Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distinguishing between the Meanings of Music: When Background Music Affects Product Perceptions

Music theory distinguishes between two types of meanings that music can impart: (1) embodied meaning, which is purely hedonic, context independent, and based on the degree of stimulation the musical sound affords, and (2) referential meaning, which is context dependent and reflects networks of semantic-laden, external world concepts. Two studies investigate which (if either) of these background music meanings influence perceptions of an advertised product and when. Findings suggest that people who engage in nonintensive processing are insensitive to either type of meaning. However, more intensive processors base their perceptions on the music's referential meaning when ad message processing requires few resources, but they use the music's embodied meaning when such processing is relatively resource demanding.
Approach–Avoidance Goals and Active–Passive Self-Regulation Styles in Homicide Offending: A Pathways Analysis

The current study reports on the application of Ward & Hudson's self-regulation model to 26 homicide offenders found Not Guilty of Reason of Insanity (NGRI). Ward and Hudson's self-regulation model [Ward, T. , & Hudson, S.M. (2000). A self-regulation model of relapse prevention. In D.R. Laws, S.M. Hudson, & T. Ward (Eds.), Remaking relapse prevention with sex offenders: A sourcebook (pp. 79–101). New York: SAGE. ] distinguishes between offenders who have approach vs. avoidant goals, and between their uses of active vs. passive strategies in committing their offences. Results demonstrated that the model reliably identified offenders in three of the four pathway categories. Approach goal offenders compared with avoidant goal offenders were more associated with mainstream criminal offenders. Avoidant goal offenders were generally found to be more associated with a mentally disordered group of offenders. A further analysis of the data demonstrated that constructs of the two broad pathways of approach–active and avoidance–passive were not found to be mutually exclusive, with a combination four-path model resulting in a third pathway consisting of offenders with approach–passive self-regulatory styles. The pathway consisted of offenders where florid psychotic symptoms were prevailing during the time of the offence for these particular offenders. The present research highlights the strength of a four-path model over a two-path approach. A number of clinical implications of the model are discussed.
Female and male genetic contributions to post-mating immune defence in female Drosophila melanogaster

Post-mating reduction in immune defence is common in female insects, and a trade-off between mating and immunity could affect the evolution of immunity. In this work, we tested the capacity of virgin and mated female Drosophila melanogaster to defend against infection by four bacterial pathogens. We found that female D. melanogaster suffer post-mating immunosuppression in a pathogen-dependent manner. The effect of mating was seen after infection with two bacterial pathogens (Providencia rettgeri and Providencia alcalifaciens), though not after infection with two other bacteria (Enterococcus faecalis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa). We then asked whether the evolution of post-mating immunosuppression is primarily a ‘female’ or ‘male’ trait by assaying for genetic variation among females for the degree of post-mating immune suppression they experience and among males for the level of post-mating immunosuppression they elicit in their mates. We also assayed for an interaction between male and female genotypes to test the specific hypothesis that the evolution of a trade-off between mating and immune defence in females might be being driven by sexual conflict. We found that females, but not males, harbour significant genetic variation for post-mating immunosuppression, and we did not detect an interaction between female and male genotypes. We thus conclude that post-mating immune depression is predominantly a ‘female’ trait, and find no evidence that it is evolving under sexual conflict.
Remediation of TENORM residues: risk communication in practice

