Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mind the wind: microclimate effects on incubation effort of an arctic seabird

Abstract The energetic costs of reproduction in birds strongly depend on the climate experienced during incubation. Climate change and increasing frequency of extreme weather events may severely affect these costs, especially for species incubating in extreme environments. In this 3‐year study, we used an experimental approach to investigate the effects of microclimate and nest shelter on the incubation effort of female common eiders (Somateria mollissima) in a wild Arctic population. We added artificial shelters to a random selection of nesting females, and compared incubation effort, measured as body mass loss during incubation, between females with and without shelter. Nonsheltered females had a higher incubation effort than females with artificial shelters. In nonsheltered females, higher wind speeds increased the incubation effort, while artificially sheltered females experienced no effect of wind. Although increasing ambient temperatures tended to decrease incubation effort, this effect was negligible in the absence of wind. Humidity had no marked effect on incubation effort. This study clearly displays the direct effect of a climatic variable on an important aspect of avian life‐history. By showing that increasing wind speed counteracts the energetic benefits of a rising ambient temperature, we were able to demonstrate that a climatic variable other than temperature may also affect wild populations and need to be taken into account when predicting the effects of climate change.
SIFT implementation and optimization for multi-core systems

Scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) is an approach for extracting distinctive invariant features from images, and it has been successfully applied to many computer vision problems (e.g. face recognition and object detection). However, the SIFT feature extraction is compute-intensive, and a real-time or even super-real-time processing capability is required in many emerging scenarios. Nowadays, with the multi- core processor becoming mainstream, SIFT can be accelerated by fully utilizing the computing power of available multi-core processors. In this paper, we propose two parallel SIFT algorithms and present some optimization techniques to improve the implementation 's performance on multi-core systems. The result shows our improved parallel SIFT implementation can process general video images in super-real-time on a dual-socket, quad-core system, and the speed is much faster than the implementation on GPUs. We also conduct a detailed scalability and memory performance analysison the 8-core system and on a 32-core chip multiprocessor (CMP) simulator. The analysis helps us identify possible causes of bottlenecks, and we suggest avenues for scalability improvement to make this application more powerful on future large-scale multi- core systems.
The Influence of Social Evaluative Threat on the Putting Stroke in Golf

The goal of this study was to examine the multi-level associations between state anxiety and various indicators of golf putting performance. Participants were 35 amateur golfers who completed golf putting tasks under a neutral condition followed by a social-evaluative condition. Participants were equipped with a highspeed infrared camera to measure various putting stroke parameters. Results of multilevel analyses indicated that the social-evaluative condition was associated with less putter rotation and quicker forward stroke times. A cross-level interaction indicated that golfers with low levels of somatic anxiety holed significantly more putts under pressure compared with baseline, whereas those with high levels of somatic anxiety did not. As well, a significant cross-level interaction indicated that high levels of cognitive anxiety were associated with slower back strokes under pressure. Results are discussed in terms of the complex interaction between psychological variables (i.e., state anxiety) and .
The Influence of Personal Involvement on the Performance in a False Belief Task: A Structural Analysis

In this study, 200 children (age range 2;6-5;6 years) were tested by using a standard task aimed at assessing their understanding of other’s false belief. The children were then divided into two groups: those who passed and those who failed. Later, those children who had failed the first test, were put into different groups and tested again under different conditions. This was done in order to check the effect of representational and motivational variables related to personal involvement on performance in the second task. The results showed a tendency towards an improvement of performance in the second task, when the following two conditions were simultaneously satisfied: (1) children were retested with a familiar peer instead of puppets; and (2) children were actors who took part in the action instead of remaining external spectators of the scene. A tentative explanation of the findings on the basis of the representational complexity of the different false belief tasks was proposed.
1 PROMOTIONAL CHAT ON THE INTERNET *

Chat rooms, recommendation sites, and customer review sections provide consumers with an opportunity to overcome geographic boundaries and to communicate based on mutual interests. However, marketers have incentives to anonymously supply promotional chat or reviews in order to influence the consumer's evaluation of their products. This, in turn, lowers the credibility of word of mouth transmitted online. We develop a game theoretic model where an incumbent and an entrant that are differentiated in quality compete for the same online market segment. The consumers are uncertain about the entrant's quality, whereas the firms know the value of their products. The consumers hear messages online that make them aware of the existence of the entrant as well as help them decide which product is superior. We find a unique equilibrium where online word of mouth is informative despite the promotional chat activity by competing firms. In this equilibrium, we find that firms spend more resources chatting up inferior products. We also find that promotional chat may be actually more beneficial to consumers than a system with no promotional chat. There are a number of extensions that we explore in this paper. Thus, we discuss how results change under different assumptions on the cost function of messaging and discuss price signaling in the context of online chat.
FBM-Yahoo! at RepLab 2012

