Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Knowledge-based assumptions in causal attribution

Deviations from covariation-based predictions are common in the causal attribution literature. Cheng and Novick (1990a) proposed that these deviations are due to previous researchers' failure to accurately identify the input to the causal inference process. More generally, they proposed that when the set of events considered relevant by an attributor (termed the focal set) is identified, the inference process may be found to reflect an unbiased assessment of covariation over this set of events, as specified by their probabilistic contrast model. We report an experiment using college students that measured both (a) the hypothesized focal sets resulting from subjects' knowledge-based assumptions and (b) subjects' causal attributions. Our results provide strong support for this hypothesis.
Sustainable Plans

We propose a definition of time-consistent policy for infinite-horizon economies with competitive private agents. Allocations and policies are defined as functions of the history of past policies. A sustainable equilibrium is a sequence of history-contingent policies and allocations that satisfy certain sequential optimality conditions for the government and for private agents. We provide a complete characterization of the sustainable equilibrium outcomes for a variant of Fischer's model of capital taxation. We also relate our work to recent developments in the theory of repeated games.
Environmental Risk Assessment Based on High-Resolution Spatial Maps of Potentially Toxic Elements Sampled on Stream Sediments of Santiago, Cape Verde

Geochemical mapping is the base knowledge to identify the regions of the planet with critical contents of potentially toxic elements from either natural or anthropogenic sources. Sediments, soils and waters are the vehicles which link the inorganic environment to life through the supply of essential macro and micro nutrients. The chemical composition of surface geological materials may cause metabolic changes which may favor the occurrence of endemic diseases in humans. In order to better understand the relationships between environmental geochemistry and public health, we present environmental risk maps of some harmful elements (As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, V, and Zn) in the stream sediments of Santiago, Cape Verde, identifying the potentially harmful areas in this island. The Estimated Background Values (EBV) of Cd, Co, Cr, Ni and V were found to be above the Canadian guidelines for any type of use of stream sediments and also above the target values of the Dutch and United States guidelines. The Probably Effect Concentrations (PEC), above which harmful effects are likely in sediment dwelling organisms, were found for Cr and Ni. Some associations between the geological formations of the island and the composition of stream sediments were identified and confirmed by descriptive statistics and by Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The EBV spatial distribution of the metals and the results of PCA allowed us to establish relationships between the EBV maps and the geological formations. The first two PCA modes indicate that heavy metals in Santiago stream sediments are mainly originated from weathering of underlying bedrocks. The first metal association (Co, V, Cr, and Mn; first PCA mode) consists of elements enriched in basic rocks and compatible elements. The second association of variables (Zn and Cd as opposed to Ni; second PCA mode) appears to be strongly controlled by the composition of alkaline volcanic rocks and pyroclastic rocks. So, the second PCA mode is also considered as a natural lithogenic mode. The third association (Cu and Pb; third PCA mode) consists of elements of anthropogenic origin.
The 10-year repeat after a negative colonoscopy

