Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Getting ready for an emotion: specific premotor brain activities for self-administered emotional pictures

Emotional perception has been extensively studied, but only a few studies have investigated the brain activity preceding exposure to emotional stimuli, especially when they are triggered by the subject himself. Here, we sought to investigate the emotional expectancy by means of movement related cortical potentials (MRCPs) in a self-paced task, in which the subjects begin the affective experience by pressing a key. In this experiment, participants had to alternatively press two keys to concomitantly display positive, negative, neutral, and scrambled images extracted from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS). Each key press corresponded to a specific emotional category, and the experimenter communicated the coupling before each trial so that the subjects always knew the valence of the forthcoming picture. The main results of the present study included a bilateral positive activity in prefrontal areas during expectancy of more arousing pictures (positive and negative) and an early and sustained positivity over occipital areas, especially during negative expectancy. In addition, we observed more pronounced and anteriorly distributed Late Positive Potential (LPPs) components in the emotional conditions. In conclusion, these results show that emotional expectancy can influence brain activity in both motor preparation and stimulus perception, suggesting enhanced pre-processing in the to-be-stimulated areas. We propose that before a predictable emotional stimulus, both appetitive and defensive motivational systems act to facilitate the forthcoming processing of survival-relevant contents by means of an enhancement of attention toward more arousing pictures.
Group-cognition Factors in Socio-technical Systems 1 1 Running Head: Group-cognition Factors in Socio-technical Systems Group‐cognition Factors in Socio‐technical Systems

Objective: This commentary on the special issue suggests a focus on group-cognition factors in investigations of teamwork involving socio-technical systems. Background: The author has conducted research in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning and has found the need to re-think the theory and methodology of that field to take account of its defining characteristics of small-group interaction and socio-technical mediation. Method: A brief literature review is undertaken of major findings in post-cognitive theory and Conversation Analysis. This suggests a methodological priority to group phenomena as sources for the genesis of individual phenomena and for understanding of processes of coordination and communication in small groups. Results: It is seen that many recent studies of teams take place within traditional disciplinary frameworks that analyze phenomena primarily at the individual unit of analysis, reducing group phenomena to additive sums of individual phenomena. For instance, processes of coordination and communication are treated as secondary to the expression of individuals’ mental models or external expressions of internal representations. Conclusion: The commentary calls for development of a new science of groups, with the development of appropriate theory, conceptualizations of core phenomena, experimental methods, analytic analyses and presentational formats. Examples are: focus on discourse analysis, use of design-based research, conceptualization of mediation rather than causation and publication of case studies. Application: A focus on the group unit of analysis can shed new light on the topics addressed in this special issue. 1 Address correspondence to: Gerry Stahl, College of Information Science & Technology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, Gerry.Stahl@drexel.edu, http://GerryStahl.net. Group-Cognition Factors in Socio-Technical Systems 2
RecBCD Enzyme and the Repair of Double-Stranded DNA Breaks

SUMMARY The RecBCD enzyme of Escherichia coli is a helicase-nuclease that initiates the repair of double-stranded DNA breaks by homologous recombination. It also degrades linear double-stranded DNA, protecting the bacteria from phages and extraneous chromosomal DNA. The RecBCD enzyme is, however, regulated by a cis-acting DNA sequence known as Chi (crossover hotspot instigator) that activates its recombination-promoting functions. Interaction with Chi causes an attenuation of the RecBCD enzyme's vigorous nuclease activity, switches the polarity of the attenuated nuclease activity to the 5′ strand, changes the operation of its motor subunits, and instructs the enzyme to begin loading the RecA protein onto the resultant Chi-containing single-stranded DNA. This enzyme is a prototypical example of a molecular machine: the protein architecture incorporates several autonomous functional domains that interact with each other to produce a complex, sequence-regulated, DNA-processing machine. In this review, we discuss the biochemical mechanism of the RecBCD enzyme with particular emphasis on new developments relating to the enzyme's structure and DNA translocation mechanism.
Methylation Markers for Urine-Based Detection of Bladder Cancer: The Next Generation of Urinary Markers for Diagnosis and Surveillance of Bladder Cancer

