Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Risk and Ambiguity in Information Seeking: Eye Gaze Patterns Reveal Contextual Behavior in Dealing with Uncertainty

Information foraging connects optimal foraging theory in ecology with how humans search for information. The theory suggests that, following an information scent, the information seeker must optimize the tradeoff between exploration by repeated steps in the search space vs. exploitation, using the resources encountered. We conjecture that this tradeoff characterizes how a user deals with uncertainty and its two aspects, risk and ambiguity in economic theory. Risk is related to the perceived quality of the actually visited patch of information, and can be reduced by exploiting and understanding the patch to a better extent. Ambiguity, on the other hand, is the opportunity cost of having higher quality patches elsewhere in the search space. The aforementioned tradeoff depends on many attributes, including traits of the user: at the two extreme ends of the spectrum, analytic and wholistic searchers employ entirely different strategies. The former type focuses on exploitation first, interspersed with bouts of exploration, whereas the latter type prefers to explore the search space first and consume later. Our findings from an eye-tracking study of experts' interactions with novel search interfaces in the biomedical domain suggest that user traits of cognitive styles and perceived search task difficulty are significantly correlated with eye gaze and search behavior. We also demonstrate that perceived risk shifts the balance between exploration and exploitation in either type of users, tilting it against vs. in favor of ambiguity minimization. Since the pattern of behavior in information foraging is quintessentially sequential, risk and ambiguity minimization cannot happen simultaneously, leading to a fundamental limit on how good such a tradeoff can be. This in turn connects information seeking with the emergent field of quantum decision theory.
Examining Firms’ Green Information Technology Practices: A Hierarchical View of Key Drivers and Their Effects

Abstract This study examines key drivers of firms’ green information technology (IT) practices. A hierarchical view, premised in institutional theory and competitive dynamics, leads to a model that explains firms’ practices. This model includes factors that pertain to the environment (environmental awareness and government regulations), industry (industry norms and competitors’ green practices), and firm (customers’ and equity holders’ attitudes and internal readiness) levels. Survey data collected from 304 major firms in Taiwan are used to test the model and hypotheses. In particular, attitudes of a firm’s customers and equity holders, as well as its internal readiness, directly influence its green IT practices, while also channeling the effects of important contextual factors. Among the contextual factors considered herein, environmental awareness and industry norms influence firms’ practices both directly and indirectly. The overall results highlight the significance of contextual factors and underscore the mediating roles of firm-specific considerations. According to our findings, firms should implement strategic goals and make resource allocations toward green IT practices that are aligned with the industry-wide atmosphere and general public’s awareness of environmental protection.
Risk of being seropositive for multiple human papillomavirus types among Finnish and Ugandan women

Abstract Although infections with multiple human papillomavirus (HPV) types have been reported widely, more information is needed on the occurrence of the different types. We determined the distribution of seroprevalences to multiple HPV types in Finland and Uganda to compare the epidemiology of the different HPV types in the 2 populations. Serum samples were obtained from 2784 Finnish and 1964 Ugandan women (mean ages 22 y and 25 y, respectively) of whom 44% and 57%, respectively, had antibodies to at least 1 of the 7 HPV types (6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45) tested (p < 0.001). Multiple HPV antibody positivity was common. HPV45-seropositive Finns had a higher risk of having antibodies to other high-risk HPV types: HPV18 (odds ratio (OR) = 10.9), HPV31 (OR 6.1), HPV33 (OR 12.2), than their Ugandan counterparts: HPV18 (OR 3.4), HPV31 (OR 2.2), HPV33 (OR 3.3). Increased estimates for being double antibody-positive were also noted among HPV18- and HPV16-seropositive women, but there were no major differences between HPV16-seropositive Finns and Ugandans. In addition to biological and behavioural factors, iatrogenic and societal factors (screening vs no screening) may also result in the different occurrence of infections with the high-risk HPV types in Finland and Uganda.
Procurement Contracting with Time Incentives: Theory and Evidence