Despite several decades of studies on the risk assessment and risk perception of ionising radiation, risk management of radioactive materials remains a challenging issue. This is also true for wastes containing technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials. The present work focuses on the underlying reasons for communication problems between experts and affected members of the public. Exploring the case of a German remediation site with residual radioactive contamination in a residential area, the experts’ as well as the residents’ perspectives were studied by conducting qualitative interviews. Our results indicate a variety of reasons for communication problems on different levels of risk management and risk communication: the regulatory, the communicative and the moral levels. In the observed case, four salient causes for problems in risk communication and risk management emerged: the mismatch in understanding the residents’ values, the issue of risk communication in an unforeseen situation, the problem of the regulatory gap between radiation protection and soil protection in regard to legacies with naturally occurring radioactive material in Germany, and the challenge of communicating a highly complex scientific issue to non-scientists. Moreover, one (at least partial) solution could be seen: the introduction of an external mediator. The results indicate that coordination of different health and environment protection disciplines—in this case radiation protection relating to soil protection—is possible and urgently needed. The opportunity to put, at least natural, radioactive material in line with other conventional industrial materials should be taken.
Genomic Selection for Processing and End‐Use Quality Traits in the CIMMYT Spring Bread Wheat Breeding Program

Genomic selection applied for wheat quality in CIMMYT spring bread wheat breeding program. All wheat quality traits predicted and validated using forward genomic selection. Dough and loaf traits have moderately high predictive ability in CIMMYT breeding program. Genomic selection genetic gain 1.4 to 2.7 times higher than phenotypic selection.
Pharmacokinetics and safety of rifabutin in young HIV-infected children receiving rifabutin and lopinavir/ritonavir

Objectives Co-treatment of HIV and TB in young children is complicated by limited treatment options and complex drug–drug interactions. Rifabutin is an alternative to rifampicin for adults receiving a ritonavir-boosted PI. We aimed to evaluate the short-term safety and pharmacokinetics of rifabutin when given with lopinavir/ritonavir in children. Patients and methods We conducted an open-label study of rifabutin dosed at 5 mg/kg three times a week in HIV-infected children ≤5 years of age receiving lopinavir/ritonavir. Intensive steady-state pharmacokinetic sampling was conducted after six doses. The Division of AIDS 2004, clarification 2009, table for grading severity of adverse events was used to classify drug toxicities. The study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01259219. Results Six children completed the study prior to closure by institutional review boards. The median (range) AUC0–48 of rifabutin was 6.91 (3.52–8.67) μg · h/mL, the median (range) Cmax of rifabutin was 0.39 (0.19–0.46) μg/mL, the median (range) AUC0–48 of 25-O-desacetyl rifabutin was 5.73 (2.85–9.13) μg · h/mL and the median (range) Cmax of 25-O-desacetyl rifabutin was 0.17 (0.08–0.32) μg/mL. The neutrophil count declined in all children; two children experienced grade 4 neutropenia, which resolved rapidly without complications. There was strong correlation between AUC0–48 measures and neutrophil counts. Conclusions Rifabutin dosed at 5 mg/kg three times per week resulted in lower AUC0–48, AUC0–24 and Cmax values for rifabutin and 25-O-desacetyl rifabutin compared with adults receiving 150 mg of rifabutin daily, the current recommended dose. We observed high rates of severe transient neutropenia, possibly due to immaturity of CYP3A4 in young children. It remains unclear whether a safe and effective rifabutin dose exists for treatment of TB in children receiving lopinavir/ritonavir.
Formal Consensus Method to Evaluate the Conformity of Prescription of a Recently Approved Chemotherapy Treatment in an Observatory Study

Cabazitaxel is a second line chemotherapy drug recently approved for the treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. A first panel of French experts and a second independent panel of European experts were convened to assess the conformity of prescription of cabazitaxel with a Delphi consensus method. A two-round modified Delphi consensus process was conducted. This methodology is based on experts’ opinion obtained in a systematic manner. The process was divided into five steps: (i) elaboration of the questionnaire, (ii) rating, (iii) analysis, (iv) discussion of the points with absence of consensus following rating of the questionnaire, and (v) final reporting. Consensus was defined according to RAND method and all analyses were conducted according to the same methodology. At the end of the two rounds of rating and a synthesis meeting, of the 26 items included in the Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC), 11 items were judged appropriate with strong consensus by the two independent panels of experts. These items can therefore be considered of prime importance to evaluate conformity of cabazitaxel prescription in the context of observatory studies as well as in further clinical trials using this new taxane. Our findings further provide important evidence about the value of the Delphi consensus and highlight a requirement for “conformity” standards to assist practitioners in a safe chemotherapy drug prescription.
Supportive-expressive group therapy for people experiencing collective traumatic crisis during the genocide commemoration period in Rwanda: Impact and implications

