Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trajectories Entropy in Dynamical Graphs with Memory

In this paper we investigate the application of non-local graph entropy to evolving and dynamical graphs. The measure is based upon the notion of Markov diffusion on a graph, and relies on the entropy applied to trajectories originating at a specific node. In particular, we study the model of reinforcement-decay graph dynamics, which leads to scale free graphs. We find that the node entropy characterizes the structure of the network in the two parameter phase-space describing the dynamical evolution of the weighted graph. We then apply an adapted version of the entropy measure to purely memristive circuits. We provide evidence that meanwhile in the case of DC voltage the entropy based on the forward probability is enough to characterize the graph properties, in the case of AC voltage generators one needs to consider both forward and backward based transition probabilities. We provide also evidence that the entropy highlights the self-organizing properties of memristive circuits, which re-organizes itself to satisfy the symmetries of the underlying graph.
Challenges Surrounding the Collection and Use of Data for the Study of Finance and Productivity.

emergence of policy issues in education finance appears to be outpacing the capacity of state and other agencies' abilities to conceptualize and collect relevant data. Policymakers, for example, are faced with new conceptions of equity that presuppose an ability to measure resource flows at multiple levels of the education system with only rudimentary information about what happens to educational resources at the school or program level.1 In addition, there is growing interest in the productivity of educational resources, and it is becoming clear that progress on this front requires access to more refined measures of schooling inputs than heretofore have been available.2 As a consequence, there is a need to redesign data collection efforts so that the information collected is better suited to the policy issues that need to be resolved. In particular, it is becoming clear that more needs to be done to collect data that gives insight into resource allocation practices taking place within local education agencies (LE As). At the same time, not enough is being done to make use of the data that is currently being collected. Some states maintain large and sophisticated data collection operations only to see the fruits of these efforts languish underutilized. Partly, this lack of use is due to the first challenge (i.e., the gap that is opening between the data that is collected and the emerging needs of policymakers), but the lack of use also arises because of how the data is collected
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Corticospinal excitability not affected by negative motor imagery or intention par Inge Broer Département de psychologie Faculté des arts et des sciences Mémoire présenté à la Faculté des arts et des sciences en vue de l'obtention du grade de M.Sc. en psychologie Septembre, 2013 Bien que l'imagerie motrice positive ait été bien étudiée et est utilisée en réhabilitation, l'effet de l'imagerie motrice négative est beaucoup moins connu. Le but de cette recherche était de définir si l'intention et/ou l'imagerie motrice négative serait en mesure de réduire l'effet d'une stimulation magnétique transcrânienne (SMT) sur le cortex moteur. Vingt participants ont reçu trente stimulations de SMT dans trois situations différentes : En restant passif, en portant une attention particulière aux sensations dans leur main ou en tentant de réduire l'effet de la SMT. La moitié des participants ont utilisé une stratégie d'imagerie motrice, l'autre moitié leur intention. Dans les deux cas, l'amplitude dans la condition de modulation n'a pas été réduite de façon significative. Although positive motor imagery has been widely studied and is used in rehabilitation, the effect of negative motor imagery on our motor system is less well understood. Our goal was to ascertain whether intention and/or negative visual imagery is effective in decreasing the twitch resulting from transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the primary motor cortex. Twenty participants received 30 TMS stimulations in three different conditions: remaining passive, paying particular attention to the sensations in their hand, and attempting to modulate the amplitude of the resulting movement. To do this, half the participants used an imagery strategy, whereas the other half used an intention strategy. In both cases, amplitude in the modulation condition was not significantly reduced.
Sovereign Debt: is to Forgive to Forget?

International lending to a less-developed country cannot be based on the debtor's reputation for making repayments. That is, loans to LDCs will not be made or repaid unless foreign creditors have legal or other direct sanctions they can exercise against a sovereign debtor who defaults Even if some lending is feasible because of direct sanctions, having a reputation for repayment in no way enhances a small LDC's ability to borrow.
Empowerment and Efficiency: The Economics of Agrarian Reform

We analyze the effect of agricultural tenancy laws that offer security of tenure to tenants and regulate the share of output they should pay the landlord as rent on farm productivity. Theoretically, the net impact of tenancy reform is shown to be a combination of two effects. A bargaining power effect tends to improve the crop-share of tenants and hence improves their incentives in general. A security of tenure effect tends to encourage investment by the tenant on one hand, but on the other hand eliminates the possibility of using eviction threats as an incentive device by the landlord. Analysis of evidence on how contracts and productivity changed after a tenancy reform program was implemented in the Indian state of West Bengal in the late seventies suggests that tenancy reform played an important role in increasing agricultural productivity.
Nordic International Business Research

Abstract This article identifies the specific characteristics of Nordic international business research by analyzing how Nordic researchers over time have perceived and conceptualized their research object, “the international firm. ” Their perceptions about essential features of the international firm are arguably reflected in their theoretical and empirical work on the internationalization of the firm and the management of the international firm.
Business Cycles and the Labour Market: Can Theory Fit the Facts?

