Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Large deviations for simple random walk on percolations with long-range correlations

We show quenched large deviations for the simple random walk on a certain class of percolations with long-range correlations. This class contains the supercritical Bernoulli percolations, the model considered by Drewitz, R'ath and Sapozhnikov and the random-cluster model up to the slab critical point. Our result is an extension of Kubota's result for the supercritical Bernoulli percolations. We also state a shape theorem for the chemical distance, which is an extension of Garet and Marchand's result for the supercritical Bernoulli percolations.
EM-based phoneme confusion matrix generation for low-resource spoken term detection

The idea of using a data-driven phoneme confusion matrix (PCM) to enhance speech recognition and retrieval performance is not new to the speech community. Although empirical results show various degrees of improvements brought by introducing a PCM, the underlying data-driven processes introduced in most papers are rather ad-hoc and lack rigorous statistical justifications. In this paper we will focus on the statistical aspects of PCM generation, propose and justify a novel expectation-maximization based algorithm for data-driven PCM generation. We will evaluate the performance of the generated PCMs under the context of low-resource spoken term detection, with primary focus on out-of-vocabulary keywords.
Post-operative wound healing in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

confirmed (McConkey, Fraser, and Bligh, 1965). Furthermore, the skin of many patients is friable, resists shear stresses poorly, and may produce problems in wound healing. Previous studies on skin collagen in these patients have been confined to measurements of soluble or total content. However, although total collagen is reduced, particularly in patients receiving corticosteroids, measurements on the small soluble fraction (<5 per cent) have been inconclusive. The major fraction of skin collagen is polymeric collagen, and having developed methods of measuring quantities and stability of this collagen in biopsies (85 sq. mm.) of human skin, we have applied them to patients with rheumatoid arthritis (Francis and Macmillan, 1971). So far 19 biopsies have been performed, including repeat biopsies in two patients after 6 months' penicillamine therapy. Compared with matched normal controls, a modest reduction in total skin collagen, particularly in patients on prolonged corticosteroid therapy has been confirmed. However, the stability ofthe polymeric collagen was not clearly altered by these drugs but was reduced in patients with active disease. With penicillamine, skin thickness and total collagen content were dramatically reduced. In addition, there was a reduction in collagen stability. In patients on corticosteroids there was an increased proportion of soluble collagen. It will be suggested that important changes in collagen metabolism occur in these patients which may influence skin strength, integrity and wound healing (and perhaps renew interest in the 'collagen diseases').
Health, Disability Insurance and Labour Force Participation

Over half a million men of working age left the labour market over the course of the 1990s. In this paper this remarkable decline is explored, and the roles played by the interaction of skills, long-term sickness and the disability benefit system are highlighted. The analysis shows that the decline in participation was almost exclusively among unskilled males and that this same group reported increasing long-term illness. The generosity of the disability insurance system relative to that of the unemployment insurance appears to have encouraged such workers to exit the labour market. Strong evidence is presented of sizable labour supply responses to disability insurance benefits, which would support that hypothesis. But it seems unlikely that this 1990s' experience will be repeated as disability benefits are now much less generous than they were at that time.
Determination of Complement-Mediated Killing of Bacteria by Viability Staining and Bioluminescence

ABSTRACT Complement-mediated killing of bacteria was monitored by flow cytometric, luminometric, and conventional plate counting methods. A flow cytometric determination of bacterial viability was carried out by using dual staining with a LIVE/DEAD BacLight bacterial viability kit. In addition to the viable cell population, several other populations emerged in the fluorescence histogram, and there was a dramatic decrease in the total cell count in the light-scattering histogram in the course of the complement reaction. To permit luminometric measurements, Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli were made bioluminescent by expressing an insect luciferase gene. Addition of substrate after the complement reaction resulted in bioluminescence, the level of which was a measure of the viable cell population. All three methods gave essentially the same killing rate, suggesting that the bacteriolytic activity of serum complement can be measured rapidly and conveniently by using viability stains or bioluminescence. In principle, any bacterial strain can be used for viability staining and flow cytometric analysis. For the bioluminescence measurements genetically engineered bacteria are needed, but the advantage is that it is possible to screen automatically a large number of samples.
The Delayed Response to a Technology Shock: A Flexible Price Explanation