In Rwanda, the annual commemorations of the genocide are associated with an increase in the level of collective traumatic crises whereby many people participating in commemoration activities present various symptoms, including emotional distress and re-experiencing traumatic events of the 1994 genocide. These sudden crises normally last between 30 and 120 minutes and can affect hundreds of people at big commemoration events. They are accompanied by a degree of urgency that disturbs the whole assembly. This article briefly presents an overview of these crises and highlights the results of a study on the effects of a supportive-expression group intervention in the post-crisis period for people who experienced these collective traumatic crises. The study compares the therapeutic progress made by a group of people who participated in a supportive-expression group therapy program as compared to those who did not receive the intervention. The study suggests that the supportive group intervention can improve the overall psychological wellbeing of people who experienced collective traumatic crisis even though it was ineffective for some symptoms.
A study on leg posture recognition from Indian classical dance using Kinect sensor

This paper proposes a simple yet a novel technique to recognize leg postures in Indian classical dance by making use of a Kinect sensor. The sensor device has the ability to track the skeleton of the subject with the help of a visible camera and an IR camera coupled to an IR laser and diffraction grating. Twenty five leg postures from `Odissi', an Indian Classical dance have been used for the evaluation our proposed algorithm. This methodology extracts eight features, which in turn can be categorized under three levels of symmetry viz. the vertical symmetry, the horizontal symmetry and the angular symmetry. Finally a similarity function is devised which is the basis of the leg posture recognition technique. This method provides better human computer interaction and also aims at spreading the dance form for e-learning purpose. The proposed algorithm can be applied for any dance form for leg posture recognition purposes. It gives 86.75% accuracy with five subjects.
Polyhedral model based application source codes analysis for ASIP design

Application Specific Instructions-set Processors (ASIPs) are needed to handle the future demand of flexible and high performance computation in parallel real-time computing domain. Current ASIP design methodologies are mostly based on the accurate understanding of application source codes. Profilers can automatically analyse source codes and get interesting information from them to aid processor architecture design. Dynamic profilers add extra instructions to source codes and execute to generate basic block execution counts. This is often infeasible in the domain of parallel real-time computing, because of excessive execution time and the difficulty to define typical stimuli in the early architecture design phase. Static methods analyse source codes without executing them and are faster and more accurate than dynamic ones. The static analysis method proposed in this paper is based on polyhedral model. It identifies code segments that execute frequently, or named hot codes. It is usually a small part of the whole code base. This information is provided to the architecture designer as design guide. The hot codes may be implemented using custom function unit to optimize the efficiency of the whole system. A running example is used to illustrate the static method, and the results are compared to dynamic profilers. Same results are achieved by the two analysis methods.
Complex-valued convolutional networks yield data-driven multiscale windowed spectra

Abstract: A complex-valued convolutional network (convnet) implements the repeated application of the following composition of three operations, recursively applying the composition to an input vector of nonnegative real numbers: (1) convolution with complex-valued vectors followed by (2) taking the absolute value of every entry of the resulting vectors followed by (3) local averaging. For processing real-valued random vectors, complex-valued convnets can be viewed as “data-driven multiscale windowed power spectra,” “data-driven multiscale windowed absolute spectra,” “datadriven multiwavelet absolute values,” or (in their most general configuration) “data-driven nonlinear multiwavelet packets. ” Indeed, complex-valued convnets can calculate multiscale windowed spectra when the convnet filters are windowed complex-valued exponentials. Standard real-valued convnets, using rectified linear units (ReLUs), sigmoidal (for example, logistic or tanh) nonlinearities, max. pooling, etc., do not obviously exhibit the same exact correspondence with data-driven wavelets (whereas for complex-valued convnets, the correspondence is much more than just a vague analogy). Courtesy of the exact correspondence, the remarkably rich and rigorous body of mathematical analysis for wavelets applies directly to (complex-valued) convnets.
THE "RANGE OF CONVENIENCE" OF PERSONAL CONSTRUCTS AND CONFIDENCE IN EVALUATING SELF