This paper describes FBM-Yahoo! 's participation in the pro- ling task of RepLab 2012, which aims at determining whether a given tweet is related to a specic company and, in if this being the case, whether it contains a positive or negative statement related to the com- pany's reputation or not. We addressed both problems (ambiguity and polarity reputation) using Support Vector Machines (SVM) classiers and lexicon-based techniques, building automatically company proles and bootstrapping background data. Concretely, for the ambiguity task we employed a linear SVM classier with a token-based representation of relevant and irrelevant information extracted from the tweets and Free- base resources. With respect to polarity classication, we combined SVM lexicon-based approaches with bootstrapping in order to determine the nal polarity label of a tweet.
The Possibility of Primitiveness: Towards a Sociology of Body Marks in Cool Societies

This article argues that tattooing and body piercing in modern societies cannot be naively innocent acts; such activities cannot recapture primitiveness, because they take place within a social context, where social membership is not expressed through hot loyalties and thick commitments. Body marks in primitive society were obligatory signatures of social membership in solidaristic groups, wherein life-cycle changes were necessarily marked by tattooing and scarification. Modern societies are metaphorically like airport departure lounges where passengers are encouraged to be cool and distant, orderly and regulated. The article is thus critical of recent attempts to discover and unearth Dionysian moments of creative tribalism in modern youth groups or working-class communities. Body marks are commercial objects in a leisure marketplace and have become optional aspects of a body aesthetic, which playfully and ironically indicate social membership. They cannot serve as charismatic entrance points to the primitive.
A three-class ROC for evaluating doubletalk detectors in acoustic echo cancellation

Doubletalk detector (DTD) is essential to keep adaptive filter from diverging in the presence of near-end speech in acoustic echo cancellation (AEC), and there was a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) to characterize DTD performance. However, the traditional ROC for evaluating DTD used a static time-invariant room acoustic impulse response and could not evaluate DTDs which distinguish echo path change from doubletalk. We solve these problems by extending the traditional binary detection ROC to three-class, and simulations show the efficiency of the proposed method.
‘‘At least with cheating there is an attempt at monogamy’’: Cheating and monogamism among undergraduate heterosexual men

In this qualitative research, I first use hegemony theory to describe the cultural forces that position monogamy as the only privileged form of committed sexual relationship coupling available to undergraduate heterosexual men. I then interview 40 heterosexual male students for their experience with monogamy and cheating, finding that the hegemonic mechanisms of subordination and stratification that stigmatize nonmonogamy consequently result in an absence of consideration of the problems associated with monogamy. I use cognitive dissonance theory to explain participants’ desires for simultaneously wanting monogamy and nonmonogamy, calling this dissonance ‘the monogamy gap. ’ Data suggest that participants who cheat do so not because of lost love, but instead cheating represents an attempt to rectify conflicting desires for monogamy and recreational sex.
Depth Balancing and Multipath Transmission Algorithms for P2P Streaming Media Using PeerCast

PeerCast is a classical software of P2P streaming media. In this paper, an NS2-based PeerCast network simulation system was constructed for simulating the PeerCast protocol. Then we found two shortcomings of the PeerCast and proposed a multipath transmission algorithm based on depth balancing. The results of our simulation experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm substantially improved the performance of the network and significantly shorten the average delay time and connection times of nodes.
Self-Accelerated Thermal Dissolution Model for Reset Programming in Unipolar Resistive-Switching Memory (RRAM) Devices

This paper addresses the numerical modeling of reset programming in NiO-based resistive-switching memory. In our model, we simulate electrical conduction and heating in the conductive filament (CF), which controls the resistance of the low resistive (or set) state, accounting for CF thermal-activated dissolution. Employing CF electrical and thermal parameters, which were previously characterized on our NiO-based samples, our calculations are shown to match experimental reset and retention characteristics. Simulations show that reset transition is self-accelerated as a consequence of a positive feedback between the thermal dissolution of the CF and local Joule heating in the CF bottleneck, which can account for the abrupt resistance transition in experimental data. Finally, the model is used to investigate the reduction of the reset current, which is needed for device application.
Dismantling in Cell Death: Molecular Mechanisms and Relationship to Caspase Activation

