Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Navier-Stokes-alpha model: LES equations with nonlinear dispersion

We present a framework for discussing LES equations with nonlinear dispersion. In this framework, we discuss the properties of the nonlinearly dispersive Navier-Stokes-alpha model of incompressible fluid turbulence --- also called the viscous Camassa-Holm equations and the LANS equations in the literature --- in comparison with the corresponding properties of large eddy simulation (LES) equations obtained via the approximate-inverse approach. In this comparison, we identify the spatially filtered NS-alpha equations with a class of generalized LES similarity models. Applying a certain approximate inverse to this class of LES models restores the Kelvin circulation theorem for the defiltered velocity and shows that the NS-alpha model describes the dynamics of the defiltered velocity for this class of generalized LES similarity models. We also show that the subgrid scale forces in the NS-alpha model transform covariantly under Galilean transformations and under a change to a uniformly rotating reference frame. Finally, we discuss in the spectral formulation how the NS-alpha model retains the local interactions among the large scales, retains the nonlocal sweeping effects of large scales on small scales, yet attenuates the local interactions of the small scales amongst themselves.
A Taxonomy for Community Organizations Active in Disasters

Author(s): Stajura, Michael C. | Advisor(s): Bourque, Linda B | Abstract: Background: Community organizations active in disasters play a vital role in community disaster response and recovery, but academic understanding of this organizational population is limited by untested and imprecise typological differentiations. An organizational taxonomy would better quantify and define this population and subgroups within it. This would allow for contextualizing research and findings against a validated framework that relates organizational groups and subgroups within the broader population. Taxonomies also serve a role similar to theory by enabling the development of new research questions and hypotheses. Objectives: This dissertation proposes a taxonomy to classify the organizations of interest, and the taxonomy uses typological benchmarks that ensure coherent classificatory groups to provide meaning-in-context and salience to the needs of its users. The taxonomy evaluated the utility of structural/operational, functional, and financial traits for classifying the organizations. The taxonomy can guide research and policy development, and it can also provide utility to the community organizations themselves and their collaborative networks. Methods: A novel study population of 660 organizations was created from a stratified non-probability quota sample of 28 Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD) networks. The 660 organizations cover the full range of organizational subtypes/subgroups of interest, and the results are not meant to be generalizable to the VOADs themselves without additional and planned validation. Two sets of hierarchical clustering results were produced and compared using both polythetic and parsimonious trait selection. Iterative and heuristic modeling procedures assessed and compared the results of several important permutations and methodological choices. Findings: The best set of results classified the population based on a parsimonious set of structural/operational traits: charitable/religious and faith-based/not faith-based. The results from both approaches were robust and congruent with the typological understanding of these organizations, but up to one-fourth of the organizations in the study population exhibited noteworthy deviation from common typological distinctions. The results were expanded into a taxonomy with three branches and three tiers to create a combined total of 26 clusters and subclusters. The best set of results also used a modified unit of analysis that classified 47 coherent organizational subgroups, akin to “species”, rather than 660 individual organizations.
A Cascaded Finite-State Parser for German

The paper presents two approaches to partial parsing of German: a tagger trained on dependency tuples, and a cascaded finite-state parser (Abney, 1997). For the tagging approach, the effects of choosing different representations of dependency tuples are investigated. Performance of the finite-state parser is boosted by delaying syntactically unsolvable disambiguation problems via underspecification. Both approaches are evaluated on a 340,000-token corpus.
Objective Method for Determining the Most Valuable Player in Major League Baseball

The sportswriters who select the Most Valuable Player (MVP) and Cy Young award winners for Major League Baseball do not use any mandated criteria to make their selections and as a result, many observers feel they do not select the most appropriate players. In this paper, we introduce an objective criterion for selecting the MVP and Cy Young award winners. We extended the Markov Chain model developed by Bukiet et al. (1997) to include more realistic aspects of baseball, improving its authenticity. We used the model to analyze the various candidates for the two awards over a period of 20 years to determine the players whose performance would have added the greatest number of expected wins to an average team and call these players the “objective winners” of the awards. We found that the sportswriters’ selections matched the objective criterion just under half the time and that the sportswriters selected one of the top three performers nearly 70% of the time.
High resolution study of the abundance pattern of the heavy elements in very metal-poor field stars