In two independent experiments, participants evaluated themselves dichotomously on bipolar constructs, and also indicated on a scale of 1 to 10 their degree of confidence in the validity of each of their own self-evaluations. They also rank-ordered the constructs in terms of their relative "usefulness for understanding people. " The same 12 constructs were supplied to all 40 participants in the first experiment (e.g., generous-stingy), whereas 10 constructs were elicited individually from each of 53 participants in the second one. A significant correlation was found between construct rankings and participants' degree of confidence in their own self-evaluations across both elicited (r = 0.76) and supplied (r = 0.80) constructs. Participants using elicited constructs expressed significantly more confidence in their self-evaluations than did participants using supplied constructs. These findings were interpreted within the framework of Kelly's (1955) personal construct theory.
A compact resistorless 1.5-V CMOS current reference with 16.5-ppm/°C temperature coefficient

In this paper a novel temperature compensated current reference with modified PMOS cascode architecture is presented. Using PMOS transistors and substituting the typical current source resistor with a diode connected NMOS transistor, better temperature compensation is achieved avoiding the use of large valued resistors. This architecture, designed in the IBM 0.18 μm CMOS 7RF SOI technology, achieves a 16.5 ppm/°C temperature coefficient over range of 20 °C to 130 °C together with reduced power consumption, 38.7 μW at 1.5 V, and silicon area, 130μm2.
Undergraduate science students' views on the relationship between Science, Technology and Society

This study examines undergraduate science students’ views of the nature of the relationship between science, technology and society. Two hundred students responded to items on the VOSTS‐CDN 2 instrument. Based on these responses, questions were designed and, using semi‐structured interviews, posed to 30 students. The interviews focused on the issues: the nature of science and the role of science in our society. The VOSTS results indicate that the science students’ views are remarkably similar to those of high school graduates. The interview results show that scientific facts‐‐their creation, verification or existence‐‐are the central concern when dealing with the nature of science. When discussing the role of science in society, mission‐oriented science clashed with pure research. Implications for STS teacher education are briefly discussed.
Species-Level Identification of Isolates of the Acinetobacter calcoaceticus-Acinetobacter baumannii Complex by Sequence Analysis of the 16S-23S rRNA Gene Spacer Region

ABSTRACT The species Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, A. baumannii, genomic species 3, and genomic species 13TU included in the Acinetobacter calcoaceticus-Acinetobacter baumannii complex are genetically highly related and difficult to distinguish phenotypically. Except for A. calcoaceticus, they are all important nosocomial species. In the present study, the usefulness of the 16S-23S rRNA gene intergenic spacer (ITS) sequence for the differentiation of (genomic) species in the A. calcoaceticus-A. baumannii complex was evaluated. The ITSs of 11 reference strains of the complex and 17 strains of other (genomic) species of Acinetobacter were sequenced. The ITS lengths (607 to 638 bp) and sequences were highly conserved for strains within the A. calcoaceticus-A. baumannii complex. Intraspecies ITS sequence similarities ranged from 0.99 to 1.0, whereas interspecies similarities varied from 0.86 to 0.92. By using these criteria, 79 clinical isolates identified as A. calcoaceticus (18 isolates) or A. baumannii (61 isolates) with the API 20 NE system (bioMérieux Vitek, Marcy l'Etoile, France) were identified as A. baumannii (46 isolates), genomic species 3 (19 isolates), and genomic species 13TU (11 isolates) by ITS sequencing. An identification rate of 96.2% (76 of 79 isolates) was obtained by using ITS sequence analysis for identification of isolates in the A. calcoaceticus-A. baumannii complex, and the accuracy of the method was confirmed for a subset of strains by amplified rRNA gene restriction analysis and genomic DNA analysis by AFLP analysis by using libraries of profiles of reference strains. In conclusion, ITS sequence-based identification is reliable and provides a promising tool for elucidation of the clinical significance of the different species of the A. calcoaceticus-A. baumannii complex.
An Active Viewing System to Utilize Streaming Video for Education

