Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Police response to crime: The perceptions of victims from two polish cities

While police structures and functions have changed dramatically in post‐communist societies, as yet little research has been carried out to either evaluate these changes or monitor victims’ perceptions of the ‘new’ police. Here we report on an exploratory study that monitors the experiences of 398 burglary victims in Poland, and compare the findings with those from England. While Polish victims perceived the police as having changed in a number of ways, and were especially positive about the improved ‘victim‐proneness’ of the police, they were generally far more critical of the police than were their English counterparts. This to some extent reflects differences in police procedures and to this extent is amienable to change, but our tentative conclusion is that criticism of the police is more a reflection of the rising crime rate and public feelings that if crime is out of control then the police are to blame. If our view is correct then it would appear that public evaluation of the police will be unlikel.
Modeling Spitzer Observations of VV Ser. II. An Extended Quantum-heated Nebula and a Disk Shadow

We present mid-infrared Spitzer IRAC and MIPS images of the UX Orionis star VV Ser and the surrounding cloud. The 5.6-70 μm images show bright, localized, and nebulous emission extended over 4′ centered on VV Ser. This nebulosity is due to transiently heated grains excited by UV photons emitted by VV Ser. Imprinted on the nebulosity is a wedge-shaped dark band, centered on the star. We interpret this as the shadow cast by the inner regions of a near-edge-on disk, allowing the PAHs to be excited only outside of this shadow. We extend an axisymmetric radiative transfer model of the VV Ser disk described in a companion paper to include quantum-heated PAH molecules and very small grains (VSGs) in the thermal cooling approximation. The presence of a disk shadow strongly constrains the inclination as well as the position angle of the disk. The nebulosity at 5.6-8.0 μm and the 2175 Å absorption feature seen in an archival spectrum from the IUE can be fit using only PAHs, consistent with the main carrier of the 2175 Å feature being due to the graphite-like structure of the PAHs. The PAH component is found to be relatively smoothly distributed in the cloud, while the population of VSGs emitting at 20-70 μm is strongly concentrated ~50′′ to the southeast of VV Ser. Depending on the adopted PAH opacity, the abundance of PAHs in the surrounding cloud is constrained to 5% ± 2% of the total dust mass. Although relatively rare, quantum-heated nebulosities surrounding single, well-defined stars are well-suited for gaining unique insights into the physics of very small particles in molecular clouds.
Collision velocity of dust grains in self-gravitating protoplanetary discs

We have conducted the first comprehensive numerical investigation of the relative velocity distribution of dust particles in self-gravitating protoplanetary discs with a view to assessing the viability of planetesimal formation via direct collapse in such environments. The viability depends crucially on the large sizes that are preferentially collected in pressure maxima produced by transient spiral features (Stokes numbers, St ∼ 1); growth to these size scales requires that collision velocities remain low enough that grain growth is not reversed by fragmentation. We show that, for a single-sized dust population, velocity driving by the disc's gravitational perturbations is only effective for St > 3, while coupling to the gas velocity dominates otherwise. We develop a criterion for understanding this result in terms of the stopping distance being of the order of the disc scaleheight. Nevertheless, the relative velocities induced by differential radial drift in multi-sized dust populations are too high to allow the growth of silicate dust particles beyond St ∼ 10− 2 or 10−1 (10 cm to m sizes at 30 au), such Stokes numbers being insufficient to allow concentration of solids in spiral features. However, for icy solids (which may survive collisions up to several 10 m s−1), growth to St ∼ 1 (10 m size) may be possible beyond 30 au from the star. Such objects would be concentrated in spiral features and could potentially produce larger icy planetesimals/comets by gravitational collapse. These planetesimals would acquire moderate eccentricities and remain unmodified over the remaining lifetime of the disc.
Global and cell-type specific properties of lincRNAs with ribosome occupancy

Abstract Advances in transcriptomics have led to the discovery of a large number of long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs), which are now recognized as important regulators of diverse cellular processes. Although originally thought to be non-coding, recent studies have revealed that many lincRNAs are bound by ribosomes, with a few lincRNAs even having ability to generate micropeptides. The question arises: how widespread the translation of lincRNAs may be and whether such translation is likely to be functional. To better understand biological relevance of lincRNA translation, we systematically characterized lincRNAs with ribosome occupancy by the expression, structural, sequence, evolutionary and functional features for eight human cell lines, revealed that lincRNAs with ribosome occupancy have remarkably distinctive properties compared with those without ribosome occupancy, indicating that translation has important biological implication in categorizing and annotating lincRNAs. Further analysis revealed lincRNAs exhibit remarkable cell-type specificity with differential translational repertoires and substantial discordance in functionality. Collectively, our analyses provide the first attempt to characterize global and cell-type specific properties of translation of lincRNAs in human cells, highlighting that translation of lincRNAs has clear molecular, evolutionary and functional implications. This study will facilitate better understanding of the diverse functions of lincRNAs.
Fiscal Implications of Immigration - a Net Present Value Calculation

