Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two mechanisms in implicit artificial grammar learning? Comment on Meulemans and Van der Linden (1997).

T. Meulemans and M. Van der Linden (1997) presented evidence for 2 distinct mechanisms involved in artificial grammar learning. They suggested that after training on 32 letter strings (Experiment 2A), participants classify test strings using knowledge of the distributional statistics of letter chunks, whereas after training on 125 letter strings (Experiment 2B) they classify on the basis of knowledge of the rules of the grammar This article offers an alternative unitary account of Meulemans and Van der Linden's findings. The authors show that information about grammatical rules and chunk locations was confounded in the test strings used in Experiment 2B and then present evidence that all of the data can be explained in terms of distributional knowledge, provided this includes knowledge of the positional constraints on chunks. Finally, the authors question the utility of traditional finite-state grammars for investigating abstraction processes, and suggest alternative methods.
Is service climate strength beneficial or detrimental for service quality delivery?

This study examines whether climate strength has a direct, moderating, or curvilinear effect in the relationship between service climate and customer service quality perceptions. To this end, we carried out cross-sectional and lagged empirical studies in the Spanish hospitality sector. Our cross-sectional results confirmed that high climate strength in managerial practices fosters a positive impact of managerial practices on customer service quality evaluations. However, other results related to customer orientation of services question the idea that service climate strength is always a precursor of service quality. High climate strength in customer orientation enhanced the negative relationship between customer orientation and functional service quality in a cross-sectional study, and between customer orientation and relational service quality in a lagged study. In addition, an examination of curvilinear effects of climate strength revealed an inverted U-shaped relationship between climate strength in customer orientation and relational service quality over time. The article concludes with a discussion of these results.
Fair Play or Fair Game? Child Sexual Abuse in Sport Organisations

Feminist perspectives in sport research have helped to problematise gender relations in sport and to highlight dominating behaviours such as sexual harassment. It is argued that the independent status of many voluntary sport organisations helps to protect coaches from the scrutiny of certain state regulations and, consequently, offers easy targets for indivi duals with sexual motives. The paper sets the problem of child sexual abuse in sport within this broad context of organisational accountability and raises issues for both research and professional practice.
NetDev: an object-oriented framework enabling network programming for students and researchers

Pursuing network programming requires breaking through the barrier that most operating systems present at the transport layer. The reasons for the existence of this barrier are both security and convenience. The data link and network layers provide services such as address resolution and routing to the end user. In addition, users programming at these layers can easily spoof addresses, presenting a security risk.For the teacher and researcher, this barrier quickly becomes problematic. Networking students are familiar with the concepts at the lower layers and have a natural curiosity about the software that operates at those layers. Research into lower layer protocols necessitates pealing away the existing layers to replace them with experimental software. Implementing security software depends upon being able to intercept and sometimes inject packets at a low level in the hierarchy.An object-oriented framework for pursuing network programming at all layers above layer 1 is presented. This framework is realized as an open source project[5], providing an object-oriented class library that allows capturing packets at the lowest layers and injecting arbitrary packets into the network. It also includes a library of classes to model various protocol headers. Each class in this library includes the ability to parse a captured packet as well as build a packet from its component fields. This package has been implemented both in Java, using the JNI [14], and in C++. Uses for this framework are discussed, including a summary of a two M.S. projects that have been completed. Current work includes the development of ARP caching and basic routing table maintenance and manipulation. In addition, a number of packet editors exist that allow students to hand-craft packets for injection into the network. Future areas of exploration are outlined.
Third-Age Education in Canada and Japan: Attitudes Toward Aging and Participation in Learning

Lifelong learning is essential to participation in society, and presents important challenges for educational gerontology. This study compares Canadian and Japanese perspectives on (a) attitudes toward aging, (b) the learning needs of older adults, and (c) the role of centers of learning. Surveys were conducted of sample populations in two elder colleges in Japan (N = 419, 753; mean age 66.4,70.5) and two senior centers in Canada (N = 122; mean age 75.0). Results suggest Canadian respondents have more positive attitudes toward aging; Japanese respondents have greater needs for social/communicative learning; and Canadians have a greater need for traditional learning. Future implications for older-adult education and research are discussed.
Robust FastSLAM Algorithm for Mobile Robot with an Adaptive Rao-Blackwellized Particle Filter

