Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Structural Sources of Association the Structural Sources of Association

Where do associations come from? One answer is that they are constructed by individuals with high levels of resources and skills. Another answer is that associations crystallize around a scaffolding of resources, opportunities, and cultural models rooted in the state and world society. We argue the expansion and ‘openness’ of state institutions encourage the formation of associations. Moreover, the institutional structures of world society provide resources and legitimation, supporting the formation of domestic association around the globe. Longitudinal cross-national data on voluntary associations are analyzed using panel models with fixed effects to address unobserved heterogeneity and instrumental variables models to address possible endogeneity. Wealthy and highly educated societies have more associations, consistent with classic views. Institutional features of the state, including overall expansion and openness (i.e., democracy, decentralization) are also linked to higher levels of association. And, nations more strongly tied to world society and those receiving international resources devoted to civil society have more associations. Also, the expanding structure of world society is correlated with growth of association over time. Finally, the impact of these factors varies across types of association. Democracy, for instance, encourages political association but not recreational groups. National ties to world society most strongly affect associations whose aims tend to mirror the agendas of the international community. These factors help make sense of the distinctive configurations of civil society found
Performance Improvements of OFDM Signals Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio

This paper addresses the problem of dynamic spectrum access, discussing a new method for spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks. In particular, an innovative technique for the detection of an OFDM-based primary user signal is here proposed. Performance analysis is carried out in comparison with conventional spectrum sensing method that exploits the autocorrelation coefficients. Unlike the conventional method, our strategy is completely blind and can be applied with no a priori knowledge of any characteristics of the signals of interest. Simulation results have been carried out under operating settings, typical of wireless local area networks.
Humoral Immune Responses of Tuberculosis Patients in Brazil Indicate Recognition of Mycobacterium tuberculosis MPT-51 and GlcB

ABSTRACT The humoral responses to recombinant MPT-51 and GlcB was determined by using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Levels of immunoglobulin M (IgM) against MPT-51 and IgG against GlcB were higher among tuberculosis (TB) patients than among control individuals. When the MPT-51 and GlcB assays were combined, 90.8% specificity and 75.5% sensitivity were observed. MPT-51 and GlcB were recognized in the humoral responses of Brazilian TB patients.
Experiments and Algorithms to Detect Snow Avalanche Victims Using Airborne Ground-Penetrating Radar

Snow avalanche victims have only a good chance to survive when they are located within a short time. This requires an active beacon for them to wear or a very rapid deployment of a search-and-rescue team with dogs. Customary ground-penetrating radar (GPR) instruments used on the snow surface are not able to reduce fatality numbers because they are slow to search a field. A potential alternative could be an airborne search using radar. An airborne radar search is technologically challenging because a very large data stream has to be processed and visualized in real time, and the interaction of the electromagnetic waves with snow, subsurface, and objects must be understood. We studied a two-step algorithm to locate avalanche victims in real time. The algorithm was validated using realistic test arrangements and conditions using an aerial tramway. The distance dependence of the reflection energy with increased flight heights, the coherence between the use of more antennas and the detectable range, and the reflection images of different avalanche victims were measured. The algorithm detected an object for each investigated case, where the reflection energy of the scans was higher than for the scans of pure snow. Airborne GPR has a large potential to become a rapid search method in dry snow avalanches. However, a fully operational version still requires substantial improvements in hardware and software.
GEMs With Double Layered Micropattern Electrodes and Their Applications

We have developed and tested several new designs of GEM detectors with micropattern electrodes manufactured by microelectronic technology. In one design, the inner layer of the detector's electrode consists of thin metallic strips and the outer layer is made of a resistive grid manufactured by a screen printing technology. In other designs, the electrodes were made of metallic strips fed by HV via micro-resistors manufactured by a screen printing technology. Due to these features, the new detectors have several important advantages over conventional GEMs or ordinary thick GEMs. For example, the resistive grid (in the first design) and the screen printed resistors (in other designs) limited the current in case of discharges thus making these detectors intrinsically spark- protected. We will here describe our tests with the photosensitive versions of these detectors (coated with Csl layers) and the efforts of implementing them in several applications. In particular, we will focus on our activity towards the ALICE RICH detector upgrade and on tests of simplified prototypes of cryogenic dark matter detectors.
ROLE OF RECEPTORS AND THE CYTOSKELETON IN REVERSE TRANSFORMATION AND STEROIDOGENESIS INDUCED BY INTERFERON

