Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accessibility Marking: Discourse Functions, Discourse Profiles, and Processing Cues

When accounting for the usage of some linguistic form, one can refer to its discourse profile, all concomitant features frequently co-occurring with that form in discourse, or abstract a more general claim about its discourse function, referring only to the necessary and sufficient conditions for the proper occurrence of the form. This article discusses discourse profile and discourse function approaches to referring expressions in linguistic and psycholinguistic research. Focusing on English prenominal possessive noun phrases (NPs, e.g., my career), I argue that although their (prototypical) discourse profile is amenable to clearly defined automatic processing or production cues, and to explaining potential grammaticizations, only their discourse functions can account for all the forms actually attested in discourse. I conclude that both types of accounts are linguistically relevant, and I propose that psycholinguists devise experiments to test the three hypotheses outlined (discourse profiles, discourse functions, and a combination of discourse profiles and discourse functions).
Explaining the Tension between the Supreme Court's Embrace of Validity as the Touchstone of Admissibility of Expert Testimony and Lower Courts' (Seeming) Rejection of Same

ABSTRACT By lopsided majorities, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a series of cases, persistently commanded the lower courts to condition the admission of proffered expert testimony on the demonstrated validity of the proponents’ claims of expertise. In at least one broad area–the so-called forensic sciences–the courts below have largely evaded the Supreme Court's holdings. This paper aims to try to explain this massive defiance by the lower courts in terms of social epistemology.
Adrenomedullin binding protein-1 modulates vascular responsiveness to adrenomedullin in late sepsis.

Adrenomedullin (AM), a potent vasodilatory peptide, plays an important role in initiating the hyperdynamic response during the early stage of sepsis. Moreover, the reduced vascular responsiveness to AM appears to be responsible for the transition from the early, hyperdynamic to the late, hypodynamic phase of sepsis. Although the novel specific AM binding protein-1 (AMBP-1) enhances AM-mediated action in a cultured cell line, it remains to be determined whether AMBP-1 plays any role in modulating vascular responsiveness to AM during sepsis. To study this, adult male rats were subjected to sepsis by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). The thoracic aorta was harvested for determination of AM-induced vascular relaxation. Aortic levels of AMBP-1 were determined by Western blot analysis, and AM receptor gene expression in the aortic tissue was assessed by RT-PCR. The results indicate that AMBP-1 significantly enhanced AM-induced vascular relaxation in aortic rings from sham-operated animals. Although vascular responsiveness to AM decreased at 20 h after CLP (i.e., the late, hypodynamic stage of sepsis), addition of AMBP-1 in vitro restored the vascular relaxation induced by AM. Moreover, the aortic level of AMBP-1 decreased significantly at 20 h after CLP. In contrast, AM receptor gene expression was not altered under such conditions. These results, taken together, suggest that AMBP-1 plays an important role in modulating vascular responsiveness to AM, and the reduced AMBP-1 appears to be responsible for the vascular AM hyporesponsiveness observed during the hypodynamic phase of sepsis.
Review of real brain-controlled wheelchairs

This paper presents a review of the state of the art regarding wheelchairs driven by a brain–computer interface. Using a brain-controlled wheelchair (BCW), disabled users could handle a wheelchair through their brain activity, granting autonomy to move through an experimental environment. A classification is established, based on the characteristics of the BCW, such as the type of electroencephalographic signal used, the navigation system employed by the wheelchair, the task for the participants, or the metrics used to evaluate the performance. Furthermore, these factors are compared according to the type of signal used, in order to clarify the differences among them. Finally, the trend of current research in this field is discussed, as well as the challenges that should be solved in the future.
A Mesh-based Robust Topology Discovery Algorithm for Hybrid Wireless Networks

Wireless networks in home, office and sensor applications consist of nodes with low mobility. Most of these networks have at least a few powerful machines additionally connected by a wireline network. Topology information of the wireless network at these powerful nodes can be used to control transmission power, avoid congestion, compute routing tables, discover resources, and to gather data. In this paper we propose an algorithm for topology discovery in wireless networks with slow moving nodes and present various performance characteristics of this algorithm. The proposed algorithm discovers all links and nodes in a stable wireless network and has an excellent message complexity: the algorithm has an optimal message complexity in a stable network and the overhead degrades slowly with increasing mobility of the nodes.
Dorian R. Woods (2012), Family Policy in Transition: US and UK Policies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. £57.50, pp. 269, hbk.