Cancer of the urinary bladder is the fifth most common neoplasm in the industrialized countries. Diagnosis and surveillance are dependent on invasive evaluation with cystoscopy and to some degree cytology as an adjunct analysis. Nomuscle invasive bladder cancer is characterized by frequent recurrences after resection, and up to 30% will develop an aggressive phenotype. The journey towards a noninvasive test for diagnosing bladder cancer, in order to replace or extend time between cystoscopy, has been ongoing for more than a decade. However, only a handful of tests that aid in clinical decision making are commercially available. Recent reports of DNA methylation in urine specimens highlight a possible clinical use of this marker type, as high sensitivities and specificities have been shown. This paper will focus on the currently available markers NMP22, ImmunoCyt, and UroVysion as well as novel DNA methylation markers for diagnosis and surveillance of bladder cancer.
Research: Treatment Effect of oral nutritional supplementation on wound healing in diabetic foot ulcers: a prospective randomized controlled trial

Among people with diabetes, 10–25% will experience a foot ulcer. Research has shown that supplementation with arginine, glutamine and β‐hydroxy‐β‐methylbutyrate may improve wound repair. This study tested whether such supplementation would improve healing of foot ulcers in persons with diabetes.
A deformable model based on level sets for image segmentation

This paper presents a new level set-based image segmentation method. First, a Gabor filter is used to suppress of noise in the extracted regions of interest and guide the motion of the evolving contour detection. Second, Green's theorem is used to develop a region-based energy function, combined with diffusion-based smoothing, to separate low contrast regions. Results are presented for it's application to a variety of real and synthetic images, particularly those exhibiting texture properties. The results indicate the method is more effective than traditional region-based level set methods in coping with intensity inhomogeneities, noisy and textured images.
WASP WP3 Report: Language Extensions and Software Engineering for ASP

The report gives an overview of the most important language extensions for ASP with emphasis on work done within the WASP research groups. We start from the more general purpose extensions and then move to application oriented extensions and to work on logical foundations. The report contains also a summary of available implementations of ASP language extensions and a recapitulation of interesting software engineering issues for ASP
Sex Differences in the Effects of Mental Work and Moderate-Intensity Physical Activity on Energy Intake in Young Adults

The aim of this study was to examine the acute effects of mental work and moderate-intensity physical activity on various components of energy balance in young and healthy adults. With the use of a randomized crossover design, 35 participants aged 24 ± 3 years completed three 45-min conditions, namely, (i) resting in a sitting position (control), (ii) reading and writing (mental work (MW)), and (iii) exercising on a treadmill at 40% of peak oxygen uptake (exercise), followed by an ad libitum lunch. The endpoints were spontaneous energy intake (EI), energy expenditure (EE), appetite sensations, and EI for the remainder of the day. We observed that the energy cost of the control and MW conditions was about the same whereas the exercise condition increased EE to a greater extent in men than women. Exercise induced a decrease in EI relative to EE compared to the control condition that was more pronounced in men than women. However, women tended to increase their energy intake after the MW condition compared to the control one whereas an opposite trend was observed in men. None of the appetite sensation markers differed significantly between both sexes. In conclusion, men and women have specific food intake patterns when submitted to cognitive and physical stimuli.
Measuring customer satisfaction: Evidence from digital library