I present empirical evidence of how the U.S. economy, including per-capita hours worked, responds to a technology shock. In particular, I present results based on permanent changes to a constructed direct measure of technological change for U.S. manufacturing industries. Based on empirical evidence, some claim that hours worked declines and never recovers in response to a positive technology shock. This paper's empirical evidence suggests that emphasizing the drop in hours worked is misdirected. Because the sharp drop in hours is not present here, the emphasis rather should be on the small (perhaps negative) initial response followed by a subsequent large positive response. Investment, consumption, and output have similar dynamic responses. In response to a positive technology shock, a standard flexible price model would have an immediate increase in hours worked. Therefore, such a model is inconsistent with the empirical dynamic responses. I show, however, that a flexible price model with habit persistence in consumption and certain kinds of capital adjustment costs can better match the empirical responses. Some recent papers have critiqued the use of long run VARs to identify the dynamic responses to a technology shock. In particular they report that, when long run VARs are applied to data simulated from particular economic models, the point estimates of the impulse responses may be imprecisely estimated. However, based on additional simulation evidence, I find that, although the impact response may be imprecisely estimated, a finding of a delayed response is much more likely when the true model response also has a delayed response.
Sensory feedback in upper limb prosthetics

One of the challenges facing prosthetic designers and engineers is to restore the missing sensory function inherit to hand amputation. Several different techniques can be employed to provide amputees with sensory feedback: sensory substitution methods where the recorded stimulus is not only transferred to the amputee, but also translated to a different modality (modality-matched feedback), which transfers the stimulus without translation and direct neural stimulation, which interacts directly with peripheral afferent nerves. This paper presents an overview of the principal works and devices employed to provide upper limb amputees with sensory feedback. The focus is on sensory substitution and modality matched feedback; the principal features, advantages and disadvantages of the different methods are presented.
Connecting Student Realities and Ideal Models: Changing the University of South Florida's Educational Leadership Program

Educational leadership program evolution naturally creates tensions among institutional, national, regional, departmental, practitioner, and student cultures. Learning that has occurred during University of South Florida’s educational leadership program’s change process will be shared as well as national survey documentation examining student characteristics. The realities of the lives of our full time educators/part time students caused our program to reconfigure to accommodate student needs while moving toward more ideal models of principal preparation.
An Application of Thirlwall's Law to the Spanish Economy

The aim of this paper is to test the existence of a balance of payments constraint on the Spanish economic growth. The model developed by Thirlwall (1979) is tested in the context of an individual economy following the strategy proposed by Atesoglu (1993, 1994). The results show little influence for relative prices in the determination of the demand for imports. They also show that the Spanish economic growth rate has been very close to that predicted by Thirlwall's Law. This fact, together with the existence of unemployed resources, yield strong evidence in favour of the demand approach to economic growth.
Gauge/gravity duality and the interplay of various fractional branes

We consider different types of fractional branes on a Z{sub 2} orbifold of the conifold and analyze in detail the corresponding gauge/gravity duality. The gauge theory possesses a rich and varied dynamics, both in the UV and in the IR. We find the dual supergravity solution, which contains both untwisted and twisted 3-form fluxes, related to what are known as deformation and N=2 fractional branes, respectively. We analyze the resulting renormalization group flow from the supergravity perspective, by developing an algorithm to easily extract it. We find hints of a generalization of the familiar cascade of Seiberg dualities due to a nontrivial interplay between the different types of fractional branes. We finally consider the IR behavior in several limits, where the dominant effective dynamics is either confining in a Coulomb phase or runaway, and discuss the resolution of singularities in the dual geometric background.
Drug consumption facilities in Europe and beyond

Drug consumption rooms (DCRs) are professionally supervised healthcare facilities where drug users can use drugs in safer and more hygienic conditions. Since 1986, more than 90 DCRs have been set up in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, Norway, Canada and Australia. Consumption rooms aim to establish contact with difficult-to-reach populations of drug users, provide an environment for more hygienic drug use, reduce morbidity and mortality risks associated with drug use — in particular street-based drug injecting — and promote drug users’ access to other social, health and drug treatment services. They also aim to reduce public drug use and improve public amenity near urban drug markets. At times, their establishment has been controversial due to concerns that they may encourage drug use, delay treatment entry or aggravate problems of local drug markets. As with evaluations of other public health interventions, research on DCRs faces methodological challenges in taking account of the effects of broader local policy or ecological changes. Despite these limitations, research shows that the facilities reach their target population and provide immediate improvements through better hygiene and safety conditions for injectors. At the same time, the availability of safer injecting facilities does not increase levels of drug use or risky patterns of consumption, nor does it result in higher rates of local drug acquisition crime. There is consistent evidence that DCR use is associated with self-reported reductions in injecting risk behaviour such as syringe sharing, and in public drug use. Due to a lack of studies, as well as methodological problems such as isolating the effect from other interventions or low coverage of the risk population, evidence regarding DCRs — while encouraging — is insufficient for drawing conclusions with regard to their effectiveness in reducing HIV or hepatitis C virus (HCV) incidence. However, use of the facilities is associated with increased uptake of detoxification and treatment services. While there is suggestive evidence from modelling studies that they may contribute to reducing drug-related deaths at a city level where coverage is adequate, the review-level evidence of this effect is still insufficient. Taken in sum, the available evidence does not support the main concerns raised about this kind of intervention and points to generally positive impacts in terms of increasing drug users’ access to health and social care, and reducing public drug use and associated nuisance.
Incidental Memory Encoding Assessed with Signal Detection Theory and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

In functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies that apply a “subsequent memory” approach, successful encoding is indicated by increased fMRI activity during the encoding phase for hits vs. misses, in areas underlying memory encoding such as the hippocampal formation. Signal-detection theory (SDT) can be used to analyze memory-related fMRI activity as a function of the participant’s memory trace strength (d′). The goal of the present study was to use SDT to examine the relationship between fMRI activity during incidental encoding and participants’ recognition performance. To implement a new approach, post-experimental group assignment into High- or Low Performers (HP or LP) was based on 29 healthy participants’ recognition performance, assessed with SDT. The analyses focused on the interaction between the factors group (HP vs. LP) and recognition performance (hits vs. misses). A whole-brain analysis revealed increased activation for HP vs. LP during incidental encoding for remembered vs. forgotten items (hits > misses) in the insula/temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and the fusiform gyrus (FFG). Parameter estimates in these regions exhibited a significant positive correlation with d′. As these brain regions are highly relevant for salience detection (insula), stimulus-driven attention (TPJ), and content-specific processing of mnemonic stimuli (FFG), we suggest that HPs’ elevated memory performance was associated with enhanced attentional and content-specific sensory processing during the encoding phase. We provide first correlative evidence that encoding-related activity in content-specific sensory areas and content-independent attention and salience detection areas influences memory performance in a task with incidental encoding of facial stimuli. Based on our findings, we discuss whether the aforementioned group differences in brain activity during incidental encoding might constitute the basis of general differences in memory performance between HP and LP.
Health Plan Choice: Price Elasticities in a Managed Competition Setting

Using a unique panel dataset of health plan choices and personal characteristics of employees at a single firm, this paper provides estimates of price elasticities for health insurance plans in a managed competition setting. Estimated price elasticities are larger in absolute value than most previous estimates and the magnitude of the price elasticity suggests that there is a place for price competition in this market. We also find evidence of transition costs in switching health plans for older and less healthy employees. Such differential responses to price may contribute to adverse selection in this market.
The Surgical Approaches of Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy and the Predictive Factors for the Surgical Outcomes

Objective To explore the efficacy and safety of different surgical approaches of cervical spondylotic myelopathy, and the predictive factors for the outcome of surgery. Methods Clinical data of 68 consecutive patients who underwent surgical treatment from 2003-08-01 to 2006-12-01 were collected. The quantization of the efficacy of operation was made by applying Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA) scoring system, based on which the recovery rate and satisfaction rate were calculated. In the patients who underwent anterior approach, we compared the recovery rate among the subgroups of different duration of symptoms, age at surgery and the severity of diseases. Any surgery-related complications were also noted. Results 73.5% (50/68) patients underwent anterior approach, with an average recovery rate of (68.21 ± 10.06)% and the satisfaction rate of 88.00%; 20.6% patients (14/68) underwent posterior approach, with an average recovery rate of (64.03 ± 7.07)% and the satisfaction rate of 100%. The recovery rate had no significant difference in the two approaches. Only 4 patients (5.9%) underwent anterior and posterior combined approach, and the recovery rate and the satisfaction rate were 65.10% and 100%, respectively. In the group of patients who accepted anterior approach, no significant differences were found in the recovery rates of different age subgroups and different duration of symptom subgroups; the significant differences recovery rates between the moderate and severe subgroups were identified. Minor complications, such as asymptomatic screw misplacement, transient dysphagia/odynophagia, pain related to the donor site and axial syndrome, were observed in a few patients. Conclusion The JOA score can be improved by applying the appropriate approaches and the high recovery and satisfaction rates can be achieved at the same time. The efficacies of anterior and posterior approaches were similar. The complications of surgery were minor. In the patients who underwent anterior approach, the severity of diseases was a predictive factor for the outcome of surgery.
HIV/AIDS, growth and poverty in KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa: Integrating firm-level surveys with demographic and economywide modeling