rises, if necessary, could be backed by price controls on universities. Unsurprisingly, he calls for the universalisation of pre-school education, noting that only a quarter of four-year olds are enrolled in preschool programmes; uncharacteristically, he fails to note numerous studies suggesting that preschool education is a major predictor of school achievement and, as in the Nordic countries, enhanced social mobility. Further measures include greater regulation of Wall Street, the revival and strengthening of trade unions (e.g., by repealing the Taft Hartley Act of 1948, much of which was adopted by Thatcher forty years later in the UK) and the importance of ‘electing Democratic Presidents’ − a recent study by Larry Bartels shows that under Democrats, income gains tend to decrease as one moves from poor to rich, while under Republicans precisely the opposite is true. This book makes no claim to academic originality, but it does cover an enormous amount of ground in the best tradition of well-informed journalism. The weaknesses of this book are to be found in insufficiently detailed policy recommendations and, more broadly, in the apparently contradiction between the author’s progressive intentions and the growing body of evidence suggesting the US has irreversibly crossed the dividing line between democracy and plutocracy. The strength of the book is that it maintains a careful balance between advocacy, academic rigour and accessibility. Most important, it is an immensely enjoyable and readable book coming at a time when all of us − not just the US readership − should be deeply concerned about its subject matter. The author has done us a great service. george irvin University of London george@irvin.com
An Explicit Nite Element Scheme for Time-dependent Kirchhoo-love Equations

1 Motivation 1.1 A goal : the numerical modeling of the guitar This work is concerned with sound synthesis, the goal of which is to reproduce numerically the sound of musical instruments. We are interested in the study of the guitar. In our model the soundboard is coupled to one or more strings by means of a bridge. The soundboard is itself coupled with an open air cavity and the outer air. The system is excited by the plucking of a string. We obtain a system of partial diierential equations which we seek to solve numerically in the time domain. One of the main diiculties of this work, from the physical point of view as well as from the numerical point of view, is the modeling of the soundboard, a thin anisotropic wooden layer (in the shape of a guitar) clamped on its outer boundary and pierced by a hole. We consider here the Kirchhoo-Love's dynamic plate equations with xed boundary conditions on the clamped outer boundary and free boundary conditions along the hole. 1.2 The Kirchhoo-Love dynamic plate model Let ! be a C 1 bounded domain in R 2 and a partition of its boundary : ! = 0 l , where 0 is the xed boundary ((0) 6 = 0) and l the free one. The plate occupies the domain = ! ] ? =2; =22 in R 3 , where the thickness, is supposed small with respect to the dimensions of ! The unknown u is the vertical displacement of the plate. It is sought as a 2D function in the space: 1
Cone-beam helical ct virtual endoscopy: reconstruction, segmentation and automatic navigation

Virtual Endoscopy (VE) is a technique in which three-dimensional (3D) data, acquired by an imaging technique such as Computerized Tomography (CT) or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), is segmented and presented in an animation so as to mimic an endoscopic examination, i.e., as if a camera were introduced into an anatomical structure. It has been shown that the detection rate of small abnormalities in VE is still below acceptable rates, pointing to the fact that there is still a lot of room for improvement in these procedures. This dissertation proposes alternative techniques for the three phases of creating a VE: image reconstruction, segmentation and animation. We propose the use of Algebraic Reconstruction Techniques (ART), and a block-iterative variation of it (block-ART), for reconstructing 3D images from helical cone-beam CT data. For efficiency and accuracy reasons, we implement ART using modified Kaiser-Bessel window functions (also known as blobs) as basis functions that are placed on the body-centered cubic (bcc) grid, instead of the traditionally used voxels of the simple cubic (sc) grid. The accuracy of the reconstructions produced by these algorithms are compared with the ones produced by a fully-3D filtered backprojection algorithm for several data sets, where is shown that ART produced more accurate reconstructions both in the absence and in the presence of realistic simulated noise. For the segmentation step, we propose a general multi-object fuzzy segmentation algorithm that segments a set by producing a map that encodes the grades of membership for all elements of this set for all objects. We report on the accuracy and robustness of our algorithm and present segmentations performed on mathematically-defined images as well as images acquired by various modalities, such as CT and MRI. As a result of our segmentation algorithm, strongest “paths” connecting a specific element of the set to any other element of the set are produced. These paths are then smoothed to produce the final navigation paths for the virtual camera of the VE animations. In order to show the applicability of our techniques we perform the three phases of generating a VE on a single data set.
Current trends and future directions in the practice of high-level data modeling: An empirical study

Abstract Many organizations now purchase and customize software rather than build information systems. In this light, some argue that high-level data modeling no longer has a role. In this paper, we examine the contemporary relevance of high-level data modeling. We addressed this issue by asking 21 experienced data-modeling practitioners to reflect on their work and to give their opinions on trends and future directions in high-level data modeling. We analyzed transcripts of our interviews with them using Klein and Myers’s (1999) framework for qualitative research. We found considerable variation in the practice of high-level data modeling. We also found that high-level data modeling is still considered important, even though organizations ultimately may purchase off-the-shelf software. The reason is that high-level data modeling assists organizations to obtain clarity about IT project scope and requirements, thereby reducing the risk that costly implementation mistakes will be made.
Examination of the Effectiveness of Predictors for Musculoskeletal Injuries in Female Soldiers.

