Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding Taiwanese students' decision-making factors regarding Australian international higher education

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the motivators for Taiwanese students to study higher education in a western society. The behavioural motivations of Taiwanese students intending to undertake higher education in Australia and the USA were analysed using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Design/methodology/approach – Taiwanese students intending to study overseas were surveyed with an instrument based on the theory of planned behaviour. Data from 518 students were subjected to principal components analysis to ascertain factors related to their intention to study overseas.Findings – The TPB was validated as an appropriate model for examining selection of transnational education destinations as a form of consumer behaviour. For Australia, the attitude or perceptions of Taiwanese students towards higher education in the destination country was of greatest importance in shaping their intentions for overseas study. The influence of family and friends was more important than consideratio.
Immunologic Effects of Background Prenatal and Postnatal Exposure to Dioxins and Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Dutch Infants

ABSTRACT: Immunologic effects of pre- and postnatal polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB)/dioxin exposure in Dutch infants from birth to 18 mo of age are explored. The total study group consisted of 207 healthy mother-infant pairs, of which 105 infants were breast-fed and 102 children were bottle-fed. Prenatal PCB exposure was estimated by the PCB sum (PCB congeners 118, 138, 153, and 180) in maternal blood and the total toxic equivalent (TEQ) level in human milk (17 dioxin and 8 dioxin-like PCB congeners). Postnatal PCB/dioxin exposure was calculated as a product of the total TEQ level in human milk multiplied by the weeks of breast-feeding. The number of periods with rhinitis, bronchitis, tonsillitis, and otitis during the first 18 mo of life was used as an estimate of the health status of the infants. Humoral immunity was measured at 18 mo of age by detecting antibody levels to mumps, measles, and rubella. White blood cell counts (monocytes, granulocytes, and lymphocytes) and immunologic marker analyses CD4+ T-lymphocytes, CD8+ T-lymphocytes, activated T-lymphocytes (HLA-DR+CD3+), as well as T cell receptor (TcR) αβ+, TcRγδ+, CD4+CD45RA+ and CD4+CD45RO+ T-lymphocytes, B-lymphocytes (CD19+ and/or CD20+) and NK cells (CD16+ and/or CD56+/CD3−) in cord blood and venous blood at 3 and 18 mo of age were assessed in a subgroup of 55 infants. There was no relationship between pre-and postnatal PCB/dioxin exposure and upper or lower respiratory tract symptoms or humoral antibody production. A higher prenatal PCB/ dioxin exposure was associated with an increase in the number of TcRγδ+ T cells at birth and with an increase in the total number of T cells and the number of CD8+ (cytotoxic), TcRαβ+, and TcRγδ+ T cells at 18 mo of age. A higher prenatal as well as postnatal PCB/dioxin exposure was associated with lower monocyte and granulocyte counts at 3 mo of age. In conclusion, our study suggests that background levels of PCB/dioxin exposure influences the human fetal and neonatal immune system.
Sharp-Interface Limits of the Cahn-Hilliard Equation with Degenerate Mobility

In this work, sharp-interface limits for the degenerate Cahn--Hilliard equation with a polynomial double-well free energy and a mobility that vanishes at the minima of the double well are derived. For the choice of a quadratic mobility, the leading order sharp-interface motion is not governed by pure surface diffusion, as has been previously claimed in the literature, but contains a contribution from nonlinear, porous-medium-type bulk diffusion at the same order. Our analysis reveals that there are two subcases: One, where the solution for the order parameter is bounded between the minima (proven to exist for the first mobility by Elliott and Garcke [SIAM J. Math. Anal., 27 (1996), pp. 404--423]), and one where it converges to the classical stationary solution of the Cahn--Hilliard equation. Consistent treatment of the bulk diffusion requires the matching of exponentially large and small terms in combination with multiple inner layers. Moreover, the leading order sharp-interface motion depends sensitively on the choice of mobility. The asymptotic analysis shows that, for example, with a biquadratic mobility, the leading order sharp-interface motion is driven only by surface diffusion. The sharp-interface models are corroborated by comparing relaxation rates of perturbations to a radially symmetric stationary state with those obtained by the phase field model.
Transcription of BRCA1 Is Dependent on the Formation of a Specific Protein-DNA Complex on the Minimal BRCA1 Bi-directional Promoter*