Focusing on the net fiscal effects, the gain from admitting immigrants is computed for a welfare state with large expenditures and a large tax burden lSwedenr. Prices and behavior are held constant, which allows a detailed analysis of the effects of immigration. The present value of future tax revenues minus outlays is potentially large; USD 23,500 per young working-age immigrant, but an "average" new immigrant represents a net government loss of USD 20,500. The dominant factors are employment rates and age. For young working-age immigrants, the "break-even" participation rate for which the gain would be zero is 60%, well below the empirical rate for this group. Copyright The editors of the "Scandinavian Journal of Economics", 2003 .
Creativity and Ego Defense Mechanisms: Some Exploratory Empirical Evidence

Two samples of college students (n = 40 each) drawn from a larger sample (N = 188) were identified as high creative or low creative based on their performance on 5 measures of creativity that included both tests of creativity and actual creative production such as haiku poetry. The students were then interviewed with a semistructured procedure, and the video recordings of the interviews assessed as to the utilization of each of 15 ego defense styles. Thirteen of the 15 ego defense styles showed statistically significant mean differences, with high creatives scoring higher on schizoid fantasy, acting out, dissociation, displacement, reaction formation, intellectualization, humor, suppression, and sublimation; they scored lower on projection, passive aggressiveness, repression, and altruism.
A global test for gene‐gene interactions based on random matrix theory

Statistical interactions between markers of genetic variation, or gene‐gene interactions, are believed to play an important role in the etiology of many multifactorial diseases and other complex phenotypes. Unfortunately, detecting gene‐gene interactions is extremely challenging due to the large number of potential interactions and ambiguity regarding marker coding and interaction scale. For many data sets, there is insufficient statistical power to evaluate all candidate gene‐gene interactions. In these cases, a global test for gene‐gene interactions may be the best option. Global tests have much greater power relative to multiple individual interaction tests and can be used on subsets of the markers as an initial filter prior to testing for specific interactions. In this paper, we describe a novel global test for gene‐gene interactions, the global epistasis test (GET), that is based on results from random matrix theory. As we show via simulation studies based on previously proposed models for common diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes, and breast cancer, our proposed GET method has superior performance characteristics relative to existing global gene‐gene interaction tests. A glaucoma GWAS data set is used to demonstrate the practical utility of the GET method.
Opinion expression via user comments on news websites: analysis through the perspective of the spiral of silence

ABSTRACT User comments have become an essential part of news websites. In this article, we examine this mode of public expression via the theory of the spiral of silence. This is done while adopting alternative measures, with regard to three major issues on the Israeli agenda, and in comparison to expression in public, as in the traditional theory. Based on an Internet survey (n = 712), the present study results support the relevancy of the spiral of silence to the online comment sphere. Perceived support for one’s opinion by the majority was found to have a positive and significant effect on the willingness to express opinion in the online sphere. The explanatory role of fear of isolation was more significant in the online sphere than in face-to-face context.
The many faces of macrophage activation

It used to be easy. In the old days ( 8 years ago), activated macrophages were simply defined as cells that secreted inflammatory mediators and killed intracellular pathogens. Things are becoming progressively more complicated in the world of leukocyte biology. Activated macrophages may be a more heterogenous group of cells than originally appreciated, with different physiologies and performing distinct immunological functions. The first hint of this heterogeneity came with the characterization of the “alternatively activated macrophage” [1]. The exposure of macrophages to interleukin (IL)-4 or glucocorticoids induced a population of cells that up-regulated certain phagocytic receptors but failed to produce nitrogen radicals [2] and as a result, were relatively poor at killing intracellular pathogens. Recent studies have shown that these alternatively activated cells produce several components involved in the synthesis of the extracellular matrix (ECM) [3], suggesting their primary role may be involved in tissue repair rather than microbial killing. It turns out that the name alternatively activated macrophage may be unfortunate for a few reasons. First, although these cells express some markers of activation, they have not been exposed to the classical, activating stimuli, interferon(IFN) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Second, and more importantly, the name implies that this is the only other way to activate a macrophage. Recent studies suggest that this may not be the case. Exposure of macrophages to classical activating signals in the presence of immunoglobulin G (IgG) immune complexes induced the production of a cell type that was fundamentally different from the classically activated macrophage. These cells generated large amounts of IL-10 and as a result, were potent inhibitors of acute inflammatory responses to bacterial endotoxin [4]. These activated macrophages have been called type 2-activated macrophages [5] because of their ability to induce T helper cell type 2 (Th2) responses that were predominated by IL-4 [6], leading to IgG class-switching by B cells. Thus, at this time, there appears to be at least three different populations of activated macrophages with three distinct biological functions. The first and most well described is the classically activated macrophage whose role is as an effector cell in Th1 cellular immune responses. The second type of cell, the alternatively activated macrophage, appears to be involved in immunosuppression and tissue repair. The most recent addition to this list is the type 2-activated macrophage, which is anti-inflammatory and preferentially induces Th2-type humoral-immune responses to antigen. Together, these three populations of cells may form their own regulatory network to prevent a well-intentioned immune response from progressing to immunopathology. THE CLASSICALLY ACTIVATED MACROPHAGE
An Adaptation of the Profile of Mood States for Use in Adults With Phenylketonuria

