Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Next in Line – Romanians at the Gates of the EU (emigrants, border control, legislation)

The first of May 2004 marked an important date in the history of Europe as a political, geographic, and social entity. After years of negotiations, ten European countries joined the European Union, bringing in their potential and expectations, adding a total population of 75 million people and a territory of 738,000 square kilometres: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Malta, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The EU will continue its enlargement under the Luxembourg Presidency. The membership treaty with Bulgaria and Romania will be finalised with a view to signature in 25 April 2005, in order to join the EU by 2007. Once it has been signed, this will mark the end of the current accession cycle. Membership negotiations with Croatia should commence on 17 March 2005. In mid-December 2004 EU leaders endorsed eventual Turkish entry into the EU, but said that there could be permanent restrictions on freedom of movement for Turkish workers; earlier, the EU Parliament voted 407-262 in favour of Turkey's entry. Romania feels and acts like a European country. You will rather notice a European flag in Bucharest than in London, for example. Romania is not only a country who makes effort to join the European family, by introducing the necessary legal provisions in the national legislation, but it is already part of one, whole Europe, ruled by law, an area of Freedom, Security and Justice. Romania fights against immigration flows targeting Western Countries and guards the external border of European Union. In the same time, Romanians are spread all over Europe, living there alike other Europeans. Until the European Union Member States will decide that Romania truly deserves to join the family, Romanians have to prove that they do not only feel and act as Europeans, but they truly are Europeans
Gender, Achievement, and African-American Students' Perceptions of Their School Experience

This article discusses factors related to academic achievement among African-American male and female students. A review of the literature on achievement and gender differences among African-American students and two empirical studies I conducted are presented. The results of the first study, which focused on achievement, indicated that successful achievers reported more positive self-perceptions, more interpersonal support, and more active problem solving. The results of the second study, which focused on gender differences, indicated differences in support favoring females. In addition, some gender differences were found in this sample that differed from those found for White students.
Wording Effects in Survey Research: Using Meta-Analysis to Explain the Forbid/Allow Asymmetry

Answers to standardised attitude questions not only depend on the attitude respondents have on the issue, but are also influenced by the wording of the question. A well known example of this phenomenon is the forbid/allow asymmetry. Although the verbs ‘forbid’ and ‘allow’ are supposed to be each others’ counterparts, the answers to questions worded with the verb ‘forbid’ turn out not to be opposite to answers to equivalent ‘allow’-questions: respondents turn out to be more likely to respond ‘no’ rather than ‘yes’ to ‘forbid’ questions. It is commonly assumed that this is caused by the extreme connotations of both verbs. In this article a meta-analysis is reported over all forbid/allow research since 1940. First of all it is analysed whether the asymmetry can be generalised over questions and experiments. This turns out to be the case. The answer ‘no, not forbid’ is obtained more than ‘yes, allow’, and the mean effect size turns out to be quite large. The huge variance in asymmetry size however, offers roo.
Accurate Latency-based Congestion Feedback for Datacenters

The nature of congestion feedback largely governs the behavior of congestion control. In datacenter networks, where RTTs are in hundreds of microseconds, accurate feedback is crucial to achieve both high utilization and low queueing delay. Proposals for datacenter congestion control predominantly leverage ECN or even explicit in-network feedback (e.g., RCP-type feedback) to minimize the queuing delay. In this work we explore latency-based feedback as an alternative and show its advantages over ECN. Against the common belief that such implicit feed-back is noisy and inaccurate, we demonstrate that latency-based implicit feedback is accurate enough to signal a single packet's queuing delay in 10 Gbps networks. DX enables accurate queuing delay measurements whose error falls within 1.98 and 0.53 microseconds using software-based and hardware-based latency measurements, respectively. This enables us to design a new congestion control algorithm that performs fine-grained control to adjust the congestion window just enough to achieve very low queuing delay while attaining full utilization. Our extensive evaluation shows that 1) the latency measurement accurately reflects the one-way queuing delay in single packet level; 2) the latency feedback can be used to perform practical and fine-grained congestion control in high-speed datacenter networks; and 3) DX outperforms DCTCP with 5.33× smaller median queueing delay at 1 Gbps and 1.57× at 10 Gbps.
Evenness–invasibility relationships differ between two extinction scenarios in tallgrass prairie

