Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interpretation of Preferences Based on Extended Conditional Lexicographic Orders �

The lexicographically-ordered CSP (“lexicographic CSP” for short) combines a simple representation of preferences with the feasibility constraints of ordinary CSPs, to support powerful methods for solving constrained optimisation problems with preferences. Preferences are defined by a total ordering across all assignments, such that a change in assignment to variable is more important than any change in assignment to any variable that comes after it in the ordering. Recently, we have shown how this representation can be extended to handle conditional preferences. Possibly the most intriguing finding in this work was that conditional preferences can be supported even when parent-child dependencies are not consistent with the importance ordering among variables. However, in demonstrating that the resulting ordering is, indeed, lexicographic, it was found that such orderings are subject to at least two interpretations. One interpretation is derived directly from the variable ordering and conditional preference tables: by representing orderings on domain values as rank-orderings, one can always arrange different complete assignments lexicographically according to the variable ordering and rank values. In this case, however, one must assume that values with equal ranks under different orderings are equivalent for the purposes of establishing a preference ordering. The other interpretation is based on an ordering of full tuples of assignments to the child and parent variables for each conditional relation. This avoids the issues involved in treating equal ranks as equivalent, but the imprecision of this approach allows the potential violation of assumptions embodied in the original orderings of variables and domains. The present paper develops machinery in the form of ordering rules, for evaluating orderings based on conditional relations under each interpretation. This serves to avoid orderings that conflict with basic assumptions involved in conditional lexicographic orderings of this type, and helps to clarify the nature of these interpretations.
The Library Profession in Mauritius: improving its status and image

Discusses the reasons for the poor image and low status of the library and information profession in Mauritius. These include: lack of recognition; poor budgets; inertia of the library association; conservative librarians; unattractive salaries; lack of professional staff; sub-standard libraries; and the absence of proper legislation. Suggests means for improvement.
Diagnosing residual aphasia using spontaneous speech analysis

Background: It is well known that about 20% of patients with anomic aphasia still show residual aphasic symptoms 1 year post onset. As we do not have any tests to reliably diagnose residual aphasia it is difficult to decide whether these persisting problems are signs of residual aphasia that have to be treated, or are indications of a normal variability in language use, which also may occur in elderly people. Aims: The main aim of this research is to find out whether there are variables in spontaneous communication of persons with residual aphasia (P-RA) that enable us to distinguish them from persons without aphasia (P-NA). Methods & Procedures: Following a detailed linguistic analysis of spontaneous speech we employed binary logistic regression analysis to find the most relevant variables for differentiation between P-RA (N = 41) and P-NA (N = 25). Outcomes & Results: Significant group differences at different processing levels could be observed. Lexically varied, informative, and cohesively tied phrases in particular pose the main problem for P-RA. Regression analysis including variables of spontaneous communication explains 82.5% (R2) of the variation and correctly identifies 39 of 41 (95.1%) cases of P-RA and 21 of 25 (84.0%) cases of P-NA. Conclusions: Analysing spontaneous communication seems to be a promising possibility for diagnosing residual aphasia. The importance of spontaneous communication in everyday interaction, and its sensitivity to even slight deficits in language processing, promote the described analysis as a very useful screening instrument to distinguish P-RA from P-NA.
Industrial Experience with Open Source Software Process Management

The usage of external open source software components can improve proprietary software in multiple ways, such as higher quality, lower cost, and faster time-to-market. But in order to fully benefit from its usage there are some important aspects to take into account, as well as significant risks to specifically manage to avoid potential legal consequences. This paper lays out the foundations for a process framework that successfully manages those risks and addresses the intrinsic aspects of open source software usage. Furthermore, it proposes a well-proven basis and best practices for corporate governance, policy, strategy, and process implementation.
Egg size, embryonic development time and ovoviviparity in Drosophila species

Lengths, widths and volumes of eggs from 11 species of Drosophila whose genomes have been fully sequenced exhibit significant variation that is not explained by their phylogenetic relationships. Furthermore, egg size differences are unrelated to embryonic development time in these species. In addition, two of the species, Drosophila sechellia and, to a lesser degree, D. yakuba, both ecological specialists, exhibit ovoviviparity, suggesting that female control over oviposition in these species differs from what is observed in D. melanogaster. The interspecific differences in these reproductive characters, coupled with the availability of whole genome sequences for each, provide an unprecedented opportunity to examine their evolution.
Discovering Contextual Information from User Reviews for Recommendation Purposes