The abundances of heavy elements in EMP stars are not well explained by the simple view of an initial basic "rapid" process. In a careful and homogeneous analysis of the "First stars" sample (eighty per cent of the stars have a metallicity [Fe/H]=-3.1$\pm$0.4), it has been shown that at this metallicity [Eu/Ba] is constant, and therefore the Eu-rich stars (generally called "r-rich") are also Ba-rich. The very large variation of [Ba/Fe] (existence of "r-poor" and "r-rich" stars) induces that the early matter was not perfectly mixed. On the other hand, the distribution of the values of [Sr/Ba] vs. [Ba/Fe] appears with well defined upper and lower envelopes. No star was found with [Sr/Ba]<-0.5 and the scatter of [Sr/Ba] increases regularly when [Ba/Fe] decreases. To explain this behavior, we suggest that an early "additional" process forming mainly first peak elements would affect the initial composition of the matter. For a same quantity of accreted matter, this additional Sr production would barely affect the r-rich matter (which already contains an important quantity of Sr) but would change significantly the composition of the r-poor matter. The abundances found in the CEMP-rs stars reflect the transfer of heavy elements from a defunct AGB companion. But the abundances of the heavy elements in CEMP-no stars present the same characteristics as the the abundances in the EMP stars.
Polymorphism of the polyalanine tract of thyroid transcription factor-2 gene in patients with thyroid dysgenesis.

OBJECTIVE One of the thyroid-specific transcription factors, thyroid transcription factor-2 (TTF-2), performs a crucial role in the development of the thyroid gland. We performed genetic analysis of the TITF2 gene (encoding TTF-2) in patients with thyroid dysgenesis. METHODS By direct sequencing of the PCR products of TITF2, we screened the genomic DNA from 46 patients with thyroid dysgenesis (five had agenesis, six had hypoplasia, 15 had ectopy, and 20 were undetermined). We also studied the transcriptional activities of TITF2 by co-expressing the luciferase gene directed by the human thyroglobulin gene promoter. RESULTS Human TITF2 consists of a forkhead domain, a polyalanine tract, and unique C-terminal residues. In one of the patients with an ectopic sublingual thyroid, we found a polyalanine tract of 11 alanine residues on one chromosome instead of the 14 alanine residues found in normal controls. In one patient with hypoplasia, the polyalanine tract consisted of 12 heterozygous alanine residues. The reduced polyalanine tracts were not detected in 101 normal individuals. However, the expression study showed that the transcriptional activities of TITF2 with reduced polyalanine-tract lengths were equal to that of TITF2 with an unreduced polyalanine tract. CONCLUSION These results suggest that the polymorphism of the polyalanine tract of TITF2 is not a frequent cause of developmental defects of the human thyroid gland.
Innovative Methods in Evaluation

Traditional methods of evaluation are limited in their ability to answer key questions often of interest to process evaluators, such as heterogeneity in the ways individuals adopt new programs. In this article, we demonstrate how a statistical approach, Latent Class Analysis, can help improve the quality of process evaluations and illustrate its use in an evaluation of an educational technology integration program in a large school district. In this illustration, we were interested in detecting variability in the ways teachers adopted the new program. We defined classes based on a set of innovative teaching strategies associated with educational technology. Results showed five distinct subgroups of teachers, based on level of program adoption. Results also demonstrate that specific school support strategies (professional development and personalized computing devices) facilitated program adoption. These findings can help to inform individualized support for teachers to optimize the ease and quality with which they are able to adopt new skills in the classroom.
A Noninvasive Genetic/Pharmacologic Strategy for Visualizing Cell Morphology and Clonal Relationships in the Mouse