Article history: Received January 2, 2015 Received in revised format 6 February 2015 Accepted 24 February 2015 Available online February 26 2015 This paper presents an empirical investigation on user’s satisfaction based on the expectation disconfirmation paradigm theory. The study selects a sample of 332 people from 2449 graduate students who were enrolled at the Birjand University. The study uses a questionnaire developed by Isac and Rusu (2014) [Isac, F. L. , & Rusu, S. (2014). Theories of user’s satisfaction and the operationalization of the expectation disconfirmation paradigm. Economic series, university of Targu, 2 (1), 82-88. ]. Using path analysis, the study has determined that perceived usefulness and personal experience had the highest impact on users’ satisfaction in electronic library usage. In addition, there was a negative relationship between user interface and users’ satisfaction. Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 5 © 201
A family of kernel subspace classifiers

Compounds of the formula (1) wherein R1 and R2 are each independently -H or lower alkoxy; R3 and R4 are each independently lower alkyl; and R5 and R6 are each -OCH3, or together form -OCH2O- or -OCH2CH2O- and pharmaceutically acceptable acid addition salts thereof are calcium channel blockers useful for treating cardiovascular disorders including angina, hypertension and congestive heart failure.
Using the CASM language for simulator synthesis and model verification

We present the CASM language, an abstract state machine (ASM) based modeling language originally designed for verifying compiler backends. We demonstrate the expressiveness by describing an instruction set simulator (ISS) for MIPS in approximately 700 lines of code. Further we present a refinement of the models to cycle-accurately describe two implementations of the classic 5-stage MIPS pipeline. Utilizing symbolic execution allows us to prove semantic equivalence of the pipeline implementations and the instruction set description. Finally we compile the models to C++ and provide a small runtime to create a system simulator achieving a performance of approx. 1 MHz in MiBench and SPECInt2000 benchmarks.
Supporting the emergence of women's entrepreneurship

Purpose – There are a number of reasons why entrepreneurship has struggled in the Japanese context. Since the historical period from post‐war Japan until the 1990s, a large‐firm “institutional logic” prevailed. For example, in post‐war Japan, large dominant firms emerged that were supported by government policies and heavily structured around sub‐contracting. Such firms strongly influenced Japanese human and financial capital and, because they offered life‐time employment along with better pay and benefits, they quickly became the employment of choice for talented individuals. As a result, few talented people chose to become entrepreneurs, which in turn led to a cycle of sluggish venture capital investment and the perception of high risk. This short perspective‐style article aims to focus on the recent institutional changes in Japan which appear to have led to more women engaging in entrepreneurship.Design/methodology/approach – This is a practitioner‐oriented piece reporting on work being done to support.
The Effect of Substance Use Disorder Treatment Use on Crime: Evidence from Public Insurance Expansions and Health Insurance Parity Mandates

We examine the effect of increasing the substance use disorder (SUD) treatment rate on reducing violent and property crime rates, based on county-level panels of SUD treatment and crime data between 2001 and 2008 across the United States. To address the potential endogeneity of the SUD treatment rate with respect to crime rate, we exploit the exogenous variation in the SUD treatment rate induced by two state-level policies, namely insurance expansions under the Health Insurance Flexibility and Accountability (HIFA) waivers and parity mandates for SUD treatment. Once we address the endogeneity issue, we are able to demonstrate an economically meaningful reduction in the rates of robbery, aggravated assault and larceny theft attributable to an increased SUD treatment rate. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that a 10 percent relative increase in the SUD treatment rate at an average cost of $1.6 billion yields a crime reduction benefit of $2.5 billion to $4.8 billion. Our findings suggest that expanding insurance coverage and benefits for SUD treatment is an effective policy lever to improve treatment use, and the improved SUD treatment use can effectively and cost-effectively promote public safety through crime reduction.
On joint recovery of sparse signals with common supports

This work is motivated by a distributed compressed sensing (DCS) scenario where multiple sensors independently perform compressed sensing and the sparse signals share a common support. The heterogeneous case is considered where the numbers of measurements and the noise levels at different sensors may be different. To analyse the performance, we focus on a probability model for sparse signals and use the state evolution tool developed for the approximate message passing (AMP) technique. In the noise free case, we are able to quantify the asymptotic rate region for exact recovery. The rate region has a shape that is significantly different from that by information theoretic analysis and provides a guidance for resource allocation in practice. It shows that an equal allocation of the number of measurements across sensors is strictly suboptimal. Finally, we also study the effect of the correlation among nonzero components from different sparse signals, which appears in many practical scenarios.
Efficiency and Equity Considerations in Pricing and Allocating Irrigation Water

