Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of morphosyntactic training on multilingual fifth graders’ spelling in French

ABSTRACT Many studies show that it is challenging to encode morphosyntactic information while writing. Spelling plurals is especially demanding in French as these are inaudible. Even by the end of primary school, monolingual French pupils still have difficulties marking plurals of some grammatical categories. We investigate (1) how multilingual pupils learning French as a second written language deal with silent plural markers and (2) the effects of a morphosyntactic training explicitly focussing on grammatical categories and their markers, as well as visualizing the plural agreement. 228 fifth graders were quasi-randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 137) and a control group (n = 91) based on the results of a spelling pre-test. The results of the pre-test show that multilingual learners have similar spelling patterns as French monolinguals. They pluralize nouns more accurately than verbs and perform lowest on adjectives. After the pre-test, both groups were trained over six sessions of 20 minutes. The control group participated in French listening comprehension activities. The post-test shows that the intervention group significantly improved in spelling plurals compared to the control group. A greater focus on morphosyntactic structures is highly effective especially in second language contexts where children might lack broad lexical knowledge.
Combined adjuvant effect of ginseng stem-leaf saponins and selenium on immune responses to a live bivalent vaccine of Newcastle disease virus and infectious bronchitis virus in chickens

ABSTRACT Vaccination with a live bivalent vaccine of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) and infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) is a routine practice in poultry industry in China. This study was designed to evaluate ginseng stem-leaf saponins (GSLS) in combination with selenium (Se) for their adjuvant effect on the immune response to vaccination against NDV and IBV in chickens. A live bivalent vaccine of NDV and IBV was diluted in saline solution containing GSLS or Se or both and used to immunize chickens via a intraocular-and-intranasal route. Results showed that GSLS promoted significantly higher NDV- and IBV-specific antibody responses with the highest antibody response detected in GSLS-Se group. The increased antibody was capable of neutralizing NDV and IBV. In addition, GSLS-Se enhanced lymphocyte proliferation and production of IFN-γ and IL-4. More importantly GSLS-Se was found to promote early production and prolong the duration of the antibody responses. In order to improve the efficacy of vaccination in chicken flocks, the diluent containing GSLS-Se deserves further studies to evaluate its effect on other chicken vaccines.
Effectiveness of Lifestyle Interventions for Individuals With Severe Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE Rates of severe obesity (BMI ≥40 kg/m2) are on the rise, and effective treatment options are needed. We examined the effect of an intensive lifestyle intervention (ILI) on weight loss, cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, and program adherence in participants with type 2 diabetes who were severely obese compared with overweight (BMI 25 to <30 kg/m2), class I (BMI 30 to <35 kg/m2), and class II (BMI 35 to <40 kg/m2) obese participants. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Participants in the Action for Health in Diabetes (Look AHEAD) trial were randomly assigned to ILI or diabetes support and education (DSE). DSE participants received a less intense educational intervention, whereas ILI participants received an intensive behavioral treatment to increase physical activity (PA) and reduce caloric intake. This article focuses on the 2,503 ILI participants (age 58.6 ± 6.8 years). RESULTS At 1 year, severely obese participants in the ILI group lost −9.04 ± 7.6% of initial body weight, which was significantly greater (P < 0.05) than ILI participants who were overweight (−7.43 ± 5.6%) and comparable to class I (−8.72 ± 6.4%) and class II obese (−8.64 ± 7.4%) participants. All BMI groups had comparable improvements in fitness, PA, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, fasting glucose, and HbA1c at 1 year. ILI treatment session attendance was excellent and did not differ among weight categories (severe obese 80% vs. others 83%; P = 0.43). CONCLUSIONS Severely obese participants in the ILI group had similar adherence, percentage of weight loss, and improvement in CVD risk compared with less obese participants. Behavioral weight loss programs should be considered an effective option for this population.
The social patterning of deaths due to assault in Scotland, 1980–2005: population-based study

Objectives The objectives of this study were to explore the extent of the social gradient for deaths due to assault and its impact on overall inequalities in mortality and to investigate the contribution to assault mortality of knives and other sharp weapons. Design An analysis of death records and contemporaneous population estimates was conducted. Setting The authors investigated the social patterning of homicide in Scotland. Participants This study included deaths between 1980 and 2005 due to assault. Main measurements Death rates were standardised to the European standard population. Time trends were analysed and inequalities were assessed, using rate ratios and the slope index of inequality, along axes defined by individual occupational socioeconomic status and area deprivation. Results An increase in mortality due to assault was most pronounced at ages 15–44 and was steeper among assaults involving knives. The death rate among men in routine occupations aged 20–59 was nearly 12 times that of those in higher managerial and professional occupations. Men under 65 living in the most deprived quintile of areas had a death rate due to assault 31.9 times (95% CI 13.1 to 77.9) that of those living in the least deprived quintile; for women, this ratio was 35.0 (4.8 to 256.2). Despite comprising just 3.2% of all male deaths between 15 and 44 years, assault accounted for 6.4% of the inequalities in mortality. Conclusions Inequalities in mortality due to assault in Scotland exceed those in other countries and are greater than for other causes of death in Scotland. Reducing mortality and inequalities depends on addressing the problems of deprivation as well as targeting known contributors, such as alcohol use, the carrying of knives and gang culture.
Monitoring Seasonal Changes in Winery-Resident Microbiota