The paper presents a new method of discovering relevant contextual information from the user-generated reviews in order to provide better recommendations to the users when such reviews complement traditional ratings used in recommender systems. In particular, we classify all the user reviews into the “context rich” specific and “context poor” generic reviews and present a word-based and an LDA-based methods of extracting contextual information from the specific reviews. We also show empirically on the Yelp data that, collectively, these two methods extract almost all the relevant contextual information across three di↵erent applications and that they are complementary to each other: when one method misses certain contextual information, the other one extracts it from the reviews.
Conflictual Media Events, Eyewitness Images, and the Boston Marathon Bombing (2013)

The proliferation of camera phones over the past decade has created an unprecedented landslide of visual information in the online public sphere, transforming the form and amount of communication in relation to crisis events. International research on this subject has primarily centered on the way in which the production and dissemination of eyewitness images convert mainstream media's coverage of crisis. This article broadens the perspective by focusing on eyewitness images in relation to “conflictual media events. ” The article contributes to discussions on the definition of conflictual media events in today's mediatized and connective media environment, which has undergone radical changes from the era of mass media hegemony when Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz first outlined media events. The article further examines the ways in which the circulation of eyewitness images erodes established boundaries between experts and laymen and between professionals and non-professionals in relation to conflictual media events. The bombing of the Boston Marathon in April 2013 constitutes the empirical point of departure.
Grip strength changes over 27 yr in Japanese-American men.

The aim of this study was to describe changes in grip strength over a follow-up period of approximately 27 yr and to study the associations of rate of strength decline with weight change and chronic conditions. The data are from the Honolulu Heart Program, a prospective population-based study established in 1965. Participants at exam 1 were 8,006 men (ages 45-68 yr) who were of Japanese ancestry and living in Hawaii. At follow-up, 3,741 men (age range, 71-96 yr) participated. Those who died before the follow-up showed significantly lower grip-strength values at baseline than did the survivors. The average annualized strength change among the survivors was -1.0%. Steeper decline (>1.5%/yr) was associated with older age at baseline, greater weight decrease, and chronic conditions such as stroke, diabetes, arthritis, coronary heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The risk factors for having very low hand-grip strength at follow-up, here termed grip-strength disability (</=21 kg, the lowest 10th percentile), were largely same as those for steep strength decline. However, the age-adjusted correlation between baseline and follow-up strength was strong (r = 0.557, P < 0.001); i.e., those who showed greater grip strength at baseline were also likely to do so 27 yr later. Consequently, those in the lowest grip-strength tertile at baseline had about eight times greater risk of grip-strength disability than those in the highest tertile because of their lower reserve of strength. In old age, maintenance of optimal body mass may help prevent steep strength decrease and poor absolute strength.
Exercise performance and perceived exertion in patients with coronary insufficiency, arterial hypertension and vasoregulatory asthenia.

A standardized work test has been performed by healthy subjects, patients with coronary heart disease, patients with arterial hypertension, and with the vasoregulatory asthenia syndrome. Heart frequency and rating of perceived exertion according to a rating method were assessed at various work loads. Different measures of physical working capacity were estimated. Patients with vasoregulatory asthenia—and patients with arterial hypertension, although less markedly—rated the exertion to be less in relation to heart frequency than healthy controls, particularly at low rating levels. On the contrary, patients with coronary heart disease rated the exertion to be higher, particularly at high ratings, in relation to heart frequency. In all patient groups studied, there was a smaller mean increase in heart rate in relation to a given increase in rating of exertion, i.e. for a given increase in heart rate there was a greater increase in rating of exertion than in healthy controls. Submaximal measures of physical working capacity were based on heart rate and rating of perceived exertion. The ratio between measurements of physical working capacity based on heart rate and those based on rating of perceived exertion was low in the VA group and high in patients with coronary insufficiency when compared with controls of equal age. Patients with a low “maximal” performance during the test also had a low submaximal physical working capacity estimated from heart frequency as well as from rating of perceived exertion. The difference found between the various patient groups, especially that between patients with coronary heart disease and patients with the vasoregulatory asthenia syndrome is of differential diagnostic value.
Prevalence and predictors of smoking among Turkish military medical students