Interferon, originally described as an antiviral substance, is more and more considered to be a messenger molecule having a much broader but as yet incompletely defined significance. In this presentation we explore the different biological effects of interferon (IF] in transformed cells, either those that are undifferentiated or that have, on the contrary, conserved functional markers of the original tissue (the capacity to produce steroids]. The common link between these different IF effects is the modulation of the cell membrane components which appears shortly after treatment. '. ' We have postulated that this modification is due to cooperative interactions between a nonspecific binding site made up of gangliosides,' and an IF species-specific activator site consisting of glycoproteins and interferon itself. '*' Available data indicate that the IF-governed modulating state has to be preserved for the maintenance of the antiviral state and perhaps for other metabolic effects of this substance'
The aging hippocampus: Neural mechanisms underlying learning and memory deficits in old rats

This dissertation focuses on the effect of aging on two functional aspects of rat hippocampus: cholinergic synaptic transmission and place specific firing of CAl pyramidal cells. The effect of age on the cholinergic slow EPSP was smdied in hippocampal slices of young, adult and old rats. The old rats were impaired on the spatial version of the Morris water task. The amplitude of the slow EPSP was significantly reduced in old rats in all hippocampal subregions (CAl 59%; CAS 55%; and DG 56%). Few statistically significant correlations, however, were found between the age-related deficit in spatial leaming and the cholinergic deficit. In the subsequent study, effects of selective neurotoxic lesions of cholinergic afferents to the hippocampus on performance on two versions (spatial working memory and spatial reference memory) of the radial-8-arm maze task were examined. The lesioned rats were impaired in acquisition, but not retention, of the working memory task. There was no treatment effect, however, on acquisition of the reference memory task. The results suggest that the age-related deficits in hippocampal cholinergic function may contribute to behavioral deficits of old rats in working memory situations, but may not be primarily responsible for the spatial reference memory problem in the Morris water task. The spatial and temporal firing characteristics of CAl neurons were studied in young and old rats performing a simple spatial task on a rectangular track. The average place fields of young rats were larger than those of old rats. Precession of spike discharge relative to the theta rhythm proceeded faster in old rats, while the total phase change remained constant. These age-related changes were apparently due to a loss of experience dependent place field expansion of old rats during the first few laps around the track for a given recording session. The field sizes were not different between groups on lap I.
The carbon balance of Africa: synthesis of recent research studies

The African continent contributes one of the largest uncertainties to the global CO2 budget, because very few long-term measurements are carried out in this region. The contribution of Africa to the global carbon cycle is characterized by its low fossil fuel emissions, a rapidly increasing population causing cropland expansion, and degradation and deforestation risk to extensive dryland and savannah ecosystems and to tropical forests in Central Africa. A synthesis of the carbon balance of African ecosystems is provided at different scales, including observations of land–atmosphere CO2 flux and soil carbon and biomass carbon stocks. A review of the most recent estimates of the net long-term carbon balance of African ecosystems is provided, including losses from fire disturbance, based upon observations, giving a sink of the order of 0.2 Pg C yr−1 with a large uncertainty around this number. By comparison, fossil fuel emissions are only of the order of 0.2 Pg C yr−1 and land-use emissions are of the order of 0.24 Pg C yr−1. The sources of year-to-year variations in the ecosystem carbon-balance are also discussed. Recommendations for the deployment of a coordinated carbon-monitoring system for African ecosystems are given.
Managing schema evolution in a container‐based persistent system

Managing schema evolution is a problem every persistent system has to cope with to be useful in practice. Schema evolution consists basically of supporting class modification and dealing with data objects created and stored under the old class definitions. Several proposals have been made to handle this problem in systems that follow a full orthogonally persistent approach, but, until now, there has not been any proposal to support it in container‐based persistent systems. In this paper we describe a schema evolution management system designed for Barbados. Barbados is a complete programming environment which is based on an architecture of containers to provide persistent storage. Barbados does not provide full orthogonal persistence, but, as will be described in this paper, its architecture has several other advantages. Among them is the fact that this model is especially suitable for solving the schema evolution problem. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Record of seamount production and off‐axis evolution in the western North Atlantic Ocean, 25°25′–27°10′N