Why would bilateral donors intermediate aid through a multilateral and not extend aid directly? This paper suggests a trade-off: multiple bilateral donors for each recipient may imply coordination and strategic problems but intermediating through a multilateral may dilute individual donor objectives. The paper conducts traditional panel and truly bilateral regressions with bilateral-pair, fixed effects to model aid allocation decisions. The results confirm that politics is important for bilateral donors but also that aid fragmentation and strategic behavior affect aid allocation. Multilaterals solve strategic and coordination problems between donors and, while politics remains significant, there is some evidence for a dilution of this effect.
The cost of foraging by a marine predator, the Weddell seal Leptonychotes weddellii: pricing by the stroke

SUMMARY Foraging by mammals is a complex suite of behaviors that can entail high energetic costs associated with supporting basal metabolism, locomotion and the digestion of prey. To determine the contribution of these various costs in a free-ranging marine mammal, we measured the post-dive oxygen consumption of adult Weddell seals (N=9) performing foraging and non-foraging dives from an isolated ice hole in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. Dives were classified according to behavior as monitored by an attached video-data logging system (recording activity, time, depth, velocity and stroking). We found that recovery oxygen consumption showed a biphasic relationship with dive duration that corresponded to the onset of plasma lactate accumulation at approximately 23 min. Locomotor costs for diving Weddell seals increased linearly with the number of strokes taken according to the relationship: locomotor cost =– 3.78+0.04 × stroke number (r2=0.74, N=90 dives), where locomotor cost is in ml O2 kg–1. Foraging dives in which seals ingested Pleuragramma antarcticum resulted in a 44.7% increase in recovery oxygen consumption compared to non-foraging dives, which we attributed to the digestion and warming of prey. The results show that the energy expended in digestion for a free-ranging marine mammal are additive to locomotor and basal costs. By accounting for each of these costs and monitoring stroking mechanics, it is possible to estimate the aerobic cost of diving in free-ranging seals where cryptic behavior and remote locations prevent direct energetic measurements.
BER Performance of ZF and MMSE equalizers for V-Blast MIMO wireless communication

Abstract: Multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) wir eless systems use multiple antenna elements at tran smit and receive to offer improved capacity and data rate ov er single antenna topologies in multipath channels. In such systems, the antenna properties as well as the multipath cha nnel characteristics play a key role in determining communication performance. This paper presents a Bit Error Rate ( BER) analysis of the zero forcing (ZF) and minimum mean squared error (MMSE) equalizers when applied to V-BLAST wireless multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems for M-QAM, M-PAM, M-PSK M-DPSK modulation schemes for 1x1, 2x 2, 3x3 and 4x4 array. Over Raleigh fading, for a 1x 1 array (single input single output (SISO)) BER performance of ZF and MMSE equalizers are similar irrespective of the modulation scheme employed. MMSE outperforms ZF onl y when the modulation scheme has a lower constellat ion (M = 4, 16), at higher constellation (M=256, 1024) simil ar BER is observed irrespective of the array size. Among the detection schemes at M=4 PAM, PSK and DPSK yield viable resul ts and may used as an alternative to QAM modulation , but at M=16,64,256,1024 QAM modulation outperforms PAM, PSK and DPSK. Further optimum performance is observed with 4x4 array with M-QAM modulation scheme.
Relaxation Along a Fictitious Field (RAFF) and Z-spectroscopy using Alternating-Phase Irradiation (ZAPI) in Permanent Focal Cerebral Ischemia in Rat