Once CRC screening efficacy was established, a logical next frontier question was: “Doc, when should I get the next examination? ” For patients with 1–2 nonadvanced adenomas, randomized trials including the EPOS study in Europe and the soon-to-be-initiated FORTE trial in the United States, will address the recommended timing for surveillance [10]. Low-risk adenomas are a focus of interest as they are so prevalent and because the recent emphasis on adenoma detection is accelerating their identification. But, what if you have a negative examination – is it necessary to return in 10 years? In support of the need to return is the fact that CRC incidence rises with increasing age. In long-term follow-up from the United Kingdom’s flexible sigmoidoscopy screening trial, the rate per 1000 persons for diagnosis of CRC over the 17 years of follow-up was 24.7 in randomized control individuals aged 55–59 years and 33.0 in randomized controls aged 60– 64 years [11]. The corresponding numbers for the group invited to screen were 18.2 for ages 55–59 years and 24.8 for ages 60–64 years. Furthermore, CRC incidence increases over time, even in individuals with an initial negative examination. When comparing CRC incidence at 11 vs. 17 years of follow-up, the incidence of colon cancer in the intervention group rose from 114 cases per 100 000 person years of observation (PYO) to 137/100000 PYO [11]. In the control group, the incidence of CRC rose from 149/ 100000 at 11 years to 184/100000 PYO at 17 years. Although the incidence of colon cancer in the intervention group remained statistically significantly lower than the control group, it is apparent that cancer incidence rises the further one is removed from the last screening examination. The increase in incidence between 11 and 17 years was especially relevant to right-sided cancers. In the intervention group, proximal CRC incidence rose from 50/100000 PYO at 11 years to 68/100000 at 17 years of follow-up. Similarly, in the US PLCO flexible sigmoidoscopy cancer screening trial, cancers appeared postscreening, and not to a trivial degree [12]: in the cohort randomized to screening, 977 CRCs were diagnosed in 77447 individuals over a mean followup of 11.5 years. A retrospective analysis determined that even if colonoscopy had been used as the initial screening modality, and even if it were perfectly implemented with complete compliance and accuracy, only 507 or 51.9% of cancers would have been detected at the time of initial screening. Thus, over 11 years of follow-up, the initial colonoscopy would have only identified about half of the cancers that eventually occurred. A substantial number of cancers will not be prevented by onetime only screening. A cohort study in nearly 36000 individuals in Manitoba, Canada, compared CRC incidence in those who had undergone a negative colonoscopy with CRC incidence in the general population. The standardized incidence ratio for the development of CRC in the cohort with a negative examination over 10 years was 0.28, or a 72% relative reduction [13]. The 10-year repeat after a negative colonoscopy
Assessment of trans, trans‐muconic acid in human seminal plasma

Summary. Trans, trans‐muconic acid (tt‐MA) is one of the most important metabolites of benzene, a pollutant ubiquitously distributed in ambient air and classified in 1982 as a group I carcinogen. For its sensitivity and specificity, tt‐MA excreted in urine is considered a good biological marker of benzene exposure. In this study, seminal tt‐MA levels in occupationally nonexposed subjects (n = 32) have been determined. The seminal fluid of normozoospermic subjects contained an average tt‐MA concentration (170 ± 100 ng ml−1) significantly lower than that of teratozoospermic (310 ± 180 ng ml−1; P < 0.01), oligozoospermic (400 ± 180 ng ml−1; P < 0.001), and oligoasthenozoospermic (430 ± 230 ng ml−1; P < 0.01) subjects. A negative correlation existed between tt‐MA levels and sperm concentration (r = − 0.62; P < 0.001), percentage of normal spermatozoa (r = − 0.41; P < 0.05), and percentage of vital spermatozoa (r = − 0.89; P < 0.001). Average tt‐MA levels detected in seminal plasma were higher in smokers (350 ± 160 ng ml−1) than in nonsmokers (280 ± 210 ng ml−1). These results show that seminal plasma tt‐MA content could be an important biological indicator for evaluating the negative effects of benzene on spermatogenesis.
Chlorella Induces Stomatal Closure via NADPH Oxidase-Dependent ROS Production and Its Effects on Instantaneous Water Use Efficiency in Vicia faba

