Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ANALYZING EFFECTS OF JOB-TRAININGS SUFFERING DROPOUTS WITH AN OPTIMAL MULTIPLE MATCHING ( May 18 , 2003 )

We analyze the effects on employment probabilities of job-trainings for unemployed Korean women during January 1999 to March 2000, where the job-trainings suffered substantial dropout problems. Three groups are pairwise compared: the control group with no treatment , the dropout group with a partial treatment, and the treatment group with the full treatment. To control for covariates, three propensity-score matching schemes are used: sequential pair matching, optimal pair matching, and optimal multiple matching with a variable number of controls. We find that dropouts occur mostly because a job was found or the subject self-evaluates the treatment as bad, and that the job-trainings lowered the employment probabilities, because the post-training unemployment duration (a " negative " benefit of the job-trainings) was not shortened enough to compensate for the training duration (a cost). The contribution of this paper is twofold: showing a way to deal with dropout problems taking advantage of information contents in dropouts and presenting an extremely simple algorithm to implement the optimal multiple matching.
Tourism Dependence in Rural America: Estimates and Effects

Recreation and tourism development continue to play an important role in reshaping rural America. Efforts to evaluate the effects of such development are complicated because residents and nonrecreation visitors also use the businesses that are affected by recreation and tourism visitors. We present a method for estimating in nonmetropolitan counties jobs and income that are generated by recreation and tourism visitors from outside the county. Several different techniques are used to (1) cluster similar counties, (2) account for the portion of tourism sector employment that serves local residents, and (3) account for the portion of export activity that serves nonrecreation visitors. Finally, we address the consequences of recreation dependence in rural counties. The counties most dependent on nonlocal tourism activity are compared to other rural counties on income, population, economic structure, and housing variables.
Career Paths of Women Administrators in the California and North Carolina Community College Systems.

This study examined which variables influenced the career paths of women administrators in the North Carolina and California community college systems. Results of regression analyses on the 643 respondents (189 from California, 454 from North Carolina) indicate that: (1) there was no significant difference in the odds of desiring to advance for the two groups of women; (2) age increased the odds of desiring to advance by 6.67% for each year after age 25, but the odds began to decrease at age 37; (3) for each increase in advanced degree, the odds of desiring to advance increased 6%; (4) the odds of desiring to advance decreased 1.7% for each year at an administrative level, decreased 1.49% for each year at the institution, and decreased 8.78% for each increase in administrative level; (5) the odds of desiring to advance increased 35% for each level of willingness to move, increased 7% for each campus committee/task force served on, and increased 12.5% for each external committee/task force served on; (6) women who possessed a doctorate or were working on one were 2.29 times more likely to desire to advance than women who were not working on a doctorate or possessed one; and (7) California women desired to advance 1.6 times more than women in North Carolina. (Contains 21 tables, 3 figures, 15 appendices (including the survey instrument), and 261 references. ) (KP) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Career Paths of Women Administrators in the California and North Carolina Community College Systems Annette Davis Hawkins 2 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Cc This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality, Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. 1 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION AND REPROCESSING ( EMDR ) IN THE TREATMENT OF PSYCHOLOGICALLY TRAUMATIZED INDIVIDUALS : A LITERATURE REVIEW by

Eye Movement 2 ABSTRACT Williams Christine J. The purpose of this literature review was to investigate the effectiveness of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) with traumatized individuals primarily diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In this investigation an overview of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) as well as other approaches in the treatment of traumatized individuals was explored. Included in this investigation is a critical review of controlled research and the use of EMDR. Finally, the information is summarized and recommendations are offered based upon information gathered.
Contrast effects and judgments of physical attractiveness: When beauty becomes a social problem.

Three studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that judgments of average females' attractiveness or dating desirability will be adversely affected by exposing judges to extremely attractive prior stimuli (i.e., judgments will show a "contrast effect"). Study 1 was a field study in which male dormitory residents watching a popular TV show, whose main characters are three strikingly attractive females, were asked to rate a photo of an average female (described as a potential blind date for another dorm resident). These subjects rated the target female as significantly less attractive than did a comparable control group. Two other studies demonstrated analogous effects in a more controlled laboratory setting. In addition, the third study indicated a direct effect of informational social influence on physical attractiveness judgments. Implications are discussed, with particular attention to mass media impact.
A transition in the accretion properties of radio-loud active nuclei

We present evidence for the presence of a transition in the accretion properties of radio-loud sources. For a sample of radio galaxies and radio-loud quasars, selected based on their extended radio properties, the accretion rate is estimated from the black hole mass and nuclear luminosity. The inferred distribution is bimodal, with a paucity of sources at accretion rates, in Eddington units, of the order of ∼10 -2 - assuming a radiative efficiency of 10 per cent -and possibly spanning 1-2 orders of magnitude. Selection biases are unlikely to be responsible for such behaviour. We discuss possible physical explanations, including a fast transition to low accretion rates, a change in the accretion mode/actual accretion rate/radiative efficiency, the lack of stable disc solutions at intermediate accretion rates or the inefficiency of the jet formation processes in geometrically thin flows. This transition might be analogous to spectral states (and jet) transitions in black hole binary systems.
Year-long validation study and reference values for urinary amino acids using a reversed-phase HPLC method.

