Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Online intercultural exchange : an introduction for foreign language teachers

This volume provides an introduction to online intercultural exchange, the activity of engaging language learners in collaborative project work with partners from other cultures through the use of online communication technology. The chapters look at how online collaboration can be successfully integrated into the foreign language classroom and how it can contribute to the development of students intercultural communicative competence.
Markov Strategies for Optimal Control Problems Indexed by a Partially Ordered Set

We define the notion of a Markov strategy for the general optimal control problem where the index set is partially ordered. We prove that the supremum over all strategies is always attained by a Markov strategy if and only if the structure of the probability space is that of a Markov random field. which generalize the optimal stopping problem to the case where the index set S is partially ordered. In the paper by Mandelbaum and Vanderbei, it was shown that if the pay-off is a function of the state of a multi-time parameter Markov chain then the supremum over all policies coincides with the supremum over all "Markov policies. " This means that the strategy and the stopping rule depend only on the current state of the
Strategies of source attribution: Semantic features and trace strength as cues to the origin of memories

Research has suggested that people may use different qualitative cues or one quantitative cue (trace strength, activation) to attribute memories to their source. In an experiment, the diagnosticity of a qualitative cue (semantic features) was manipulated between participants: Distinctness was high when items from source 1 and items from source 2 belonged to different semantic categories, while it was low when both sources contained items from both categories. Depending on the study-test interval (48 hr or 10 min), trace strength of test items was either low or high for all participants. Thus, the quantitative cue was always diagnostic. Participants primarily used semantic cues in source attributions of new items. Also, source identification performance profited from semantic dissimilarity, not from high trace strength. The findings indicate that qualitative cues may play a more prominent role than quantitative cues in source monitoring.
LightSpeed : A Many-core Scheduling Algorithm

The world is heading towards many-core architectures due to many well-known and important present-day research issues: power consumption, clock speed limits, critical path lengths, etc. While existing many-core machines have traditionally been handled in the same way as SMPs, this magnitude of parallelism introduces several fundamental challenges at the architectural level which translates to novel challenges in the design of the software stack for these platforms. Many-core architectures cause new problems: shared caches, shared memory controllers, shared communication paths—communication between computation now—and other shared resource contentions. Current many-core scheduling research literature and operating system development have not provided a satisfactory solution to the scheduling problem. Partly because the hardware is not yet widespread—no need to implement or solve a non-existant problem—and partly because many of the issues are hard to solve—especially in the general case.
The hidden price and possible benefit of repeated traumatic exposure

Abstract There is a growing evidence showing that first-responders who are frequently exposed to traumatic events as part of their occupational routine may pay a hidden price. Although they display low to moderate levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, similar to individuals with full-blown PTSD, they show impaired ability to process and react according to contextual demands. We aimed to test whether this impairment affects performance on simple unrelated tasks and its association with cumulative traumatic exposure and level of PTSD symptoms. Thirty-nine trauma-exposed criminal scene investigator police and 35 unexposed civilians matched for age, gender, and education performed a simple discrimination task in the presence of aversive pictures with low or high intensity. We predicted and found that trauma-exposed individuals failed to modify their behavior in accordance with levels of negative intensity. Hence they were equally distracted in both low and high negative intensity conditions, compared to unexposed controls who showed improved performance in low intensity conditions. Importantly, performance of trauma-exposed individuals on conditions of low intensity negatively correlated with their levels of PTSD symptoms. These results highlight the maladaptive tendency of individuals with repeated traumatic exposure to maintain the same behavior in low-intensity contextual conditions when it is no longer adequate. Interestingly however, in high-intensity conditions trauma-exposed individuals outperformed unexposed controls. Specifically, when completing simple tasks in high intensity conditions. The results suggest that repeated traumatic exposure has both positive and negative consequences on the way individuals interpret and react to their environment.
Primes Generated by Recurrence Sequences

We consider primitive divisors of terms of integer sequences defined by quadratic polynomials. Apart from some small counterexamples, when a term has a primitive divisor, that primitive divisor is unique. It seems likely that the number of terms with a primitive divisor has a natural density. We discuss two heuristic arguments to suggest a value for that density, one using recent advances made about the distribution of roots of polynomial congruences.
Simple Composition During Language Processing: An MEG Investigation