The notion of a cell death programme was introduced in view of the reproducibility of its occurrence in time and space (e.g. in the developing embryo) and of its genetic determination. Programmed cell death can be schematically subdivided into three steps: a signalling phase, an execution phase and a dismantling phase. This review focuses on the latter. Apoptosis is the most studied form of dismantling of animal cells. The molecular pathways leading to certain apoptotic lesions appear to be dependent on the proteolytic activity of caspases. Death itself can, however, be caspase‐independent. Also, non‐apoptotic forms of cell death exist, even in animal cells; their molecular bases are still unknown. The relationship between cell death, apoptosis and caspases is discussed.
A BIOLOGICALLY INSPIRED HIERARCHICAL REINFORCEMENT LEARNING SYSTEM

ABSTRACT To increase the adaptivity of hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) and accelerate the learning process in environments with multiple sources of reward, we propose an emotion-based HRL algorithm inspired by neurobiology. In the algorithm, each reward source defines a subtask and each subtask is assigned an artificial emotion indication (AEI) that predicts the reward component associated with the subtask. The AEIs are simultaneously learned along with the top-level policy and used to interrupt subtask execution when the AEIs change significantly. The algorithm is tested in a simulated gridworld which has two sources of reward and is partially observable. Experimental results show that the inclusion of an artificial emotion mechanism that adaptively terminates subtasks makes reuse of the subtask policies efficient for multigoal environments. The use of the artificial emotion variables significantly accelerates the learning process by 60% and achieves higher long-term reward compared to a human-designed policy and a restricted form of the MAXQ algorithm.
Anxiety and expectancy violations: Neural response to false feedback is exaggerated in worriers

This study investigated how individual differences in anxiety modulate the neural response to errors and performance feedback. The design included false feedback on some trials in order to test the hypothesis that anxious people show stronger neural reactions to feedback that is worse than expected. Participants completed a trial-and-error learning task that required learning the correct key to press in response to face images. EEG was recorded during the task, and the response-locked error-related negativity (ERN) and feedback-locked ERN were computed to measure neural responses to error commission and feedback. As expected, errors produced a response-locked ERN and false feedback produced a feedback-locked ERN in the group as a whole. High levels of trait worry predicted a disproportionately larger ERN following false feedback, but did not predict the magnitude of the response-locked ERN following errors. These results imply that worry-prone people react more strongly to violations of expectations, rather than to errors themselves.
A novel method to improve the test efficiency of VLSI tests

Considers reducing the cost of test application by permuting test vectors to improve their defect coverage. Algorithms for test reordering are developed with the goal of minimizing the test cost. Best and worst case bounds are established for the performance of a reordered sequence compared to the original sequence of test application. SEMATECH test data and simulation results are used throughout to illustrate the ideas.
Design of fuzzy-neural-network tracking control with only position feedback for robot manipulator including actuator dynamics

This study focuses on the development of a fuzzy-neural-network velocity sensorless control (FNNVSC) scheme including a nonlinear observer and a fuzzy-neural-network (FNN) controller for an n-link robot manipulator to achieve high-precision position tracking. This nonlinear observer is used to estimate joint velocities of the robot manipulator. Then, a four-layer FNN is utilized for the major control role without auxiliary compensated control, and the adaptive tuning laws of network parameters are derived in the sense of Lyapunov stability theorem to ensure the stable control performance. Numerical simulations of a two-link robot manipulator actuated by dc servomotors are given to verify the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed FNNVSC methodology. In addition, the superiority of the proposed control scheme is indicated in comparison with proportional-differential control (PDC), Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK)-type fuzzy-neural-network control (T-FNNC) and robust-neural-fuzzy-network control (RNFNC) systems.
Automated toll collection system using GPS and GPRS

Developing countries like India needs a significant improvement in infrastructure such as Roads or Highways. Construction of these highways is a costly affair, which can't be invested by the government alone. Normally Public private partnerships are made to construct such a huge projects. The money spent on these projects can be regained by collecting toll from the passengers who use the roads. The toll collection system, especially in India faces some problems such as long queue lines, escaping from toll plazas etc. These systems can service only 300 vehicles per hour, and if more than that number of vehicles arrive at that plaza, server traffic jams may occur. To solve this we are proposing to create geo-fences using GPS by giving latitude and longitude of the corner of the toll plaza. By comparing the position of the vehicle and toll plaza, the owner of the vehicle can be charged from the account.
Humanistic tourism? Personal constructions of a tourist: Sam visits Japan

The underlying model of the person that pervades contemporary observations of tourism is closely aligned to that of behavioural psychology where a person's behaviour is assumed to be rooted in his or her response to an external environment. It is argued that this has contributed to the widespread derogation of tourists and the predominance of research studies relating to the creation of a structure for the tourism industry. Through a brief discussion of humanistic psychology and the reporting of a case study using the theory and methods of Personal Construct Psychology the author attempts to re-frame tourism research and to demonstrate the potential of the approach for other areas of leisure studies. In conclusion it is suggested that the future challenge for both tourist generating regions and nations and host communities should be to recognize the potential role of tourism in the celebration of human diversity.
O processo de trabalho do militar estadual e a saúde mental