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have been established to participate in stomatal closure induced by live microbes and microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs). Chlorella as a beneficial microorganism can be expected to trigger stomatal closure via ROS production. Here, we reported that Chlorella induced stomatal closure in a dose-and time-dependent manner in epidermal peels of Vicia faba. Using pharmacological methods in this work, we found that the Chlorella-induced stomatal closure was almost completely abolished by a hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) scavenger, catalase (CAT), significantly suppressed by an NADPH oxidase inhibitor, diphenylene iodonium chloride (DPI), and slightly affected by a peroxidase inhibitor, salicylhydroxamic acid (SHAM), suggesting that ROS production involved in Chlorella-induced stomatal closure is mainly mediated by DPI-sensitive NADPH oxidase. Additionally, Exogenous application of optimal concentrations of Chlorella suspension improved instantaneous water use efficiency (WUEi) in Vicia faba via a reduction in leaf transpiration rate (E) without a parallel reduction in net photosynthetic rate (Pn) assessed by gas-exchange measurements. The chlorophyll fluorescence and content analysis further demonstrated that short-term use of Chlorella did not influence plant photosynthetic reactions center. These results preliminarily reveal that Chlorella can trigger stomatal closure via NADPH oxidase-dependent ROS production in epidermal strips and improve WUEi in leave levels.
Practical logarithmic shadow maps

Computer games and simulators are among the most demanding real-time computer graphics applications. In these applications, shadows greatly contribute to the visual realism and provide important depth cues. However, computing high-quality shadows at interactive rates in a complex and dynamic environment remains a challenging problem. In this paper, we restrict ourselves to generating hard shadows from point light sources. One of the popular techniques for interactive shadow generation is shadow mapping [Williams 1978]. A major disadvantage of shadow maps is that they are prone to aliasing artifacts if they have inadequate resolution. Aliasing error can be classified as perspective or projection aliasing [Stamminger and Drettakis 2002]. Current practical shadow mapping solutions reduce perspective aliasing by reparameterizing the shadow map to allocate more resolution to the undersampled regions of a scene [Stamminger and Drettakis 2002; Wimmer et al. 2004]. These algorithms use the 4× 4 projective transformation matrices available on current GPUs to obtain a non-uniform parameterization. The optimal shadow mapping parameterization, however, involves logarithmic transformations. Since perspective and logarithmic functions can diverge significantly, approximations with projective transformations can require much higher shadow map resolution to avoid perspective aliasing.
Representation Independent Analytics Over Structured Data

Database analytics algorithms leverage quantifiable structural properties of the data to predict interesting concepts and relationships. The same information, however, can be represented using many different structures and the structural properties observed over particular representations do not necessarily hold for alternative structures. Thus, there is no guarantee that current database analytics algorithms will still provide the correct insights, no matter what structures are chosen to organize the database. Because these algorithms tend to be highly effective over some choices of structure, such as that of the databases used to validate them, but not so effective with others, database analytics has largely remained the province of experts who can find the desired forms for these algorithms. We argue that in order to make database analytics usable, we should use or develop algorithms that are effective over a wide range of choices of structural organizations. We introduce the notion of representation independence, study its fundamental properties for a wide range of data analytics algorithms, and empirically analyze the amount of representation independence of some popular database analytics algorithms. Our results indicate that most algorithms are not generally representation independent and find the characteristics of more representation independent heuristics under certain representational shifts.
Video coding using pruned transforms and interleaving of multiple block

Technologies used in today's video coding standards have been designed and optimized mainly for standard definition (SD) resolutions and below. When moving to higher resolutions, data in video frames tend to become more correlated spatially. In this paper, we study how to take advantage of this phenomenon to lower computational requirements for high definition (HD) video coding. A coding method based on low complexity pruned transforms and interleaving of multiple transform coefficient blocks is proposed. An example implementation of this method in the context of H.264/AVC is also presented. Experimental results show that the proposed method maintains the high compression efficiency of H.264/AVC while significantly lowering the coding complexity of the codec.
Internet Business Models for Broadcasters: How Television Stations Perceive and Integrate the Internet

This study examines the Internet business strategy as it applies in the broadcast television industry by proposing a framework of Internet business models for the television broadcasters and, drawing on this framework, assessing the broadcasters' current Internet operation patterns. We found that the television stations have focused their online activities on building audience relationships, rather than generating online ad sales. The Internet is used mostly as a "support" to complement the stations' offline core products.
Accuracy of emergency transfusion score in prediction need for blood transfusion among multiple trauma patients: A cross-sectional study from Iran

