Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of violated caregiver preferences in psychological well-being when older mothers need assistance.

PURPOSE Theory and research suggest that congruence between individuals' preferences for future care and the patterns of care received will affect well-being. In this article, we explore whether older mothers' psychological well-being was affected by the children they preferred as future caregivers and provide assistance at a later point when the mothers experience illness or injury. DESIGN AND METHODS In this article, we use a combination of quantitative and qualitative data collected from 234 older mothers at two points 7 years apart, beginning when the mothers were 65-75 years of age. RESULTS Multivariate analyses demonstrated that mothers who received assistance from children whom the mothers did not identify as their preferred future caregivers reported higher depressive symptoms at the second wave; receiving care from children identified as preferred caregivers did not affect well-being. Qualitative data suggested that these patterns occurred because the "alternate" caregivers did not possess the socioemotional attributes of preferred children. IMPLICATIONS These findings contribute to a growing body of research demonstrating the consequences of violated preferences, particularly when individuals are in need of support in later life.
On designing an active tail for legged robots: simplifying control via decoupling of control objectives

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible roles of active tails for steady-state legged locomotion, focusing on a design principle which simplifies control by decoupling different control objectives. Design/methodology/approach A series of simple models are proposed which capture the dynamics of an idealized running system with an active tail. These models suggest that the overall control problem can be simplified and effectively decoupled via a proper tail design. This design principle is further explored in simulation using trajectory optimization. The results are then validated in hardware using a one degree-of-freedom active tail mounted on the quadruped robot Cheetah-Cub. Findings The results of this paper show that an active tail can greatly improve both forward velocity and reduce body-pitch per stride while adding minimal complexity. Further, the results validate the design principle of using long, light tails compared to shorter heavier ones. Originality/value This paper builds on previous results, with a new focus on steady-state locomotion and in particular deals directly with stance phase dynamics. A novel design principle for tails is proposed and validated.
Negative Priming Under Rapid Serial Visual Presentation

Negative priming (NP) was examined under a new paradigm wherein a target and distractors were temporally separated using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). The results from the two experiments revealed that (a) NP was robust under RSVP, such that the responses to a target were slower when the target served as a distractor in a previous trial than when it did not; (b) NP was found regardless of whether the distractors appeared before or after the targets; and (c) NP was stronger when the distractor was more distinctive. These findings are generally similar to those on NP in the spatial search task. The implications for the processes causing NP under RSVP are discussed in the current paper.
Investigating Bi-Temporal Hyperspectral Lidar Measurements from Declined Trees - Experiences from Laboratory Test

Global warming is posing a threat to the health and condition of forests as the amount and length of biotic and abiotic disturbances increase. Most methods for detecting disturbances and measuring forest health are based on multi- and hyperspectral imaging. We conducted a test with spruce and pine trees using a hyperspectral Lidar instrument in a laboratory to determine the capability of combined range and reflectance measurements to investigate forest health. A simple drought treatment was conducted by leaving the harvested trees outdoors without a water supply for 12 days. The results showed statistically significant variation in reflectance after the drought treatment for both species. However, the changes differed between the species, indicating that drought-induced alterations in spectral characteristics may be species-dependent. Based on our results, hyperspectral Lidar has the potential to detect drought in spruce and pine trees.
p27Kip1 participates in the regulation of endoreplication in differentiating chick retinal ganglion cells

Nuclear DNA duplication in the absence of cell division (i.e. endoreplication) leads to somatic polyploidy in eukaryotic cells. In contrast to some invertebrate neurons, whose nuclei may contain up to 200,000-fold the normal haploid DNA amount (C), polyploid neurons in higher vertebrates show only 4C DNA content. To explore the mechanism that prevents extra rounds of DNA synthesis in these latter cells we focused on the chick retina, where a population of tetraploid retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) has been described. We show that differentiating chick RGCs that express the neurotrophic receptors p75 and TrkB while lacking retinoblastoma protein, a feature of tetraploid RGCs, also express p27Kip1. Two different short hairpin RNAs (shRNA) that significantly downregulate p27Kip1 expression facilitated DNA synthesis and increased ploidy in isolated chick RGCs. Moreover, this forced DNA synthesis could not be prevented by Cdk4/6 inhibition, thus suggesting that it is triggered by a mechanism similar to endoreplication. In contrast, p27Kip1 deficiency in mouse RGCs does not lead to increased ploidy despite previous observations have shown ectopic DNA synthesis in RGCs from p27Kip1−/− mice. This suggests that a differential mechanism is used for the regulation of neuronal endoreplication in mammalian versus avian RGCs.
Gender and primary schooling in Malawi

