. After that, one can separate the sources by using $p-1$ rotations and projections. The experimental studies show that the separation of two or three speech or music signals can be obtained in relatively competitive time and that the obtained results are very satisfactory. keywords: Decorrelation, Second-Order Statistics, Whiteness, Blind Separation of Sources, Geometrical Algorithms, Independent Component Analysis, Probability Density Function.
Compressed Binary Image Hashes Based on Semisupervised Spectral Embedding

Conventional image hashing maps invariant features of each digital image into a unique, compact, robust, and secure signature, which can be used as an index for fast content identification and copyright protection. This paper addresses an important issue of compressing the real-valued image hashes into short binary signatures, which can support fast image identification using Hamming distance metrics. The proposed binary image hashing approach presents a fundamental departure from existing methods: Prior information from virtual image distortions and attacks is explored the first time in image hash generation. More specifically, the proposed scheme takes advantages of the extended hash feature space from virtual distortions and attacks and generates the binary signature for each image based on spectral embedding. Since the objective function to learn the embedding is designed to both preserve local similarity between distorted copies of the same image and to distinguish visually distinct images, the generated binary image hash is more robust compared with the one using conventional quantization-based compression approaches. Further, the proposed method can be generalized to combine different types of image hashes to generate a fixed-length binary signature. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed binary image hash by combining different real-valued image hashes is more robust against various distortions and it is computationally efficient for image similarity comparison using Hamming metrics.
Organizational evolution in a multinational context: entries of automobile manufacturers in Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy

Cet article examine l'evolution du nombre d'entreprises dans l'industrie automobile entre 1886 et 1981 cela pour cinq pays : la France, la Grande-Bretagne, la Belgique, l'Italie et l'Allemagne. Les AA. montrent, en utilisant le modele analysant la variable densite-dependance, que la legitimation de l'investissement, dans cette branche, est liee a l'engagement global et au dynamisme de l'industrie automobile europeenne et que cette strategie d'investissement ne repond pas a une pure logique de competition
A goal-oriented development tool to automate the incorporation of intelligent agents into interactive digital media applications

Recent developments in games and interactive storytelling applications have seen artificially intelligent computer controlled characters being included extensively. Non-human controlled characters are starting to play an increasingly significant role in enhancing the perceived intelligence of games. Although many of them employed certain cheating techniques (e.g. allocating more resources at the start to AI opponents to make them appear more aggressive), some limited learning did appear in several games (e.g. letting AI opponents remember where human users initiated attacked in previous game). In our Virtual Singapura research project, we incorporate software agents into our virtual world to provide more complex user interactions. With intelligent software agents being infused into interactive digital media applications, there is great potential in improving the overall user experience. However, during the process of our research, we discovered that the traditional way of adding a multi-agent system into a computer game requires a large amount of investment in time and resources and a high level of expertise in Agent Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE). Moreover, game AI is usually closely coupled with other parts of the game code which makes it hard to reuse or replace. This research proposes a multi-agent development and runtime framework which not only provides ease-of-use agent design and implementation tools but also can be easily plugged into various interactive digital media applications.
Understanding the social and cultural contexts of female sex workers in Karnataka, India: implications for prevention of HIV infection.

BACKGROUND The objective of the present study was to compare the sociodemographic characteristics and sex work patterns of women involved in the traditional Devadasi form of sex work with those of women involved in other types of sex work, in the Indian state of Karnataka. METHODS Data were gathered through in-person interviews. Sampling was stratified by district and by type of sex work. RESULTS Of 1588 female sex workers (FSWs) interviewed, 414 (26%) reported that they entered sex work through the Devadasi tradition. Devadasi FSWs were more likely than other FSWs to work in rural areas (47.3% vs. 8.9%, respectively) and to be illiterate (92.8% vs. 76.9%, respectively). Devadasi FSWs had initiated sex work at a much younger age (mean, 15.7 vs. 21.8 years), were more likely to be home based (68.6% vs. 14.9%), had more clients in the past week (average, 9.0 vs. 6.4), and were less likely to migrate for work within the state (4.6% vs. 18.6%) but more likely to have worked outside the state (19.6% vs. 13.1%). Devadasi FSWs were less likely to report client-initiated violence during the past year (13.3% vs. 35.8%) or police harassment (11.6% vs. 44.3%). CONCLUSION Differences in sociobehavioral characteristics and practice patterns between Devadasi and other FSWs necessitate different individual and structural interventions for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including human immunodeficiency virus infection.
Aspirin Inhibits the Production of Reactive Oxygen Species by Downregulating Nox4 and Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase in Human Endothelial Cells Exposed to Oxidized Low-density Lipoprotein