BRCA1 is the first tumor suppressor gene linked to hereditary breast and ovarian cancers. Its involvement in sporadic breast cancer, however, remains unclear. Recent studies showed that a loss or lowered expression of BRCA1 is not uncommon in nonfamilial breast cancers. In addition, there have been cases of inherited BRCA1-linked breast cancer with as yet unidentified mutation. Misregulation of BRCA1 at the transcription level is a possible mechanism for loss of BRCA1 expression. To understand transcriptional regulation of the BRCA1 gene, we cloned and examined the BRCA1 promoter, by both functional reporter gene analyses and protein-DNA complex formation electrophorectic mobility shift assays. A bi-directional promoter could be located within a 229-base pair (bp) intergenic region between BRCA1and its neighboring gene, NBR2. Deletion analyses further delineated a minimal 56-bp EcoRI-HaeIII fragment, which could drive transcription in the NBR2 gene direction 2–4-fold higher than in the BRCA1 direction in all cell lines tested. Furthermore, transcriptional activity in theBRCA1 direction was undetectable in the muscle cell line C2C12, whereas activity in the NBR2 direction was maintained. These results were consistent with the expression pattern of the respective genes. A specific protein-DNA complex was detected when nuclear extracts from HeLa cells and Caco2, a colon cell line, were incubated with the 56-bp minimal promoter. This protein binding activity was further localized to an 18-bp fragment and might involve a tissue-specific factor, because binding was not detected in the C2C12 cell line. The correlation of the detection of this protein-DNA complex only in those cell lines that expressed the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter gene in the BRCA1 direction suggests a significant positive role of this complex in the transcription of the BRCA1 gene.
A SEARCH FOR RAPIDLY SPINNING PULSARS AND FAST TRANSIENTS IN UNIDENTIFIED RADIO SOURCES WITH THE NRAO 43 METER TELESCOPE

We have searched 75 unidentified radio sources selected from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey catalog for the presence of rapidly spinning pulsars and short, dispersed radio bursts. The sources are radio bright, have no identifications or optical source coincidences, are more than 5% linearly polarized, and are spatially unresolved in the catalog. If these sources are fast-spinning pulsars (e.g., sub-millisecond pulsars), previous large-scale pulsar surveys may have missed detection due to instrumental and computational limitations, eclipsing effects, or diffractive scintillation. The discovery of a sub-millisecond pulsar would significantly constrain the neutron star equation of state and would have implications for models predicting a rapid slowdown of highly recycled X-ray pulsars to millisecond periods from, e.g., accretion disk decoupling. These same sources were previously searched unsuccessfully for pulsations at 610 MHz with the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank. This new search was conducted at a different epoch with a new 800 MHz backend on the NRAO 43 m Telescope at a center frequency of 1200 MHz. Our search was sensitive to sub-millisecond pulsars in highly accelerated binary systems and to short transient pulses. No periodic or transient signals were detected from any of the target sources. We conclude that diffractive scintillation, dispersive smearing, and binary acceleration are unlikely to have prevented detection of the large majority of the sources if they are pulsars, though we cannot rule out eclipsing, nulling or intermittent emission, or radio interference as possible factors for some non-detections. Other (speculative) possibilities for what these sources might include radio-emitting magnetic cataclysmic variables or older pulsars with aligned magnetic and spin axes.
Fighting fruit flies: A model system for the study of aggression

Despite the importance of aggression in the behavioral repertoire of most animals, relatively little is known of its proximate causation and control. To take advantage of modern methods of genetic analysis for studying this complex behavior, we have developed a quantitative framework for studying aggression in common laboratory strains of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. In the present study we analyze 73 experiments in which socially naive male fruit flies interacted in more than 2,000 individual agonistic interactions. This allows us to (i) generate an ethogram of the behaviors that occur during agonistic interactions; (ii) calculate descriptive statistics for these behaviors; and (iii) identify their temporal patterns by using sequence analysis. Thirty-minute paired trials between flies contained an average of 27 individual agonistic interactions, lasting a mean of 11 seconds and featuring a variety of intensity levels. Only few fights progressed to the highest intensity levels (boxing and tussling). A sequential analysis demonstrated the existence of recurrent patterns in behaviors with some similarity to those seen during courtship. Based on the patterns characterized in the present report, a detailed examination of aggressive behavior by using mutant strains and other techniques of genetic analysis becomes possible.
The Effect of Different Types of Strength Training on Concentric Strength in Women

The effects of 4 types of resistance strength training on concentric strength and thigh girth in young women were compared. The 4 treatment groups were concentric-only (Conc, n = 12), eccentric-only (Eccn, n = 10), conventional (Conv, n = 8), and supramaximal eccentric training (SmET, n = 8). Another group of subjects did not train and served as controls (n = 10). Subjects trained on a knee extension Schnell machine twice weekly for 8 weeks, performing 3 sets of 10 reps with a starting load of 65% of 1-RM. The load was increased by 5% every 2 weeks. ANCOVA indicated that SmET and Conv improved significantly (p < 0.05) in relative (1-RM/body weight) dynamic strength when compared with initial strength levels. Similar though not statistically significant trends were observed for Cone and Eccn. However, none of the differences among the 4 training groups were significant. There was no change in thigh girth in any of the training groups.
The study of square root cubature Kalman smoother and its application on INS/GPS integrated navigation