During the transformation of grapes to wine, wine fermentations are exposed to a large area of specialized equipment surfaces within wineries, which may serve as important reservoirs for two-way transfer of microbes between fermentations. However, the role of winery environments in shaping the microbiota of wine fermentations and vectoring wine spoilage organisms is poorly understood at the systems level. Microbial communities inhabiting all major equipment and surfaces in a pilot-scale winery were surveyed over the course of a single harvest to track the appearance of equipment microbiota before, during, and after grape harvest. Results demonstrate that under normal cleaning conditions winery surfaces harbor seasonally fluctuating populations of bacteria and fungi. Surface microbial communities were dependent on the production context at each site, shaped by technological practices, processing stage, and season. During harvest, grape- and fermentation-associated organisms populated most winery surfaces, acting as potential reservoirs for microbial transfer between fermentations. These surfaces harbored large populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and other yeasts prior to harvest, potentially serving as an important vector of these yeasts in wine fermentations. However, the majority of the surface communities before and after harvest comprised organisms with no known link to wine fermentations and a near-absence of spoilage-related organisms, suggesting that winery surfaces do not overtly vector wine spoilage microbes under normal operating conditions.
Desingularizations of some Weighted Projective Planes

In this paper we discuss the desingularization algorithm for a toric surface. In particular, we construct an iterable method of determining the Hirzebruch-Jung continued fraction decomposition. These results are then applied to weighted projective planes with at least one tivial weight, ${\mathbb P}(1,m,n)$. The paper concludes with the development of a computer program that computes this continued fraction decomposition.
Functional analysis of posttranslational cleavage products of the neuron-glia cell adhesion molecule, Ng-CAM

Neuron-glia cell adhesion molecule (Ng-CAM) mediates cell adhesion between neurons homophilically and between neurons and glia heterophilically; it also promotes neurite outgrowth. In the chick brain, Ng-CAM is detected as glycoproteins of 190 and 210 kD (Ng- CAM200) with posttranslational cleavage products of 135 kD (F135, which contains most of the extracellular region) and 80 kD (F80, which includes the transmembrane and the cytoplasmic domains). To examine the functions of each of these components, we have expressed Ng-CAM200, F135, and F80 in murine L cells, and F135 and F80 as GST fusion proteins in the pGEX vector in bacteria. Appropriately transfected L cells expressed each of these proteins on their surfaces; F135 was also found in the media of cells transfected with Ng-CAM200 and F135. In addition to binding homophilically, cells transfected with Ng-CAM200 and F135 bound heterophilically to untransfected L cells, suggesting that there is a ligand for Ng-CAM on fibroblasts that may be related to the glial ligand. Detailed studies using the transfected cells and the fusion proteins indicated that both the homophilic and the heterophilic binding activities of Ng-CAM are localized in the F135 fragment of the molecule. The results also indicated that proteolytic cleavage of Ng- CAM200 is not required either for its expression on the cell surface or for cell adhesion and that there is an "anchor" for F135 on L cells (and presumably on neurons). In contrast to the cell binding results, the F80 but not the F135 fusion protein enhanced the outgrowth of neurites from dorsal root ganglion cells; this activity was associated with the FnIII repeats of F80. The observations that a protein corresponding to F135 contains the cell aggregation sites whereas one corresponding to the F80 has the ability to promote neurite outgrowth suggest that proteolytic cleavage may be an important event in regulating these Ng-CAM activities during embryonic development and neural regeneration.
New hybrid multiverse optimisation approach for optimal accommodation of DGs in power distribution networks

This work presents a new hybrid multiverse optimisation (HMVO) methodology to solve the optimal accommodation of distributed generations (OADGs) problem in power distribution networks. The HMVO method is formulated by incorporating the space transformation search (STS) technique, and piecewise linear chaotic map-based optimisation method. STS avoids the prior convergence and increases the possibility to find the solutions near the optimal global point. In contrast, the chaotic optimiser is extremely good at ergodicity and stochasticity, used around the transition of the exploration–exploitation phase. The objective functions to be optimised are as follows: minimisation of electrical energy losses, minimisation of overall node voltage deviation, maximisation of overall voltage stability margin, and minimisation of energy not served. Analytical hierarchy process method is employed to optimise the objective function weights, as the optimisation problem is solved by weighted sum method. The proposed methodology is demonstrated on radial power distribution networks of IEEE 33-bus and INDIAN 85-bus. The effectiveness of the proposed HMVO method is validated by comparing the results with studied algorithms and algorithms presented in the literature and found to be promising. Further, the OADG problem under uncertain environment is also investigated for long-term planning using self-adaptive polyhedral deterministic set.
SRML Learning Game Theory with Application to Internet Security and Management Systems