This paper proposes an alternative model to access streaming video contents available on the Internet. Currently many streaming videos are delivered in one way, in spite of the bi-directional network connection. To have more interactivity in use of them, we have implemented a system for viewers to control the original unedited video sources with active viewing interfaces. The system allows video source owners to share video sources without editing, and viewers to reorganize them while receiving from the streaming server. With the implemented system, viewers can utilize the video sources in more effective way for educational purposes
Magnetic and electric properties of a quantum vacuum

In this report we show that a vacuum is a nonlinear optical medium and discuss what the optical phenomena are that should exist in the framework of the standard model of particle physics. We pay special attention to the low energy limit. The predicted effects for photons of energy smaller than the electron rest mass are of such a level that none have yet been observed experimentally. Progress in field sources and related techniques seem to indicate that in a few years vacuum nonlinear optics will be accessible to human investigation.
Reconfigurable Constant Multiplication for FPGAs

This paper introduces a new heuristic to generate pipelined run-time reconfigurable constant multipliers for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). It produces results close to the optimum. It is based on an optimal algorithm which fuses already optimized pipelined constant multipliers generated by an existing heuristic called reduced pipelined adder graph (RPAG). Switching between different single or multiple constant outputs is realized by the insertion of multiplexers. The heuristic searches for a solution that results in minimal multiplexer overhead. Using the proposed heuristic reduces the run-time of the fusion process, which raises the usability and application domain of the proposed method of run-time reconfiguration. An extensive evaluation of the proposed method confirms a 9%–26% FPGA resource reduction on average compared to previous work. For reconfigurable multiple constant multiplication, resource savings of up to 75% can be shown compared to a standard generic lookup table based multiplier. Two low level optimizations are presented, which further reduce resource consumption and are included into an automatic VHDL code generation based on the FloPoCo library.
Hazardous Conditions Of Women In Gari Processing Industry In Ibadan, South West, Nigeria

This article examines women’s involvement in gari processing industry with specific emphasis on the various hazards they encounter during work. The study adopted a cross-sectional qualitative research design and participants were purposively selected from a large gari processing site in Odogbo cantonment, Ojoo Ibadan. Primary data were collected from 41 interviewees and 5 key informants. African feminist theory and systems theory were adopted for explaining the phenomenon. The findings reveal that women are exposed to physical, psychosocial and chemical hazards during gari processing. Lower back pain and other musculoskeletal disorders were the most recurring health issues faced by women in gari processing. These conditions often result in fatigue for the women due to the enormous workload and the long period spent while working. The study concludes that careful attitude to work is the best known way for reducing these hazards that are inherent in the work design. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014. v4n3p511
Homo Economicus vs. Human Being: Outcomes of Irrationality

This paper investigates the individual outcomes of irrational thinking, including paranormality and non-scientific thinking. These modes of thinking are identified by factor analysis from a 2008 survey. Income and happiness are used as measures of performance. Empirical results reveal that non-scientific thinking lowers income, whereas paranormality does not affect it. While non-scientific thinking lowers happiness, paranormality raises it. Extending the model, we find that higher ability and self-control result in higher income and happiness. Selfishness raises income, but diminishes happiness. These results suggest that Homo economicus generally achieves higher individual performance, except that belief in paranormality raises happiness.