Smoother is a method of improving filtering accuracy more. Standard Gaussian filter and Gaussian smoother formulation is presented in this article. With respect to high dimensional state space model, CKF is an algorithm design with more superiority. Its high stable style of square root CKF is depicted, accordingly square root FI-CKS theory derivation and the flow are deduced. Then the proposed smoother is applied to INS/GPS integrated navigation with large misalignment. The track of INS is first generated, and then SR-CKF, SR-FI-CKS is applied at simulated INS data, under the same condition, making a comparison with UKF, URTSS, FI-EKS, CKF and FI-CKS. The outcomes indicate that FI-EKS diverges while definite sampled nonlinear smoothers are convergent. Especially SR-FI-CKS operates with smoothly and stability, and gives out the highest accuracy on the performance of longitude and latitude estimation.
Evolving Misidentification Syndromes and Facial Recognition Deficits*

In this paper, the authors report the case of a 33 year old man with several misidentification delusions involving the self. Evidence suggests that one type of misidentification delusion may evolve into another type. Neuropsychological testing further suggests that misidentification delusions may be associated with subtle abnormalities in facial recognition abilities and with non dominant cerebral compromise.
Form versus Function: How the Intensities of Specific Emotions Evoked in Functional versus Hedonic Trade-Offs Mediate Product Preferences

This article examines the emotional and behavioral consequences of making functional versus hedonic trade-offs. Building on the proposed correspondence between functionality and a prevention focus and between hedonics and a promotion focus, the authors predict that contexts involving functional versus hedonic trade-offs evoke a variety of both negative and positive emotions, including guilt/anxiety, sadness/ disappointment, cheerfulness/excitement, and confidence/security. These predictions are confirmed. Furthermore, an analysis of the intensities of these specific emotions reveals the following additional insights: (1) Under conditions in which the options in a choice set meet or exceed both functional and hedonic cutoffs, consumers attach greater importance to the hedonic attribute, and (2) whereas the functionally superior option is preferred in choice tasks, the hedonically superior one is preferred in willingness-to-pay tasks.
Delayed Imitation of Complex Behavioural Sequences by 14- to 16-Month Olds

The present study was conducted to determine if children under the age of 18 months can exhibit delayed imitation of three-event sequences when they have no opportunity to practice. Twenty-three 14- to 16-month-old children underwent two different imitation conditions. In the practice condition the children could imitate the sequence immediately after modelling; then they were tested 1 or 7 days later. In the no practice condition the children had the chance to imitate only on the test day. Children were able to imitate the sequences under both conditions irrespective of the delay period. They produced significantly more target actions, and more target actions in the correct order, in the test phase and cued recall phase, compared with the baseline. There were no differences between the two conditions with a 1-day delay period, but after a 7-day delay, the number of target actions produced during the practice condition was significantly higher than those in the no practice condition. The results are discussed in terms of nonverbal mimetic representations. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
AAML03P1, a pilot study of the safety of gemtuzumab ozogamicin in combination with chemotherapy for newly diagnosed childhood acute myeloid leukemia

The development of antigen‐targeted therapies may provide additional options to improve outcomes in children with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The Children's Oncology Group AAML03P1 trial sought to determine the safety of adding 2 doses of gemtuzumab ozogamicin, a humanized anti‐CD33 antibody‐targeted agent, to intensive chemotherapy during remission induction and postremission intensification for children with de novo AML.
A Survey of Performance Optimizations for Titanium Immersed Boundary Simulation

This paper surveys a series of optimizations for an Immersed Boundary Method simulation of a mammalian heart implemented in Titanium. In particular, we review four optimizations for (1) Load balancing, (2) Aggregating communication, (3) Second Order Method, (4) Fluid partitioning in two dimensions. These four optimizations were implemented separate, but each suggests significant potential to improve execution time for larger Immersed Boundary Method simulations.
Joint Embeddings of Hierarchical Categories and Entities

Due to the lack of structured knowledge applied in learning distributed representation of categories, existing work cannot incorporate category hierarchies into entity information. ~We propose a framework that embeds entities and categories into a semantic space by integrating structured knowledge and taxonomy hierarchy from large knowledge bases. The framework allows to compute meaningful semantic relatedness between entities and categories. ~Compared with the previous state of the art, our framework can handle both single-word concepts and multiple-word concepts with superior performance in concept categorization and semantic relatedness.
Levels of Analysis and the Organization of Affect

This article presents a framework for the organization of affective processes, including the affective traits, moods, and emotions. Section 1 introduces the levels-of-analysis approach, defines the three levels of affect, presents criteria for ordering these levels hierarchically in terms of simple and complex temporally driven processes, and examines the interrelations among the various levels of affect, including an in-depth analysis of affective trait–emotion relationships. Section 2 offers an application of the hierarchical view to research on affect–cognition interactions, including a brief review of affect congruency effects and a discussion of the conceptual and empirical challenges to such research necessitated by consideration of the differences among the levels of affect.
Effects of nonlinear feedback in the frequency domain