In public sector procurement, social welfare often depends on the time taken to complete the contract. A leading example is highway construction, where slow completion times inflict a negative externality on commuters. Recently, highway departments have introduced innovative contracting methods based on scoring auctions that give contractors explicit time incentives. We characterize equilibrium bidding and efficient design of these contracts. We then gather an extensive data set of highway repair projects awarded by the California Department of Transportation between 2003 and 2008 that includes both innovative and standard contracts. Comparing similar con- tracts in which the innovative design was and was not used, we show that the welfare gains to commuters from quicker completion substantially exceeded the increase in the winning bid. Having argued that the current policy is effective, we then develop a structural econometric model that endogenizes participation and bidding to examine counterfactual policies. Our estimates suggest that while the current policy raised com- muter surplus relative to the contractor's costs by $359M (6.8% of the total contract value), the optimal policy would raise it by $1.52B (29%).
Cyclic p-roots of prime lengths p and related complex Hadamard matrices

In this paper it is proved, that for every prime number p, the set of cyclic p-roots in C^p is finite. Moreover the number of cyclic p-roots counted with multiplicity is equal to (2p-2)! /(p-1)! ^2. In particular, the number of complex circulant Hadamard matrices of size p, with diagonal entries equal to 1, is less or equal to (2p-2)! /(p-1)! ^2.
Uniparallel Execution and its Uses

We introduce uniparallelism: a new style of execution that allows multithreaded applications to benefit from the simplicity of uniprocessor execution while scaling performance with increasing processors. A uniparallel execution consists of a thread-parallel execution, where each thread runs on its own processor, and an epoch-parallel execution, where multiple time intervals (epochs) of the program run concurrently. The epoch-parallel execution runs all threads of a given epoch on a single processor; this enables the use of techniques that are effective on a uniprocessor. To scale performance with increasing cores, a thread-parallel execution runs ahead of the epoch-parallel execution and generates speculative checkpoints from which to start future epochs. If these checkpoints match the program state produced by the epoch-parallel execution at the end of each epoch, the speculation is committed and output externalized; if they mismatch, recovery can be safely initiated as no speculative state has been externalized. We use uniparallelism to build two novel systems: DoublePlay and Frost. DoublePlay benefits from the efficiency of logging the epoch-parallel execution (as threads in an epoch are constrained to a single processor, only infrequent thread context-switches need to be logged to recreate the order of shared-memory accesses), allowing it to outperform all prior systems that guarantee deterministic replay on commodity multiprocessors. While traditional methods detect data races by analyzing the events executed by a program, Frost introduces a new, substantially faster method called outcome-based race detection to detect the effects of a data race by comparing the program state of replicas for divergences. Unlike DoublePlay, which runs a single epoch-parallel execution of the program, Frost runs multiple epoch-parallel replicas with complementary schedules, which are a set of thread schedules crafted to ensure that replicas diverge only if a data race occurs and to make it very likely that harmful data races cause divergences. Frost detects divergences by comparing the outputs and memory states of replicas at the end of each epoch. Upon detecting a divergence, Frost analyzes the replica outcomes to diagnose the data race bug and selects an appropriate recovery strategy that masks the failure.
Treatment of depression in HIV-infected patients.

BACKGROUND Pharmacological treatment of depression in HIV-infected patients has been found to be effective. This study assessed the efficacy and feasibility of treatment with fluoxetine and the best method of administering the drug to patients with HIV infection. METHODS Sixteen seropositive and 16 seronegative patients, equally matched for age and sex, who had Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression scores of at least 16 and who received at least 20 mg/d of fluoxetine for 8 weeks were studied. RESULTS Depression was alleviated in both groups. However, improvement in the seropositive patients occurred later. INTERPRETATION The results confirm the effectiveness of fluoxetine in treating depression in people with HIV infection. The lack of adverse effects makes this treatment particularly suitable, especially because seronegative people take longer to respond to treatment.
Can we learn from past iatrogenic effects when managing obesity