Analysis of cellular morphology is the most general approach to neuronal classification. With the increased use of genetically engineered mice, there is a growing need for methods that can selectively visualize the morphologies of specified subsets of neurons. This capability is needed both to define cell morphologic phenotypes and to mark cells in a noninvasive manner for lineage studies. To this end, we describe a bipartite genetic system based on a Cre-estrogen receptor (ER) fusion protein that irreversibly activates a plasma membrane-bound alkaline phosphatase reporter gene by site-specific recombination. Because the efficiency and timing of gene rearrangement is controlled pharmacologically, a sparse subset of labeled cells can be generated from the set of CreER-expressing cells at any time during development. Histochemical visualization of alkaline phosphatase activity reveals neuronal morphology with strong and uniform labeling of all processes.
Pharmacokinetics and Toxicity of Sodium Selenite in the Treatment of Patients with Carcinoma in a Phase I Clinical Trial: The SECAR Study

Background: Sodium selenite at high dose exerts antitumor effects and increases efficacy of cytostatic drugs in multiple preclinical malignancy models. We assessed the safety and efficacy of intravenous administered sodium selenite in cancer patients’ refractory to cytostatic drugs in a phase I trial. Patients received first line of chemotherapy following selenite treatment to investigate altered sensitivity to these drugs and preliminary assessment of any clinical benefits. Materials and Methods: Thirty-four patients with different therapy resistant tumors received iv sodium selenite daily for consecutive five days either for two weeks or four weeks. Each cohort consisted of at least three patients who received the same daily dose of selenite throughout the whole treatment. If 0/3 patients had dose-limiting toxicities (DLTs), the study proceeded to the next dose-level. If 2/3 had DLT, the dose was considered too high and if 1/3 had DLT, three more patients were included. Dose-escalation continued until the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) was reached. MTD was defined as the highest dose-level on which 0/3 or 1/6 patients experienced DLT. The primary endpoint was safety, dose-limiting toxic effects and the MTD of sodium selenite. The secondary endpoint was primary response evaluation. Results and Conclusion: MTD was defined as 10.2 mg/m2, with a calculated median plasma half-life of 18.25 h. The maximum plasma concentration of selenium from a single dose of selenite increased in a nonlinear pattern. The most common adverse events were fatigue, nausea, and cramps in fingers and legs. DLTs were acute, of short duration and reversible. Biomarkers for organ functions indicated no major systemic toxicity. In conclusion, sodium selenite is safe and tolerable when administered up to 10.2 mg/m2 under current protocol. Further development of the study is underway to determine if prolonged infusions might be a more effective treatment strategy.
Geometric Mean Metric Learning

We revisit the task of learning a Euclidean metric from data. We approach this problem from first principles and formulate it as a surprisingly simple optimization problem. Indeed, our formulation even admits a closed form solution. This solution possesses several very attractive properties: (i) an innate geometric appeal through the Riemannian geometry of positive definite matrices; (ii) ease of interpretability; and (iii) computational speed several orders of magnitude faster than the widely used LMNN and ITML methods. Furthermore, on standard benchmark datasets, our closed-form solution consistently attains higher classification accuracy.
Local responses to a global monetary policy: The regional structure of financial systems

This paper contrasts the different regional effects of an homogeneous monetary policy, and studies the local characteristics that underlie these differential responses. To this purpose, we use Spanish regional data and estimate a vector autoregression (VAR) model using seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) techniques to characterise regional responses. Results provide evidence of statistically different regional responses of real variables to monetary policy shocks. We use these estimated responses to analyse if they depend on regional characteristics. Results show that manufacturing sectors, a negative financial position, as well as the degree of nominal wage indexation, enhance the effect of monetary policy.
The political economy of climate change reporting in Nigeria