BACKGROUND Reversed-phase HPLC (RP-HPLC) has become an alternative to ion-exchange chromatography for amino acid analysis in biological fluids. However, validation studies for its urine application are limited, and the corresponding reference values have not been reported extensively. We studied the long-term performance of a commercial HPLC method for urine amino acid analysis and established specific age-related reference values for urine amino acid excretion. METHODS Method performance was continuously assessed by recovery and precision studies with urine samples and controls, respectively. Healthy individuals were prospectively analyzed throughout a 5-year period. Excretion of individual amino acids, expressed as mmol/mol of creatinine, was included in six age-related groups for random urine samples (0-1 month, 1-12 months, 1-3 years, 3-8 years, 8-16 years, and >16 years) and in two groups for 24-h urine collections (8-16 years and >16 years). RESULTS Over a 1-year period, CVs for retention times were <0.5% and 3.3% for within- and between-run imprecision, respectively. For amino acid concentrations, within-run CVs were 2.9-17% and between-run CVs were 7.1-46% for the same period. Amino acid recoveries were 78-122%. Reference intervals for 35 amino acids were calculated and compared with the concentrations observed in patients diagnosed with specific pathologies. A few statistically significant differences were found between the reference intervals derived using random and 24-h urine collections. CONCLUSIONS Long-term reliability of the RP-HPLC method for urine amino acid analysis has been demonstrated. Representative age-related reference intervals for the RP-HPLC method in both random urine and 24-h urine collections have been established, and their feasibility for diagnosis of aminoaciduria has been shown. These intervals could serve as a guide for laboratories changing to HPLC methods.
Descriptive complexity and the W hierarchy

The classes W [t] of the Downey-Fellows W hierarchy are defined, for each t, by fixed-parameter reductions to the weighted-assignment satisfiability problem for weft-t circuits. This paper proves that for each t ≥ 1, W [t] equals the closure under fixed-parameter reductions of the class of languages L definable by formulas of the form φ = (∃U)ψ, where U is a set variable and ψ is a first-order formula in ∏ t prenex form. This is a fixed-parameter analogue of Fagin’s well-known characterization of NP by second-order existential formulas. An equivalent form of this result states that the fixed-parameter “slices” Lk of L are definable by a family {φk } of first-order formulas in ∑ t prenex form, subject to the restriction that the quantifier blocks in φk after the leading existential block are independent of k. Whether this restriction can be removed is connected to open problems in other recent papers on the
Enhanced Activation of Canonical Wnt Signaling Confers Mesoderm-Derived Parietal Bone with Similar Osteogenic and Skeletal Healing Capacity to Neural Crest-Derived Frontal Bone

Bone formation and skeletal repair are dynamic processes involving a fine-tuned balance between osteoblast proliferation and differentiation orchestrated by multiple signaling pathways. Canonical Wnt (cWnt) signaling is known to playing a key role in these processes. In the current study, using a transgenic mouse model with targeted disruption of axin2, a negative regulator of cWnt signaling, we investigated the impact of enhanced activation of cWnt signaling on the osteogenic capacity and skeletal repair. Specifically, we looked at two calvarial bones of different embryonic tissue origin: the neural crest-derived frontal bone and the mesoderm-derived parietal bone, and we investigated the proliferation and apoptotic activity of frontal and parietal bones and derived osteoblasts. We found dramatic differences in cell proliferation and apoptotic activity between Axin2 -/- and wild type calvarial bones, with Axin2 -/- showing increased proliferative activity and reduced levels of apoptosis. Furthermore, we compared osteoblast differentiation and bone regeneration in Axin2 -/- and wild type neural crest-derived frontal and mesoderm-derived parietal bones, respectively. Our results demonstrate a significant increase either in osteoblast differentiation or bone regeneration in Axin2 -/- mice as compared to wild type, with Axin2 -/- parietal bone and derived osteoblasts displaying a “neural crest-derived frontal bone-like” profile, which is typically characterized by higher osteogenic capacity and skeletal repair than parietal bone. Taken together, our results strongly suggest that enhanced activation of cWnt signaling increases the skeletal potential of a calvarial bone of mesoderm origin, such as the parietial bone to a degree similar to that of a neural crest origin bone, like the frontal bone. Thus, providing further evidence for the central role played by the cWnt signaling in osteogenesis and skeletal-bone regeneration.
Convex Subspace Representation Learning from Multi-View Data