This report is part of a multi-country series of studies which are being conducted in Africa under the auspices of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) in collaboration with national governments and the Institute of Development Studies Sussex. Since 1995 nine national reports have been completed as part of FAWEs Strategic Resource Planning for Girls Education in Africa Programme. This work has been funded by a Donor Partnership comprising the Governments of Norway (NORAD) and Ireland (HEDCO) the Rockefeller Foundation the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) the World Bank Institute and FAWE itself. The main aims of each of these studies have been: to examine the causes of low participation persistence and performance of girls in primary schools both absolutely and relative to boys; and to identify the most promising policy choices facing states that wish seriously to universalise the enrolment of all children at primary level and to investigate the resource implications of such alternative policies. Although the above aims have been common to all the studies each of them highlights the particular problems that are nationally perceived to be important. Accordingly file particular aims and emphases of the reports differ between the countries. The present report is based on an extensive period of fieldwork undertaken in Malawi between April 1998 and August 1999 which included surveys of and group discussions with school personnel pupils and parents as well as those who had dropped out of school. In addition the team collected and analysed a large amount of contextual information on enrolment trends educational indicators costs and expenditures which have been used in the report to identify the main policy options faced by the Malawi government and to specify the cost and resource implications of alternative policy measures. (excerpt)
Adoption of Weather-Index Insurance: Learning from Willingness to Pay Among a Panel of Households in Rural Ethiopia

In this paper we examine which farmers would be early entrants into weather indexinsurance markets in Ethiopia, were such markets to develop on a large scale. We do this by examining the determinants of willingness to pay for weather insurance among 1,400 Ethiopian households that have been tracked for 15 years as part of the Ethiopia Rural Household Survey. This provides both historical and current information with which to assess the determinants of demand. We find that educated, rich, and proactive individuals were more likely to purchase insurance. Risk aversion was associated with low insurance take-up, suggesting that models of technology adoption can inform the purchase and spread of weather index insurance. We also assess how willingness to pay varied as two key characteristics of the contract were varied and find that basis risk reduced demand for insurance, particularly when the price of the contract was high, and that provision of insurance through groups was preferred by women and individuals with lower levels of education.
The interaction of raloxifene and the active metabolite of the antiestrogen EM-800 (SC 5705) with the human estrogen receptor.

A naturally occurring mutation at amino acid 351 (D351Y) in the human estrogen receptor (ER) can change the pharmacology of antiestrogens. Raloxifene is converted from an antiestrogen to an estrogen, whereas the biological properties of the steroidal pure antiestrogen ICI 182,780 are not affected by the D351Y ER (Levenson, A. S., and Jordan, V. C. Cancer Res., 58: 1872-1875, 1998). We propose an assay system that can be used to classify antiestrogens by determining their ability to up-regulate transforming growth factor alpha (TGF-alpha) mRNA in MDA-MB-231 cells stably transfected with either wild-type or D351Y ER. The novel compound EM-800 and its active metabolite, EM-652, have been reported to be p.o. active nonsteroidal pure antiestrogens. Using the D351Y cell line, EM-652 is able to up-regulate TGF-alpha mRNA in a dose-dependent manner and to a similar extent as estradiol, whereas in the wild-type cell line, it acts as an antiestrogen. In addition, the pure antiestrogen ICI 182,780 is capable of inhibiting EM-652-induced TGF-alpha mRNA expression at the D351Y ER. In MCF-7 cells expressing wild-type ER, it has previously been shown that ICI 182,780 decreases ER only at the protein level. EM-652 treatment does not decrease ER protein levels to a similar extent as ICI 182,780 treatment, and, in addition, EM-652 has no effect on ER mRNA levels. In proliferation assays, EM-652 is as effective as raloxifene in inhibiting cell growth. From these studies, we conclude that the reason the pharmacology of EM-652 is similar to that of raloxifene is because they both fit the ER in the same manner, and their biology depends on an interaction of the antiestrogenic side chain with amino acid 351.
Trust but Check: Mutable Objects in Untrusted Cooperative Caches

Cooperative caching is known to be an effective technique for improving the performance of large scale distributed storage systems [5, 6, 7, 11, 1]. Nevertheless, current cooperative caching techniques work only in environments when machines trust one other, a requirement that is likely to become more and more difficult to satisfy. We describe a novel technique for managing cooperative caches in an untrusted environment. Our principal innovation is a new way to update objects on pages in untrusted caches while guaranteeing page integrity.
Pattern matching in dynamic texts