ABSTRACT While scholarly inquiries into the coverage of climate change in Africa are growing, there appears to be a dearth of studies focusing on how the political economy shapes the coverage. This qualitative study addresses this gap by exploring how vested interests, corruption and declining advertising revenue among other factors affect climate change news in Nigeria. The findings of this study ‒ which draws on interviews with journalism professionals undertaken in Lagos in 2013 ‒ suggest that media owners, editors and even climate change reporters have different interests to protect, all of which influence climate change reportage. The study concludes that in order to get their stories published, ethical climate change reporters might need to find creative ways of making their stories meaningful without hurting the interests that appear to frustrate the reporting of the phenomenon. The issues examined in this study provide a research-based framework for the analysis of the political economy of climate change reporting in Nigeria.
Gata3 Acts Downstream of β-Catenin Signaling to Prevent Ectopic Metanephric Kidney Induction

Metanephric kidney induction critically depends on mesenchymal–epithelial interactions in the caudal region of the nephric (or Wolffian) duct. Central to this process, GDNF secreted from the metanephric mesenchyme induces ureter budding by activating the Ret receptor expressed in the nephric duct epithelium. A failure to regulate this pathway is believed to be responsible for a large proportion of the developmental anomalies affecting the urogenital system. Here, we show that the nephric duct-specific inactivation of the transcription factor gene Gata3 leads to massive ectopic ureter budding. This results in a spectrum of urogenital malformations including kidney adysplasia, duplex systems, and hydroureter, as well as vas deferens hyperplasia and uterine agenesis. The variability of developmental defects is reminiscent of the congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT) observed in human. We show that Gata3 inactivation causes premature nephric duct cell differentiation and loss of Ret receptor gene expression. These changes ultimately affect nephric duct epithelium homeostasis, leading to ectopic budding of interspersed cells still expressing the Ret receptor. Importantly, the formation of these ectopic buds requires both GDNF/Ret and Fgf signaling activities. We further identify Gata3 as a central mediator of β-catenin function in the nephric duct and demonstrate that the β-catenin/Gata3 pathway prevents premature cell differentiation independently of its role in regulating Ret expression. Together, these results establish a genetic cascade in which Gata3 acts downstream of β-catenin, but upstream of Ret, to prevent ectopic ureter budding and premature cell differentiation in the nephric duct.
NUCB2/nesfatin-1 Is Associated with Elevated Levels of Anxiety in Anorexia Nervosa

Objective NUCB2/nesfatin-1 is an anorexigenic hormone with elevated levels in obese and decreased levels in anorexia nervosa (AN) patients. Moreover, a role in the regulation of stress and emotions was suggested by several rodent and preliminary human studies. Since anxiety and depression are common comorbidities in AN, we investigated the association of NUCB2/nesfatin-1 with anxiety, depression and perceived stress in AN. Methods We analyzed circulating NUCB2/nesfatin-1 levels in 64 female inpatients diagnosed with anorexia nervosa (body mass index, BMI; mean±SD, 14.7±2.3 kg/m2). At the same time anxiety (GAD-7), depression (PHQ-9), stress (PSQ-20) and disordered eating (EDI-2) were measured psychometrically. Results No correlation was observed between NUCB2/nesfatin-1 and BMI (r = 0.06, p = 0.70). The study population was divided in patients with low anxiety (n = 32, GAD-7 scores, mean±SD, 7.5±3.3) and high anxiety (n = 32, 16.0±3.0, p<0.001). Patients with high anxiety scores displayed 65% higher NUCB2/nesfatin-1 levels (p = 0.04). This was reflected by a positive correlation of GAD-7 and NUCB2/nesfatin-1-levels (r = 0.32, p = 0.04). Scores of PSQ-20 (73.3±14.3 vs. 48.6±17.2) and PHQ-9 (18.8±5.0 vs. 10.3±5.1) were higher in the high anxiety group (p<0.001) but did not correlate with NUCB2/nesfatin-1 (p>0.05). EDI-2 total score was also higher in the high anxiety group (52.3±14.1 vs. 40.2±16.0, p = 0.02), while no correlations of EDI-2-scores with plasma NUCB2/nesfatin-1 were observed (p>0.05). Conclusions Circulating NUCB2/nesfatin-1 levels correlated positively with perceived anxiety, whereas no association with BMI or eating disorder symptoms was observed. NUCB2/nesfatin-1 might be primarily involved in the modulation of anxiety and subsequently in the regulation of eating habits and body weight in AN.
The impact of transformational leadership on employees’ creativity: The mediating role of perceived organizational support