Adults with phenylketonuria (PKU) experience disturbances in mood. This study used qualitative and quantitative techniques to adapt the 65-item Profile of Mood States (POMS) for the assessment of key mood domains in adults with PKU. First, cognitive interviews on 58 POMS items (excluding 7 Friendliness domain items) among 15 adults and adolescents (age ≥16 years) with PKU were conducted to eliminate items poorly understood or considered irrelevant to PKU; 17 items were removed. Next, the remaining POMS items were quantitatively examined (Mokken scaling and Rasch analysis) in 115 adult patients with PKU. An additional 21 items were removed iteratively, resulting in the 20-item draft PKU-POMS. Finally, the psychometric properties of the draft PKU-POMS were examined. The instrument displayed strong psychometric properties (reliability, validity, and responsiveness) over 6 domains (Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Activity, Tiredness, and Confusion) and all items were well understood in the final cognitive intervi.
Alliance Proximity and Effectiveness of Extended Deterrence

ABSTRACT This article examines whether geographical proximity between defensive allies and a protégé increases the likelihood of successful extended general deterrence. I argue that proximate allies are better at making a credible deterrent threat because proximate allies are more willing and able to help alliance partners in times of crisis than distant ones. This claim is theorized by examining how geographical distance influences the international and domestic costs of alliance commitments. The empirical tests reveal that a potential aggressor is less likely to initiate a militarized dispute against a target with proximate defensive allies. Furthermore, I find that the power of proximate defensive allies is a more significant determinant of successful extended general deterrence than that of distance allies. Interestingly, I also find that the constraining effects of geographical distance on the effectiveness of extended general deterrence have been alleviated by advancements in military technologies throughout history.
Periods of third kind for rank 2 Drinfeld modules and algebraic independence of logarithms

In analogy with the periods of abelian integrals of differentials of third kind for an elliptic curve defined over a number field, we introduce a notion of periods of third kind for a rank 2 Drinfeld Fq[t]-module rho defined over an algebraic function field and derive explicit formulae for them. When rho has complex multiplication by a separable extension, we prove the algebraic independence of rho-logarithms of algebraic points that are linearly independent over the CM field of rho. Together with the main result in [CP08], we completely determine all the algebraic relations among the periods of first, second and third kinds for rank 2 Drinfeld Fq[t]-modules in odd characteristic.
Bounding the generalization error of convex combinations of classifiers: balancing the dimensionality and the margins

A problem of bounding the generalization error of a classifier f in H, where H is a "base" class of functions (classifiers), is considered. This problem frequently occurs in computer learning, where efficient algorithms of combining simple classifiers into a complex one (such as boosting and bagging) have attracted a lot of attention. Using Talagrand's concentration inequalities for empirical processes, we obtain new sharper bounds on the generalization error of combined classifiers that take into account both the empirical distribution of "classification margins'' and an "approximate dimension" of the classifiers and study the performance of these bounds in several experiments with learning algorithms.
Geometric Matrix Completion with Recurrent Multi-Graph Neural Networks

Matrix completion models are among the most common formulations of recommender systems. Recent works have showed a boost of performance of these techniques when introducing the pairwise relationships between users/items in the form of graphs, and imposing smoothness priors on these graphs. However, such techniques do not fully exploit the local stationarity structures of user/item graphs, and the number of parameters to learn is linear w.r. t. the number of users and items. We propose a novel approach to overcome these limitations by using geometric deep learning on graphs. Our matrix completion architecture combines graph convolutional neural networks and recurrent neural networks to learn meaningful statistical graph-structured patterns and the non-linear diffusion process that generates the known ratings. This neural network system requires a constant number of parameters independent of the matrix size. We apply our method on both synthetic and real datasets, showing that it outperforms state-of-the-art techniques.
Stochastic Petri Net Analysis of a Replicated File System

The authors present a stochastic Petri net model of a replicated file system in a distributed environment where replicated files reside on different hosts and a voting algorithm is used to maintain consistency. Witnesses, which simply record the status of the file but contain no data, can be used in addition to or in place of files to reduce overhead. A model sufficiently detailed to include file status (current or out-of-date) as well as failure and repair of hosts where copies or witnesses reside, is presented. The number of copies and witnesses is not fixed, but is a parameter of the model. Two different majority protocols are examined. >
A high performance file system for non-volatile main memory