Aimed at SLAM problem, an adaptive RaoBlackwellized particle filter (RBPF) algorithm is presented to get the unite estimation of the pose of mobile robot and the position of the environmental landmarks. There are three parts in the RBPF algorithm to be studied. For one thing, the resampling of particle filter is combined with local map matching presented in advance to reduce the uncertainty influence. In addition, the pose estimation of mobile robot is mended by adapting the resampling process grounded on the effective sample size (ESS) and by adopting mixture Gaussian distribution to approximate proposal distribution so as to improve the sample weight computation in obtaining ESS. Moreover, the unscented Kalman filter with the adaptation estimation for the process noise is introduced into the position evaluation of the environmental landmarks. With mobile robot MORCS-1 as experimental platform, the validity of the proposed algorithm in this paper is proved. Keywords-SLAM; adaptive Rao-Blackwellized particle filter; resampling; effective sample size; unscented Kalman filter
Heme Oxygenase-1 Enhances Renal Mitochondrial Transport Carriers and Cytochrome c Oxidase Activity in Experimental Diabetes*

Up-regulation of heme oxygenase (HO-1) by either cobalt protoporphyrin (CoPP) or human gene transfer improves vascular and renal function by several mechanisms, including increases in antioxidant levels and decreases in reactive oxygen species (ROS) in vascular and renal tissue. The purpose of the present study was to determine the effect of HO-1 overexpression on mitochondrial transporters, cytochrome c oxidase, and anti-apoptotic proteins in diabetic rats (streptozotocin, (STZ)-induced type 1 diabetes). Renal mitochondrial carnitine, deoxynucleotide, and ADP/ATP carriers were significantly reduced in diabetic compared with nondiabetic rats (p < 0.05). The citrate carrier was not significantly decreased in diabetic tissue. CoPP administration produced a robust increase in carnitine, citrate, deoxynucleotide, dicarboxylate, and ADP/ATP carriers and no significant change in oxoglutarate and aspartate/glutamate carriers. The increase in mitochondrial carriers (MCs) was associated with a significant increase in cytochrome c oxidase activity. The administration of tin mesoporphyrin (SnMP), an inhibitor of HO-1 activity, prevented the restoration of MCs in diabetic rats. Human HO-1 cDNA transfer into diabetic rats increased both HO-1 protein and activity, and restored mitochondrial ADP/ATP and deoxynucleotide carriers. The increase in HO-1 by CoPP administration was associated with a significant increase in the phosphorylation of AKT and levels of BcL-XL proteins. These observations in experimental diabetes suggest that the cytoprotective mechanism of HO-1 against oxidative stress involves an increase in the levels of MCs and anti-apoptotic proteins as well as in cytochrome c oxidase activity.
Missing the point: an exploration of how to guide users' attention during cinematic virtual reality

Recent technological advances have brought Virtual Reality (VR) into the homes of consumers, and there is a growing interest in bringing cinematic experiences from the screen and into VR. However, cinematic VR limits filmmakers' ability to effectively guide the audience's attention. In this paper we present a taxonomy of approaches to guiding users' attention, and present a study comparing two such approaches with a control condition devoid of guidance. One approach guides users by controlling their body's orientation, and the other implicitly directs their attention by encouraging them to follow a firefly with their gaze. The results revealed interesting, albeit statistically insignificant, indications that assuming control of the user's action may negatively influence presence, whereas the firefly was perceived as significantly more helpful.
Math Melodies: Supporting Visually Impaired Primary School Students in Learning Math

For children with visual impairments, learning mathematics entails significant difficulties. This is partially due to the fact that both traditional and digital didactic tools for teaching mathematics to children often integrate visual elements into explanations and exercises in order to improve children's engagement and comprehension. These visual elements, however, are not accessible to students with visual impairments. Approaches that substitute visual information with audio or haptic stimulation exist, but they incur in several problems, including the need of a supervisor or expensive specialized hardware. To address this issue, we propose Math Melodies, a didactic software for the teaching of mathematics to primary school children. The application is freely available for iPad devices, and it presents 19 different exercise types, each with multiple levels of difficulty. The exercises are immersed within an adventurous story organized into 10 chapters. Math Melodies enables exploration of audio-visual elements on a touchscreen and provides multi-modal feedback that entertains and engages both visually impaired and sighted children simultaneously.
Cascade dual-buck full-bridge inverter with hybrid PWM technique

This paper presents a new type of cascade inverter, named cascade dual-buck full-bridge inverter. Compared to cascade H-bridge inverter, the proposed inverter has several advantages. First, it eliminates the possibility of shoot-through problems, which is the major failure of traditional voltage source inverters. Second, it does not need dead time, which fully utilizes the pulse width modulated voltage and transfers total desired energy to the load. In addition, it can use high-voltage power MOSFETs without the complexity of soft-switching assisting circuits to improve the system efficiency. In this paper, several PWM techniques are analyzed and compared, including bipolar PWM, unipolar PWM and phase-shifted PWM, when applied to the proposed inverter. It has been found out that a hybrid PWM technique with the combination of the two out of the three PWMs mentioned above leads to better performance of the cascade dual-buck full-bridge inverter in terms of less output current ripple and harmonics, no zero-crossing distortion, and higher efficiency. A prototype of the proposed inverter has been built and tested to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the topology and the hybrid PWM technique.
Social transformation studies and human rights abuses in east Germany after 1945