Tobacco smoking is a major preventable cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Turkey is the second country in Europe after Greece with the highest cigarette consumption rates. This study aimed to detect the prevalence of cigarette smoking in students of military medical students attending Gulhane Military Medical Academy (GMMA) and to identify predictors of smoking among these students. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 928 medical students attending GMMA in Ankara in February 2003. A 15-item self-administered, standardized questionnaire was completed by all students in all 6 grades. A total of 809 students completed the survey: the average response rate was 87.2% and ranged between 72.6% and 98.7% for 6 grades. There was not any smoker among the female students. About one third of the male students (31.3%) were current smokers. The final results imply that in the study group, educational status of the father, family's current place of residence, presence of any year/clerkship lost in medical school, presence of at least two household members or a smoker sister/ brother were significant predictors of smoking among medical students.
Role of Inhibition in Exposure Therapy

While many researchers have largely focused on principles of systematic desensitization and habituation in explaining fear extinction, these processes have mixed evidence at best. In particular, these models do not account for spontaneous recovery or reinstatement of fear, nor do they explain the context dependency of extinction or rapid reacquisition. This may in part account for the significant number of patients who fail to respond to our available treatments which rely on these principles in designing exposure sessions. However, recent research is converging to suggest that an inhibitory model of fear reduction, in which the original feared association (CS-US) remains but is inhibited by a newly formed association (CS-noUS) representing safety, holds promise in explaining the long-term attenuation of fear and anxiety. This paper reviews research in a number of areas, including neuroimaging, psychophysiology, and psychopharmacology that all provide support for the inhibition model of anxiety. Limitations to this body of research are discussed, along with recommendations for future research and suggestions for improving exposure therapy for fear and anxiety disorders. Clinical implications discussed in this paper include incorporating random and variable practice in exposure sessions, multiple contexts, and pharmacological aides, among others.
THE ANATOMIC SUBSTRATUM OF THE CONVULSIVE STATE

The first question which the clinician puts to the anatomist is important in the problem of epilepsy: What is the substratum of the process? Can this process be diagnosed anatomically, and can it be defined or limited anatomically? It is known that anatomy has done much to divide epilepsy into many single entities. It has helped to classify more and more cases in the group of "symptomatic" epilepsy, not only as previously by the gross anatomic processes, but also by the finer, histologically peculiar changes. The main question now is: Has a group remained after this division of epilepsy which one can designate as "genuine" epilepsy, from the anatomic point of view? To date, one is unable to do this. One can say only that one finds many cases in which histologic investigation discloses nothing or nearly nothing that is characteristic. One must admit, however,a priorithat one possibly
Neural and Developmental Bases of the Ability to Recognize Social Signals of Emotions

Humans in diverse cultures develop a capacity to recognize and share others’ emotional states. In this article, studies in adult and developmental populations are reviewed and synthesized to build a framework for understanding the neural bases and development of emotion recognition. It is proposed that foundations for the development of emotion recognition are provided by an experience-expectant neural circuitry that emerges early in life, biases infants to attend to biologically salient information, and is refined and specialized through experience for processing species-typical signals of emotions. It is also discussed how genetic variations and experiences during sensitive periods of development can affect the developmental process and give rise to subtle individual differences in emotion recognition.
The pain‐aggression relationship and its expression in naturalistic settings

Relationships between environmental events and aggression are briefly reviewed. Response-independent pain is a fundamental antecedent environmental cause of attack. Aggression-contingent pain decrease causes further attack strengthening, while pain increase following aggression can decrease attack and foster escape and avoidance behavior. Recent experiments that have questioned the pain-aggression relation and proposed, in the alternative, a pain-defense relationship are discussed. It is argued that this contradiction results from observational difficulties in naturalistic settings, discordance between field and laboratory terminology, substitution of behavioral taxonomy in the place of functional analysis, incomplete understanding of previous findings, and an absence of essential experimental control observations.
Plasma lipid modifications in elderly people after administration of two virgin olive oils of the same variety (Olea europaea var. hojiblanca) with different triacylglycerol composition

In the present study we examined whether two virgin olive oils (VOO1 and VOO2), of the same variety (Olea europaea var. hojiblanca) and with a similar composition of minor components but differing in the content of triacylglycerol molecular species, had different effects on blood pressure and plasma lipid levels in a healthy elderly population. Thirty-one participants, aged 84·9 (SD 6·4) years, were asked to participate in the study. No differences were found with regard to blood pressure after both experimental periods (VOO1 and VOO2). However, plasma total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol were reduced only after VOO1 (P<0·01). The reduction of plasma cholesterol concentrations was related to the incorporation of oleic acid into plasma cholesteryl esters and phospholipids, which was higher after VOO1 (P<0·01). Indeed, the oleic acid concentration in cholesteryl esters and phospholipids strongly correlated with plasma total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol levels in all experimental periods studied (r2>0·418, P<0·07), except for phospholipids in VOO1 (P=0·130 for total cholesterol and P=0·360 for LDL-cholesterol). These results have demonstrated that blood pressure and plasma lipids can be modified by the consumption of VOO in elderly people, but that the extent of such modification depends on the composition and amount of active minor components and triacylglycerol molecular species.
In Search of Big Instructions