A simple methodology to evaluate harmonic distortion in the frequency domain for circuits and systems made up of a nonlinear high-gain path with a nonlinear feedback network is presented. The approach provides compact closed-form expressions which constitute a direct extension of the classic ones valid at dc. The result improve our understanding of nonlinear frequency behavior in general feedback circuits and can even be used in manual design. The accuracy of the equations obtained was evaluated by comparison with computer simulations and measurements on an example circuit. Simulated and experimental data highly agree with the theoretical model.
Postnatal Growth Rates Covary Weakly with Embryonic Development Rates and Do Not Explain Adult Mortality Probability among Songbirds on Four Continents

Growth and development rates may result from genetic programming of intrinsic processes that yield correlated rates between life stages. These intrinsic rates are thought to affect adult mortality probability and longevity. However, if proximate extrinsic factors (e.g., temperature, food) influence development rates differently between stages and yield low covariance between stages, then development rates may not explain adult mortality probability. We examined these issues based on study of 90 songbird species on four continents to capture the diverse life-history strategies observed across geographic space. The length of the embryonic period explained little variation (ca. 13%) in nestling periods and growth rates among species. This low covariance suggests that the relative importance of intrinsic and extrinsic influences on growth and development rates differs between stages. Consequently, nestling period durations and nestling growth rates were not related to annual adult mortality probability among diverse songbird species within or among sites. The absence of a clear effect of faster growth on adult mortality when examined in an evolutionary framework across species may indicate that species that evolve faster growth also evolve physiological mechanisms for ameliorating costs on adult mortality. Instead, adult mortality rates of species in the wild may be determined more strongly by extrinsic environmental causes.
An effective far-field analysis of an electric Hertzian dipole embedded in multiple periodic structures of lossless multilayer slabs using the equivalent CCITL model

A Hertzian dipole embedded in multiple periodic (MP) structures of lossless multilayer slabs is effectively analyzed using the equivalent conjugately characteristic-impedance transmission-line (CCITL) model. Numerical results show that the equivalent CCITL model provides accurate results, compared to those obtained from the conventional transmission-line model. It is found that the MP structures can provide more stopbands and can be used to improve the directivity as well.
Energy-Aware Forwarding Strategies for Delay Tolerant Network Routing Protocols

Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) is well suited to challenging environments, defined by the lack of reliable end-to-end communication paths to the destination. However, the available energy is not considered in the majority of existing DTN routing protocols when they make forwarding decisions. This limits both delivery probabilities and the network lifetimes in energy-constrained applications. This paper investigates energy-aware routing protocols for wildlife tracking application to transmit data from attached sensors on the animal’s back to data collection base stations. We propose three new network protocol strategies to extend common DTN routing protocols, and consider the available energy to achieve efficient utilization of the node’s energy in transmission and sensing. These strategies enhance packet delivery rates up to 13% by carefully using the limited energy resources. We simulate two different animal tracking scenarios and show that the new strategies provide significant performance improvement under different scenarios.
How to Build a CC System

Building a computationally creative system is a challenging undertaking. While such systems are beginning to proliferate, and a good number of them have been reasonably well-documented, it may seem, especially to newcomers to the ﬁeld, that each system is a bespoke design that bears little chance of revealing any general knowledge about CC system building. This paper seeks to dispel this concern by presenting an abstract CC sys-tem description, or, in other words a practical, general approach for constructing CC systems.
Marketing Secondary Schools to Parents — Some Lessons from the Research on Parental Choice

Don Smedley is at the Department of Education of the University of Loughborough. This paper takes as its context the 1988 Education Reform Act and the 1991 Parent's Charter and their implications for the ways in which schools might best market themselves to parents. It reports on a survey of the growing literature on parental choice of secondary schools and offers some practical suggestions as to how schools might improve the ways in which they present themselves in marketing terms at a tactical level and what the broader policy implications of adopting such an approach might be.
When a Parent Goes Off to War

The objectives of this study were (1) to explore the consequences of parental deployment for adolescents and their families and (2) to identify potential strategies that may help adolescents cope with a parent's deployment. Eleven focus groups were conducted among adolescents in military families, military parents, and school personnel in military-impacted schools at five military bases. Findings reveal that one of the most prominent sources of stress for families is adjusting and readjusting to new roles and responsibilities. Notably, this stress was primarily felt after the deployed parent returned. School personnel also commented that many teachers and counselors are not prepared to deal with deployment issues among the military students. These findings suggest that parents need to be better prepared to handle the stresses after a deployed parent returns. School personnel also need special training, and military-impacted schools need to offer additional opportunities for students to discuss deployment issues.