Pattern matching is the problem of finding all occurrences of a pattern in a text. In a dynamic setting the problem is to support pattern matching in a text which can be manipulated on-line, i.e., the usual situation in text editing. We present a data structure that supports insertions and deletions of characters and movements of arbitrary large blocks within a text in O(log~nloglognlog*n) time per operation. Furthermore a search for a pattern P in the text is supported in time O(lognloglogn + oct + [PI), where occ is the number of occurrences to be reported. An ingredient in our solution to the above main result is a data structure for the dynamic string equality problem introduced by Mehlhorn, Sundar and Uhrig. As a secondary result we give almost quadratic better time bounds for this problem which in addition to keeping polylogarithmic factors low for our main result also improves the complexity for several other problems.
FARKAS-TYPE RESULTS FOR GENERAL COMPOSED CONVEX OPTIMIZATION PROBLEMS WITH INEQUALITY CONSTRAINTS

(Communicated by J. Pec) Abstract. In this paper, we consider a general composed convex optimization problem with in- equality systems involving a finite number of convex constraints. We establish the strong duality between the primal problem and the Fenchel-Lagrange dual problem by a conjugate duality ap- proach. Moreover, we obtain some new Farkas-type results for this problem by using weak and strong duality theorems. Our results contain some recent results as special cases.
Detection and quantification of heteroplasmic mutant mitochondrial DNA by real-time amplification refractory mutation system quantitative PCR analysis: a single-step approach.

BACKGROUND The A3243G mitochondrial tRNA leu(UUR) point mutation causes mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes (MELAS) syndrome, the most common mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) disorder, and is also found in patients with maternally inherited diabetes and deafness syndrome (MIDD). To correlate disease manifestation with mutation loads, it is necessary to measure the percentage of the A3243G mtDNA mutation. METHODS To reliably quantify low proportions of the mutant mtDNA, we developed a real-time amplification refractory mutation system quantitative PCR (ARMS-qPCR) assay. We validated the method with experimental samples containing known proportions of mutant A3243G mtDNA generated by mixing known amounts of cloned plasmid DNA containing either the wild-type or the mutant sequences. RESULTS A correlation coefficient of 0.9995 between the expected and observed values for the proportions of mutant A3243G in the experimental samples was found. Evaluation of a total of 36 patient DNA samples demonstrated consistent results between PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis and real-time ARMS-qPCR. However, the latter method was much more sensitive for detecting low percentages of mutant heteroplasmy. Three samples contained allele-specific oligonucleotide-detectable but RFLP-undetectable mutations. CONCLUSIONS The real-time ARMS-qPCR method provides rapid, reliable, one-step quantitative detection of heteroplasmic mutant mtDNA.
Comparison of the Decomposition VOC Profile during Winter and Summer in a Moist, Mid-Latitude (Cfb) Climate

The investigation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) associated with decomposition is an emerging field in forensic taphonomy due to their importance in locating human remains using biological detectors such as insects and canines. A consistent decomposition VOC profile has not yet been elucidated due to the intrinsic impact of the environment on the decomposition process in different climatic zones. The study of decomposition VOCs has typically occurred during the warmer months to enable chemical profiling of all decomposition stages. The present study investigated the decomposition VOC profile in air during both warmer and cooler months in a moist, mid-latitude (Cfb) climate as decomposition occurs year-round in this environment. Pig carcasses (Sus scrofa domesticus L.) were placed on a soil surface to decompose naturally and their VOC profile was monitored during the winter and summer months. Corresponding control sites were also monitored to determine the natural VOC profile of the surrounding soil and vegetation. VOC samples were collected onto sorbent tubes and analyzed using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography – time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC-TOFMS). The summer months were characterized by higher temperatures and solar radiation, greater rainfall accumulation, and comparable humidity when compared to the winter months. The rate of decomposition was faster and the number and abundance of VOCs was proportionally higher in summer. However, a similar trend was observed in winter and summer demonstrating a rapid increase in VOC abundance during active decay with a second increase in abundance occurring later in the decomposition process. Sulfur-containing compounds, alcohols and ketones represented the most abundant classes of compounds in both seasons, although almost all 10 compound classes identified contributed to discriminating the stages of decomposition throughout both seasons. The advantages of GC×GC-TOFMS were demonstrated for detecting and identifying trace levels of VOCs, particularly ethers, which are rarely reported as decomposition VOCs.
THE DETERMINANTS OF YOUTH TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT IN THE ENLARGED EUROPE