Instruction-level parallelism (ILP) typically refers to the concurrent execution of instructions (as defined in the instruction set architecture (ISA)) in an application’s sequential thread of execution. There are many design choices in both software (e.g., choice of algorithm) and hardware (e.g., pipelining, superscalar execution) that control the degree of independence and thus the available ILP in today’s machines. Given a specific algorithm, however, the ability to expose the theoretical limits of ILP inherent in the algorithm clearly depends on the types of instructions in the ISA. Our premise is that future ISAs need to return to the traditional CISC philosophy with a modern twist—specifically, using encodings that convey more program-level intent to hardware, including data flow and inherent concurrency—information that hardware would otherwise require extra work to extract. Such “big instructions” can encode the relationships among large numbers of low-level operations. They can also capture higher-level operations (e.g., FFT, mpeg encoding) amenable to execution on specialized hardware. Both styles of “big instruction” reduce the energy per arithmetic operation and enable more concurrent operations within the power budget.
Development of primary English education and teacher training in Korea

In 1997 English became a compulsory subject in Korean elementary schools. The education of English teachers for the elementary level was accelerated. The training curriculum was reformed according to the educational objective to enhance students' oral communication skills in English. Coupled to this change, the introduction of English Teacher Assistants is now also being reinforced to stimulate lively classroom discussions in English. This paper is based on the actual situation promoting English education and examines the characteristics of English education vis‐à‐vis the Japanese situation, which is said to lag behind Korea's. The paper examines various differences of social background and different approaches to equal opportunity and identifies some problems of early English education in countries like Korea and Japan where English is not used in daily life.
Visual perception and hand function in persons with multiple sclerosis

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between hand function performance and visual perceptual function in people with multiple sclerosis (MS). Twenty-two participants, 19 women and 3 men, with a clinical diagnosis of MS were evaluated using the interim Australian version of the Jebsen Test of Hand Function (JTHF) (Agnew and Maas, 1982a) and the Rivermead Perceptual Assessment Battery (RPAB) (Whiting et al., 1985). Results indicated that participants exhibit hand function problems and difficulties with visuospatial and visuomotor tasks. Four of the subtests in the JTHF (card turning, manipulating small objects, moving large light objects and moving large heavy objects) were moderately to highly correlated with three RPAB subtests (right/left copying shapes, right/left copying words and cancellation) measuring inattention function. Based on task analysis, high correlation between subtests of the two assessments may indicate that both assessments involve a motor component. The suitability of these assessments for establishing relationships between hand function and non-motor visual perceptual skills in persons with MS is therefore questioned. In view of the small sample size, however, larger-scale research is needed to confirm this claim. The present study provides some evidence to support the neuro-anatomical model proposed by Botez and associates (1989). Further research should aim to design an appropriate and sensitive instrument for evaluating visual perceptual dysfunction in people with MS. Copyright © 1998 Whurr Publishers Ltd.
Parallel bulk insertion for large-scale analytics applications

Modern data analytics applications, e.g. Internet-scale indexing, system trace analysis, recommender engines to name a few, operate on massive amounts of data and call for a parallel approach to data processing. In this work, we focus on the popular MapReduce framework to carry out such tasks and identify bulk data insert operations as a critical preliminary step to achieve reduced processing times, especially when new data is generated and processed at regular time intervals. We present a parallel approach to bulk data insertion in a system that use horizontally range partitioned data and evaluate several variants to insertion operations, including legacy approaches. Our method exploits the parallel processing framework itself to insert data into the system, which is stored in a semi-structured format. Our results indicate that a parallel approach to bulk insertion can substantially reduce the recurrent costs of insertion of new data into the system.
An efficient weighted nearest neighbour classifier using vertical data representation

The k-nearest neighbour (KNN) technique is a simple yet effective method for classification. In this paper, we propose an efficient weighted nearest neighbour classification algorithm, called PINE, using vertical data representation. A metric called HOBBit is used as the distance metric. The PINE algorithm applies a Gaussian podium function to set weights to different neighbours. We compare PINE with classical KNN methods using horizontal and vertical representation with different distance metrics. The experimental results show that PINE outperforms other KNN methods in terms of classification accuracy and running time.