The performance of six alternative models in accounting for UK labour market behaviour over the business cycle is examined. Models are assessed in terms of their ability to mimic actual cycle correlations and volatility, their success in replicating persistence, and their success in modelling asymmetries between expansions and downturns. Most are found to be successful in accounting for co-movements of key variables and in explaining asymmetries. But the models underpredict the volatility of employment and unemployment, produce too high a correlation between wages and employment, and do not capture the slow adjustment exhibited in the data.
The Acquisition of Some Properties of the BA Construction by English-speaking Learners of Chinese

There have been numerous studies on the linguistic properties of the BA construction in Mandarin Chinese and the semantic meanings of this construction. However, there have not been as adequate studies on the acquisition of the BA, especially by L2 Chinese learners. This study examines the acquisition of some linguistic properties of the BA construction by the nature of those properties: some are pure syntactic, some involve knowledge from the interface of two domains: syntax and semantics. The results indicate that L2 Chinese learners’ performance on properties in the core syntax domain is significantly better than on those at the syntax-semantics interface. However, this advantage is not consistent cross the core syntax domain. L2 Chinese learners’ performances within the core syntax domain are significantly correlated but at different accuracy levels.
Phosphorylation of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa Response Regulator AlgR Is Essential for Type IV Fimbria-Mediated Twitching Motility

ABSTRACT The response regulator AlgR is required for both alginate biosynthesis and type IV fimbria-mediated twitching motility in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In this study, the roles of AlgR signal transduction and phosphorylation in twitching motility and biofilm formation were examined. The predicted phosphorylation site of AlgR (aspartate 54) and a second aspartate (aspartate 85) in the receiver domain of AlgR were mutated to asparagine, and mutant algR alleles were introduced into the chromosome of P. aeruginosa strains PAK and PAO1. Assays of these mutants demonstrated that aspartate 54 but not aspartate 85 of AlgR is required for twitching motility and biofilm initiation. However, strains expressing AlgR D85N were found to be hyperfimbriate, indicating that both aspartate 54 and aspartate 85 are involved in fimbrial biogenesis and function. algD mutants were observed to have wild-type twitching motility, indicating that AlgR control of twitching motility is not mediated via its role in the control of alginate biosynthesis. In vitro phosphorylation assays showed that AlgR D54N is not phosphorylated by the enteric histidine kinase CheA. These findings indicate that phosphorylation of AlgR most likely occurs at aspartate 54 and that aspartate 54 and aspartate 85 of AlgR are required for the control of the molecular events governing fimbrial biogenesis, twitching motility, and biofilm formation in P. aeruginosa.
Management: Challenges for Tomorrow's Leaders

Management: Challenges for Tomorrow's Leaders, Fourth Edition, explains the function and role of management in today's organization, presenting current theory, trends, and influences on today's managers and organizations. The text balances theory and practice, providing numerous applications for students to better understand how management concepts are applied. The primary theme of the fourth edition is the role and importance of leadership in today's organization. Throughout the text are discussions and highlighted examples of the impact of leadership and how organizations diffuse responsibility through every level of an organization.
Genome-Wide microRNA Profiling of Rat Hippocampus after Status Epilepticus Induced by Amygdala Stimulation Identifies Modulators of Neuronal Apoptosis

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small and endogenously expressed non-coding RNAs that negatively regulate the expression of protein-coding genes at the translational level. Emerging evidence suggests that miRNAs play critical roles in central nervous system under physiological and pathological conditions. However, their expression and functions in status epilepticus (SE) have not been well characterized thus far. Here, by using high-throughput sequencing, we characterized miRNA expression profile in rat hippocampus at 24 hours following SE induced by amygdala stimulation. After confirmation by qRT-PCR, six miRNAs were found to be differentially expressed in brain after SE. Subsequent Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analysis indicated that most of the predicted target genes for these six miRNAs were related to neuronal apoptosis. We then investigated the dynamic changes of these six miRNAs at different time-point (4 hours, 24 hours, 1 week and 3 weeks) after SE. Meanwhile, neuronal survival and apoptosis in the hippocampus after SE were evaluated by Nissl staining and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP end-labeling assay. We found that the expression of miR-874-3p, miR-20a-5p, miR-345-3p, miR-365-5p, and miR-764-3p were significantly increased from 24 hours to 1 week, whereas miR-99b-3p level was markedly decreased from 24 hours to 3 weeks after SE. Further analysis revealed that the levels of miR-365-5p and miR-99b-3p were significantly correlated with neuronal apoptosis after SE. Taken together, our data suggest that miRNAs are important modulators of SE-induced neuronal apoptosis. These findings also open new avenues for future studies aimed at developing strategies against neuronal apoptosis after SE.
A Preliminary Investigation of Superintendents' Perceptions Regarding Recruitment and Selection of Principals.