Abstract: Aspirin has antithrombotic activity and is commonly used to protect patients from cardiovascular disease attacks. The present study investigated whether aspirin reduces reactive oxygen species and proinflammatory proteins in oxidized low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL)–stimulated human umbilical vein endothelial cells. The results showed that aspirin attenuated reactive oxygen species generation induced by ox-LDL and downregulated Nox4 and inducible nitric oxide synthase expression. Redox-sensitive transcription factor nuclear factor kappa B was inactivated by aspirin, significantly preventing nuclear factor kappa B p65 subunit translocation into the nucleus. The expression of the monocyte/macrophage chemotactic protein 1 also decreased, but endothelial nitric oxide synthase expression increased in aspirin-treated cells. Aspirin ameliorated oxidative stress by downregulating Nox4 and inducible nitric oxide synthase and improved endothelial cell function by increasing endothelial nitric oxide synthase expression. Thus, aspirin may possess protective effects against ox-LDL–induced endothelial cell injury.
Uncontrolled Manifold Analysis of Arm Joint Angle Variability During Robotic Teleoperation and Freehand Movement of Surgeons and Novices

Teleoperated robot-assisted surgery (RAS) is used to perform a wide variety of minimally invasive procedures. However, current understanding of the effect of robotic manipulation on the motor coordination of surgeons is limited. Recent studies in human motor control suggest that we optimize hand movement stability and task performance while minimizing control effort and improving robustness to unpredicted disturbances. To achieve this, the variability of joint angles and muscle activations is structured to reduce task-relevant variability and increase task-irrelevant variability. In this study, we determine whether teleoperation of a da Vinci Si surgical system in a nonclinical task of simple planar movements changes this structure of variability in experienced surgeons and novices. To answer this question, we employ the UnControlled manifold analysis that partitions users' joint angle variability into task-irrelevant and task-relevant manifolds. We show that experienced surgeons coordinate their joint angles to stabilize hand movements more than novices, and that the effect of teleoperation depends on experience-experts increase teleoperated stabilization relative to freehand whereas novices decrease it. We suggest that examining users' exploitation of the task-irrelevant manifold for stabilization of hand movements may be applied to: (1) evaluation and optimization of teleoperator design and control parameters, and (2) skill assessment and optimization of training in RAS.
Spatial Throughput of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks Powered by Energy Harvesting

Designing mobiles to harvest ambient energy such as kinetic activities or electromagnetic radiation will enable wireless networks to be self-sustaining. In this paper, the spatial throughput of a mobile ad hoc network powered by energy harvesting is analyzed using a stochastic-geometry model. In this model, transmitters are distributed as a Poisson point process and energy arrives at each transmitter randomly with a uniform average rate called the energy arrival rate. Upon harvesting sufficient energy, each transmitter transmits with fixed power to an intended receiver under an outage-probability constraint for a target signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio. It is assumed that transmitters store energy in batteries with infinite capacity. By applying the random-walk theory, the probability that a transmitter transmits, called the transmission probability, is proved to be equal to the smaller of one and the ratio between the energy-arrival rate and transmission power. This result and tools from stochastic geometry are applied to maximize the network throughput for a given energy-arrival rate by optimizing transmission power. The maximum network throughput is shown to be proportional to the optimal transmission probability, which is equal to one if the transmitter density is below a derived function of the energy-arrival rate or otherwise is smaller than one and solves a given polynomial equation. Last, the limits of the maximum network throughput are obtained for the extreme cases of high energy-arrival rates and sparse/dense networks.