ABSTRACT This article uses comparative micro data from the 2004 European Union Labour Force Survey (EULFS) for 23 European countries to study the impact of labour market institutions on the youth relative temporary employment probability. We find relatively high temporary employment rates for young workers in all countries but also a large cross-country variation in this respect. The results of multi-level regression analyses confirm that neither employment protection of regular contracts nor its interaction with the level of employment protection of temporary contracts affects the young people's relative risk. Instead, we find a positive association between collective bargaining coverage as a measure of insider–outsider cleavages and the relative temporary employment risk of young persons. These results remain robust even after controlling for macro-structural conditions, such as unemployment rate and business uncertainty.
Intermediate-age open clusters: Collinder 110

We present CCD BV photometry of the intermediate-age open cluster Collinder 110, a nearby, scarcely populated and poorly studied system. There is no literature information about the metallicity, so we tested several possibilities and found slight evidence of subsolar abundances. Using the synthetic colour-magnitude diagrarns (CMDs) technique, we estimate the following parameters: age between 1.1 and 1.5 Gyr, reddening 0.38 ≤ E(B - V) ≤ 0.45 and distance modulus (m - M) 0 between 11.8 and 11.9, if the cluster metallicity is solar; or age between 1.2 and 1.7 Gyr, reddening 0.52 ≤ E(B - V) ≤ 0.57 and distance modulus (m - M) 0 between 11.45 and 11.7, if the cluster metallicity is subsolar.
Power converter design optimization

This article present GA-based design approach to optimization of power electronics circuits is shown to be a very effective and powerful tool for obtaining improved solutions compared to traditional design procedures. In the GA procedure, each design is represented using a "gene string" for the converter design problem, each gene string is used to represent the set of electrical components that define one possible converter design. The design of power electronics systems involves a large number of design variables and the application of knowledge from several different engineering fields.
Determinants of Takeover Premium in Cash Offers: An Option Pricing Approach

Abstract: In takeovers bidders offer a premium to target firm shareholders but the determinants of such premium are not clearly identified. Among the factors previously examined in the literature are prior target undervaluation, expected synergy and overpayment due to behavioural biases like hubris. In this paper we use an option pricing approach to decompose the observed takeover premia. We also test the implications of recent real options-based models of takeover premia and risk changes surrounding takeovers. We model the observed target stock price as a portfolio of unobserved stock price and a put option whose value depends on a number of target and deal characteristics that impinge on the probability of bid success. For a sample of over 200 UK cash takeover bids during 1990–2004, we estimate the put value using the Black-Scholes option pricing model and find that target firm revaluation accounts for a substantial part of the observed takeover premium and the put value accounts for a smaller, but still significant, proportion. The latter is higher in hostile, failed and longer bids. The put option value is also significantly correlated with the relative riskiness of bidders and targets, and synergy as predicted by Lambrecht (2004). Movements in betas in the run up to takeover announcements and in the post-announcement period are consistent with the real options-based predictions of Hackbarth and Morellec (2008). This study contributes to a better understanding of the true determinants of takeover premium and demonstrates the usefulness of option pricing models and provides a preliminary test of real options models in understanding and measuring the impact of UK takeovers on firm risk and shareholder gains.
The international art markets : the essential guide for collectors and investors

Art continues to prove itself a sound, not to mention exhilarating and satisfying investment. "The International Art Markets" shows like no other book the huge scope for diversification within that market. Despite economic uncertainty, in just over two years average prices in the top 10 per cent of the art market have risen by over 150 per cent in real US dollar terms. In some art market sectors the rise has been longer and almost as dramatic - American paintings have risen seven times since 1994 and Chinese ceramics four times in the last nine years. Further trading opportunities are now greater than ever. In 43 chapters, written by 58 mostly locally-based experts from the art trade, it covers 21 countries from Europe, 12 from Asia and Australasia, five from South America, four from the Middle East and Africa, and two from North America. It deliberately gives equal weighting to each art market, despite the predominance of the USA and Britain. Each chapter provides the following essential information you need to understand the market in each country: art market history including taste, fashion, value, artists, art types, subjects, sales, prices and records; market structure and performance including auctioneers, dealers, trade associations, museums, exhibitions, fairs, training and education; and, tax and regulation. Comprehensive, informed and packed with valuable information, "The International Art Markets" will be the first point of reference for art collectors and investors and anyone who wants to understand the enormous breadth and complexity of the world's art markets.
Childhood Mortality and Economic Growth

This paper investigates the extent to which the decline in childhood mortality over the last three decades can be attributed to economic growth. In doing this, it exploits the considerable variation in growth over this period, across states and over time. The analysis is able to condition upon a number of economic and demographic variables. The estimates are used to produce a crude estimate of the rate of economic growth that would be necessary to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of reducing the under-5 mortality by two thirds, from its level in 1990, by the year 2015. The main conclusion is that, while growth does have a significant impact on mortality risk, growth alone cannot be relied upon to achieve the goal.