This paper offers a qualitative, and, in part, quantitative account of human rights violations undertaken by the ministry of state security of the German Democratic Republic. Arguing that this subject has not always received proper attention, consideration is given to the role that these violations played in the governance of the GDR, so as to define it as a state without genuine constitutional protection of civic rights. For the purposes of current social science research into German transformation today, and in order to evaluate competing methods for converting yesterday's injustices into tomorrow's stability and consensus, it concludes that in contrast to the Federal Republic, which was always a constitutional state, or (Rechtsstaat), the GDR was at all times an Unrechtsstaat.
Long-Term IGF-I Exposure Decreases Autophagy and Cell Viability

A reduction in IGF-I signaling has been found to increase lifespan in multiple organisms despite the fact that IGF-I is a trophic factor for many cell types and has been found to have protective effects against multiple forms of damage in acute settings. The increase in longevity seen in response to reduced IGF-I signaling suggests that there may be differences between the acute and chronic impact of IGF-I signaling. We have examined the possibility that long-term stimulation with IGF-I may have a negative impact at the cellular level using quiescent human fibroblasts. We find that fibroblast cells exposed to IGF-I for 14 days have reduced long-term viability as judged by colony forming assays, which is accompanied by an accumulation of senescent cells. In addition we observe an accumulation of cells with depolarized mitochondria and a reduction in autophagy in the long-term IGF-I treated cultures. An examination of mice with reduced IGF-I levels reveals evidence of enhanced autophagy and fibroblast cells derived from these mice have a larger mitochondrial mass relative to controls indicating that changes in mitochondrial turnover occurs in animals with reduced IGF-I. The results indicate that chronic IGF-I stimulation leads to mitochondrial dysfunction and reduced cell viability.
Cloning of a cDNA Encoded by a Member of the Arabidopsis thaliana ATP Sulfurylase Multigene Family

An Arabidopsis thaliana ATP sulfurylase cDNA (ASA1), encoding a putative chloroplastic isoform, has been cloned by functional complementation of a Saccharomyces cerevisiae (met3) ATP sulfurylase mutant which also has a poor sulfate transport capacity. Homologous complementation of the yeast mutant with the ATP sulfurylase gene restores both ATP sulfurylase function and sulfate transport. Heterologous complementation restores only ATP sulfurylase function as demonstrated by low [S]sulfate influx measurements and selenate resistance. A structural relationship between ATP sulfurylase and sulfate membrane transporters in yeast is proposed. The sequence of ASA1 is homologous to deduced plant and animal ATP sulfurylase sequences. Analyses indicate a potential tyrosine phosphorylation site which is unique to higher eukaryote sequences. ASA1 is specified by a single copy gene that is part of a multigene family in A. thaliana. At least two ASA1 copies are found in Brassica napus plants. ASA1 transcripts were found in all organs examined, with the highest transcript abundance and ATP sulfurylase activity in leaves or cotyledons. Absence of sulfate from culture media transiently increased B. napus transcript abundance, indicating that initially, the response to sulfate deprivation is transcriptionally regulated.
Complete Genome Sequence of Bacillus velezensis L-1, Which Has Antagonistic Activity against Pear Diseases

ABSTRACT Bacillus velezensis L-1 is an effective biocontrol agent against pear diseases. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of B. velezensis L-1 in which clusters related to the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites were predicted. This genome provides insights into the possible biocontrol mechanisms and furthers application of this specific bacterium.
Investigating Clinical Issues by Genotyping of Medically Important Fungi: Why and How?

SUMMARY Genotyping studies of medically important fungi have addressed elucidation of outbreaks, nosocomial transmissions, infection routes, and genotype-phenotype correlations, of which secondary resistance has been most intensively investigated. Two methods have emerged because of their high discriminatory power and reproducibility: multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and microsatellite length polymorphism (MLP) using short tandem repeat (STR) markers. MLST relies on single-nucleotide polymorphisms within the coding regions of housekeeping genes. STR polymorphisms are based on the number of repeats of short DNA fragments, mostly outside coding regions, and thus are expected to be more polymorphic and more rapidly evolving than MLST markers. There is no consensus on a universal typing system. Either one or both of these approaches are now available for Candida spp. , Aspergillus spp. , Fusarium spp. , Scedosporium spp. , Cryptococcus neoformans, Pneumocystis jirovecii, and endemic mycoses. The choice of the method and the number of loci to be tested depend on the clinical question being addressed. Next-generation sequencing is becoming the most appropriate method for fungi with no MLP or MLST typing available. Whatever the molecular tool used, collection of clinical data (e.g., time of hospitalization and sharing of similar rooms) is mandatory for investigating outbreaks and nosocomial transmission.
Coccoid forms of Helicobacter pylori are the morphologic manifestation of cell death

