Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Infants' perception of native and non-native pitch contrasts

Infants’ ability to distinguish between forms of phonetic variation in speech that are relevant to meaning is essential for their language development. Little is known about the developmental course of infants’ perception of pitch contrasts, particularly in the presence of segmental variability which entails the ability to extract and generalize the contrastive patterns. Using single-bisyllabic utterances, in Experiment 1 we examined native discrimination of the statement (falling)/yes-no question (falling-rising) intonation contrast by European Portuguese (EP)-learning infants, and demonstrated that both 5-6 and 8-9 month-old infants were able to discriminate the contrast. Experiment 2 addressed the question whether the contrast between falling vs. falling-rising contours would also be perceived in segmentally varied non-native input. EP-learning infants’ perception of the lexical distinction between Mandarin Chinese Tone 1+Tone 4 and Tone 1+Tone 2, with overall similar contour shapes but different implementation of the falling/rising patterns throughout the segmental string, was examined. Infants failed to discriminate the non-native pitch contrast, both at 5-6 months and 8-9 months, suggesting that language-specific perception for pitch, and for the tone/intonation distinction, emerges as early as 5 months of age.
COMBING CUSTOMER PROFILES FOR MEMBERS ’ RETURN VISIT RATE PREDICTIONS

The major profit of portal companies in Taiwan is generated by online advertising and e-commerce. Effective advertising requires predicting how a user responds to an advertisement and then targeting (presenting the advertisements) to reflect users’ favor. As customers’ preferences may change over time, we take the different types of past behavior patterns of the registered members to capture concept drifts. Then, we combine the click preference index (CPI) and the preference drifts to propose a Behavioral Preference (BP) model, and to predict the members’ return visit rates in the specific category of the portal site. The marketers of the portal site can target the registered members with high return visit rates and design corresponding marketing strategies. The experimental results with a real dataset show that our model can effectively predict the registered members’ return visit rates.
Continuous and pulsed room temperature lasing behaviour at 1.55 μn on high quality factor photonic crystal microcavities

In this work we show room temperature lasing at 1.5 µm in photonic crystal microcavities in air bridge membranes with a single layer of self-assembled quantum wires (QWRs). Low threshold values around 10 µW have been measured, along high quality factors Q ∼ 55000 using L7-type photonic crystal microcavities. Solid-source molecular beam epitaxy has been used for the synthesis of the InP/InAs epitaxial material comprising a single layer of InAs QWRs. The main axis of the cavity is always parallel to the QWRs, which grow along the [1-10] direction. No lasing has been obtained for L7 cavities with axis parallel to the [110] (i.e., perpendicular to the direction of the QWRs), showing the strong one-dimensional character of the QWRs inside the photonic cavity. Under pulsed excitation the lasing spectra show asymmetric lineshapes and an evolution related with thermal and absorption saturation effects.
The dopamine receptor D4 7-repeat allele and prenatal smoking in ADHD-affected children and their unaffected siblings: no gene-environment interaction.

BACKGROUND The dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) 7-repeat allele and maternal smoking during pregnancy are both considered as risk factors in the aetiology of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but few studies have been conducted on their interactive effects in causing ADHD. The purpose of this study is to examine the gene by environment (GxE) interaction of the DRD4 7-repeat allele and smoking during pregnancy on ADHD and oppositional behavior in families from the International Multicenter ADHD Genetics project; and further, to test the hypothesis that the direction of effect of the DRD4 7-repeat allele differs between ADHD affected and unaffected children. METHODS Linear mixed models were used to assess main and interactive effects of the DRD4 7-repeat allele and smoking during pregnancy in 539 ADHD-affected children and their 407 unaffected siblings, aged 6-17 years. RESULTS There was some evidence pointing to differential effects of the DRD4 7-repeat allele on ADHD and oppositional symptoms in the affected (fewer symptoms) and unaffected children (increasing ADHD symptoms of teacher ratings). Affected children were more often exposed to prenatal smoking than unaffected children. There were limited main effects of prenatal smoking on severity of symptoms. Given the number of tests performed, no indication was found for GxE interactions. CONCLUSION Despite the large sample size, no GxE interactions were found. The impact of the DRD4 7-repeat allele might differ, depending on affected status and rater. This finding is discussed in terms of differences in the activity of the dopaminergic system and of different genes involved in rater-specific behaviors.
Impacts of Distributed Generators on the Oscillatory Stability of Interconnected Power Systems

