Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Metaphorical priming in a lexical decision task in high functioning autism

The difficulties experienced by autistic individuals with regard to communication and language are widely known and well documented. Individuals with High functioning autism (ASD) are distinguished by relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive skills. However, problems with pragmatic language skills have been consistently reported across the autistic spectrum, even when structural language is intact. Many studies establish failure to understand metaphors, idioms and other forms of figurative language (Gold & Faust, 2010; Vulchanova, Talcott, Vulchanov & Stankova, 2012). Figurative language takes many forms, conceptual metaphors being one of the most common. On the cognitive level, conceptual metaphors are the mental representations we establish in order to map between two domains (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Fauconnier 1985; Vulchanova, Saldaña, Chahboun & Vulchanov 2015). In other words, the logic of one conceptual domain is applied to another.
Determinants of SMEs growth and performance in Cameroon’s central and littoral provinces’ manufacturing and retail sectors

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to discuss growth and performance of small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in Central and Littoral provinces of Cameroon’s manufacturing and retail sectors. Design/methodology/approach - – A full survey of 700 randomly selected SMEs owner-managers was conducted though only 575 enterprises were retained for analysis after performing the coherence test. The survey was conducted in the central and littoral regions, the location of almost 70 per cent of the SMEs in Cameroon. The survey questionnaire administered consisted of about 50-60 questions covering the profile of the business owner, and business growth and performance. The full sample consists mainly of enterprises in the tertiary and secondary sectors. They were mostly retails and wholesales (supermarket, hardware shop, clothing shop, perfume shops and liquor store). Although, the secondary sector contributes 31 per cent of Cameroon's GDP and employs 15 per cent of the population, they are mostly large enterprises, with very few SMEs. Hence few businesses were interviewed in this sector. Findings - – Business location affects turnover growth. The likelihood of negative growth or zero growth decreases with the age of enterprise. Increased levels of education result in improved turnover growth. There is no association of gender of with growth of business turnover. The burden imposed by municipal regulation and compliance with it negatively affects turnover growth. Time taken to be in compliance with tax regulations overall also negatively affects turnover growth. Social implications - – Disseminating regulatory information to SMEs would be useful in order to improve compliance in general and newly formed enterprises located in the Littoral Province in particular. It is important to reduce regulatory burden on SMEs overall. Restrictive trade and business regulations in Africa tend to be largely devised through negotiated settlements with large corporates, and the onerous requirements tend to be inappropriate and out of reach for small, medium and micro firms. The business environment in the Littoral Province should be improved. Originality/value - – Studies that examine econometric determinants of the growth of SMEs in Africa, and especially in Cameroon are few indeed. This is an area that is very crucial to examine and fully understand for policy development.
Information Revealing Effects of Anti-takeover Amendments : A case of Japan in 2005

In 2005, Japanese firms were allowed to introduce the anti-takeover amendments. By using of the data of 2005, this paper examined the incentives and effects of anti-takeover amendments in Japan. It has shown that the performances of the ATA introduced firms dropped in 2005 fiscal year. These performances changes occurred just after the introduction of ATA. Hence we can conclude that ATAs have been introduced by the firm whose managers recognized that their performances would be decreased. By checking the stock prices of those firms by using of an event study technique, this paper found that the movements of stock prices were consistent with the changes of performances. In other words, the introduction of ATA has revealed the negative signal to the market. Moreover, this paper shows that explicit ATAs were more negatively judged than implicit ATAs from the market. The average abnormal returns of ATA introduced firms whose simple Q is lower than 1 were negative even when the estimation window is extended to 35 days. 2
SCORING THE FORECASTERBY MEAN RESULTING PAYOFF OF ADISTRIBUTION OF DECISION PROBLEMSDavid

We present a new way to understand and characterize the choice of scoring, objective , or loss function for a model, machine, or expert estimating (i.e. predicting) the probabilities of events or outcomes (such as class membership). The ultimate value of a probability estimate lies in the actual payoo (utility) accruing to those who use this information to make a decision. We allow that we often cannot specify with certainty that the estimate will be used in a particular decision problem, characterized by a particular decision-outcome payoo matrix (cost schedule), and thus by a particular decision threshold. Instead, we consider the more general case of a distribution over such matrices. The proposed scoring function is the expectation, with respect to this distribution, of the payoo that will actually be received. Square-error loss (or Brier score) and log-likelihood (or various entropic measures) arise from speciic examples of such distributions, and even common single-threshold measures such as the misclassiication rate obtain from degenerate special cases. Our scoring functions are always \honesty-rewarding," or maximized in expectation when the estimate equals the true outcome probability. There is still no single \universal" choice of scoring function appropriate in all cases, but speciic choices correspond to speciic assumptions about the probability that the predictions will be thresholded in various ways when used to make a decision.
Pituitary Adenylate Cyclase-Activating Polypeptide Prevents C 2-Ceramide-Induced Apoptosis of Cerebellar Granule Cells