Learning from multi-view data is important in many applications. In this paper, we propose a novel convex subspace representation learning method for unsupervised multi-view clustering. We ﬁrst formulate the subspace learning with multiple views as a joint optimization problem with a common subspace representation matrix and a group sparsity inducing norm. By exploiting the properties of dual norms, we then show a convex min-max dual formulation with a sparsity inducing trace norm can be obtained. We develop a proximal bundle optimization algorithm to globally solve the min-max optimization problem. Our empirical study shows the proposed subspace representation learning method can effectively facilitate multi-view clustering and induce superior clustering results than alternative multi-view clustering methods.
SYMBOLIC AND FUNCTIONAL BRAND EFFECTS FOR MARKET SEGMENTATION

This study investigates the interrelationships among brand personality, brand preference, customer perceived value, and golfers’ performance in the context of Taiwan’s golf clubs market. The theoretical and statistical relationships among these constructs are developed and verified. Using survey data from 345 out of 1,000 randomly selected golfers, this study employs ANOVA, Factor Analysis, and Discriminant Analysis to examine the research hypotheses. The findings reveal that (1) notable brand personality factors including Reliability, Fashion, Masculine, Excitement, Wholesome, Leadership, Sentiment, Feminine, and Uniqueness could explain brand preference to a large extent, (2) golfers’ customer perceived value regarding various golf brands are considerably dissimilar, and (3) golfers’ deviation in performance significantly relates to brands. In addition to conventional bases for market segmentation (i.e., demographics, psychographics, lifestyles, etc.), this paper clearly provides practical guidelines of implementing brand personality for market segmentation and promotion strategies. Brand personality proves to be a useful segmenting variable. The findings and the statistical results offer supportive evidence for implementing appropriate branding management on both functional (i.e., customer perceived value and performance) and emotional attributes (i.e., brand personality) in order to enhance competitiveness.
Shannon–Kotel’nikov Mappings for Analog Point-to-Point Communications

In this paper an approach to joint source-channel coding (JSCC) named Shannon-Kotel’nikov (S-K) mappings is discussed. S-K mappings are continuous, or piecewise smooth direct source-to-channel mappings operating on amplitude-continuous and discrete-time signals, and they encompass several existing JSCC schemes as special cases. Many existing approaches to analog- or hybrid discrete-analog JSCC provide both excellent performance as well as robustness to variable noise level at both low and arbitrary complexity and delay. However, a general theory explaining their performance and behaviour, as well as guidelines on how to construct well-performing mappings, do not exist. Therefore, such mappings are often based on educated guesses inspired by configurations that are known in advance to produce good solutions through numerical optimization methods. The objective of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for analysis of analog- or hybrid discrete-analog S-K mappings which enables calculation of distortion when applying them on point-to-point links, reveal more about their fundamental nature, and provide guidelines for their construction at low as well as arbitrary complexity and delay. Such guidelines will likely help constrain solutions to numerical approaches and help explain why deep learning approaches obtain the solutions they do. The overall task is difficult and we do not provide a complete framework at this stage: We focus on high SNR and memoryless sources with an arbitrary continuous unimodal density function and memoryless Gaussian channels. We also provide example mappings based on surfaces which are chosen, or constructed, based on the provided theory.
Serum Uric Acid Increases Risk of Cancer Incidence and Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

SUA is a potent antioxidant and thus may play a protective role against cancer. Many epidemiological studies have investigated this hypothesis but provided inconsistent and inconclusive findings. We aimed to precisely elucidate the association between SUA levels and cancer by pooling all available publications. Totally, 5 independent studies with 456,053 subjects and 12 with 632,472 subjects were identified after a comprehensive literature screening from PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science. The pooled RRs showed that individuals with high SUA levels were at an increased risk of total cancer incidence (RR = 1.03, 95% CI 1.01–1.05, P = 0.007). Positive association between high SUA levels and total cancer incidence was observed in males but not females (for men: RR = 1.05, 95% CI 1.02–1.08, P = 0.002; for women, RR = 1.01, 95% CI 0.98–1.04, P = 0.512). Besides, high SUA levels were associated with an elevated risk of total cancer mortality (RR = 1.17, 95% CI 1.04–1.32, P = 0.010), particularly in females (RR = 1.25, 95% CI 1.07–1.45, P = 0.004). The study suggests that high SUA levels increase the risk of total cancer incidence and mortality. The data do not support the hypothesis of a protective role of SUA in cancer.
N-geranylcyclopropylcarboximide (ngcc) Modulates Salty and Umami Taste in 1 Humans and Animal Models 2 3