On May 8, 1997 IBM's Deep Blue computer chess program had beaten chess grand master G. Kasparov in New York. On August 10, 2006 computer Chinese chess systems had also beaten grand masters marginally in Beijing. Both types of chess game systems are planned searching expert computer systems without machine learning capability. However computer GO game systems are still far behind human GO masters's capability. Therefore a machine learning game theory could be still important research in game theory. In this article a SRM machine learning game theory is introduced. The application of our game theory to Internet security, computer security, GO games, robotics, and management systems will be investigated. The general application of our game theory to business, economics, engineering, social science, and other related fields are also discussed.
Stimulating traffic information transfer in non-cooperative vehicular ad hoc networks

Recently, with the fast development of vehicular ad hoc network (VANET), many more applications on VANET have emerged, such as vehicle navigation systems (VNSs). To make VNSs more effective, a good way is to integrate VNSs with traffic information, which is disseminated over VANET. However, when vehicle users are selfish, they may not participate in the process of traffic information transfer if there is no incentive scheme provided. In this paper, we design a novel incentive scheme to stimulate the vehicles to participate in traffic information transfer. Our analysis shows that under our scheme, the system will converge to a unique subgame perfect equilibrium, an agreement between two vehicle users will be always reached in the first round of the game, and the system will achieve good fairness. Numerical results verify that our incentive scheme can stimulate the vehicles to become willing to participate in traffic information transfer, and the fairness is guaranteed.
Beyond a single story: The importance of separating ‘harm’ from ‘wrongfulness’ and ‘sexual innocence’ from ‘childhood’ in contemporary narratives of childhood sexual abuse

This article draws on research exploring adult women’s engagement with narratives of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and identifies implications for both child and adult victims. As this research showed, any single story cannot accommodate all experiences. When that single story becomes dominant those whose experiences are not acknowledged are at risk of being silenced and left without a narrative framework to make sense of their experiences, which in turn risk being unrecognised as abuse by others. The article looks at contemporary understandings of CSA and argues for the need to move beyond a single damage narrative in which victims are constructed as sexually innocent, weak and passive and seen to be inevitably damaged by their experiences. The article argues for the need to separate wrongfulness from harm and (sexual) innocence from childhood. This would enable us to recognise sexual abuse in all sexually abused children, including those who do not conform to sexual innocence, and to recognise that CSA is wrong irrespective of psychological damage. In doing so, it is argued, we would all be better equipped to recognise sexual abuse and victims would be better able to tell their own stories which may, but may not, include psychological damage.
The Crystallographic Restriction, Permutations, and Goldbach's Conjecture

1. INTRODUCTION. The object of this paper is to make an observation connecting Goldbach's conjecture, the crystallographic restriction, and the orders of the elements of the symmetric group. First recall that for an element g of a group G the order Ord(g) of g is defined to be the smallest natural number such that g
Picosecond dynamics of a silicon donor based terahertz detector device

We report the characteristics of a simple complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor compatible terahertz detector device with low response time (nanoseconds) determined using a short-pulse, high intensity free-electron laser. The noise equivalent power was 1 × 10−11 W Hz−1/2. The detector has an enhanced response over narrow bands, most notably at 9.5 THz, with a continuum response at higher frequencies. Using such a device, the dynamics of donors in silicon can be explored, a system which has great potential for quantum information processing.
Surface tension in human pathophysiology and its application as a medical diagnostic tool

Introduction: Pathological features of disease appear to be quite different. Despite this diversity, the common feature of various disorders underlies physicochemical and biochemical factors such as surface tension. Human biological fluids comprise various proteins and phospholipids which are capable of adsorption at fluid interfaces and play a vital role in the physiological function of human organs. Surface tension of body fluids correlates directly to the development of pathological states. Methods: In this review, the variety of human diseases mediated by the surface tension changes of biological phenomena and the failure of biological fluids to remain in their native state are discussed. Results: Dynamic surface tension measurements of human biological fluids depend on various parameters such as sex, age and changes during pregnancy or certain disease. It is expected that studies of surface tension behavior of human biological fluids will provide additional information and might become useful in medical practice. Theoretical background on surface tension measurement and surface tension values of reference fluids obtained from healthy and sick patients are depicted. Conclusion: It is well accepted that no single biomarker will be effective in clinical diagnosis. The surface tension measurement combined with routine lab tests may be a novel non-invasive method which can not only facilitate the discovery of diagnostic models for various diseases and its severity, but also be a useful tool for monitoring treatment efficacy. We therefore expect that studies of surface tension behavior of human biological fluids will provide additional useful information in medical practice.
H-2Dd exploits a four residue peptide binding motif