Using multibeam bathymetry, we identified 86 axial and 1290 off-axis seamounts (near-circular volcanoes with heights ≥70 m) in an area of 75,000 km2 on the western flank of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR), 25°25′N to 27°10′N, extending ∼400 km from the inner rift valley floor to ∼29 Ma crust. Our study shows that seamounts are a common morphological feature of the North Atlantic seafloor. Seamount-producing volcanism occurs primarily on the inner rift valley floor, and few, if any, seamounts are formed on the rift valley walls or the ridge flank. The high abundance of off-axis seamounts is consistent with 1–3 km wide sections of oceanic crust being transferred intact from the axial valley to the ridge flank on crust >4 Ma. Significant changes in seamount abundances, sizes, and shapes are attributed to the effects of faulting between ∼0.6 and 2 m.y. off axis in the lower rift valley walls. Few seamounts are completely destroyed by (inward facing) faults, and population abundances are similar to those on axis. However, faulting reduces the characteristic height of the seamount population significantly. In the upper portions of the rift valley, on 2–4 Ma crust, crustal aging processes (sedimentation and mass wasting), together with additional outward facing faults, destroy and degrade a significant number of seamounts. Beyond the crest of the rift mountains (>4 Ma crust) faulting is no longer active, and changes in the off-axis seamount population reflect crustal aging processes as well as temporal changes in seamount production that occurred at the ridge axis. Estimates of population density for off-axis seamounts show a positive correlation to crustal thickness inferred from analysis of gravity data, suggesting that increased seamount production accompanies increased magma input at the ridge axis. We find no systematic variations in seamount population density along isochron within individual ridge segments. Possible explanations are that along-axis production of seamounts is uniform or that seamount production is enhanced in some regions (e.g., segment centers), but many seamounts do not meet our counting criteria because they are masked by younger volcanic eruptions and low-relief flows.
THE THEORY OF STRATIFIED , QUASI-BALANCED FLOWS ON THE SPHERE Submitted

OF THESIS THE THEORY OF STRATIFIED, QUASI-BALANCED FLOWS ON THE SPHER E This work presents a dynamical model that depicts fully global flows. This mod el is stratified and the Coriolis force is applied without approximation. The balance con diti originally introduced by Charney and Drazin (1961) is used to provide a relationsh ip between the geopotential anomaly field and the streamfunction. Rather than using the geostrophic win d as the advecting quantity, the rotational part of the wind is used for advection. This approx imation remains good as long as the large-scale divergence remains small. An invertibility principle is developed for this balanced model that allows the stre amfunction to be calculated if the pseudo-potential vorticity is known. The streamfunction an then be used to compute the pseudo-potential vorticity at the next time step. In this way a pred ictiv system of equations can be implemented to forecast the development of atmospheric flows . The Charney-Stern necessary condition for combined baroclinic-baro tropic instability is generalized to the spherical domain, and the two-layer model is briefly examined. W also modify the index of refraction given by Matsuno (1970) so as to eliminate its singularities a the poles. The beginning steps of applying our balanced model to geostrophic turbule nce are also presented. The Rhines length is generalized to a stratified spherical framewor k, and the “Parseval relation” is given for both the total energy and the total potential enstrophy . Levi Glenn Silvers Department of Atmospheric Science Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1371 Spring 2007
Employee Assistance Program Adoption in Australia

Abstract Employee Assistance Programs have been enthusiastically adopted by Australian organizations, although generally in the absence of clearly identified corporate needs. To date EAP adoption research has relied on retrospective accounts that include rationales such as the provision of a socially responsible service to employees. Such rationales, which are biased by knowledge of the EAPs' outcomes, may not accurately reflect the strategic and operational influences behind an organization's decision to adopt an EAP. Using semi-structured interviews this study demonstrated the existence of different thematic patterns between prospective and retrospective rationales for EAP adoption in Australia, and developed a 2-stage (adoption and continued use) model of organizational rationales for the use of EAPs. Developing strategically integrated rationales for EAP adoption will enable more effective and efficient organizational use of these services.
The Effects of Teachers’ Characteristics on Placement Recommendations for Students with Visual Impairments

This article reports on a study of 116 certified teachers of students with visual impairments who responded to a questionnaire containing a teacher-efficacy scale, a hypothetical case report, and questions about the teachers. The study found that a teacher's current job placement was the most distinctive teacher variable affecting the teacher's placement recommendations for students. Other teacher variables that influenced these recommenations were type of community, teaching efficacy, and years of teaching experience in a specific setting.
Observational Evidence for the Coevolution of Galaxy Mergers, Quasars, and the Blue/Red Galaxy Transition