The amount of training days lost to injury during military training has highlighted the need to identify a screening tool to predict injury. One hundred and fifty-eight female soldiers from the Combat Fitness Instructor Course (CFIC) of the Israel Defense Forces volunteered to participate in this study. All soldiers were free of orthopedic and neurologic conditions for at least one month before the study. All participants performed a battery of measurements during the first week of the course. Measures included anthropometric, functional movement screen (FMS), power performances (counter movement jump [CMJ], drop jump, single leg triple hop jump [SLTH], 10-m sprint) and a 2K run. Injury data was collected throughout the 3 month course. Median tests were used to compare between injured/non-injured soldiers. Chi-square and/or logistic regression analysis was used to examine the association between various predictors and injury. Percent body fat [%BF] was higher (p = 0.04), distance for SLTH was less for both left and right legs (p = 0.029, p = 0.047 respectively) and 2K run was slower (p =0.044) in injured compared to non-injured soldiers. No differences between groups were noted in total FMS score, however more zero scores in one or more movement pattern were found in the injured group (51.35 % vs. 30.5% p=0.0293). Only %BF, 2K run and SLTH distance were significant predictors of injury (p = 0.05, p = 0.02, p =0.016 respectively). The results of this study indicated that the FMS total score is not a predictor of injury in female soldiers in a CFIC. We found that %BF, SLTH, 2K run time, 10 meter sprint time and zero scores differentiated between injured and non-injured soldiers. In addition, %BF, 2K run and SLTH were each found to be separate predictors of injury. Further research is needed to determine threshold scores that predict injury. Key pointsA total of 145 injuries were reported during the three month Combat Fitness Instructor Course in a female soldiers, 37 of these injuries resulted in absence from at least two days of training.FMS total score is not a predictor of injury in female soldiers in a CFIC. However, a score of zero, which is indicative of pain during movement, could serve as a warning sign for potential injury. %BF, SLTH, 10 meter sprint, 2K run and number of zero scores in FMS appear to differentiate between injured and non-injured soldiersSLTH, 2K run and body fat % are each separate predictors of injury for female soldiers in the CFIC.
Constructivism and evidence from children's ideas

The validity and reliability of the evidence from children's ideas is analyzed from a constructivist viewpoint, and a guiding set of methodological principles for the generation and evaluation of evidence is proposed. The principles seek to accent child and researcher “frames of reference” and so distinguish between the grounds on which interpretations are made. Drawing on the findings of a recent longitudinal study, the guiding principles are used to make a critical analysis of some well-known research studies in the field of chemistry. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Agile software assessment with Moose

During software maintenance, much time is spent reading and assessing existing code. Unfortunately most of the tools available for exploring and assessing code, such as browsers, debuggers and profilers, focus on development tasks, and offer little to support program understanding. We present a platform for software and data analysis, called Moose, which enables the rapid development of custom tools for software assessment. We demonstrate how Moose supports agile software assessment through a series of demos, we illustrate some of the custom tools that have been developed, and we draw various lessons learned for future work in this domain
Modelling the Dynamic Relationship between Systematic Default and Recovery Risk

Default correlation modelling is becoming the most popular problem in the field of credit derivatives pricing. An increase in default risk would cause the recovery rate to change correspondingly. Correlation between default and recovery rates has a noticeable effect on risk measures and credit derivatives pricing. After an introduction, we review the most recent literature covering default correlation and the relationship between default and recovery rates. We adopt the copula methodology to focus on estimating the default correlations rather than focus on modelling probabilities of default, we then use stress testing to compare the distributions of the probability of default under different copula functions. We develop a Gamma-Beta model to link the recovery rate directly with the individual probability of default, this is instead of an extended one factor model to relate them by a systematic common factor. One factor models are re-examined to explore correlated recovery rates under three distributions: the Logit-normal, the Normal and the Log-normal. By analyzing the results respectively obtained from these two classes of modelling scheme, we argue that the direct dependence (Gamma-Beta) model behaves better, in estimating the recovery rate given individual probability of default and in suggesting a better indication of their relationship. Finally, we apply default correlation and the correlated recovery rate to portfolio risk modelling. We conclude that if the recovery rates are independent stochastic variables, the expected losses in a large portfolio might be underestimated because the uncorrelated recovery risks can be diversified, so the correlation between default rate and recovery risk can not be neglected in the applications. Here, we believe the first time, the recovery rate depends on individual default probability by means of a closed formula.
Antifungal activity improved by coproduction of cyclodextrins and anabaenolysins in Cyanobacteria