Graham MR1, Bruce Davies2 and Julien S Baker3* 1Parc-y-Bont, Newport Road, Llantarnam, Cwmbran, NP44 3AF, UK 2Department of Health and Exercise Science, University of South Wales, UK 3Department of Exercise and Health Sciences, University of the West of Scotland, UK *Corresponding author: Julien S Baker, Professor, Department of Exercise and Health Sciences, University of the West of Scotland, Director of Research, Institute of Clinical Exercise and Health Science, Exercise Science Research Laboratory, School of Science, Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland, ML3 OJB, UK, Tel: 01698 283100; Fax: 01698 894404; E-mail: jsbaker@uws.ac. uk
Adaptive failure compensation of hysteric actuators in controlling uncertain nonlinear systems

Hysteresis nonlinearity exists in many physical actuators and actuator failures seem inevitable in practice. However, there is still no result available to compensate for failures of hysteric actuators in the design of controllers based on adaptive approaches. In this paper, we address such a problem by considering controlling a class of unknown nonlinear systems with multiple hysteric actuators. Two schemes are presented to design control signals for these actuators. Both schemes can accommodate uncertain patterns, values and time of actuator failures, in addition to system parametric uncertainties. It is shown that the designed controllers can compensate for failure and hysteresis effects of the actuators in the sense that system stability and tracking performance are maintained no matter whether this is any actuator failure or not.
The diffusion of Ni in the bulk and along dislocations in NiO single crystals

Abstract Diffusion profiles of 63Ni tracer in single crystals of NiO following anneals at 522°-1000°C have been determined by a radio-frequency sputter-sectioning technique. The profiles were analysed in terms of diffusion in the NiO lattice, D1, together with a contribution from dislocations in low-angle grain boundary arrays. The lattice diffusion coefficient and the diffusion coefficient for Ni diffusion in a dislocation, Dd,at an oxygen pressure of 1 atm are given by : D1=0.022 exp {−59 000/RT} cm2 s−1 (522°–1400°C), and Dd=0.26 exp {−46 000/RT}cm2 s−1 (522°-800°C), where the activation energies are in cal mole−1. Diffusion in the dislocation takes place by a vacancy mechanism within a vacancy-rich pipe of radius ∼10−7 cm surrounding the dislocation.
C-terminal Calmodulin-binding Motif Differentially Controls Human and Rat P2X7 Receptor Current Facilitation*

P2X7 receptors (P2X7R) are ATP-gated calcium-permeable cationic channels structurally unique among the P2X family by their much longer intracellular C-terminal tail. P2X7Rs show several unusual biophysical properties, in particular marked facilitation of currents and leftward shift in agonist affinity in response to repeated or prolonged agonist applications. We previously found the facilitation at rat P2X7R resulted from a Ca2+-calmodulin-dependent process and a distinct calcium-independent process. However, P2X7Rs show striking species differences; thus, this study compared the properties of ATP-evoked facilitation of currents in HEK293 cells transiently expressing the human or rat P2X7R as well as rat/human, human/rat chimeric, and mutated P2X7Rs. Facilitation at the human P2X7R was 5-fold slower than at the rat P2X7R. Facilitation did not resulting from an increase of receptor addressing the plasma membrane. We found the human P2X7R shows only calcium-independent facilitation with no evidence for calmodulin-dependent processes, nor does it contain the novel 1-5-16 calmodulin binding domain present in the C terminus of rat P2X7R. Replacement of three critical residues of this binding domain from the rat into the human P2X7R (T541I, C552S, and G559V) reconstituted the Ca2+-calmodulin-dependent facilitation, leaving the calcium-independent facilitation unaltered. The leftward shift in the ATP concentration-response curve with repeated agonist applications appears to be a property of the calcium-independent facilitation process because it was not altered in any of the chimeric or mutated P2X7Rs. The absence of Ca2+-dependent facilitation at the human P2X7R may represent a protective adaptation of the innate immune response in which P2X7R plays significant roles.
The Fast and Transient Transcriptional Network of Gravity and Mechanical Stimulation in the Arabidopsis Root Apex1[w]