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of transformational leadership on employees’ creativity in the Jordanian banking sector through the mediating effect of perceived organizational support. Design/methodology/approach - The study is based on survey data collected from 369 employees working in Jordanian banks. Validity and reliability analyses were performed, and direct and indirect effects were tested using structural equation modeling. Findings - The results indicate that transformational leadership positively affects some dimensions of employees’ creativity and perceived organizational support. However, perceived organizational support is found to not be significantly related to some dimensions of employees’ creativity. Additionally, the mediating effect of perceived organizational support on the relationship between transformational leadership and some dimensions of employees’ creativity is found to not be significant. Originality/value - This paper is one of the first to examine the relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ creativity through perceived organizational support, especially in an Arab country and in the banking sector.
Empirical Evaluation of Centroid-based Models for Single-label Text Categorization

Centroid-based models have been used in Text Categorization because, despite their computational simplicity, they show a robust behavior and good performance. In this paper we experimentally evaluate several centroidbased models on single-label text categorization tasks. We also analyze document length normalization and two different term weighting schemes. We show that: (1) Document length normalization is not always the best option in a classification task. (2) The traditional tfidf term weighting approach remains very effective, even when compared to more recent approaches. (3) Despite the fact that several ways to calculate the centroid of a class in a dataset have been proposed, there is one that always outperforms the others. (4) A computationally simple and fast centroid-based model can give results similar to the top-performing SVM model.
New approaches to diversity and novelty in recommender systems

Beyond accuracy, novelty and diversity have attracted increasing interest as quality factors of Recommender Systems (RS) in the last few years. This paper presents work in progress towards the application of intentoriented IR diversity techniques to the RS field, and the formalization of novelty and diversity metrics for RS. Experimental results show that the resulting diversification techniques produce interesting results with respect to the metrics defined here.
Social Facilitation Revisited: Increase in Foraging Efforts and Synchronization of Running in Domestic Chicks

Social influences on foraging efforts were examined in domestic chicks by investigating the frequency of runs made to feeders and the amount of pecking to gain food. Single or paired chicks foraged in an I-shaped maze equipped with a millet feeder on each end, that distributed one or two grains at variable intervals. Regardless of when the grain(s) were dispensed, chicks ran back and forth between the feeders. Analyses of their movement patterns revealed: (1) running patterns were not directly synchronized with the dispensing of grain(s), (2) running distance was longer in paired chicks than in single chicks, (3) paired chicks partially synchronized their runs between feeders, and (4) social effects were immediate but cumulative after repeated blocks. We further examined the social effects on running by dividing the I-maze into two parallel lanes separated by a transparent wall, so that kleptoparasitic interference of food did not occur. Again, the chicks increased their running speed and were even more synchronized with their partner's movements, indicating that food competition alone was not responsible for increased foraging effort. The number of pecks to get grains was also assessed under conditions where the food tray was gradually replaced, from an easy one to more difficult ones. When tested in the separated I-maze, paired chicks pecked more in the difficult food situation without increase in the number of gained grains. Results suggest that (i) social facilitation leads to increased foraging efforts and (ii) the presence of a conspecific is alone may lead to enhanced foraging efforts in chicks. These findings are discussed in terms of possible ecological background of social facilitation.