Experiments that have manipulated species richness with random draws of species from a larger species pool have usually found that invasibility declines as richness increases. These results have usually been attributed to niche complementarity, and interpreted to mean that communities will become less resistant to invaders as species go locally extinct. However, it is not clear how relevant these studies are to real-world situations where species extinctions are non-random, and where species diversity declines due to increased rarity (i.e. reduced evenness) without having local extinctions. We experimentally varied species richness from 1 to 4, and evenness from 0.44 to 0.97 with two different extinction scenarios in two-year old plantings using seedling transplants in western Iowa. In both scenarios, evenness was varied by changing the level of dominance of the tall grass Andropogon gerardii. In one scenario, which simulated a loss of short species from Andropogon communities, we directly tested for complementarity in light capture due to having species in mixtures with dissimilar heights. We contrasted this scenario with a second set of mixtures that contained all tall species. In both cases, we controlled for factors such as rooting depth and planting density. Mean invader biomass was higher in monocultures (5.4 g m 2 week 1 ) than in 4-species mixtures (3.2 g m 2 week 1 ). Reduced evenness did not affect invader biomass in mixtures with dissimilar heights. However, the amount of invader biomass decreased by 60% as evenness increased across mixtures with all tall species. This difference was most pronounced early in the growing season when high evenness plots had greater light capture than low evenness plots. These results suggest that the effect of reduced species diversity on invasibility are 1) not related to complementarity through height dissimilarity, and 2) variable depending on the phenological traits of the species that are becoming rare or going locally extinct.
Cross-generational feeding of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis)-maize to zebrafish (Danio rerio) showed no adverse effects on the parental or offspring generations

In the present study, zebrafish (Danio rerio) were fed casein/gelatin-based diets containing either 19 % Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis)-maize or its parental non-Bt (nBt)-maize control for two generations (F0: sixty fish; F1: forty-two to seventy fish per treatment). The study focused on growth and reproductive performance, liver CuZn superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzyme activity, gene transcript levels targeting important cellular pathways in the liver and mid-intestine, histomorphological evaluation of the intestine, differential leucocyte counts, offspring larva swimming activity and global DNA methylation in offspring embryos. No significant effects were observed in the parental generation. The offspring were either fed the same diets as those fed to their parents (Bt–Bt or nBt–nBt) or switched from the Bt diet to the nBt diet (Bt–nBt). The Bt–Bt offspring exhibited a significantly higher body mass increase, specific growth rate and feed utilisation than fish fed the nBt–nBt diet and/or fish fed the Bt–nBt diet. Liver and mid-intestinal gene transcript levels of CuZn SOD were significantly higher in fish fed the nBt–nBt diet than in those fed the Bt–Bt diet. Liver gene transcript levels of caspase 6 were significantly lower for the nBt–nBt group than for the Bt–Bt group. Overall, enhanced growth performance was observed in fish fed the Bt diet for two generations than in those fed the nBt diet for one and two generations. Effects observed on gene biomarkers for oxidative stress and the cell cycle (apoptosis) may be related to the contamination of nBt-maize with fumonisin B1 and aflatoxin B1. In conclusion, it is suggested that Bt-maize is as safe and nutritious as its nBt control when fed to zebrafish for two generations.
Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation

This is a challenging history of the role of financial speculation from early modern times to the end of the 20th century. Focusing on speculation as it developed in the world's leading stock markets, the story starts with the tulipomania in 17th-century Holland, then moves to Britain with accounts of famous speculative manias (the South Sea Bubble, Railway mania) and to America with chapters on the roaring twenties, the junk bond revolution of the 1980s and finally the bubble economy of Japan in the 1980s.
An exact method for solving the manufacturing cell formation problem

The cell formation problem is extensively studied in the literature, but very few authors have proposed exact methods. In this paper a linear binary programming formulation is introduced to generate a solution for the cell formation problem. To verify the behaviour of the proposed model, a set of 35 benchmark problems is solved using the branch and cut method implemented in the IBM ILOG CPLEX 10.11 Optimiser. Moreover, these results allow us to validate the quality of the solution generated with heuristic methods proposed in the literature. This experimentation indicates that, for the smaller problems, the best-known solutions are the same as those generated with CPLEX 10.11 Optimiser. These results indicate a fair confidence in the optimality of the best-known solutions generated by the heuristic methods. Furthermore, our approach is the first exact method providing results of this quality.
Matching of Calcineurin Activity to Upstream Effectors Is Critical for Skeletal Muscle Fiber Growth