Plant root growth is affected by both gravity and mechanical stimulation (Massa GD, Gilroy S [2003] Plant J 33: 435–445). A coordinated response to both stimuli requires specific and common elements. To delineate the transcriptional response mechanisms, we carried out whole-genome microarray analysis of Arabidopsis root apices after gravity stimulation (reorientation) and mechanical stimulation and monitored transcript levels of 22,744 genes in a time course during the first hour after either stimulus. Rapid, transient changes in the relative abundance of specific transcripts occurred in response to gravity or mechanical stimulation, and these transcript level changes reveal clusters of coordinated events. Transcriptional regulation occurs in the root apices within less than 2 min after either stimulus. We identified genes responding specifically to each stimulus as well as transcripts regulated in both signal transduction pathways. Several unknown genes were specifically induced only during gravitropic stimulation (gravity induced genes). We also analyzed the network of transcriptional regulation during the early stages of gravitropism and mechanical stimulation.
Phase-field modeling of microstructural pattern formation during directional solidification of peritectic alloys without morphological instability.

During the directional solidification of peritectic alloys, two stable solid phases (parent and peritectic) grow competitively into a metastable liquid phase of larger impurity content than either solid phase. When the parent or both solid phases are morphologically unstable, i.e., for a small temperature gradient/growth rate ratio (G/v(p)), one solid phase usually outgrows and covers the other phase, leading to a cellular-dendritic array structure closely analogous to the one formed during monophase solidification of a dilute binary alloy. In contrast, when G/v(p) is large enough for both phases to be morphologically stable, the formation of the microstructure becomes controlled by a subtle interplay between the nucleation and growth of the two solid phases. The structures that have been observed in this regime (in small samples where convection effects are suppressed) include alternate layers (bands) of the parent and peritectic phases perpendicular to the growth direction, which are formed by alternate nucleation and lateral spreading of one phase onto the other as proposed in a recent model [R. Trivedi, Metall. Mater. Trans. A 26, 1 (1995)], as well as partially filled bands (islands), where the peritectic phase does not fully cover the parent phase which grows continuously. We develop a phase-field model of peritectic solidification that incorporates nucleation processes in order to explore the formation of these structures. Simulations of this model shed light on the morphology transition from islands to bands, the dynamics of spreading of the peritectic phase on the parent phase following nucleation, which turns out to be characterized by a remarkably constant acceleration, and the types of growth morphology that one might expect to observe in large samples under purely diffusive growth conditions.
Differential Privacy and Statistical Disclosure Risk Measures: An Investigation with Binary Synthetic Data

We compare the disclosure risk criterion of ϵ-differential privacy with a criterion based on probabilities that intruders uncover actual values given the released data. To do so, we generate fully synthetic data that satisfy ϵ-differential privacy at different levels of ϵ, make assumptions about the information available to intruders, and compute posterior probabilities of uncovering true values. The simulation results suggest that the two paradigms are not easily reconciled, since differential privacy is agnostic to the specific values in the observed data whereas probabilistic disclosure risk measures depend greatly on them. The results also suggest, perhaps surprisingly, that probabilistic disclosure risk measures can be small even when ϵ is large. Motivated by these findings, we present an alternative disclosure risk assessment approach that integrates some of the strong confidential- ity protection features in ϵ-differential privacy with the interpretability and data-specific nature of probabilistic disclosure risk measures.
Respiratory Syncytial Virus