Integration of distributed generation is continually and gradually affecting the stability of interconnected power systems. In this paper, the impacts of distributed synchronous generators on oscillatory stability are studied. In various parameter sub-spaces of interest, feasibility regions can be calculated to determine the conditions to sustain the stable operation of an interconnected power system. Through computations of the feasibility boundaries corresponding to Hopf bifurcations of electromechanical oscillatory modes, we determine the operating limits for a stable operation of the system under small and continual disturbances such as predictable changes in loading conditions of generators. Thus, with the case studies given in the paper, under different operating conditions, we investigate the effects of distributed synchronous generators on the oscillatory small-signal stability. It has been shown that penetrations of these generators can cause local or inter-area oscillatory instabilities depending on the system's topology, operating point and control parameters.
A profile-based architecture for a flexible and personalized information access

ABSTRACT Information relevance is an important issue in information access techniques. A solution for improving this relevance is the personalization or adaptation of the answers provided to users. For this purpose we propose, in this article, an information retrieval and recommendation architecture in which any element is described in detail by a profile. The originality of this architecture is at the level of its generic aspects and the numerous possibilities of interactions between complementary profiles derived from a profile generic model. Thereafter, we propose a flexible use of profiles to evaluate the personal relevance of a user or a users group by combining various matchings between profiles criteria. KEYWORDS Information Retrieval and Filtering, Profile, Personalization 1. INTRODUCTION Internet and Web expansion have led to multiplication of both information placed at disposal and users of this information. Information and users are characterized by their heterogeneity. To seek, find and exploit information in this context prove to be a very difficult task. The aim of the work undertaken is to propose an architecture of retrieval and recommendation for a flexible access to information. This architecture is based on re-usable and adaptable profiles and exploits profiles complementarities for the restitution of personalized information. The objective is to improve the relevance by trying as much as possible to bring the
Feasible Cooperation based Model Predictive Control for freeway traffic systems

This paper proposes a distributed algorithm (Feasible Cooperation based Model Predictive Control, FC-MPC) for the control of freeway traffic systems. FC-MPC will be tested and compared with global, local and communicative MPC techniques in a traffic network of 18 segments with ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) control signals: ramp meters and variable speed limits. It will be shown that local techniques have a suboptimal behavior and that centralized techniques are very difficult, if not impossible, to implement in real time. Communicative MPC improves the behavior of the controlled system versus the decentralized one. However, the solution is still suboptimal with respect to the centralized performance. On the other hand, FC-MPC is closed to the centralized behavior and has a much lower computational effort that the centralized one.
Association of Fibroblast Growth Factor (Fgf-21) as a Screening Biomarker for Chronic Progressive External Ophthalmoplesia

Purpose : To investigate whether or not fibroblast growth factor (FGF-21) can be used as a screening biomarker in chronic progressive external ophthalmoplesia (CPEO) patients. Methods : FGF-21 concentration was measured in the serum of 24 patients with CEPO phenotype and 24 control samples by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and determined the deletion of mitochondrial genome by multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results : FGF-21 concentration in 50 % of CPEO patients showed notable differences from that in control subjects. FGF-21 concentration ratio in patient group, 2 disorder control groups (mitochondrial and non-mitochondrial) and normal group, respectively, was 294.87 } 42.10 (p 50 years age group who show acute symptoms. Keywords : Chronic progressive external ophthalmoplesia, Fibroblast growth factor-21, Mitochondrial disorders, Ophthalmoplesia, Biomarker
Reconstruction Filter Design for Stepped-Frequency Continuous Wave

This correspondence provides an insight into the echo spectrum of stepped-frequency continuous wave (SFCW) from the view point of time domain and presents a new reconstruction filter structure. At the design stage, a zero-order hold system is introduced to analyze the spectrum of conventional SFCW echoes, and the theoretical expressions highlight that the Fourier transform (FT) technology can be applied to synthesize a short pulse, which is equivalent to the inverse Fourier transform (IFT) technology for an SFCW system. Finally, several numerical results are provided and discussed.
Area-Specific Information Processing in Prefrontal Cortex during a Probabilistic Inference Task: A Multivariate fMRI BOLD Time Series Analysis