David Vaudry, Anthony Falluel-Morel, Magali Basille, Tommy F. Pamantung, Marc Fontaine, Alain Fournier, Hubert Vaudry,* and Bruno J. Gonzalez European Institute for Peptide Research (IFRMP 23), Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Neuroendocrinology, INSERM U413, UA CNRS, University of Rouen, France European Institute for Peptide Research (IFRMP 23), Laboratory of Defense Proteins in Immune and Inflammatory Responses, INSERM U519, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Rouen, France INRS-Institut Armand Frappier, University of Québec, Pointe-Claire, Québec, Canada
Nitrogen as the limiting nutrient for eutrophication in coastal marine ecosystems: Evolving views over three decades

The first special volume of Limnology and Oceanography, published in 1972, focused on whether phosphorus (P) or carbon (C) is the major agent causing eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems. Only slight mention was made that estuaries may behave differently from lakes and that nitrogen (N) may cause eutrophication in estuaries. In the following decade, an understanding of eutrophication in estuaries proceeded in relative isolation from the community of scientists studying lakes. National water quality policy in the United States was directed almost solely toward P control for both lakes and estuaries, and similarly, European nations tended to focus on P control in lakes. Although bioassay data indicated N control of eutrophication in estuaries as early as the 1970s, this body of knowledge was treated with skepticism by many freshwater scientists and water‐quality managers, because bioassay data in lakes often did not properly indicate the importance of P relative to C in those ecosystems. Hence, the bioassay data in estuaries had little influence on water‐quality management. Over the past two decades, a strong consensus has evolved among the scientific community that N is the primary cause of eutrophication in many coastal ecosystems. The development of this consensus was based in part on data from whole‐ecosystem studies and on a growing body of evidence that presented convincing mechanistic reasons why the controls of eutrophication in lakes and coastal marine ecosystems may differ. Even though N is probably the major cause of eutrophication in most coastal systems in the temperate zone, optimal management of coastal eutrophication suggests controlling both N and P, in part because P can limit primary production in some systems. In addition, excess P in estuaries can interact with the availability of N and silica (Si) to adversely affect ecological structure. Reduction of P to upstream freshwater ecosystems can also benefit coastal marine ecosystems through mechanisms such as increased Si fluxes.
Inference of a recent climate driven range expansion in Radix balthica Materials and methods :

Data were retained from Swedish national monitoring databases at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences SLU. These databases comprise long-term data series from freshwater environments (lakes and rivers) including abundances and biomasses of different organism groups and a variety of environmental parameters. Especially the macrozoobenthos is taxonomically highly resolved and reliable. We used the publicy available monitoring data from 111 Swedish lakes to obtain presence/absence data for Radix specimen. For environmental analysis, 13 data sets of the intensively studied reference lakes, 4 data sets of sites within the largest lakes in Sweden and 5 data sets of rivers were used. The reference lakes have been sampled in different depths and data sets are divided in littoral and sublittoral. All data sets spanned a time of minimally ten years and were sampled once a year, the lakes in late summer/autumn (August to October) after the first mixing, the rivers in spring (May to July) after the snowmelt and the associated flood. The large lakes have the largest data sets beginning with 1969 as the first year included, whereas the sampling of rivers and reference lakes began 1987 and 1988 respectively, 2003 was the last year included. The environmental variables temperature, oxygen, pH, Secchi-depth, conductivity, nutrients (different compounds of nitrogen and phosphorus) and total organic carbon completed the data sets.
Did welfare reform work for everyone? a look at young single mothers

Since Congress overhauled the U.S. welfare system in 1996, single mothers between 18 and 24 have reduced welfare dependency, increased workforce participation, and registered gains in household income. The group's growing attachment to the labor force means they may be better positioned to take advantage of unemployment insurance during the current recession.
GUI test-case generation with macro-event contracts

To perform a comprehensive GUI testing, a large number of test cases are needed. This paper proposes a GUI test-case generation approach that is suitable for system testing. The key idea is to extend high-level GUI scenarios with contracts and use the contracts to infer the ordering dependencies of the scenarios. From the ordering dependencies, a state machine of the system is constructed and used to generate test cases automatically. A case study is conducted to investigate the quality of the test cases generated by the proposed approach. The results showed that, in comparison to creating test cases manually, the proposed approach can detect more faults with less human effort.
Risk and Effort in Rank Order Tournaments : The Case of the 2004 PGA Tour