"This paper estimates the economic impact of HIV/AIDS on KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and the rest of South Africa (RSA). We extend previous studies by employing an integrated analytical framework that combines the following: firm-level surveys of workers' HIV prevalence by sector and occupation; a demographic model that produces both population and workforce projections; and a regionalized economywide model linked to a survey-based micro-simulation module. This framework permits a full macro-microeconomic assessment. The results indicate that HIV/AIDS greatly reduces annual economic growth, mainly by lowering the long-term rate of technical change. However, the impacts on income poverty are small, and inequality is reduced by HIV/AIDS. This is because high unemployment among low-income households minimizes the economic costs of increased mortality. In contrast, slower economic growth hurts higher-income households despite the lower prevalence of HIV among these households. We conclude that the increase in economic growth achieved through addressing HIV/AIDS is sufficient to offset the population pressure this move will place on income poverty. Moreover, incentives to mitigate HIV/AIDS lie not only with poorer infected households, but also with uninfected higher-income households. Our findings reveal that HIV/AIDS will place a substantial burden on future economic development in KZN and RSA, confirming the need for policies to curb the economic costs of this pandemic. " from authors' abstract
Conserved DNA motifs in the type II-A CRISPR leader region

The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR‐associated (Cas) proteins consist of RNA‐protein complexes that provide bacteria and archaea sequence‐specific immunity against bacteriophages and conjugative plasmids. The bacteria or archaea become immune to phage or plasmid infections by inserting short pieces of the intruder DNA site‐specifically into the leader‐repeat (repetitive units of CRISPR RNA gene) junction, in a process called adaptation. The hypothesis of the present work is that sequence/structural motifs present in the leader‐repeat junction recruits type‐specific Cas proteins for successful adaptation. To test this, we analyzed 167 type IIA CRISPR loci belonging to different bacterial genera. Our dataset consisted of 150 nucleotides of the CRISPR leader, the first repeat, and the protein sequences of Cas1, Cas2, Cas9, and Csn2 proteins. After performing multiple sequence alignments using MUSCLE, phylogenetic trees were generated in UGENE. Our results indicate two highly conserved DNA motifs at the 3′ leader end; 5′‐ATTTGAG‐3′ (indicated as group 1) and 5′‐CTRCGAG‐3′ (indicated as group 2). A third group with a very short 5′‐CG‐3′ DNA conservation at the 3′ leader end is observed mostly in Lactobacilli. Interestingly, the 3′‐leader end of group 1 is associated with the CRISPR‐1 locus of Streptococcus thermophilus DGCC7710, while that of group 2 is associated with the CRISPR‐3 locus of S. thermophilus DGCC7710. Since the CRISPR loci 1 and 3 of S. thermophilus DGCC7710 have been established as two distinct type IIA locus, our results demonstrate the association of these two loci with distinct 3′‐leader end sequences. A phylogenetic analysis of the repeat and Cas proteins revealed segregation reflecting the 3′ leader end conservation and pointed to the coevolution of the leader region and the CRISPR components. Previous studies have shown that the 3′‐leader end sequences are important for adaptation in S. thermophilus (group 1) and S. pyogenes (group 2) type IIA systems. Our results expanded this and demonstrated that the 3′‐leader end sequence conservation is more universally conserved covering several (~50 in this study) bacterial genera. Studies are ongoing to experimentally prove the importance of the 3′ leader end sequences and its co‐relation to locus‐specific Cas proteins. Similar studies can be used to identify conserved leader sequences in other CRISPR types and sub‐types.
Are “Teenies” Better?

On June 5, 1997, the NYSE voted to adopt a system of decimal price trading, changing its longstanding practice of using 1/8s. While the system does not go into place until the turn of the century, the NYSE began trading stocks in 1/16s, so-called “teenies,” as an intermediate step on June 24, 1997. This paper examines whether the refined price gradation has reduced trading costs on the NYSE. The evidence indicates that both bid/ask spreads and market depth at the prevailing bid/ask quotes have fallen. On balance, investor trading costs have dropped overall, with the largest gains being experienced for low price shares and for small trade sizes.