Introduction Discriminating spatiotemporal stages of information processing involved in complex cognitive processes remains a challenge for neuroscience. This is especially so in prefrontal cortex whose subregions, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC), anterior cingulate (ACC) and orbitofrontal (OFC) cortices are known to have differentiable roles in cognition. Yet it is much less clear how these subregions contribute to different cognitive processes required by a given task. To investigate this, we use functional MRI data recorded from a group of healthy adults during a “Jumping to Conclusions” probabilistic reasoning task. Methods We used a novel approach combining multivariate test statistics with bootstrap-based procedures to discriminate between different task stages reflected in the fMRI blood oxygenation level dependent signal pattern and to unravel differences in task-related information encoded by these regions. Furthermore, we implemented a new feature extraction algorithm that selects voxels from any set of brain regions that are jointly maximally predictive about specific task stages. Results Using both the multivariate statistics approach and the algorithm that searches for maximally informative voxels we show that during the Jumping to Conclusions task, the DLPFC and ACC contribute more to the decision making phase comprising the accumulation of evidence and probabilistic reasoning, while the OFC is more involved in choice evaluation and uncertainty feedback. Moreover, we show that in presumably non-task-related regions (temporal cortices) all information there was about task processing could be extracted from just one voxel (indicating the unspecific nature of that information), while for prefrontal areas a wider multivariate pattern of activity was maximally informative. Conclusions/Significance We present a new approach to reveal the different roles of brain regions during the processing of one task from multivariate activity patterns measured by fMRI. This method can be a valuable tool to assess how area-specific processing is altered in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, and in healthy subjects carrying different genetic polymorphisms.
A Semantic Web service-oriented application for mobility impaired users

This paper presents a service-oriented application whose purpose is to assist various activities of mobility impaired people as they move from one location to another. Such activities include trip planning, route guidance, e-working, e-learning, search for points of interest and social events among others. A number of registered web services provide all the required content and information that are displayed on the end-user device. Existing services are marked up by a number of domain ontologies about the information needs of mobility impaired users, in order to enable ontology-based search and retrieval of services. A service alignment tool has been developed to facilitate the markup process on behalf of service providers. After describing the architecture of the overall application and the involved mechanisms, we demonstrate a number of use cases that are enabled by the presented technologies.
Proenvironmental behavior: critical link between satisfaction and place attachment in Australia and Canada

This study explores issues of scale equivalence and generalizability in national parks. Visitors' place satisfaction, proenvironmental behavior, and place attachment are measured across two qualitatively distinct populations in Australia and Canada. Techniques employed in this cross-country study bring an important contribution to tourism research. The primary focus is to establish measure equivalence before undertaking hypothesis testing using structural equation modeling on a sample of 339 repeat visitors at the Dandenong Ranges National Park, Australia, and 296 repeat visitors at the Bruce Peninsula National Park, Canada. Results from both samples indicate (a) there is measure equivalence between the Australian and Canadian samples allowing comparability of findings, (b) a positive and significant effect of visitor place satisfaction on proenvironmental behavioral intentions, (c) a significant and positive influence of proenvironmental behavioral intention on place attachment (place identity, place dependence, place social bonding, place affect), and (d) a significant and negative effect of visitor place satisfaction on place social bonding. The main finding relates to the promotion of proenvironmental behaviors among national park users that—in addition to individual benefits—provides environmental sustainability as well as practical benefits for park managers and society.
Lack of association of polymorphisms in six candidate genes in colombian adhd patients

Background Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood neuropsychiatric condition. The disorder has a multifactorial background, with heritability estimates of around 76%, suggesting an important role of genetic factors. Candidate genes include those related to dopaminergic (e.g. DRD4, DRD5, SLC6A3 and DBH)and serotoninergic (e.g.HTR1B and SLC6A4) pathways. Purpose To explore the association of common polymorphisms in six genes (DRD4, DRD5, SLC6A3, DBH, HTR1B and SLC6A4) and the susceptibility to ADHD in a Colombian sample population. Methods trios and 152 healthy controls were recruited. Genotyping of the six polymorphisms was performed using described PCR-based protocols. A TDT analysis was used to test if there was preferential allelic transmission for any of the six polymorphisms. Additionally, a case-control analysis was performed to test for association of the serotoninergic (HTR1B and SLC6A4) polymorphisms with ADHD. Results Through the TDT analysis there was no preferential allelic transmission for any of the studied variants. Case-control analysis did not show association. Conclusion This is the first study in Latin America to describe six polymorphisms in a group of patients with ADHD. There was no evidence of association for any of the studied polymorphic variants in this Colombian ADHD sample. Further research, with larger sample sizes and study of endophenotypes, is needed in this population to confirm and extend the results.
Physical Layer Impact on Finding Local Knowledge Information in Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks

Most existing network layer protocols in ad hoc and sensor networks require the use of topological or geographical knowledge of neighboring nodes in order to make proper decisions. Such protocols obtain this knowledge following the unit disk graph model, whereby two nodes are neighbors if and only if the distance between them is at most R, where R is the transmission radius of a node (R is equal for all nodes). Moreover, it is assumed that two nodes are able to successfully receive trivial hello messages from each other, used for information exchange, if and only if they are neighbors (i.e. within a distance R of each other). A problem now arises if a realistic physical layer is applied, such that the previous assumption no longer holds. To the best of our knowledge, the problem of gathering neighbor information using a realistic physical layer has yet to be addressed. In this paper we propose two protocols addressing this problem. Both protocols are described in detail and tested over collision-free static networks. We also incorporate them in localized position based routing protocols.
Learning patterns of application architecture by looking at code