Objective: Prediction of blood transfusion requirement in trauma patients is a dilemma in most trauma centers. The aim of the current study was assessing the accuracy of emergency transfusion score (ETS) in detecting patients' need for blood transfusion in ED. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, all multiple trauma patients referred to the emergency department (ED) of Imam Hossein Hospital, Tehran, Iran, from March to August 2014, were enrolled. ETS parameters including low blood pressure, free fluid on ultrasound, clinical instability of the pelvic ring, age, admission from the scene, and trauma mechanism were recorded for all patients. ETS was calculated for all patients and compared with patients who received blood transfusion to estimate the accuracy of ETS. Results: Of the 793 patients included in the study, 54 (6%) received blood in the ED. The mean of ETS for all patients was 3.91 ± 0.93. There was a significant correlation between ETS more than 3 and amount of blood transfusion (P = 0.004). The sensitivity, specificity, positive, and negative predictive value of ETS was 98.1%, 13.8%, 7.7%, and 99%, respectively. Conclusion: ETS may be considered as a useful instrument for prioritizing multiple trauma patients' need for blood transfusion in Iran. Therefore, by implementing this score, it may be prevented from inappropriate requests for blood transfusion.
Visual Sensor Based Abnormal Event Detection with Moving Shadow Removal in Home Healthcare Applications

Vision-based abnormal event detection for home healthcare systems can be greatly improved using visual sensor-based techniques able to detect, track and recognize objects in the scene. However, in moving object detection and tracking processes, moving cast shadows can be misclassified as part of objects or moving objects. Shadow removal is an essential step for developing video surveillance systems. The goal of the primary is to design novel computer vision techniques that can extract objects more accurately and discriminate between abnormal and normal activities. To improve the accuracy of object detection and tracking, our proposed shadow removal algorithm is employed. Abnormal event detection based on visual sensor by using shape features variation and 3-D trajectory is presented to overcome the low fall detection rate. The experimental results showed that the success rate of detecting abnormal events was 97% with a false positive rate of 2%. Our proposed algorithm can allow distinguishing diverse fall activities such as forward falls, backward falls, and falling asides from normal activities.
The phone connection: A qualitative exploration of how belongingness and social identification relate to mobile phone use amongst Australian youth

Mobile phone use is a prevalent behaviour amongst youth; however, there is little research to determine psychological influences on mobile phone use. This paper reports the results of a qualitative exploration into social psychological factors relating to young people's mobile phone use. Focus groups were conducted with 32 participants, aged between 16 and 24 years. Three major themes, connectedness, belonging and social identity, were explored in relation to young people's mobile phone use. Easy contact with others when using a mobile phone facilitated connectedness between people. A need to remain connected emerged in participants' descriptions of their mobile phone use. Consequently, data were analysed for factors underpinning people's desire to be connected. It emerged that mobile phones were used to enhance feelings of belonging amongst youth. Additionally, group norms influenced mobile phone behaviour indicating that social identity processes are related to mobile phone use. Results in the study provide a foundation upon which to investigate further the relationship between mobile phone use and psychological factors impacting young people's social development. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Musical Metadata and Knowledge Management

