Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Costs of Bureaucratic Rigidity : Evidence from the Indian Administrative Service ú

Using a stakeholder survey and rich administrative data we study elite civil servants in India. We find that o cers that enter state cadres older and in larger cohorts are less e ective and more likely to be suspended. We argue that this is due to weaker promotion prospects and career incentives. We demonstrate that states containing a higher proportion of these o cers grow less quickly and that these e ects are driven by senior o cers and felt most acutely in the organized industrial and service sectors of the economy. Career concerns of bureaucrats therefore a ect both their e ectiveness and aggregate economic performance. JEL classification: D73, H11, O10 úWe are grateful to Padamvir Singh, the former Director of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), for his help with getting this project started and to LBSNAA and the Indian Planning Commission for collaboration. We thank Blackstone Group and its President Ashref Hashim for help with fielding the surveys of bureaucrat e ectiveness. The paper has benefited from comments from Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, James Banks, Timothy Besley, Bronwen Burgess, Ernesto Dal Bo, Iqbal Dhaliwal, Claudio Ferraz, Fred Finan, Alessia Isopi, Aprajit Mahajan, Benjamin Olken, Gerard Padro, Rohini Pande, Torsten Persson, Padamvir Singh, Adam Szeidl and presentations at American Economic Association Annual Meetings, Berkeley, Bocconi, CEPR Public Economics Conference, CEPR Workshop on Incentives, Management and Organisation, Harvard/MIT, HU Berlin, IGC Political Economy Conference, LBSNAA, LSE, Manchester, NBER India Conference, NBER Political Economy Conference, Stanford and Stockholm University. The large-scale data collection e ort and data processing which underpins this paper was financed by the University of Chicago and the DFID funded Institutions for Pro-Poor Growth (iiG) Research Consortium and LSE/Oxford International Growth Centre. The views expressed here are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of DFID. †Marianne Bertrand [University of Chicago Booth School of Business: Marianne.Bertrand@chicagobooth.edu]; Robin Burgess [London School of Economics (LSE) and the International Growth Centre (IGC): r.burgess@lse.ac. uk]; Arunish Chawla [Indian Administrative Service (IAS): arunish.chawla@gmail.com]; Guo Xu [London School of Economics (LSE): g.xu2@lse.ac. uk]
Use of Satellite Soil Moisture to Diagnose Climate Model Representations of European Soil Moisture‐Air Temperature Coupling Strength

Soil moisture‐air temperature coupling (SMTC) strength affects European summer air temperature variability. However, due to a lack of spatially extensive ground‐based soil moisture observations, General Circulation Model predictions of European‐mean SMTC strength have not been adequately verified and contain substantial uncertainties. Here we utilize remotely sensed soil moisture to evaluate estimates of SMTC strength provided by seven Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) General Circulation Models (GCMs). Soil moisture retrievals provided by the Soil Moisture Active/Passive (SMAP) mission are shown to be uniquely suited for this purpose. Comparisons to SMAP‐based estimates suggest that CMIP5 GCMs generally underestimate SMTC strengths—particularly in central Europe. This result is consistent with previous modeling work and highlights the value of L‐band soil moisture remote sensing for land surface‐atmosphere coupling analyses.
Effect of oral hygiene education to mothers on stomatitis induced by chemical therapy in cancer children: A quasi-experimental study