Typical approaches to design patterns present them in the catalog form. For undergraduate students this abstract description of the pattern makes it even more difficult to understand its purpose and need. In this paper we describe a tool used at a university course to enable the students to learn architectural patterns by looking at code. The tool presented in this paper shows the solution to a specific problem using different implementations, each following a different architectural style. The results of informal surveys from users of the tool are presented.
Knowledge Location, Differentiation, Credibility and Coordination in Open Source Software Development Teams

A number of high-quality, large-scale, complex software systems, such as Linux, Apache, and Perl, have been successfully produced through the open source software (OSS) paradigm. This fact suggests that effective knowledge coordination must exist within some OSS teams. However, very few studies have attempted to explicate what these coordination mechanisms are. Therefore, this study examines how knowledge is coordinated between the members of an OSS team from the transactive memory system (TMS) perspective. Specifically, we investigate 1) the relation between TMS and the team members’ knowledge coordination behaviors, and 2) the relation between knowledge coordination and the team’s performance. By surveying 61 OSS project teams, the study validates the important role that TMS plays in OSS developers’ knowledge coordination behaviors, which, in turn, have positive influence on their projects’ technical achievement.
Bioavailability of Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Their Interactions with Natural Organic Matter: Linking Molecular- and Microbial-Scale Interactions

Accurately measuring the bioavailability of organic contaminants associated with complex environmental matrices is necessary for assessing contaminant risk, as well as for evaluating the effectiveness of proposed and in-place remediation strategies. Due to its importance, the bioavailability of organic contaminants associated with soils and sediments has been widely examined at the macroscopic or bulk-scale and found to be highly controlled by natural organic matter (NOM) as well as the contact time between the contaminant and environmental matrix. Although chemical and physical interactions between natural organic matter and contaminant molecules are expected to influence bioavailability, there has been minimal success identifying how these interactions impact the bioavailability of the contaminants. The aims of this project are to identify the key physical, chemical, and biological conditions and processes governing bioavailability of aromatic hydrocarbons associated with NOM, such as humic and fulvic acids and humin [1]. Molecular interactions and dynamics of aromatic hydrocarbon molecules associated with NOM are being characterized and quantified using liquid- [2] and solid-state [3] deuterium nuclear magnetic resonance experiments, fluorescence probe experiments [4], and NOM surface area and adsorption capacity characterization. To assess bioavailability, we are measuring the activity of the degradative enzyme naphthalene 1,2dioxygenase (NDO) [5] as it catalyzes the degradation of aromatic hydrocarbons associated with NOM. NDO activity will be characterized as a function of NOM type and concentration, and NOM-aromatic hydrocarbon aging time. Using the analytical methods noted above to examine NOM-aromatic hydrocarbon samples before and after exposure to the enzyme will permit characterization at a molecular-scale of the effect of NOM-aromatic substrate interactions on enzymatic bioavailability, i.e., molecular interactions will be identified that facilitate or hinder enzymatic bioavailability of aromatic hydrocarbons associated with NOM. Enzymatic-scale bioavailability subsequently will be coupled to the microbial-scale by measuring the bioavailability of aromatic hydrocarbons associated with NOM to reporter microbes that luminesce upon expressing NDO in the presence of aromatic substrates. Describing bioavailability over this continuum of scale, i.e., from molecular to microbial, will provide a basis for extrapolating the environmental consequences of aromatic hydrocarbon contamination from both discrete chemical interactions and microbial-level responses.
Environmental and Resource Economics: Some Recent Developments

We survey those recent developments in environmental and resource economics that have been prompted by a puzzling cultural phenomenon, where one group (usually natural scientists) sees in humanity’s current use of Nature’s services symptoms of a deep malaise, even while another group (usually economists) documents the fact that people today are on average better off in many ways than they had ever been (so why the gloom? ). The developments surveyed here reconcile some of the claims and counter claims, by showing that the protagonists have frequently talked past one another. We show that some of the disagreements would be blunted if (i) use were made of a comprehensive measure of wealth to judge the performance of economies and (ii) possible irreversibilities in ecological damages were commonly acknowledged. Regional estimates of changes in wealth per capita are reported. Implications are drawn for the persistence of rural poverty in the world’s poorest regions, even as they experience aggregate growth in GNP. JEL Classification; D60-61, D90, O13, O47, Q56-57