This paper seeks to examine whether golfers respond to the different incentives they face in professional golf tournaments. Specifically, it examines whether they vary their risk and their effort in a way that can be explained economically. The paper uses three models, looking at how golfers near the projected cut respond on the second round of competition and how they respond on the final day of competition, both in terms of their expected score and their variation. Most of the tests were not statistically significant, but the raw numbers seem to suggest that golfers do respond to the different incentives they face in a way that the economic model would predict.
Characterization of an Epstein-Barr virus receptor on human epithelial cells

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) adsorption to human B lymphocytes is mediated by the viral envelope glycoprotein, gp350/220, which binds to the cell surface protein, CD21, also known as the CR2 complement receptor. Human epithelial cells also express an EBV receptor. A candidate surface molecule of 195 kD has previously been identified on an epithelial cell line and explanted epithelial tissue by reactivity with the CD21 specific monoclonal antibody (mAb), HB-5a. In experiments to further characterize the epithelial cell EBV receptor, we have found that two human epithelial cell lines, RHEK-1 and HeLa, specifically bind intact EB virions. A 145-kD protein, similar in size to B lymphocyte CD21, was specifically precipitated from surface iodinated RHEK-1 cells using the HB-5a mAb, or using purified soluble gp350/220 coupled to agarose beads. The previously identified 195-kD protein did not bind to gp350/220 or react with two other anti-CD21 mAbs. CD21 homologous RNA, similar in size to the B lymphocyte CD21 mRNA, was detected in both RHEK-1 and HeLa cells. The nucleotide sequence of the epithelial cell cDNA was identical to B lymphocyte CD21. The longest clone differs from previously reported CD21 cDNAs in having additional 5' untranslated sequence. Polymerase chain reaction amplification of RHEK-1- or B lymphoblastoid-derived cDNA verified that most CD21 transcripts are initiated at least 30-50 nucleotides upstream of the previously reported mRNA cap site. These experiments demonstrate that human epithelial cells can express CD21, and that CD21 is likely to mediate EBV adsorption to epithelial cells.
A framework for information visualisation

In this paper we examine the issues involved in developing information visualisation systems and present a framework for their construction. The framework addresses the components which must be considered in providing effective visualisations. The framework is specified using a declarative object oriented language; the resulting object model may be mapped to a variety of graphical user interface development platforms. This provides general support to developers of visualisation systems. A prototype system exists which allows the investigation of alternative visualisations for a range of data sources.
A novel auction mechanism for selling time-sensitive e-services

Many e-services are time-sensitive as the users request them for a specific time period. Such services need to be repeatedly offered to keep them constantly utilized. This paper studies winner selection strategies in a recurring auction for such time-sensitive e-services. We observe that because of uneven wealth distribution, the least wealthy bidders tend to drop out of recurring auction as they persistently loose. The bidders dropping out of an auction decrease competition and can cause a collapse of winning prices. We propose and evaluate a novel auction mechanism that enables bidder drop control. Compared to traditional auction mechanisms, ours increases revenue of the e-service provider and decreases loss of fairness of the e-service allocation.
Chronotherapeutics (light and wake therapy) in affective disorders

The Committee on Chronotherapeutics was recently formed by the International Society for Affective Disorders (ISAD), which has asked us to provide a consensus review of chronotherapeutics (light and wake therapy) in affective disorders. We consider these non-pharmaceutical, biologically based therapies to be potentially powerful adjuvants ready for clinical application. We also stress the need for additional studies, both in-patient and out-patient, to broaden the evidence base for indications and efficacy.
Stature and the Standard of Living

Research on the standard of living now emphasizes alternatives or supplements to the national income accounts. This paper reviews the results of two decades of research using stature as a measure of health aspects of human welfare. After comparing and contrasting stature with per capita income, I consider height patterns discovered by economic historians that challenge traditional beliefs about the past, including long-term trends, cycles in heights, and the dreadfully small stature of slave children that was followed by catch-up growth. The paper concludes with comparisons to work in development economics and suggestions for research.
The major challenges in intelligent robotics (Towards cloud robotics and its impact to crowdsourced image processing for intelligent agents serving for robots)