Background: Stomatitis is considered as one of the most important acute complications of chemical therapy. Due to the problems and complications of stomatitis, it is very important to prevent it during chemotherapy. This study explored the effect of oral hygiene education to mothers on stomatitis induced by chemical therapy in cancer children. Methods: The present quasi-experimental research was conducted on 69 mothers with cancer children undergoing chemotherapy hospitalized in a pediatric oncology ward. The mothers were randomly assigned into case and control groups. Oral hygiene pedagogy was delivered face to face. The severity of stomatitis was assessed using the World Health Organization (WHO) checklist once on day 1 of chemotherapy and then on days 7 and 14 after chemotherapy in both groups. The gleaned Data were statistically analyzed using t test, Mann-Whitney test, and χ 2 test. Results: The mean degree of stomatitis on the seventh and fourteenth days after chemotherapy was 0.71 ± 0.52 and 0.32 ± 0.63 in the experimental group and 1.46 ± 0.61 and 2.74 ± 0.92 in the control group, respectively. A significant difference existed between the intensity of stomatitis after education to mothers in the two groups ( P = 0.001). Conclusion: Oral hygiene education to mothers exerted an effect on the severity of stomatitis induced by chemical therapy in cancer children and reduced it on days 7 and 14 after chemotherapy. It is necessary for nurses to control oral hygiene status of these children and the severity of stomatitis every day.
Cohesion‐Induced Stabilization in Stick‐Slip Dynamics of Weakly Wet, Sheared Granular Fault Gouge

We use three‐dimensional discrete element calculations to study stick‐slip dynamics in a weakly wet granular layer designed to simulate fault gouge. The granular gouge is constituted by 8,000 spherical particles with a polydisperse size distribution. At very low liquid content, liquids impose cohesive and viscous forces on particles. Our simulations show that by increasing the liquid content, friction increases and granular layer shows higher recurrence time between slip events. We also observe that slip events exhibit larger friction drop and layer compaction in wet system compared to dry. We demonstrate that a small volume of liquid induces cohesive forces between wet particles that are responsible for an increase in coordination number leading to a more stable arrangement of particles. This stabilization is evidenced with 2 orders of magnitude lower particle kinetic energy in wet system during stick phase. Similar to previous experimental studies, we observe enhanced frictional strength for wet granular layers. In experiments, the physicochemical processes are believed to be the main reason for such behavior; we show, however, that at low confining stresses, the hydromechanical effects of induced cohesion are sufficient for observed behavior. Our simulations illuminate the role of particle interactions and demonstrate the conditions under which induced cohesion plays a significant role in fault zone processes, including slip initiation, weakening, and failure.
Implementation of machine-learning classification in remote sensing: an applied review

ABSTRACT Machine learning offers the potential for effective and efficient classification of remotely sensed imagery. The strengths of machine learning include the capacity to handle data of high dimensionality and to map classes with very complex characteristics. Nevertheless, implementing a machine-learning classification is not straightforward, and the literature provides conflicting advice regarding many key issues. This article therefore provides an overview of machine learning from an applied perspective. We focus on the relatively mature methods of support vector machines, single decision trees (DTs), Random Forests, boosted DTs, artificial neural networks, and k-nearest neighbours (k-NN). Issues considered include the choice of algorithm, training data requirements, user-defined parameter selection and optimization, feature space impacts and reduction, and computational costs. We illustrate these issues through applying machine-learning classification to two publically available remotely sensed data sets.
Sensitivity analysis using approximate moment condition models

We consider inference in models defined by approximate moment conditions. We show that near-optimal confidence intervals (CIs) can be formed by taking a generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator, and adding and subtracting the standard error times a critical value that takes into account the potential bias from misspecification of the moment conditions. In order to optimize performance under potential misspecification, the weighting matrix for this GMM estimator takes into account this potential bias and, therefore, differs from the one that is optimal under correct specification. To formally show the near-optimality of these CIs, we develop asymptotic efficiency bounds for inference in the locally misspecified GMM setting. These bounds may be of independent interest, due to their implications for the possibility of using moment selection procedures when conducting inference in moment condition models. We apply our methods in an empirical application to automobile demand, and show that adjusting the weighting matrix can shrink the CIs by a factor of 3 or more.
Putting prejudice into perspective: Does perceived suitability for adoption depend on sexual orientation more than on other applicant features?