Cerebral ischemia alters the molecular dynamics and content of water in brain tissue, which is reflected in NMR relaxation, diffusion and magnetization transfer (MT) parameters. In this study, the behavior of two new MRI contrasts, Relaxation Along a Fictitious Field (RAFF) and Z-spectroscopy using Alternating-Phase Irradiation (ZAPI), were quantified together with conventional relaxation parameters (T1, T2 and T1ρ) and MT ratios in acute cerebral ischemia in rat. The right middle cerebral artery was permanently occluded and quantitative MRI data was acquired sequentially for the above parameters for up to 6 hours. The following conclusions were drawn: 1) Time-dependent changes in RAFF and T1ρ relaxation are not coupled to those in MT. 2) RAFF relaxation evolves more like transverse, rather than longitudinal relaxation. 3) MT measured with ZAPI is less sensitive to ischemia than conventional MT. 4) ZAPI data suggest alterations in the T2 distribution of macromolecules in acute cerebral ischemia. It was shown that both RAFF and ZAPI provide complementary MRI information from acute ischemic brain tissue. The presented multiparametric MRI data may aid in the assessment of brain tissue status early in ischemic stroke.
A Comparison Enterprise Architecture Implementation Methodologies

A number of methodologies for implementing Enterprise Architecture (EA) have been proposed in the literature. Understanding methodologies' strengths and weaknesses play significant role in selecting appropriate methodology for each EA project. This paper reviews five EA implementation methodologies including: EAP, TOGAF, DODAF, Gartner, and FEA and compare them based on designed framework. Comparison framework is designed based on concepts, modeling, and processes criteria. This comparison provides vast information about selected methodologies based on defined criteria.
Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports Parity and Predictability of Competitions

We present an extensive statistical analysis of the results of all sports competitions in five major sports leagues in England and the United States. We characterize the parity among teams by the variance in the winning fraction from season-end standings data and quantify the predictability of games by the frequency of upsets from game results data. We introduce a novel mathematical model in which the underdog team wins with a fixed upset probability. This model quantitatively relates the parity among teams with the predictability of the games, and it can be used to estimate the upset frequency from standings data.
Flow: a few patterns for balancing flexibility and steadiness in decision-making

Decision-making is part of our everyday lives. Successful decision-making is fundamental for our ability to adapt to changing environments, which in turn is a key factor for longevity. In a world that's moving fast we are expected to be flexible and make decisions quickly. On the other hand, there is also a need for stability. Changes in direction, if they occur too frequently, cause ambiguous and inconsistent behaviour. Decisions that are constantly revised lead into chaos. This paper presents four patterns that address the tension between flexibility and steadiness. The first two patterns explain two principles that each foster flexibility and swiftness, while the two remaining patterns go on to support stability and steadiness. Together, they aim at a continuous flow of decision-making at the right pace. The patterns are explained both with analogies from natural sciences and with several concrete examples.
Classifying still faces with ultrasonic sensing 1 Classifying still faces with ultrasonic sensing

The echo of a chirp of ultrasonic energy from an object contains information about the geometry of that object: relative depth of surfaces and approximate area of those surfaces. A human face has complex geometry that produces a distinctive echo. In this paper, we report initial research into whether there is sufficient information in the echo to recognize a still face. Potential features for classification are identified using a facial model. The classification results for 10 faces encourage future research with a larger number of faces and with moving faces. Disciplines Physical Sciences and Mathematics Publication Details This article was originally published as McKerrow, PJ and Yoong, KK, Classifying still faces with ultrasonic sensing, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 55, 702-710. Copyright Elsevier 2007. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/infopapers/697 Classifying still faces with ultrasonic sensing 1 Classifying still faces with ultrasonic sensing Phillip M c Kerrow Kok Kai Yoong School of Information Technology and Computer Science University of Wollongong Northfields Avenue Wollongong NSW 2522, Australia phillip@uow.edu.au