The goal of this paper is to point out the trends in Intelligent Robotics, which is towards Cloud Based Robotics and particularly the problems and proposing solutions in the domain of image processing which role is to provide information for decision processes for robots to act and to interact with people. This is a very non-trivial problem which is based on building intelligent Agents on the Cloud and Robot is in fact peripheral unit for an Intelligent Robot on the Cloud environment. The paper contains also a selected image processing approach based in clustering image processing and some modification shows some more generalization ability of studied MF-ARTMAP neural networks.
The Future of Regulation

This paper discusses the prevalence of regulation in the U.S. It provides the necessary background information on the process for creating regulations, how scholars can measure the increase in regulation, and the different types of regulations. This paper then goes on to discuss the five major recent trends in regulation and the implications of these trends for the future.
Probabilistic wakeup: adaptive duty cycling for energy-efficient event detection

The persistent nature of physical events makes it possible to detect events using lowly duty-cycled sensors. However, it raises a serious over-detection problem when every sensor blindly wakes up in each cycle, in particular, if sensor density is high. In this paper, we propose an innovative probabilistic wakeup protocol for energy-efficient event detection in wireless sensor networks. The central idea is to reduce the duty cycle of every sensor via probabilistic wakeup, exploiting the dense deployment of sensor networks. A distinctive feature is that the system ensures that the detection delay of any event occurring anywhere in the sensing field is statistically bounded. In addition, the algorithm exposes a convenient interface for users to define the requirement on detection latency, thereby tuning the intrinsic tradeoff between energy efficiency and event detection performance. The algorithm is a lightweight and completely localized protocol, and introduces minimal communication overhead. Extensive experiments have been conducted and results demonstrate that this algorithm significantly prolongs the system lifetime.
Using an Asset-Based Approach to Identify Drivers of Sustainable Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Central America: A Conceptual Framework

The asset-based approach considers links between households'productive, social, and locational assets; the policy, institutional, and risk context; household behavior as expressed in livelihood strategies; and well-being outcomes. For sustainable poverty reducing growth, it is critical to examine household asset portfolios and understand how assets interact with the context to influence the selection of livelihood strategies, which in turn determine well-being. Policy reforms can change the context and income-generating potential of assets. Investments can add new assets or increase the efficiency of existing household assets, and also improve households'risk management capacity to protect assets. After all is said and done, a household's asset portfolio will determine whether growth and poverty reduction can be achieved and sustained over time. The asset-based framework is amendable to different analytical techniques. Siegel suggests combining quantitative and qualitative spatial and household level analyses (and linked spatial and household level analyses) to deepen understanding of the complex relationships between assets, context, livelihood strategies, and well-being outcomes.
Energy Drinks: Ergolytic or Ergogenic?

Despite the growing popularity of energy drinks, many do not realize the negative effects on the cardiovascular system. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of energy drink ingestion on estimated VO2max, heart rate (HR), systolic and diastolic BP (SBP and DBP, respectively), rate pressure product (RPP), and RPE at rest and during exercise. Seven healthy adults (age: 24.3 ± 3.5 yrs; body mass: = 66.0 ± 2.2 kg) participated in this randomized double blind, crossover study. Subjects ingested a placebo (PL) or Redline (RL) energy drink (240ml; 250 mg caffeine) 40 minutes before maximal graded exercise test (GXT). Estimated maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) was lower in the RL trial (37.9±5.7 ml·kg−1·min−1) compared to the PL trial (39.7±6.5 ml·kg−1·min−1; P= 0.02). Although no significant differences were noted for the number of ectopic beats (ETB) between the trials, a five to one ratio for the RL and PL existed (RL = 106 total ectopic beats; PL = 21 total ectopic beats). Sub-maximal exercise heart demand (RPP: systolic BP × HR) at the same workload was considerably higher in the RL trial (224.9 ± 39.9 mmHg·bts·min−1; P=0.04) compared to PL (195.8 ± 22.9 mmHg·bts·min−1). Recovery DBP was significantly higher at one min. in the RL trial (51.6 ± 25.1 mmHg) compared to PL (25.4 ± 33.8 mmHg; P=0.05). Based on the results of this study, it was determined that energy drinks lowered estimated VO2max while elevating RPP and recovery DBP.
Discrimination of Plant Species Using Co Occurrence Matrix of Leaves

This paper examines the hypothesis that visual features of a plant leaf can provide a unique signature of the plant species. The leaf texture is the classification parameter investigated in this work. Texture signature is derived from a co - occurrence matrix of a leaf segmented from the background. The whole leaf texture is found to provide a basis for a robust discrimination of plant species leaves. This approach is the first step in addressing a very complex problem of identifying plant canopies, by segmenting individual leaves using computer vision.