Most prejudice studies focus on a single aspect, for instance, sexual prejudice, overlooking other individual characteristics or multiple minority status (i.e., identity intersections). As a drawback, this approach could overestimate specific sources of prejudice. We demonstrated this empirically in the context of the controversial topic of adoption by same-gender couples. In three experiments (total N = 603) we examined the conditions under which members of the general population rate target adults’ written applications as indicating suitability for adopting, independently manipulating target sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and age. We found that SES explained as much or more variance in adoption suitability decisions as sexual orientation; applicant gender influenced those decisions more than applicant sexual orientation. Younger applicants were also preferred to older ones. Few interactions were obtained. Mediators of adoption suitability decisions were assumptions about the general well-being of the child, and specific worries concerning the child. Our results suggest that reservations against adoption by samegender couples may be overestimated if one focuses exclusively on sexual orientation.
Image Question Answering: A Visual Semantic Embedding Model and a New Dataset

This work aims to address the problem of image-based question-answering (QA) with new models and datasets. In our work, we propose to use recurrent neural networks and visual semantic embeddings without intermediate stages such as object detection and image segmentation. Our model performs 1.8 times better than the recently published results on the same dataset. Another main contribution is an automatic question generation algorithm that converts the currently available image description dataset into QA form, re-sulting in a 10 times bigger dataset with more evenly distributed answers.
Pre-and post-quantum Diﬃe–Hellman from groups, actions, and isogenies

Diﬃe–Hellman key exchange is at the foundations of public-key cryptography, but conventional group-based Diﬃe–Hellman is vulnerable to Shor’s quantum algorithm. A range of “post-quantum Diﬃe– Hellman” protocols have been proposed to mitigate this threat, including the Couveignes, Rostovtsev–Stolbunov, SIDH, and CSIDH schemes, all based on the combinatorial and number-theoretic structures formed by isogenies of elliptic curves. Pre-and post-quantum Diﬃe–Hellman schemes resemble each other at the highest level, but the further down we dive, the more diﬀerences emerge—diﬀerences that are critical when we use Diﬃe–Hellman as a basic component in more complicated constructions. In this survey we compare and contrast pre-and post-quantum Diﬃe–Hellman algorithms, highlighting some important subtleties.
Sources of Comparative Advantage in Polluting Industries

We study the determinants of comparative advantage in polluting industries. We combine data on environmental policy at the country level with data on pollution intensity at the industry level to show that countries with laxer environmental regulation have a comparative advantage in polluting industries. Further, we address the potential problem of reverse causality. We propose an instrument for environmental regulation based on meteorological determinants of pollution dispersion identified by the atmospheric pollution literature. We find that the effect of environmental regulation on the pattern of trade is causal and comparable in magnitude to the effect of physical and human capital.
A high-resolution paleolimnological study of climate and human impacts on Lac Noir, Québec, over the past 1000 yr

Abstract Diatom assemblages in lake sediments of Lac Noir, southwestern Québec, were studied at a resolution of 10 yr to determine principal drivers of primary producers for the past ~1000 yr. Generalized additive modeling revealed strong links between broadscale climate intervals of the late Holocene, forest composition, and diatom flora. During the Medieval Warm Period (~AD 1200) and onset of the Little Ice Age (~AD 1450), increases in Tabellaria flocculosa str. IIIp at the expense of Discostella stelligera reflected low lake productivity. At AD 1630, an abrupt shift to cooler temperatures and dry conditions triggered a decline in hemlock (Tsuga), replaced by disturbance and cool-adapted taxa. Greater nutrient availability and soil erosion in the catchment led to a corresponding and rapid increase in diatoms with higher optima for nitrogen, such as Asterionella formosa and Fragilaria crotonensis. After AD 1870, an increase in pollen of taxa associated with disturbances signaled the arrival of Euro-Canadians, and associated nutrient inputs to the lake triggered increases in Stephanodiscus minutulus and Achnanthidium minutissimum. Overall results of the study indicate that climate played an important underlying role in lake-ecosystem dynamics; however, disturbances affecting forest composition had more direct influences on the diatom communities of Lac Noir.
Anxiety, Depression, and Pain in Burning Mouth Syndrome: First Chicken or Egg?