A Policia Militar esta balizada em dois pilares fundamentais: a disciplina e a hierarquia. O que a faz uma organizacao complexa com feixes de interesses que obstam a capacidade de resistencia a mudanca. Identificar como essa organizacao se estrutura e, sobretudo, relaciona-la com a saude mental e o objetivo deste artigo. Buscamos contextualizar as finalidades dos servicos de seguranca publica via breve historico da policia estadual, sua divisao e aplicabilidade frente a violencia cotidiana. Atraves da psicologia do trabalho, usamos tecnicas e conceitos fundamentados na Ergonomia da Atividade e na Psicodinâmica do Trabalho: observacao do processo de trabalho, pesquisa documental, entrevistas individuais e coletivas. A analise de natureza qualitativa demonstrou que o policial militar esta no centro de uma conjugacao de forcas advindas da organizacao do trabalho, da precarizacao do trabalho e, por fim, da sociedade contemporânea. As formas como essas relacoes de forcas se conjugam, contribuem para implicacoes danosas a saude (mental) dos profissionais, cuja configuracao favorece o aumento do sofrimento psiquico, podendo se desdobrar em alcoolismo, depressao e ate em suicidio. Dados da Junta Medica, de 2003 a 2005, mostram uma media de 489 policiais militares afastados do servico por licencas medicas. Trata-se de numeros preocupantes em uma area de servico publico essencial a populacao. Esses numeros seriam maiores se as liberacoes ocorridas no local de trabalho tambem fossem computadas. O procedimento de liberacao interna ocorre para tentar mediar os possiveis longos periodos na atividade para tratamento de saude.
Reconceptualizing the metaphysical basis of biology: a new definition based on deistic teleology and an hierarchy of organizing entities

From more than two decades of theoretical consideration of biology, especially evolutionary biology, I have concluded that there are no satisfactory answers to some of the most important and most fundamental questions of biology. I will argue that the fundamental reason for this is the lack of any teleology (purpose) in natural selection, which is the current dominant biological paradigm. Therefore, I propose a new teleological metaphysics for biology.
When Birds of Different Feathers Flock Together: A Preliminary Comparison of Intra-Ethnic and Inter-Ethnic Dating Relationships

In light of an increasing ethnic diversity in the US, we sought to investigate how and whether cultural variables impact the quality of dating relationships by comparing couples from either the same or a different ethnic group. In a small sample of young dating couples, we examined motives for initiating their relationships, relationship satisfaction, self-esteem, and various structural variables, including degree of prejudice. Results revealed that same-ethnic and inter-ethnic couple members entered relationships for similar reasons, and reported similar levels of relationship satisfaction. Those in interethnic relationships were somewhat lower in self-esteem than those in same-ethnic relationships. Relative to persons dating within their ethnic group, those dating outside their ethnic group reported less identification with members of their own ethnicity, greater availability of potential dating partners outside their ethnic group, less societal approval of their current relationships, and greater preference for contact with people outside their ethnic group.
Individualized Alcohol/Other Drug Treatment

Abstract This article discusses individualized alcohol/other drug treatment based on an assessment of the client's developmental deficits and resulting characterological needs. An overview of each stage of development and identification of the needs associated with arrests in that stage is provided. Therapeutic issues for each stage as well as helping the client begin involvement in 12-step programs are discussed.
Dissociation between Mature Phenotype and Impaired Transmigration in Dendritic Cells from Heparanase-Deficient Mice

To reach the lymphatics, migrating dendritic cells (DCs) need to interact with the extracellular matrix (ECM). Heparanase, a mammalian endo-β-D-glucuronidase, specifically degrades heparan sulfate proteoglycans ubiquitously associated with the cell surface and ECM. The role of heparanase in the physiology of bone marrow-derived DCs was studied in mutant heparanase knock-out (Hpse-KO) mice. Immature DCs from Hpse-KO mice exhibited a more mature phenotype; however their transmigration was significantly delayed, but not completely abolished, most probably due to the observed upregulation of MMP-14 and CCR7. Despite their mature phenotype, uptake of beads was comparable and uptake of apoptotic cells was more efficient in DCs from Hpse-KO mice. Heparanase is an important enzyme for DC transmigration. Together with CCR7 and its ligands, and probably MMP-14, heparanase controls DC trafficking.