Significance Cyclodextrins are cyclic oligosaccharides used in the pharmaceutical industry to improve drug delivery. Here, we show that cyclodextrins improve the antifungal activity of the anabaenolysins A and B lipopeptides and that are both produced by the same cyanobacteria. This study identifies the putative biosynthetic gene cluster involved in the synthesis of these unique cyanobacterial lipopeptide anabaenolysins. Cyclodextrins are cyclic oligosaccharides widely used in the pharmaceutical industry to improve drug delivery and to increase the solubility of hydrophobic compounds. Anabaenolysins are lipopeptides produced by cyanobacteria with potent lytic activity in cholesterol-containing membranes. Here, we identified the 23- to 24-kb gene clusters responsible for the production of the lipopeptide anabaenolysin. The hybrid nonribosomal peptide synthetase and polyketide synthase biosynthetic gene cluster is encoded in the genomes of three anabaenolysin-producing strains of Anabaena. We detected previously unidentified strains producing known anabaenolysins A and B and discovered the production of new variants of anabaenolysins C and D. Bioassays demonstrated that anabaenolysins have weak antifungal activity against Candida albicans. Surprisingly, addition of the hydrophilic fraction of the whole-cell extracts increased the antifungal activity of the hydrophobic anabaenolysins. The fraction contained compounds identified by NMR as α-, β-, and γ-cyclodextrins, which undergo acetylation. Cyclodextrins have been used for decades to improve the solubility and bioavailability of many drugs including antifungal compounds. This study shows a natural example of cyclodextrins improving the solubility and efficacy of an antifungal compound in an ancient lineage of photosynthetic bacteria.
Skandalisierung korpuslinguistisch. Ein empirisch-linguistischer Blick auf die Berichterstattung zur "Wulff-Affäre"

Abstract What kind of language is typical of the mass media coverage of a scandal? Which linguistic means have the effect of scandalizing a public person like a politician? The study presented in this paper uses corpus linguistic methods to investigate a specific scandal in recent German politics: Federal President Christian Wulff was accused by the media of not having informed transparently about a private loan he had taken out. Further allegations of corruption presented by the media resulted in his resignation after only two months. The paper shows how automatic language pattern analyses of a corpus of articles about Wulff in two leading German newspapers reveal the typical patterns used in a discourse of scandalization. Additionally, also characteristic grammar features like tempus forms are incorporated in the analysis. The texts scandalizing a person use more patterned language than other news texts on politics. The patterns reflect the characteristic speech acts of scandalizing like accusing, informing, or speculating on the political future of the scandalized person, but also speech acts like defending and regretting. The use of tempus shows that scandalizing texts are more dynamic and vivid compared to other political coverage.
Testing the self-medication hypothesis of depression and aggression in cannabis-dependent subjects

Background. A self-medication hypothesis has been proposed to explain the association between cannabis use and psychiatric and behavioral problems. However, little is known about the reasons for use and reactions while intoxicated in cannabis users who suffer from depression or problems controlling violent behavior. Method. We assessed 119 cannabis-dependent subjects using the Schedules of Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN), parts of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI), and questionnaires on reasons for cannabis use and reactions to cannabis use while intoxicated. Participants with lifetime depression and problems controlling violent behavior were compared to subjects without such problems. Validity of the groupings was corroborated by use of a psychiatric treatment register, previous use of psychotropic medication and convictions for violence. Results. Subjects with lifetime depression used cannabis for the same reasons as others. While under the influence of cannabis, they more often experienced depression, sadness, anxiety and paranoia, and they were less likely to report happiness or euphoria. Participants reporting problems controlling violent behavior more often used cannabis to decrease aggression, decrease suspiciousness, and for relaxation; while intoxicated they more often reacted with aggression. Conclusions. Subjects with prior depression do not use cannabis as a mean of self-medication. They are more likely to experience specific increases of adverse symptoms while under the influence of cannabis, and are less likely to experience specific symptom relief. There is some evidence that cannabis is used as a means of self-medication for problems controlling aggression.
Stereo-based feature enhancement using dictionary learning

This paper proposes stereo-based speech feature enhancement using dictionary learning. Instead of posterior values obtained by a Gaussian mixture as in other methods, we use sparse weight vectors and their variants as an alternative noisy speech feature representation. This paper also provides an efficient algorithm that can be applied to large-scale speech processing. We show the effectiveness of the proposed approach by using a middle vocabulary noisy speech recognition task based on WSJ, which was provided by the 2nd CHiME Speech Separation and Recognition Challenge.