IntroductIon Is music a form of knowledge? Probably not, even if music is undoubtedly an important part of our cultural heritage. Music is not a type of knowledge, at least in first approximation, because music has no consensual, shared meaning. One of the main reasons why music has no meaning, as opposed to text or even pictures, is that music is not referential: music is made of elements (notes, chords, sounds) which do not refer to any objects or concepts outside the musical world (Meyer, 1956). Being without meaning, music is not a type of knowledge. However, our heavily digitized society continuously produces and exploits an increasing amount of knowledge about music. This knowledge , also called metadata, has taken a growing importance in the music industry and deserves a special treatment in this encyclopedia because of the specificities of music. On one hand, music is ubiquitous and pervasive: there are about 10 million music titles produced by the major music labels in the Western world. Adding the music produced in the non-Western world probably doubles this figure. The music industry is one of the prevalent industries in the Western world today. On the other hand, music is elusive, in that it is difficult to define exactly what music is (for instance, distinguishing music from ambient sounds is not always trivial). To make all this music easily accessible to listeners, it is important to describe music in ways that machines can understand. Music knowledge management is precisely about this issue: (1) building meaningful descriptions of music that are easy to maintain, and (2) exploiting these descriptions to build efficient music access systems that help users find music in large music collections.
Density functional description of Coulomb blockade: Adiabatic versus dynamic exchange correlation

Above the Kondo temperature, the Kohn-Sham zero-bias conductance of an Anderson junction has been shown to completely miss the Coulomb blockade. Within a standard model for the spectral function, we deduce a parameterization for both the onsite exchange-correlation potential and the bias drop as a function of the site occupation that applies for all correlation strengths. We use our results to sow doubt on the common interpretation of such corrections as arising from dynamical exchange-correlation contributions.
Condom use: a culture of resistance

This paper focuses on the resistance young men show towards consistent condom use. It is based on data generated by peer research that offer information about the distaste young men express about condoms, but also emphasise some of the physical difficulties that young men can experience when using them, which they are less willing to express. The paper also argues that these difficulties have implications for young men's subjectivities and especially for their masculinities. The data offer insights into the values and attitudes operating in informal cultures of young people that can subvert messages generated by health promotion. It has significant implications for sex and sexuality education policies and practices, which are drawn out throughout this paper.
Voltage‐gated calcium channels and their auxiliary subunits: physiology and pathophysiology and pharmacology

Voltage‐gated calcium channels are essential players in many physiological processes in excitable cells. There are three main subdivisions of calcium channel, defined by the pore‐forming α1 subunit, the CaV1, CaV2 and CaV3 channels. For all the subtypes of voltage‐gated calcium channel, their gating properties are key for the precise control of neurotransmitter release, muscle contraction and cell excitability, among many other processes. For the CaV1 and CaV2 channels, their ability to reach their required destinations in the cell membrane, their activation and the fine tuning of their biophysical properties are all dramatically influenced by the auxiliary subunits that associate with them. Furthermore, there are many diseases, both genetic and acquired, involving voltage‐gated calcium channels. This review will provide a general introduction and then concentrate particularly on the role of auxiliary α2δ subunits in both physiological and pathological processes involving calcium channels, and as a therapeutic target.
Mechanism Whereby Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen Stimulates Flap Endonuclease 1*

Human flap endonuclease 1 (FEN1), an essential DNA replication protein, cleaves substrates with unannealed 5′-tails. FEN1 apparently tracks along the flap from the 5′-end to the cleavage site. Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) stimulates FEN1 cleavage 5–50-fold. To determine whether tracking, binding, or cleavage is enhanced by PCNA, we tested a variety of flap substrates. Similar levels of PCNA stimulation occur on both a cleavage-sensitive nicked substrate and a less sensitive gapped substrate. PCNA stimulates FEN1 irrespective of the flap length. Stimulation occurs on a pseudo-Y substrate that exhibits upstream primer-independent cleavage. A pseudo-Y substrate with a sequence requiring an upstream primer for cleavage was not activated by PCNA, suggesting that PCNA does not compensate for substrate features that inhibit cleavage. A biotin·streptavidin conjugation at the 5′-end of a flap structure prevents FEN1 loading. The addition of PCNA does not restore FEN1 activity. These results indicate that PCNA does not direct FEN1 to the cleavage site from solution. Kinetic analyses reveal that PCNA can lower the K m for FEN1 by 11–12-fold. Overall, our results indicate that after FEN1 tracks to the cleavage site, PCNA enhances FEN1 binding stability, allowing for greater cleavage efficiency.