Current research suggests principal effectiveness is key to a successful instructional program. However, there is considerable lack of uniformity among superintendents regarding principal recruitment and selection. Of the 80 srveys mailed to a random sample of the nation's superintendents, 35 usable surveys rating the importance of 42 recruitment and selection procedures were completed and returned. Development of an accurate job description and professional references ranked the highest in their respective categories. A total of 6 factors were extracted from 22 selection tools. Three factors related to how well the candidate fits into the school system and community, two pertained to advanced academic training, and the last related to the candidate's personal background. An extensive description of methodology and tables of results are included. (EJS) * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF SUPERINTENDENTS' PERCEPTIONS REGARDING RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION OF PRINCIPALS Mark A. Baron The University of Alabama 2 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educatanal Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) /his document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization onginating it 0 Minor changes hive been made tO unprOve reproduction Chi Arty Points Of view Or opinions stated t ISOCu mant do not necessenly represent official OERI position or policy "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC). " A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF SUPERINTENDENTS' PERCEPTIONS REGARDING RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION OF PRINCIPALS Mark A. Baron The University of Alabama Introduction Current research suggests that the principal's leadership is one of the key determinants in the success of any school. Both the "effective schools" research of the 1970s (Austin, 1979; Edmunds, 1979) and "excellence movement" of the 1980s (Drake & Roe, 1986) have provided evidence that strong administrative leadership is an indispensable characteristic of effective
PBMC transcriptome profiles identifies potential candidate genes and functional networks controlling the innate and the adaptive immune response to PRRSV vaccine in Pietrain pig

The porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is a devastating viral disease affecting swine production, health and welfare throughout the world. A synergistic action of the innate and the adaptive immune system of the host is essential for mounting a durable protective immunity through vaccination. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the transcriptome profiles of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) to characterize the innate and the adaptive immune response to PRRS Virus (PRRSV) vaccination in Pietrain pigs. The Affymetrix gene chip porcine gene 1.0 ST array was used for the transcriptome profiling of PBMCs collected at immediately before (D0), at one (D1) and 28 days (D28) post PRRSV vaccination with three biological replications. With FDR <0.05 and log2 fold change ±1.5 as cutoff criteria, 295 and 115 transcripts were found to be differentially expressed in PBMCs during the stage of innate and adaptive response, respectively. The microarray expression results were technically validated by qRT-PCR. The gene ontology terms such as viral life cycle, regulation of lymphocyte activation, cytokine activity and inflammatory response were enriched during the innate immunity; cytolysis, T cell mediated cytotoxicity, immunoglobulin production were enriched during adaptive immunity to PRRSV vaccination. Significant enrichment of cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, signaling by interleukins, signaling by the B cell receptor (BCR), viral mRNA translation, IFN-gamma pathway and AP-1 transcription factor network pathways were indicating the involvement of altered genes in the antiviral defense. Network analysis revealed that four network modules were functionally involved with the transcriptional network of innate immunity, and five modules were linked to adaptive immunity in PBMCs. The innate immune transcriptional network was found to be regulated by LCK, STAT3, ATP5B, UBB and RSP17. While TGFß1, IL7R, RAD21, SP1 and GZMB are likely to be predictive for the adaptive immune transcriptional response to PRRSV vaccine in PBMCs. Results of the current immunogenomics study advances our understanding of PRRS in term of host-vaccine interaction, and thereby contribute to design a rationale for disease control strategy.
Accuracy assessment of the FARO Focus 3D and Leica HDS6100 panoramic- type terrestrial laser scanners through point-based and plane-based user self-calibration