We have characterized the amino acid sequences of over 20 endogenous peptides bound by a soluble analog of H-2Dd, H-2Dds. Synthetic analogs corresponding to self, viral, tumor, or motif peptides were then tested for their ability to bind to H-2Dd by serologic epitope induction assays using both purified soluble protein and cell surface H-2Dd. The dominant primary sequence motif included glycine at position 2, proline at position 3, and a hydrophobic COOH terminus: leucine, isoleucine, or phenylalanine at position 9 or 10. Ancillary support for high affinity binding was contributed by a positively charged residue at position 5. Three-dimensional computer models of H-2Dds/peptide complexes, based on the crystallographic structure of the human HLA-B27/peptide complex, showed that the basic residue at position 5 was in position to form a salt bridge with aspartic acid at position 156, a polymorphic residue of the H-2Dd heavy (H) chain. Analysis of 28 such models, including 17 based on nonamer self-peptides, revealed considerable variation in the structure of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) surrounding peptide residue 1, depending on the size and charge of the side chain. Interactions between the side chains of peptide residues 5 and 7, and 6 and 8 commonly occurred. Those peptide positions with limited sequence variability and least solvent accessibility may satisfy structural requirements for high affinity binding of the peptide to the MHC class I H chain, whereas the highly variable positions of the peptide (such as positions 4, 6, and 8) may contribute more to the T cell epitopes.
Fast optimum-path forest classification on graphics processors

Some pattern recognition techniques may present a high computational cost for learning samples' behaviour. The Optimum-Path Forest (OPF) classifier has been recently developed in order to overcome such drawbacks. Although it can achieve faster training steps when compared to some state-of-art techniques, OPF can be slower for testing in some situations. Therefore, we propose in this paper an implementation in graphics cards of the OPF classification, which showed to be more efficient than traditional OPF with similar accuracies.
A Contango-Constrained Model for Storable Commodities ∗

In this article we develop a model for the commodity price dynamics under the risk-neutral measure where the spot price switches between two distinct stochastic processes depending on whether or not inventory is being held. Specifically, whenever the drift of the spot price exceeds the cost of carrying inventory (interest rate plus storage costs) the inventory is being held. Conversely, whenever the drift of the spot price is less than the cost of carry, all the inventory is sold and the storage facility becomes empty. If inventory is being held, we assume that the spot price follows a geometric Brownian motion with drift equal to the cost of carrying inventory. Otherwise, the price follows a Ornstein-Uhlenbeck stochastic process. This model verifies arbitrage-free arguments since the commodity price process has a drift lees or equal to the cost of carry under the risk neutral measure. We illustrate and analyze the properties of the spot price and the forward curves implied by this model using numerical examples. The spot price sample paths and the corresponding forward curves are constructed by applying trinomial tree techniques. For comparison, we also provide the equivalent numerical examples for the single-factor model provided by Schwartz (1997), which correspond to the unconstrained version of the spot price process in this model. ∗Diana Ribeiro thanks Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia, Portugal for the partial financial support provided for this project. We would like to thank Elizabeth Whalley for her helpful comments. All the errors remain our responsibility. †Doctoral Researcher at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom, phone +44 (0)24 76524465, fax: +44 (0)24 7652 7167 and email: D.Ribeiro@wbs.ac.uk ‡Director of the Financial Options Research Center (FORC), Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom, phone: +44 (0)24 76523606, fax: +44 (0)24 7652 4176 and email forcsh@wbs.warwick. ac.uk
My brain knows numbers! - an ERP study of preschoolers’ numerical knowledge

This study investigated brain activity in numerical processing at early stages of development. Brain activity of preschoolers was measured while they performed a numerical Stroop task. Participants were asked to decide which of two digits was numerically or physically larger. Behavioral distance and size congruity effects (SiCEs) were found. However, a reverse facilitation was observed, where responses to neutral trials were faster than to congruent ones. The event-related potentials data showed the expected distance effect at occipitoparietal scalp areas. Moreover, conflict was related to effects both at frontal and parietal scalp areas. In addition, there was a difference between the timing of the interference compared to the facilitation components in the SiCE. In parietal scalp areas, facilitation was significant in an early time window and interference was significant at a later time window. This is consistent with the idea that facilitation and interference are separate processes. Our findings indicate that children as young as 5–6 years old can automatically process the numerical meaning of numerals. In addition, our findings are consistent with the idea that, children might use both frontal and parietal areas in order to process irrelevant numerical information.