Helicobacter pylori can transform from its normal helical bacillary morphology to a coccoid morphology. Since this coccoid form cannot be cultured in vitro, it has been speculated that it is a dormant form potentially involved in the transmission of H. pylori and in a patient's relapse after antibiotic therapy. In this study we determined the effects of aging, temperature, aerobiosis, starvation, and antibiotics on the morphologic conversion rate and culturability of H. pylori. Aerobiosis and the addition of a bactericidal antibiotic to the culture medium resulted in the highest conversion rate. During the conversion to coccoid forms, the cultures always lost culturability at the stage where 50% of the organisms were still in bacillary form; this result indicated that culturability and coccoid morphology are two separate but related entities. Independent of the conditions used to induce the conversion into coccoids, the morphological conversion was accompanied by several marked antigenic and ultrastructural changes. Also, both the total amounts and the integrity of RNA and DNA were significantly reduced in coccoid forms. With the potential-sensitive probe diOC(5)-3, a clear loss of membrane potential in coccoid forms was observed. Inhibition of protein or RNA synthesis by the addition of bacteriostatic antibiotics did not prevent the conversion to coccoid forms but resulted in an increased conversion rate. Hence, we conclude that conversion of H. pylori from the bacillary to the coccoid form is a passive process that does not require protein synthesis. Our data suggest that the coccoid form of H. pylori is the morphologic manifestation of bacterial cell death.
Developmental and offence-related characteristics of different types of adolescent sex offender: A community sample

Abstract Offence-related and developmental characteristics were compared in subgroups of a sample (n=184) of male sex offenders aged between 10 and 21 [mean=16.07; standard deviation (SD)=2.09] referred to a specialist community facility. Important differences were observed on key developmental and offence-related variables between adolescents who targeted peers/adults and those who targeted children. These differences support the validity of the distinction between these two groups. Much smaller subgroups with mixed (i.e. peer and child) victims, internet child pornography and indecent exposure offences are also described. The sample was followed-up for a mean period of 4 years 6 months (SD=30.5 months), during which a small number re-offended sexually (n=13) and many more re-offended non-sexually (n=90). Relationships between engagement with treatment and some background and offence-related variables were identified and these are discussed.
Three-dimensional theory of waveguide-plasma coupling

A general, linear theory of coupling electromagnetic fields from free-space waveguide arrays to an inhomogeneous plasma in a magnetic field is presented. In contrast to previous analyses, which assumed parallel-plate waveguides, waveguides having closed cross-sections of arbitrary shape are considered; full account is taken of all the waveguide modes. Far away from the coupling region, the plasma is assumed to be absorptive and the waveguides to propagate only their dominant modes. The formulation is geared to obtain the reflection coefficients in the waveguides and the excitation of waves in the plasma. The results are applicable to RF heating of plasmas whose size is large compared to the waveguide array, as would be the case in a fusion reactor, and valid for the frequency regimes of either ion-cyclotron (harmonic), or lower-hybrid, or electron-cyclotron (harmonic) heating.
The psychology of interrogations, confessions, and testimony

Interviewing: Basic Principles and Theory. Interrogation Tactics and Techniques. Why Do Suspects Confess? The Role of Perception and Memory in Witness Testimony. Suggestibility: Historical and Theoretical Aspects. Interrogative Suggestibility: Empirical Findings. Psychological Techniques for Enhancing Memory Retrieval. Psychological Techniques for Evaluating Testimony and Documents. The Psychology of False Confession: Research and Theoretical Issues. The Psychology of False Confession: Case Examples. The Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six. Legal Aspects of Disputed Confessions. Disputed Confessions: The Psychological Assessment. Summary and Conclusions. Bibliography. Index.
The opioid system majorly contributes to preference for fat emulsions but not sucrose solutions in mice

Rodents show a stronger preference for fat than sucrose, even if their diet is isocaloric. This implies that the preference mechanisms for fat and sucrose differ. To compare the contribution of the opioid system to the preference of fat and sucrose, we examined the effects of mu-, delta-, kappa-, and non-selective opioid receptor antagonists on the preference of sucrose and fat, assessed by a two-bottle choice test and a licking test, in mice naïve to sucrose and fat ingestion. Administration of non-selective and mu-selective opioid receptor antagonists more strongly inhibited the preference of fat than sucrose. While the preference of fat was reduced to the same level as water by the antagonist administration that of sucrose was still greater than water. Our results suggest that the preference of fat relies strongly on the opioid system, while that of sucrose is regulated by other mechanisms in addition to the opioid system. Administration of non-selective and mu-selective opioid receptor antagonists more strongly inhibited the preference of fat than sucrose in mice.