A centerpiece in human cognition is the extraordinary ability to produce and comprehend language. Through language, we are able to convey an unlimited number of complex ideas with incredible speed and efficiency. This capacity derives from the compositional nature of human language – its ability to construct complex meanings through the productive combination of simpler pieces. Words (quietly, blue, danced, at, flamingo, the, dawn) can be combined into phrases (danced quietly, at dawn, the blue flamingo), which in turn combine into sentences that express complex ideas (at dawn the blue flamingo danced quietly). The power of compositionality is that complicated expressions can be easily produced and understood without any previous exposure to the final meaning; it is enough simply to know the meanings of the individual pieces and how they are structurally combined.
Design and development of a 3RRS wearable fingertip cutaneous device

Wearable technologies are gaining great popularity in the recent years. The demand for devices that are lightweight and compact challenges researchers to pursue innovative solutions to make existing technologies more portable and wearable. In this paper we present a novel wearable cutaneous fingertip device with 3 degrees of freedom. It is composed of two parallel platforms: the upper body is fixed on the back of the finger, housing three small servo motors, and the mobile end-effector is in contact with the volar surface of the fingertip. The two platforms are connected by three articulated legs, actuated by the motors in order to move the mobile platform toward the user's fingertip and re-angle it to simulate contacts with arbitrarily oriented surfaces. Each leg is composed of two rigid links, connected to each other and then to the platforms, according to a RRS (Revolute-Revolute-Spherical) kinematic chain. With respect to other similar cable-driven devices presented in the literature, this device solves the indeterminacy due to the underactuation of the platform. This work presents the main design steps for the development of the wearable display, along with its kinematics, quasi-static modeling, and control. In particular, we analyzed the relationship between device performance and its main geometrical parameters. A perceptual experiment shows that the cutaneous device is able to effectively render different platform configurations.
On the feasibility of deploying cell anomaly detection in operational cellular networks

The Self-Organizing Networks (SON) concept includes the functional area known as self-healing, which aims to automate the detection and diagnosis of, and recovery from, network degradations and outages. In this paper, we build on our previous work [19] and study the feasibility of an operational deployment of an adaptive ensemble-method framework for modeling cell behavior. The framework uses Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to determine cell-performance status. Our results, generated using real cellular network data, show that the computational overhead and the detection delay are sufficiently low for practical use of our methods to perform cell anomaly detection in operational networks.
Frequency and distribution of microsatellites from ESTs of citrus

Nearly 65,000 citrus EST (Expressed Sequence Tags) have been investigated using the CitEST project database. Microsatellites were investigated in the unigene sequences from Citrus spp. and Poncirus trifoliata. From these sequences, approximately 35% of the non-redundant ESTs contained SSRs. The frequencies of different SSR motifs were similar between Citrus spp and trifoliate orange. In general, mononucleotide repeats appeared to be the most abundant SSRs in the CitEST database, but we also identify di-, tri-, tetra-, penta- and hexanucleotide repeats. The AG/CT and AAG/CTT were the most common dinucleotide and trinucleotide motifs, with frequencies of 54.4% and 25.2%, respectively. Primer sequences flanking SSR motifs were successfully designed and synthesized. After in silico polymorphism analysis, a subset of sixty-eight primers was validated in different Citrus spp. and Poncirus trifoliata. PCR-amplification revealed polymorphism in citrus with all tested primer pairs and showed the potential of these markers for linkage mapping. Our study showed that the CitEST database can be exploited for the development of SSR markers that can amplify Citrus spp. and related genus for comparative mapping and other genetic analyses.
When population and evolutionary genetics met behaviour

In this review, we analyse the impact of a population and evolutionary genetics approach on the study of insect behaviour. Our attention is focused on the model organism Drosophila melanogaster and several other insect species. In particular, we explore the relationship between rhythmic behaviours and the molecular evolution of clock and ion channel genes.
Improving Divergence Time Estimation in Phylogenetics: More Taxa vs. Longer Sequences

Maximum Likelihood (ML) is used as a standard method for estimating divergence times in phylogenetic trees. The method is consistent and hence the precision can be improved by analyzing longer sequences. In this paper we show that the precision can be improved also by including more taxa to the existing tree. It is a theoretical study, complemented with simulations, showing that the gain in precision is faster with increasing sequence length than with increasing number of taxa.We further compare the results of estimating divergence times using Maximum Likelihood with the much faster and less complex estimation method of Mean Path Length (MPL), which works with the evolution model of Jukes-Cantor (1969). It is shown that MPL is as good as ML in estimating divergence times of nodes that are located near the root in the tree, but ML is better in estimating the divergence times of nodes lower down.
Gendering a Warbot

