In studies of investigative interviewing, it is not well understood how participant experience of mock-crime activities might affect participants' desire to perform (well) in subsequent interviews. ...In this study, we utilized two immersive virtual reality mock-crimes to examine if participants' intrinsic motivation (i.e., competence, autonomy, relatedness) while committing the virtual mock-crime affects their desire to perform well in interviews. We also examined if the self-reported feeling of presence during the virtual reality mock-crime is associated with participants' intrinsic motivation. We found significant positive associations between presence and all intrinsic motivation variables in both truth and lie conditions. We also found that competence and relatedness significantly predicted the self-reported effort to perform well in interviews. We discuss these results in the context of prior literature and provide recommendations for researchers on the design of mock-crime experiences.
Withdrawal of promising drug candidates is often due to the detection of liver toxicity. In particular the parenchymal liver cells or hepatocytes are targeted since they are the major sites of drug ...transport and of metabolite formation and thus also the place where not only detoxification, but also activation of new chemical (NCE) and biological (NBE) entities may occur. Therefore, primary hepatocyte- based cultures are currently the preferred in vitro model to screen for liver toxicity. However, within a few days, they undergo dedifferentiation with loss of liver-specific functionality, including xenobiotic biotransformation capacity, making them only suitable for short-term applications. A plausible alternative to primary hepatocyte cultures that can be maintained for longer periods of time could be the use of liver-derived epithelial cell lines and their optimized derivatives. Therefore, in the present study, we evaluated the stability and the hepatic differentiation potential of a neonatal liver-derived rat epithelial cell line from biliary origin (rLEC). Undifferentiated rLEC stably express the hepatic progenitor markers CEBPA, FOXA2, GJA1, ONECUT1, KRT18 and KRT19 for at least 15 consecutive passages after cryopreservation. Upon sequential exposure to hepatogenic growth factors and cytokines, rLEC generate functional hepatic progeny, expressing mature hepatic markers including Alb, Ahr, Car, C/ebpα, Cx32, Foxa2, Hnf1α, Hnf1β and Onecut1. Furthermore, an active polarization is observed for the hepatic drug transporters Oatp4 and Ntcp. rLEC-derived hepatic cells also acquire the ability to store glycogen, express genes encoding for key hepatic enzymes as shown by Affymetrix microarray data, and display stable CYP1A1/2- and CYP2B1/2-dependent activities for several weeks at levels comparable to those observed in cultured primary rat hepatocytes. The acquisition of such a stable and active biotransformation capacity is key for the applicability of liver-based in vitro models for long-term toxicity testing.
This essay reports on a writing-based formative assessment of a university-wide initiative to enhance students' global learning. Our mixed (and unanticipated) results show the need for enhanced ...expertise in writing assessment as well as for sustained partnerships among diverse institutional stakeholders so that public programming—from events linked to classroom-level learning to broader cross-unit mandates like accreditation—can yield more rigorous, responsive, and mixed method assessments.
We propose a visual recognition system that is designed for fine-grained visual categorization. The system is composed of a machine and a human user. The user, who is unable to carry out the ...recognition task by himself, is interactively asked to provide two heterogeneous forms of information: clicking on object parts and answering binary questions. The machine intelligently selects the most informative question to pose to the user in order to identify the object's class as quickly as possible. By leveraging computer vision and analyzing the user responses, the overall amount of human effort required, measured in seconds, is minimized. We demonstrate promising results on a challenging dataset of uncropped images, achieving a significant average reduction in human effort over previous methods.
In 1823, theHistory of the Celebrated Mrs. Ann Carsonrattled Philadelphia society and became one of the most scandalous, and eagerly read, memoirs of the age. This tale of a woman who tried to rescue ...her lover from the gallows and attempted to kidnap the governor of Pennsylvania tantalized its audience with illicit love, betrayal, and murder. Carson's ghostwriter, Mary Clarke, was no less daring. Clarke pursued dangerous associations and wrote scandalous exposés based on her own and others' experiences. She immersed herself in the world of criminals and disreputable actors, using her acquaintance with this demimonde to shape a career as a sensationalist writer. InDangerous to Know, Susan Branson follows the fascinating lives of Ann Carson and Mary Clarke, offering an engaging study of gender and class in the early nineteenth century. According to Branson, episodes in both women's lives illustrate their struggles within a society that constrained women's activities and ambitions. She argues that both women simultaneously tried to conform to and manipulate the dominant sexual, economic, and social ideologies of the time. In their own lives and through their writing, the pair challenged conventions prescribed by these ideologies to further their own ends and redefine what was possible for women in early American public life.
We propose a framework for large scale learning and annotation of structured models. The system interleaves interactive labeling (where the current model is used to semi-automate the labeling of a ...new example) and online learning (where a newly labeled example is used to update the current model parameters). This framework is scalable to large datasets and complex image models and is shown to have excellent theoretical and practical properties in terms of train time, optimality guarantees, and bounds on the amount of annotation effort per image. We apply this framework to part-based detection, and introduce a novel algorithm for interactive labeling of deformable part models. The labeling tool updates and displays in real-time the maximum likelihood location of all parts as the user clicks and drags the location of one or more parts. We demonstrate that the system can be used to efficiently and robustly train part and pose detectors on the CUB Birds-200-a challenging dataset of birds in unconstrained pose and environment.
Pets may protect home-bound older adults from stress, depression, and cognitive dysfunction. We conducted a cross-sectional study among pet owners (n=66) and non-pet owners (n=113) assessed for ...depression (Geriatric Depression Scale GDS), salivary cortisol, and executive function (CLOX1). Attachment to pets was assessed with the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale LAPS. Pet owners had significantly higher depression scores than non-pet owners (p = .045), but pet ownership did not predict the level of cortisol and executive function. Higher depression scores were associated with lower cortisol in pet owners (β = -0.01), while higher depression scores were associated with higher cortisol in non-pet owners (β = 0.01). Among pet owners, 52% “agreed strongly” to the questions on the LAPS (Mean= 53; SD=2.3), but LAPS scores were not associated with biobehavioral outcomes. Results may indicate that owning a pet has the potential to buffer stress responses for those with depressive symptoms.
This paper considers the incorporation of negative examples into fuzzy inference systems (FIS). A new method of defuzzification called dot attenuation is presented. This is a generalization of ...conventional defuzzification that has the ability to incorporate negative examples into the FIS reasoning process. Several variations of dot attenuation including dot product attenuation (DPA), dot minimum attenuation, and dot difference attenuation (DDA), are presented and incorporated into the center of gravity and center average defuzzification. DPA is illustrated with an inverted pendulum controller, which has a negative rule added to its rule base. The modification of the control surface due to the introduction of the negative rule is investigated. Simple steering control of a robot in the presence of obstructions using DDA is demonstrated. A method of conversion from a mixed positive/negative rule base into a standard rule base using modus tollens is introduced. Expert and automated creation of negative rules is discussed.
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