SUMMARY Recent developments of terrestrial laser scanners h ave made these accurate and efficient survey instruments more affordable and portable. I n this paper, the geometric accuracy of two terrestrial laser scanners (i.e. the FARO Focus 3D and the Leica HDS6100) is being evaluated. Both of these mid-range instruments are phase-based and have a panoramic architecture. The Focus 3D is currently one of the most compact and affordabl e 3D terrestrial laser scanners on the market. The geometric qualit y of this latest generation laser scanner will be compared to the HDS6100. The quality assessments performed in this paper are centred on the self-calibration method for terrestrial lase r scanners. This method can remove systematic defects in the instrument without hardwa re modifications or specialized equipment. Through the observation of either signa lised targets or planar-features, the residual systematic errors in the laser scanner can be modelled mathematically. From previous studies, these unmodelled systematic error s can drastically deteriorate the point cloud quality and the self-calibration approach has been proven to be an effective tool for eliminating systematic effects caused by flaws of i ndividual components and misalignment between components. Through redundant observations, the distance and angular measurement precision can be estimated in a least-s quares adjustment and used as a quantitative measure for comparing the systems. Bo th laser scanners were tested and calibrated multiple times at the University of Calg ary. Based on the experimental results presented in this paper, it was discovered that dat a coming from the more affordable Focus 3D are contaminated with significant systematic errors . Even after self-calibration, the measurement random noise is still higher than the H DS6100. However, at close-range the contribution of the higher random noise to the posi tioning solution is small and does not have a significant detrimental impact on the mapped scen e.
Solvent effects on structural and thermochemical properties of p53 tumor-suppressor gene: a molecular modeling approach in drug design

The p53 tumor-suppressor protein is a cellular phosphoprotein and a negative regulator of cell growth. Most p53 mutations occur in exons 5–8 within the DNA-binding domain. Therefore, p53 can potentially be targeted with novel drugs designed to bind to a mutation and restore its stability or wild-type conformation. For the current study, Hartree–Fock calculations were used to investigate the solvent-induced effects of five different solvent media (acetone, ethanol, methanol, dimethyl sulfoxide, and water) on the thermochemical parameters and relative energies, and on the multinuclear nuclear magnetic resonance shielding tensors of oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus nuclei, of GAT. To understand how the solvent affects the mutation region (the “hot spot”) of p53, the relative energies of GAT in selected solvent media were determined. Some biological evidence suggested the structural stabilities of hot spots of GAT have the optimum temperature and solvent type for mutation. All the authors’ findings are in accordance with common biological phenomena. Another important objective of this study was to compare the hydration Gibbs free energies of CUA and GAT in water using two different approaches where the solvent was treated as a continuum of the constant at different levels of Hartree–Fock theory. The Gibbs hydration energy values obtained in water with the polarized continuum model directly applied on the isolated CUA and GAT sequences were compared with those determined from the hydrated models with four, six, and eight water molecule clusters around the hot spots uracil and adenine. The clustered structures of water molecules around the hot spots of GAT (in DNA level) and CUA (in transcriptional level) were found to be energetically favored. The results of this study provide a reliable insight into the nature of mutation processes, which is of utmost importance for the study of biochemical structures, and provide a basis for drug design.
Effects of the Placement of Diverse Items in Recommendation Lists

Over the last fifteen years, a large amount of research in recommender systems was devoted to the development of algorithms that focus on improving the accuracy of recommendations. More recently, it has been proposed that accuracy is not the only factor that contributes to the quality of recommender systems. Among others, the diversity of recommendation lists has been considered as one of the most important factors. Therefore a number of algorithms were proposed to generate the recommendation list with diverse items. However, limited research has been done regarding how to position those diverse items in the list. In this paper we therefore investigate how to organize the diverse items to achieve a higher perceived recommendation quality. The results of an experimental study show that the perceived diversity of a recommendation list depends on the placement of diverse items. Placing the diverse items dispersedly or together at the bottom of the list can increase the perceived diversity. In addition, we found that in the movie domain including diverse items in the recommendation list does not hurt user satisfaction, which means that recommender systems providers have some flexibility to add some extra items to the lists, for example to increase the serendipity of the recommendations.
Evaluation of Risk Factors for Recurrent Wheezing Episodes

Background We aimed to evaluate the risk factors for recurrent wheezing in patients diagnosed with acute bronchiolitis. Method From 2009 to 2011, 500 patients from the pediatric clinics, with first attack of acute bronchiolitis were included in this prospective study. Each patient’s age, gender, birth weight, duration of breastfeeding, family history of atopy and asthma, smoking exposure, source of heating in the house, the presence of pets, any history of chronic disease have been questioned. The patients were followed for a duration of 12 - 24 months. Results In this study, 39% (n = 195) of the cases were female and 61% (n = 305) were male, with a median age of 3 months old. Male gender, low birth weight (< 2,500 g), low gestational age (< 37 weeks), breastfeeding of less than 6 months, congenital heart disease, family history of atopy, asthma, smoking exposure, stove warming, was found as significant risk factors for recurrent wheezing, however, presence of pets at home was found to be a protective factor. Conclusions Informing parents about the risk factors such as exposure to cigarette smoke, heating mode, duration of breastfeeding can significantly decrease recurrent episodes of wheezing.