Abstract Recently, the United States Defense Advanced Project Agency (DARPA) hosted its “Robotics Challenge. ” The explicit goal of this challenge is to develop robots capable of “executing complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human engineered environments. ” However, the competitors’ choice to build humanoid robots tells a different narrative. In particular, through the physical design choices, the giving of names and the tasking of roles, the competing teams perpetuated a gendered narrative. This narrative in turn reifies gendered norms of warfighting, and ultimately leads to an accretion of gendered practices in militaries, politics and society, despite contemporary attempts at minimizing these practices through policies of inclusion. I argue that though much work on gender and technology exists, the autonomous humanoid robot – the one currently sought by DARPA – is something entirely new, and must be addressed on its own terms. In particular, this machine exceeds even Haraway's conception of the post-human cyborg, and rather than emancipating human beings from gender hierarchy, further reifies its practices. Masculine humanoid robots will be deemed ideal warfighters, while feminine humanoid robots will be tasked with research or humanitarian efforts, thereby reinstituting gendered roles.
Staircasing reduction model applied to total variation based image reconstruction

Total variation based image restoration method was first proposed by Rudin Osher and Fatermi in 1992. The images resulting from its application are usually piecewise constant, and have sometimes undesirable staircasing effect. To reduce this effect, we propose an improved model by combining the advantages of total variation and H1 regularization. The new model substantially reduces the staircase effect, while preserving sharp edges. This model can be used in image reconstruction, it has advantages of keeping edges and recovering smooth region's value. We give 1D and 2D experimental results to show the efficiency of the proposed model.
Test Review: Social Responsiveness Scale–Second Edition (SRS-2)

The Social Responsiveness Scale–Second Edition (SRS-2) is a 65-item rating scale measuring deficits in social behavior associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), as outlined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text rev.; DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000). The scale can be completed by multiple raters who have at least 1 month of experience with the rated individual. An “average reading ability” is said to be necessary to complete the record forms (Constantino & Gruber, 2012, p. 3). Materials include an examiner’s manual and record forms. The scale takes approximately 15 to 20 min to complete.
Natural killer (NK) cells are present in mice with severe combined immunodeficiency (scid).

Spleen cells from C.B- 17 scid mice with severe combined immunodeficiency disease exhibit natural killer cell (NK) activity against YAC lymphoma targets in a standard 4-hr 51Cr release assay. The cytolytic activity is demonstrable only at high effector to target ratios but can be augmented at least sevenfold by the interferon inducer poly I:C. The pattern of target lysis is specific, because splenocytes from poly I:C-primed C.B-17 scid mice lyse NK-sensitive YAC cells and not the insensitive P815 mastocytoma. The presence of several NK-associated antigens on C.B-17 scid splenocytes was tested by pretreating cells with the appropriate antiserum plus complement before testing for NK activity. The results indicate that a proportion of NK effectors in C.B-17 scid mice bear surface NK 2.1 and Asialo GM1 but are negative for Thy-1.
A Monte Carlo Method for Estimating Reliability Parameters of a Complex Repairable Technical System With Inter-Component Dependencies

A general model of a complex technical system is considered. The system is built of multiple two-state components which can be either operable or failed. The functioning of a component is influenced in a specific way by the other components' states, thus the components are not mutually s-independent. Failures occur randomly, and are handled by several repair teams. If a repair team is available when a failure occurs, then the repair (or replacement) is started immediately; otherwise the component waits in the repair queue. It is assumed that each component's time to failure is exponentially distributed, and the failure intensity depends on the other components' states. No assumption is made about the components' repair time distributions. The model's complexity makes it impossible to analytically compute the parameters of the system's failure-repair process. For this reason, the sought parameters are evaluated using a combination of Monte Carlo simulation and statistical estimation. Finding the confidence interval is a non-trivial task. The first part of the paper is theoretical; the conditions under which the failure-repair process is recurrent are given, and the confidence intervals for the sought parameters are defined. The second part has an applicable character; a commodity transport network is considered as an exemplary system with inter-component dependencies, and the algorithm estimating its reliability parameters is presented with some illustrative examples.
Dynamic in vivo interaction of DDB2 E3 ubiquitin ligase with UV-damaged DNA is independent of damage-recognition protein XPC