Emerging non-volatile main memories (NVMMs) provide data persistence at the main memory level. To avoid the double-copy overheads among the user buffer, the OS page cache, and the storage layer, state-of-the-art NVMM-aware file systems bypass the OS page cache which directly copy data between the user buffer and the NVMM storage. However, one major drawback of existing NVMM technologies is the slow writes. As a result, such direct access for all file operations can lead to suboptimal system performance. In this paper, we propose HiNFS, a high performance file system for non-volatile main memory. Specifically, HiNFS uses an NVMM-aware Write Buffer policy to buffer the lazy-persistent file writes in DRAM and persists them to NVMM lazily to hide the long write latency of NVMM. However, HiNFS performs direct access to NVMM for eager-persistent file writes, and directly reads file data from both DRAM and NVMM as they have similar read performance, in order to eliminate the double-copy overheads from the critical path. To ensure read consistency, HiNFS uses a combination of the DRAM Block Index and Cacheline Bitmap to track the latest data between DRAM and NVMM. Finally, HiNFS employs a Buffer Benefit Model to identify the eager-persistent file writes before issuing the write operations. Using software NVMM emulators, we evaluate HiNFS's performance with various workloads. Comparing with state-of-the-art NVMM-aware file systems - PMFS and EXT4-DAX, surprisingly, our results show that HiNFS improves the system throughput by up to 184% for filebench microbenchmarks and reduces the execution time by up to 64% for data-intensive traces and macro-benchmarks, demonstrating the benefits of hiding the long write latency of NVMM.
Multiple UPGMA and Neighbor-joining Trees and the Performance of Some Computer Packages

*Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels; and TDepartments of Biology and SBiochemistry, University of Antwerp Although the unweighted pair-group method using arithmetic averages (UPGMA) and neighbor-joining (NJ) algo- rithms are designed to produce single trees, they may derive more than one topology from a single matrix, depending on the order of data entry. This “chaotic” behavior is due to ties, the effects of which are rarely considered. Therefore we present examples of ties and show that multiple UPGMA and NJ trees cannot be neglected with molecular data based on allozyme distances or “binary” distances derived from random amplified polymorphic DNA, restriction fragments, DNA fingerprints, or general protein patterns. We also compare the performance of 15 computer packages with respect to ties. Five programs recognize the problem (PHYLIP MVSP SAS, SYN-TAX, and NTSYS) but deal with it in different ways. We further point out that if ties are not properly taken into account, they might affect bootstrap and jackknife confidence estimates. Finally, we observed that NTSYS, PHYLIP MVSP and MVSP87 have different efficiencies in finding ties, and that some programs, including MEGA, may produce single alternative UPGMA topologies, probably due to their different rounding precisions or tie tolerances.
Clinical outcome of immunoglobulin light chain amyloidosis affecting the kidney.

BACKGROUND The kidney is affected by immunoglobulin light chain amyloidosis (AL) in more than 50% of patients who present with the disease, but long-term predictors for and outcomes after renal replacement therapy are not well described. METHODS Kaplan-Meier and multivariate analyses were performed in a uniformly treated cohort of 145 patients with biopsy-proven AL who were monitored for at least 11 years. Outcome measurements were needed for renal replacement therapy and survival. RESULTS Among patients presenting with renal AL, 42% ultimately received renal replacement therapy versus 5% of patients who did not have this presentation. Patients with renal amyloid who received dialysis support had significantly higher serum creatinine and 24-h urine protein levels at presentation. Patients with lambda light chain amyloid were significantly more likely to have renal involvement and had significantly greater urinary protein loss than patients with kappa light chain amyloid. Serum creatinine level was an independent predictor of overall survival when corrected for cardiac involvement. For 38 patients who received dialysis, median survival from Day 1 of dialysis was 10.4 months, and 26% of patients with AL ultimately received renal replacement therapy versus 42% of patients who presented with renal AL specifically. CONCLUSIONS Presenting 24-h urine protein loss and creatinine values predict which patients will require dialysis. Median survival for patients starting dialysis is <1 year. The presence of lambda light chain amyloid predicts the increased likelihood of renal involvement.
An unorthodox introduction to Memetic Algorithms

Memetic Algorithms have become one of the key methodologies behind solvers that are capable of tackling very large, real-world, optimisation problems. They are being actively investigated in research institutions as well as broadly applied in industry. This article provides a very short introduction to Memetic Algorithms and it is a condensed version of a chapter with the same title that will appear in the Handbook of Natural Computing to be published by Springer [35] in which a pragmatic guide to the key design issues underpinning Memetic Algorithms (MA) engineering is overviewed.