Calcineurin-dependent pathways have been implicated in the hypertrophic response of skeletal muscle to functional overload (OV) (Dunn, S.E., J.L. Burns, and R.N. Michel. 1999. J. Biol. Chem. 274:21908–21912). Here we show that skeletal muscles overexpressing an activated form of calcineurin (CnA*) exhibit a phenotype indistinguishable from wild-type counterparts under normal weightbearing conditions and respond to OV with a similar doubling in cell size and slow fiber number. These adaptations occurred despite the fact that CnA* muscles displayed threefold higher calcineurin activity and enhanced dephosphorylation of the calcineurin targets NFATc1, MEF2A, and MEF2D. Moreover, when calcineurin signaling is compromised with cyclosporin A, muscles from OV wild-type mice display a lower molecular weight form of CnA, originally detected in failing hearts, whereas CnA* muscles are spared this manifestation. We also show that OV-induced growth and type transformations are prevented in muscle fibers of transgenic mice overexpressing a peptide that inhibits calmodulin from signaling to target enzymes. Taken together, these findings provide evidence that both calcineurin and its activity-linked upstream signaling elements are crucial for muscle adaptations to OV and that, unless significantly compromised, endogenous levels of this enzyme can accommodate large fluctuations in upstream calcium-dependent signaling events.
Social Class and Educational Inequality: The Impact of Parents and Schools

1. Child and Family Case Studies in the context of the EPPSE study 2. Studying learning life-courses 3. Methods and sample of the Child and Family Case Studies 4. Cultural repertoires of childrearing across and within social classes 5. Children as active agents of their own learning 6. Powerful parenting and home learning 7. Parenting towards higher aspirations 8. Inspiring success in the early years and school environment 9. Gateways to enhanced social, cultural and emotional capital 10. Concluding discussion: promoting agency and advocacy.
A new better future? : A qualitative study of the governmental system in the city of Arkhangelsk, Russia.

Municipal government is responsible for public safety, maintenance of city streets and parks, wastewater treatment, trash removal, fire and rescue services, public transportation, and other essential services which mean that it plays a big role in the life of the city and its citizens. The efficiency of the work of the municipality largely depends on the work of its top management. Most common forms of the head of a municipality in Russia is a mayor or a city manager. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze municipal officials’ views on a proposed change from a system with a mayor to a city manager system in the city of Arkhangelsk, Russia. In order to understand this, I look at the history of the country and interviews, study the theoretical material as well as the media.The thesis is qualitative and aimed to find out what the new system of city manager mean in practice and see the benefits and downsides of the new system according to those who are involved in the local government. In the case study I interview civil servants and councilors. The theoretical framework is based on the theories of Weber, Simon, Du Gay, Christensen & Laegreid, Pierre & Rothstein and others.The result shows that both civil servants and councilors see the possibilities of more efficient work of the municipal government if one has the city manager system of governance. They see the city manager to be a professional manager who would be out of politics and not dependent on the opinion of certain group of people.At the same time, I can point out that the ideas of New Public Management help the public sector to be productive. NPM-ideas are often argued to enhance efficiency, but they are not fully compatible with the Russian context. Due to the history and realities in Russia, I have come to a conclusion that the city manager system has weak points such as the lack of professional managers and the power vertical built in Russia, whose representatives mostly belong to one political party.
Les hauts revenus épargnent‑ils davantage ?

[fre] Existe-t-il des differences de taux d’epargne en fonction des revenus ? Cette interrogation est au coeur de nombreuses questions de politiques publiques : les taxes sur la consommation sont-elles regressives ? Quel est l’effet d’une hausse d’impot pour les hauts revenus ? Faut-il subventionner l’epargne-retraite ? L’observation des taux d’epargne en fonction des revenus courants laisse apparaitre un lien positif. Neanmoins, l’epargne peut etre une decision de long terme qui ne depend pas que du revenu courant : si les menages anticipent une baisse de revenu, ils tendent a «lisser » leur consommation et, en cas de revenu exceptionnellement eleve, ils peuvent ajuster leur epargne a la hausse. Le vrai comportement d’epargne doit donc plutot s’etudier en fonction du revenu permanent, celui-ci etant defini comme le revenu qui correspond au flux actualise de ressources que le menage s’attend a percevoir sur une longue periode, corrige de ses fluctuations transitoires. A partir de l’enquete Patrimoine 2010 nous etudions le lien entre epargne et les deux concepts de revenu, courant et permanent, grâce a differentes approches pour l’estimation de ce dernier. Jusqu’a present les cinq approches differentes que nous employons n’ont jamais ete utilisees conjointement. Ceci permet de comparer les resultats obtenus et leur sensibilite aux methodes d’estimation. Tous nos resultats suggerent que le taux d’epargne est significativement plus eleve pour les menages aux revenus les plus hauts, quelle que soit la definition de ce revenu.
Computing the Singular Value Decomposition of 3x3 matrices with minimal branching and elementary floating point operations