Background. — Burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is an idiopathic and chronic pain condition for which patients may experience high levels of pain, anxiety, and depression. So far, it has not yet been well investigated whether specific psychiatric features (anxious traits, personality disorder, or somatization) may play a role in the BMS pathogenesis or whether some BMS symptoms, or BMS itself, may cause secondary psychiatric symptoms.
Autophagy: assays and artifacts

Autophagy is a fundamental and phylogenetically conserved self‐degradation process that is characterized by the formation of double‐layered vesicles (autophagosomes) around intracellular cargo for delivery to lysosomes and proteolytic degradation. The increasing significance attached to autophagy in development and disease in higher eukaryotes has placed greater importance on the validation of reliable, meaningful and quantitative assays to monitor autophagy in live cells and in vivo in the animal. To date, the detection of processed LC3B‐II by western blot or fluorescence studies, together with electron microscopy for autophagosome formation, have been the mainstays for autophagy detection. However, LC3 expression levels can vary markedly between different cell types and in response to different stresses, and there is also concern that over‐expression of tagged versions of LC3 to facilitate imaging and detection of autophagy interferes with the process itself. In addition, the realization that it is not sufficient to monitor static levels of autophagy but to measure ‘autophagic flux’ has driven the development of new or modified approaches to detecting autophagy. Here, we present a critical overview of current methodologies to measure autophagy in cells and in animals. Copyright © 2010 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Variability and trends in surface seawater pCO2 and CO2 flux in the Pacific Ocean

Variability and change in the ocean sink of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) have implications for future climate and ocean acidification. Measurements of surface seawater CO2 partial pressure (pCO2) and wind speed from moored platforms are used to calculate high‐resolution CO2 flux time series. Here we use the moored CO2 fluxes to examine variability and its drivers over a range of time scales at four locations in the Pacific Ocean. There are significant surface seawater pCO2, salinity, and wind speed trends in the North Pacific subtropical gyre, especially during winter and spring, which reduce CO2 uptake over the 10 year record of this study. Starting in late 2013, elevated seawater pCO2 values driven by warm anomalies cause this region to be a net annual CO2 source for the first time in the observational record, demonstrating how climate forcing can influence the timing of an ocean region shift from CO2 sink to source.
Mechanical Testing of Ligament Fixation Devices

The fixation of soft tissue grafts used in anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACL) is a determining factor for the long-term success of the ACL reconstruction. This article provides an overview of the mechanical test methods used in our laboratory and the biomechanics literature to compare methods of soft tissue fixation that are available to the practicing orthopaedic surgeon. The basics of uniaxial tensile testing are reviewed with particular attention to the differences between the structural properties of the reconstructed graft and the material properties of the graft itself. The effects of the stiffness of individual components on the overall structural response of the system are studied in the context of a simple series spring model. Techniques used to measure graft cross-sectional area, overall elongation, and graft strain are reviewed. The importance of controlling temperature and hydration during and between tests is emphasized. Failure testing, cyclic loading, and in vitro evaluation of joint kinematics are reviewed with specific attention to factors that affect the overall test results. The final section provides a brief overview of the factors that contribute to a well-designed experiment and statistical analysis. It is hoped that the information in this article will provide the reader with the information necessary to critically evaluate the multitude of experimental studies that compare the mechanical characteristics of different ligament fixation techniques. Key'Words: Anterior cruciate ligament-Soft tissue fixation-Cyclic loading.
Fish E587 glycoprotein, a member of the L1 family of cell adhesion molecules, participates in axonal fasciculation and the age-related order of ganglion cell axons in the goldfish retina

Axons derived from young ganglion cells in the periphery of the retinae of larval and adult goldfish are known to fasciculate with one another and their immediate forerunners, creating the typical age-related order in the retinotectal pathway. Young axons express the E587 antigen, a member of the L1 family of cell adhesion molecules. Repeated injections of Fab fragments from a polyclonal E587 antiserum (E587 Fabs) into the eye of 3.4 cm goldfish disrupted the orderly fascicle pattern of RGC axons in the retina which was preserved in controls. Instead of bundling tightly, RGC axons crossed one another, grew between fascicles and arrived at the optic disk in a broadened front. When added to RGC axons growing in vitro, E587 Fabs neutralized the preference of growth cones to elongate on lanes of E587 protein, caused defasciculation of axons which normally prefer to grow along each other when explanted on polylysine, and prevented clustering of E587 antigen at axon-axon contact sites. Monoclonal E587 antibody disturbed axonal fasciculation moderately but led to a 30% reduction in growth velocities when axons tracked other axons. Therefore we conclude that E587 antigen mediates axonal recognition, selective fasciculation and the creation of the age- related order in the fish retina.
Maternal and Foetal Cardiovascular Effects of the Anaesthetic Alfaxalone in 2-Hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin in the Pregnant Ewe