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most important cause of lower respiratory tract infection in outpatients, as well as the major viral cause of nosocomial illness in pediatric inpatients. Immunity to this common pathogen is short lived and reinfection can occur later in life, even into adulthood. Virtually all children have one infection before 24 months and 50% experience two or more episodes of infection. The attack rate is substantial with about half of all infants in a community becoming ill during the season's first epidemic. About 100,000 children in the US each year become ill enough to require hospitalization, the hospitalization rate being 1411,000 during epidemic periods. In certain locations, RSV accounts for about 45% of hospital admissions for respiratory disease in children under two years of age.
Cross-lingual context sharing and parameter-tying for multi-lingual speech recognition

This paper is concerned with the problem of building acoustic models for automatic speech recognition (ASR) using speech data from multiple languages. Techniques for multi-lingual ASR are developed in the context of the subspace Gaussian mixture model (SGMM)[2, 3]. Multi-lingual SGMM based ASR systems have been configured with shared subspace parameters trained from multiple languages but with distinct language dependent phonetic contexts and states[11, 12]. First, an approach for sharing state-level target language and foreign language SGMM parameters is described. Second, semi-tied covariance transformations are applied as an alternative to full-covariance Gaussians to make acoustic model training less sensitive to issues of insufficient training data. These techniques are applied to Hindi and Marathi language data obtained for an agricultural commodities dialog task in multiple Indian languages.
Correlative analyses of RET and RAS mutations in a phase 3 trial of cabozantinib in patients with progressive, metastatic medullary thyroid cancer

Cabozantinib significantly prolonged progression‐free survival (PFS) versus a placebo in patients with progressive, metastatic medullary thyroid cancer (MTC; P < .001). An exploratory analysis of phase 3 trial data evaluated the influence of rearranged during transfection (RET) and RAS (HRAS, KRAS, and NRAS) mutations on cabozantinib clinical activity.
Personalized Persuasion

Persuasive messages are more effective when they are custom-tailored to reflect the interests and concerns of the intended audience. Much of the message-framing literature has focused on the advantages of using either gain or loss frames, depending on the motivational orientation of the target group. In the current study, we extended this research to examine whether a persuasive appeal’s effectiveness can be increased by aligning the message framing with the recipient’s personality profile. For a single product, we constructed five advertisements, each designed to target one of the five major trait domains of human personality. In a sample of 324 survey respondents, advertisements were evaluated more positively the more they cohered with participants’ dispositional motives. These results suggest that adapting persuasive messages to the personality traits of the target audience can be an effective way of increasing the messages’ impact, and highlight the potential value of personality-based communication strategies.
Consumer Adoption of Personal Health Record Systems: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective

Background Personal Health Records (PHR) systems provide individuals with access and control over their health information and consequently can support individuals in becoming active participants, rather than passive recipients, in their own care process. In spite of numerous benefits suggested for consumers’ utilizing PHR systems, research has shown that such systems are not yet widely adopted or well known to consumers. Bearing in mind the potential benefits of PHRs to consumers and their potential interest in these systems—and that similar to any other type of information system, adoption is a prerequisite for realizing the potential benefits of PHR systems—research is needed to understand how to enhance the adoption rates for PHR systems. Objective This research seeks to understand how individuals’ intentions to adopt PHR systems are affected by their self-determination in managing their own health—the extent of their ability to take an active role in managing their own health. As such, this research aims to develop and empirically validate a theoretical model that explains PHR systems adoption by the general public through the integration of theories from the information systems and psychology literatures. Methods This research employs a cross-sectional survey method targeted at the Canadian general public without any prior experience in using PHR systems. A partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling was used to validate the proposed research model of this study (N=159). Results Individuals with higher levels of ability to manage their own health (self-determination) are more likely to adopt PHR systems since they have more positive perceptions regarding the use of such systems. Further, such self-determination is fueled by autonomy support from consumers’ physicians as well as the consumers’ personality trait of autonomy orientation. Conclusions This study advances our theoretical understanding of PHR systems adoption. It also contributes to practice by providing insightful implications for designing, promoting, and facilitating the use of PHR systems among consumers.