N-geranylcyclopropylcarboximide (NGCC) Modulates Salty And Umami Taste In 1 Humans And Animal Models 2 3 Mark L. Dewis, Tam-Hao T. Phan, ZuoJun Ren, Xuanyu Meng, Meng Cui, Shobha 4 Mummalaneni, Mee-Ra Rhyu, John A. DeSimone and Vijay Lyall 5 Flavor Ingredients R&D, International Flavors & Fragrances, Union Beach, NJ, USA, 6 Korea Food Research Institute, Bundang-gu, Sungnam-si, Gyeonggi-do 463-746, 7 Korea and Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Virginia Commonwealth 8 University, Richmond, VA 23298. 9 10 RUNNING TITLE: NGCC modulates salty and umami taste 11 12 Corresponding Author: Dr. Vijay Lyall 13 Associate Professor 14 Department of Physiology and Biophysics 15 Virginia Commonwealth University 16 Molecular Medical Research Building (MMRB) #5052 17 1220 East Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23219 18 Tel: (804) 828-9759 19 Fax: (804) 827-0947 20 E-mail: vlyall@vcu.edu 21 22 23 Articles in PresS. J Neurophysiol (December 5, 2012). doi:10.1152/jn.00124. 2012
Face frontalization for Alignment and Recognition

Recently, it was shown that excellent results can be achieved in both face landmark localization and pose-invariant face recognition. These breakthroughs are attributed to the efforts of the community to manually annotate facial images in many different poses and to collect 3D faces data. In this paper, we propose a novel method for joint face landmark localization and frontal face reconstruction (pose correction) using a small set of frontal images only. By observing that the frontal facial image is the one with the minimum rank from all different poses we formulate an appropriate model which is able to jointly recover the facial landmarks as well as the frontalized version of the face. To this end, a suitable optimization problem, involving the minimization of the nuclear norm and the matrix $\ell_1$ norm, is solved. The proposed method is assessed in frontal face reconstruction (pose correction), face landmark localization, and pose-invariant face recognition and verification by conducting experiments on $6$ facial images databases. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
An adaptive performance modeling tool for GPU architectures

This paper presents an analytical model to predict the performance of general-purpose applications on a GPU architecture. The model is designed to provide performance information to an auto-tuning compiler and assist it in narrowing down the search to the more promising implementations. It can also be incorporated into a tool to help programmers better assess the performance bottlenecks in their code. We analyze each GPU kernel and identify how the kernel exercises major GPU microarchitecture features. To identify the performance bottlenecks accurately, we introduce an abstract interpretation of a GPU kernel, work flow graph, based on which we estimate the execution time of a GPU kernel. We validated our performance model on the NVIDIA GPUs using CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture). For this purpose, we used data parallel benchmarks that stress different GPU microarchitecture events such as uncoalesced memory accesses, scratch-pad memory bank conflicts, and control flow divergence, which must be accurately modeled but represent challenges to the analytical performance models. The proposed model captures full system complexity and shows high accuracy in predicting the performance trends of different optimized kernel implementations. We also describe our approach to extracting the performance model automatically from a kernel code.
Foreign students in Japan: A qualitative study of interpersonal relations between North American university exchange students and their Japanese hosts

FOREIGN STUDENTS IN JAPAN: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS BETWEEN NORTH AMERICAN UNIVERSITY EXCHANGE STUDENTS AND THEIR JAPANESE HOSTS SEPTEMBER 1996 PATRICK DEAN BURNS B . A . , UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON MASTER OF INTERNATIONAL ADMINISTRATION, SCHOOL FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAINING Ed . D . , UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor George Urch This dissertation analyzes a study which focused on the problem of interpersonal relationship development between Japanese hosts and visiting North American exchange students during their one year of studying abroad at a Japanese university. The study identified and analyzed factors that contributed to, or inhibited social interaction which led to effective interpersonal relations. The research described and explained the interpersonal relationship development experience of the research participants. A qualitative interpretive case study, participants included both North American exchange students and Japanese people with whom they developed relationships. Data collection was accomplished over a one-year period utilizing in-depth interviewing and direct behavior observation
Performance Evaluation of Curled Textlines Segmentation Algorithms

Curled textlines segmentation is a necessary initial step for the hand-held camera-captured document image processing. Curled textlines information is often used as an intermediate step for camera-captured document image dewarping. Curled textlines information can also be used for other camera-based document image processing tasks, like layout analysis etc. So far no work has been done for the performance evaluation and the comparison of already reported curled textlines segmentation algorithms on the standard datasets and performance evaluation metrics. In this paper, we use publicly available camera-captured document image dataset and vectorial performance evaluation metrics to compare different algorithms. We present performance evaluation results on previously reported curled textlines segmentation algorithms.