Damage DNA binding protein 2 (DDB2) has a high affinity for UV-damaged DNA and has been implicated in the initial steps of global genome nucleotide excision repair (NER) in mammals. DDB2 binds to CUL4A and forms an E3 ubiquitin ligase. In this study, we have analyzed the properties of DDB2 and CUL4A in vivo. The majority of DDB2 and CUL4A diffuse in the nucleus with a diffusion rate consistent with a high molecular mass complex. Essentially all DDB2 binds to UV-induced DNA damage, where each molecule resides for ∼2 minutes. After the induction of DNA damage, DDB2 is proteolytically degraded with a half-life that is two orders of magnitude larger than its residence time on a DNA lesion. This indicates that binding to damaged DNA is not the primary trigger for DDB2 breakdown. The bulk of DDB2 binds to and dissociates from DNA lesions independently of damage-recognition protein XPC. Moreover, the DDB2-containing E3 ubiquitin ligase is bound to many more damaged sites than XPC, suggesting that there is little physical interaction between the two proteins. We propose a scenario in which DDB2 prepares UV-damaged chromatin for assembly of the NER complex.
Evaluating the contribution of interpretative phenomenological analysis

Abstract This paper presents the results of a review of studies employing interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) obtained from three of the major databases: web of science, medline and psychinfo. Between 1996 and 2008, 293 papers presenting empirical IPA studies were published. Trends over time are presented. This is followed by a categorisation of the content area of that corpus. The biggest specific area of research within IPA is illness experience, it forming the subject of nearly a quarter of the corpus. The paper then describes a guide for evaluating IPA research which is used to assess the illness experience papers. Detailed summaries are provided of the papers rated as good. These summaries describe the substantive findings as well as the markers of high quality. The paper finishes with a summary of core features of high-quality IPA work.
A Low Complexity Diversity Achieving Decoder Based on a Two-Stage Lattice Reduction in Frequency-Selective MIMO Channels

Based on the V-BLAST zero-padded block transmission scheme in the frequency-selective multiple-input multiple-output channels, we propose a two-stage lattice-reduction (LR)-aided decoder and prove analytically that it can achieve the maximum diversity gain, which is equal to the product of the number of receive-antennas and the number of multipath channel taps. In the proposed decoding method, at first, we decouple the detection problem into several reduced-size detection problems and perform the lattice reduction algorithm for the decoupled blocks. Then, by choosing a proper threshold, a clustering algorithm divides the blocks into the maximum two clusters. We prove that the corresponding blocks of the first cluster achieve the full diversity through their linear equalization. For the remainder of the blocks, based on the entire observations of the second cluster, we propose an LR-aided detection method, which decodes the information symbols in this cluster with full diversity. Our proposed two-stage LR-aided algorithm performs better than the conventional LR-aided detection in terms of both the decoding computational complexity and the error probability. Additionally, we prove analytically that at high signal-to-noise ratio, the decoding complexity of the proposed decoder is equal to that of decoding the first cluster.
Collaborative filtering recommendation based on conditional probability and weight adjusting

Collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm is one of the most successful technologies for building recommender systems. However, a user-based collaborative filtering method has its limits related to similarity and ratings. To avoid those limits, we propose a new item-based collaborative filtering algorithm based on conditional probability and weight adjusting in this paper. At first, any two items are selected to compute the similarity from common user ratings, and only the items with the similarity greater than preset thresholds are chosen as the set of supporting items. Then an integral parameter, that is the frequency of two items present simultaneously, is used to adjusted similarity weights. Finally, a new algorithm combining conditional probability and weight adjusting is proposed to predict ratings. The experimental results show the proposed algorithm is feasible and effective in practice.
How to Beat Procrastination The Role of Goal Focus

Procrastination, defined as the subjectively aversive inability to initiate or complete the pursuit of a given goal, is a common phenomenon in academic contexts. This theoretical paper presents a dynamic model that centers on the role of goal focus in influencing procrastination during goal pursuit. Our central hypothesis is that focusing on the means of goal pursuit (i.e., adopting a process focus) reduces procrastination, particularly when fear of failure is high. Focusing on the means should decrease the salience of performance outcomes and thereby reduce fear of failure. This, in turn, should facilitate the initiation and maintenance of goal pursuit. In contrast, when means are perceived as unpleasant (high task aversiveness), focusing more on the outcome of goal pursuit (i.e., adopting an outcome focus) should reduce procrastination by directing attention away from the means while highlighting the importance of goal achievement. Furthermore, the model takes account of dynamic contextual factors, part.