The objective of this study was to determine the pharmacodynamics effects of the anaesthetic alfaxalone in 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin in pregnant sheep after the intravenous injection of a 2 mg/kg weight dose. Six pregnant Ripollesa sheep, weighing 47.1 ± 4.4 kg, were used. Twenty-four hours after instrumentation, sheep were anaesthetized with intravenous alfaxalone in cyclodextrin. Time to standing from anaesthesia was 30.0 ± 10.81 min. Foetal heart rate increased significantly during the first 5 min after alfaxalone administration. Significant differences were observed in maternal diastolic arterial blood pressure between minute 10 and minutes 90, 120, 150, 180, 210, and 240. Significant differences were observed for foetal systolic arterial blood pressure between 5 and 30 min after alfaxalone administration. Significant differences in foetal pH were detected during the entire study period, whereas maternal pH returned to baseline values by 60 min after alfaxalone administration. The present study indicated that alfaxalone in 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin administered as an intravenous bolus at 2 mg/kg body weight produced minimal adverse effects and an uneventful recovery from anaesthesia in pregnant sheep and their foetus.
AN EXTENSION OF REDUCTION FORMULA FOR LITTLEWOOD-RICHARDSON COEFFICIENTS

There is a well-known classical reduction formula by Griffiths and Harris for Littlewood-Richardson coefficients, which reduces one part from each partition. In this article, we consider an extension of the reduction formula reducing two parts from each partition. This extension is a special case of the factorization theorem of Littlewood-Richardson coefficients by King, Tollu, and Toumazet (the KTT theorem). This case of the KTT factorization theorem is of particular interest, because, in this case, the KTT theorem is simply a reduction formula reducing two parts from each partition. A bijective proof using tableaux of this reduction formula is given in this paper while the KTT theorem is proved using hives.
Molecular Characterization of the Pediatric Preclinical Testing Panel

Purpose: Identifying novel therapeutic agents for the treatment of childhood cancers requires preclinical models that recapitulate the molecular characteristics of their respective clinical histotypes. Experimental Design and Results: Here, we have applied Affymetrix HG-U133Plus2 profiling to an expanded panel of models in the Pediatric Preclinical Testing Program. Profiling led to exclusion of two tumor lines that were of mouse origin and five osteosarcoma lines that did not cluster with human or xenograft osteosarcoma samples. We compared expression profiles of the remaining 87 models with profiles from 112 clinical samples representing the same histologies and show that model tumors cluster with the appropriate clinical histotype, once “immunosurveillance” genes (contributed by infiltrating immune cells in clinical samples) are eliminated from the analysis. Analysis of copy number alterations using the Affymetrix 100K single nucleotide polymorphism GeneChip showed that the models have similar copy number alterations to their clinical counterparts. Several consistent copy number changes not reported previously were found (e.g., gain at 22q11.21 that was observed in 5 of 7 glioblastoma samples, loss at 16q22.3 that was observed in 5 of 9 Ewing's sarcoma and 4 of 12 rhabdomyosarcoma models, and amplification of 21q22.3 that was observed in 5 of 7 osteosarcoma models). We then asked whether changes in copy number were reflected by coordinate changes in gene expression. We identified 493 copy number–altered genes that are nonrandom and appear to identify histotype-specific programs of genetic alterations. Conclusions: These data indicate that the preclinical models accurately recapitulate expression profiles and genetic alterations common to childhood cancer, supporting their value in drug development.