A numerical method for the computation of the Singular Value Decomposition of 3× 3 matrices is presented. The proposed methodology robustly handles rank-deficient matrices and guarantees orthonormality of the computed rotational factors. The algorithm is tailored to the characteristics of SIMD or vector processors. In particular, it does not require any explicit branching beyond simple conditional assignments (as in the C++ ternary operator ? :, or the SSE4.1 instruction VBLENDPS), enabling trivial data-level parallelism for any number of operations. Furthermore, no trigonometric or other expensive operations are required; the only floating point operations utilized are addition, multiplication, and an inexact (yet fast) reciprocal square root which is broadly available on current SIMD/vector architectures. The performance observed approaches the limit of making the 3× 3 SVD a memory-bound (as opposed to CPU-bound) operation on current SMP platforms.
Multitype contact process on Z: extinction and interface

We consider a two-type contact process on the integers. Both types have equal finite range and supercritical infection rate. We show that a given type becomes extinct with probability 1 if and only if, in the initial configuration, it is confined to a finite interval and surrounded by infinitely many individuals of the other type. Additionally, we show that if both types are present in finite number in the initial configuration, then there is a positive probability that they are both present for all times. Finally, it is shown that, starting from the configuration in which all sites to the left of the origin are occupied by type 1 particles and all sites to the right of the origin are occupied by type 2 particles, the process defined by the size of the interface area between the two types is stochastically tight.
From Clarkia to Escherichia and Janus: the physics of natural and synthetic active colloids

An active colloid is a suspension of particles that transduce free energy from their environment and use the energy to engage in intrinsically non-equilibrium activities such as growth, replication and self-propelled motility. An obvious example of active colloids is a suspension of bacteria such as Escherichia coli, their physical dimensions being almost invariably in the colloidal range. Synthetic self-propelled particles have also become available recently, such as two-faced, or Janus, particles propelled by differential chemical reactions on their surfaces driving a self-phoretic motion. In these lectures, I give a pedagogical introduction to the physics of single-particle and collective properties of active colloids, focussing on self propulsion. I will compare and contrast phenomena in suspensions of `swimmers' with the behaviour of suspensions of passive particles, where only Brownian motion (discovered by Robert Brown in granules from the pollen of the wild flower {\it Clarkia pulchella}) is relevant. I will pay particular attention to issues that pertain to performing experiments using these active particle suspensions, such as how to characterise the suspension's swimming speed distribution, and include an appendix to guide physicists wanting to start culturing motile bacteria.
Track segments in hadronic showers in a highly granular scintillator-steel hadron calorimeter

We investigate the three dimensional substructure of hadronic showers in the CALICE scintillator-steel hadronic calorimeter. The high granularity of the detector is used to find track segments of minimum ionising particles within hadronic showers, providing sensitivity to the spatial structure and the details of secondary particle production in hadronic cascades. The multiplicity, length and angular distribution of identified track segments are compared to GEANT4 simulations with several different shower models. Track segments also provide the possibility for in-situ calibration of highly granular calorimeters.
Chandra and XMM Observations of the Accretion Disk Corona Source 2S 0921–63

We analyze observations of the low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) 2S 0921-63 obtained with the gratings and CCDs on Chandra and XMM. This object is a high-inclination system showing evidence for an accretion disk corona (ADC). Such a corona has the potential to constrain the properties of the heated accretion disk in this system and other LMXBs by extension. We find evidence for line emission that is generally consistent with that found by previous experiments, although we are able to detect more lines. For the first time in this source, we find that the iron K line has multiple components. We set limits on the line widths and velocity offsets, and we fit the spectra to photoionization models and discuss the implications for ADC models. For the first time in any ADC source we use these fits, together with density constraints based on the O VII line ratio, in order to constrain the flux in the medium-ionization region of the ADC. Under various assumptions about the source luminosity this constrains the location of the emitting region. These estimates, together with estimates for the emission measure, favor a scenario in which the intrinsic luminosity of the source is comparable to what we observe.
Co-curricular learning: learning through experiences in student government

Co-curricular environments have great potential to enhance learning but when compared to the formal curriculum, there are few studies that have investigated the learning that occurs in out-of-class activities. Despite its significant profile and impact on postsecondary campuses, a dearth of literature addresses experiences associated with student government. This qualitative study used Kolb’s (1984) theory of experiential learning as a theoretical framework to guide data collection in order to identify the learning and competencies stemming from participation in student government. The study discovered that participation in student government as an important source of learning that occurred across the six learning domains posited by the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education. The participants self-identified the majority of their learning in the domains interpersonal competence and practical competence. Participants’ testimonials illuminate this study and underscore the impact that participation in student government can have on learning and personal transformation.