We compile a number of observations to estimate the time-averaged rate of formation or buildup of red sequence galaxies, as a function of mass and redshift. Comparing this with the mass functions of mergers and quasar hosts, and independently comparing their clustering properties as a function of redshift, we find that these populations trace the same mass distribution, with similar evolution, at redshifts 0 < z ≲ 1.5. Knowing one of the quasar, merger, or elliptical mass/luminosity functions, it is possible to predict the others. Allowing for greater model dependence, we compare the rate of early-type buildup with the implied merger and quasar triggering rates as a function of mass and redshift and find agreement. Over this redshift range, observed merger fractions can account for the entire bright quasar luminosity function and buildup of the red sequence at all but the highest masses at low redshift (≳1011 M☉ at z ≲ 0.3) where "dry" mergers appear to dominate. This supports a necessary prediction of theories where mergers between gas-rich galaxies produce ellipticals with an associated phase of quasar activity, after which the remnant becomes red. These populations trace a similar characteristic transition mass, possibly reflecting the mass above which the elliptical population is mostly (≳50%) assembled at a given redshift, which increases with redshift over the observed range in a manner consistent with suggestions that cosmic downsizing may apply to red galaxy assembly as well as star formation. These mass distributions as a function of redshift do not uniformly trace the all/red/blue galaxy population, ruling out models in which quasar activity is generically associated with star formation or is long lived in "old" systems.
Reduced short-term complications and mortality following Enhanced Recovery primary hip and knee arthroplasty: results from 6,000 consecutive procedures

Background and purpose Enhanced Recovery (ER) is a well-established multidisciplinary strategy in lower limb arthroplasty and was introduced in our department in May 2008. This retrospective study reviews short-term outcomes in a consecutive unselected series of 3,000 procedures (the “ER” group), and compares them to a numerically comparable cohort that had been operated on previously using a traditional protocol (the “Trad” group). Methods Prospectively collected data on surgical endpoints (length of stay (LOS), return to theater (RTT), re-admission, and 30- and 90-day mortality) and medical complications (stroke, gastrointestinal bleeding, myocardial infarction, and pneumonia within 30 days; deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism within 60 days) were compared. Results ER included 1,256 THR patients and 1,744 TKR patients (1,369 THRs and 1,631 TKRs in Trad). The median LOS in the ER group was reduced (3 days vs. 6 days; p = 0.01). Blood transfusion rate was also reduced (7.6% vs. 23%; p < 0.001), as was RTT rate (p = 0.05). The 30-day incidence of myocardial infarction declined (0.4% vs. 0.9%; p = 0.03) while that of stroke, gastrointestinal bleeding, pneumonia, deep vein thrombosis, and pulmonary embolism was not statistically significantly different. Mortality at 30 days and at 90 days was 0.1% and 0.5%, respectively, as compared to 0.5% and 0.8% using the traditional protocol (p = 0.03 and p = 0.1, respectively). Interpretation This is the largest study of ER arthroplasty, and provides safety data on a consecutive unselected series. The program has achieved a statistically significant reduction in LOS and in cardiac ischemic events for our patients, with a near-significant decrease in return to theater and in mortality rates.
Study of the von Mises stress in RF MEMS switch anchors

In this paper an analysis of the von Mises stress in the RF MEMS switch structures is presented. This study was performed to analyze and optimize the stress in the anchors area for switch structures addressed to K and W frequency bands. Different types of anchors were taken into consideration and a comparison of von Mises stress has been performed. Optimization showed that it is possible to reduce stress up to more than 80% of its baseline, to the values much smaller than the breaking coefficient (100Mpa).
Acoustic characterisation of vowel production by young adults with Down syndrome

Down Syndrome (DS) is a frequent genetic disorder that has systematic consequences on speech articulation. The acoustic properties of speech production of people with DS have been poorly investigated in speech research. This paper reports on an acoustic analysis of vowels produced by eight native speakers of French with DS in Vowel- Consonant-Vowel contexts. We observed more variability in duration, pitch and formants in vowels produced by people with DS compared with “ordinary” speakers. F0 was always higher for people with DS who also tended to display a larger vocalic space in VCV production than ordinary people. We interpret these results regarding motor control issues reported in previous works involving people with DS.
Burnout and Depression: Two Entities or One?

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to examine the overlap in burnout and depression. METHOD The sample comprised 1,386 schoolteachers (mean [M]age = 43; Myears taught = 15; 77% women) from 18 different U.S. states. We assessed burnout, using the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure, and depression, using the depression module of the Patient Health Questionnaire. RESULTS Treated dimensionally, burnout and depressive symptoms were strongly correlated (.77; disattenuated correlation, .84). Burnout and depressive symptoms were similarly correlated with each of 3 stress-related factors, stressful life events, job adversity, and workplace support. In categorical analyses, 86% of the teachers identified as burned out met criteria for a provisional diagnosis of depression. Exploratory analyses revealed a link between burnout and anxiety. CONCLUSIONS This study provides evidence that past research has underestimated burnout-depression overlap. The state of burnout is likely to be a form of depression. Given the magnitude of burnout-depression overlap, treatments for depression may help workers identified as "burned out. "