Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How Defendants’ Legal Status and Ethnicity and Participants’ Political Orientation Relate to Death Penalty Sentencing Decisions

Increases in U.S. immigration and the growth in the Latino population highlight the importance of understanding the influence of ethnicity and legal status on participants’ decision-making. Furthermore, immigration is a politically charged topic, which suggests participants’ political orientation might relate to their decisions in cases involving immigrant defendants. Using the justification-suppression model of prejudice, this study investigated the influence of a defendant’s ethnicity and legal status in the context of a death penalty trial. Results demonstrate that the defendant’s ethnicity did not influence participants’ punishment decisions, but legal status did. Specifically, participants were generally more punitive toward both undocumented and documented immigrant defendants, compared to U.S.-born defendants. Punitiveness toward documented immigrants was qualified by an interaction with participants’ political orientation, such that middle-of-the-road and more liberal participants reported greater punitiveness toward a documented immigrant defendant, compared to a U.S.-born defendant, but more conservative participants reported no differences in punitiveness between documented immigrant defendants and U.S.-born defendants. This effect was mediated by participants’ evaluation of mitigators and aggravators but only among more liberal and middle-of-the-road participants. Implications for policy and future directions are discussed.
Have2eat: a Restaurant Finder with Review Summarization for Mobile Phones

Have2eat is a popular mobile application available for iPhone and Android-based devices that helps users to find and assess nearby restaurants. It lists restaurants located around the device and provides a quick highlight about the opinions expressed by online reviewers. Have2eat summarizes textual reviews by extracting relevant sentences and by automatically generating detailed ratings about specific aspects of the restaurant. A compact one-screen digest allows users to quickly access the information they need, expand to full review pages, and report their experience online by entering ratings and comments.
Taxon sampling and the phylogenetic position of Passeriformes: evidence from 916 avian cytochrome b sequences.

Attempts to resolve relationships among major groups of birds from DNA sequences have been plagued by the problem of apparent long branches connected by short internodes (Sibley and Ahlquist, 1990) and the difficulties of sampling a large number of taxa in one study. A recent study of relationships among major avian lineages based on complete mitochondrial DNA sequences (Mindell et al., 1997, 1999) produced a striking result of a basal position for passerine birds (Aves: Passeriformes), placing them as sister to all other birds. This arrangement is novel and differs from Sibley and Ahlquist's (1990) tree based on DNA-DNA hybridization data and from virtually all previous classification schemes for birds (Fig. 1). Most classifications of birds place Passeriformes well within other neognath lineages (e.g., Morony et al., 1975; Howard and Moore, 1980; del Hoyo et al., 1992; Groth and Barrowclough, 1999) and place paleognaths (ratites and tinamous) as the sister to neognaths (all other birds). One potential criticism of Mindell et al.'s (1997, 1999) studies is that taxon sampling is very sparse (five and seven avian species, respectively). A study with greater taxonomic coverage (21 avian species) based on only mitochondrial cytochrome b (cyt b) DNA sequences (Harlid et al., 1998) still resulted in a sister relationship between passerines and all other birds. Nonetheless, all of these DNA sequence studies include only a very small frac-
Dynamics of investment and firm performance: comparative evidence from manufacturing industries

This paper investigates the channels linking investment and firm performance in the French and Italian manufacturing industries and proposes a novel methodology to identify investment spikes which corrects for nonlinear size dependence. Using large data sets reporting observed investment from official sources, we provide a systematic comparison of the relation between investment and firm performance across (i) different definitions of investment spikes, our proposed measure and previous ones; (ii) different institutional settings, i.e. France and Italy; (iii) several performance proxies; and (iv) investment types. We show that the failure to account for the scaling relation between investment spikes and firm size can bias such analyses. Moreover, differences also emerge across countries in the way investment spikes translate into future firm performance.
Online Energy Budgeting for Cost Minimization in Virtualized Data Center

The growing environmental and sustainability concerns have made energy efficiency a pressing issue for data center operation. Governments, as well as various organizations, are urging data centers to cap the increasing energy consumption. Naturally, achieving long term energy capping involves deciding energy usage over a long timescale (without accurately foreseeing the far future) and hence, we call this process “energy budgeting”. In this paper, we introduce an online resource management solution, called eBud (energy Budgeting), for a virtualized data center. eBud determines the number of servers, resource allocation to virtual machines and corresponding workload distribution to minimize data center operational cost while satisfying a long term energy cap. We prove that eBud achieves a close-to-minimum cost compared to the optimal offline algorithm with future information, while bounding the potential violation of energy budget constraint, in an almost arbitrarily random environment. We also perform a trace-based simulation study to complement the performance analysis. The simulation results show that eBud reduces the cost by more than <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{16}$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="islam-ieq1-2390231.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> percent (compared to state-of-the-art prediction-based algorithm) while resulting in a zero energy budget deficit. We also perform an experimental study based on RUBiS, demonstrating that in a real life scenario, eBud can achieve energy capping with a negligible increase in operational cost.
A Motion Planning Approach to Studying Molecular Motions

While structurally very different, protein and RNA molecules share an important attribute. The motions they undergo are strongly related to the function they perform. For example, many diseases such as Mad Cow disease or Alzheimer's disease are associated with protein misfolding and aggregation. Similarly, RNA folding velocity may regulate the plasmid copy number, and RNA folding kinetics can regulate gene expression at the translational level. Knowledge of the stability, folding, kinetics and detailed mechanics of the folding process may help provide insight into how proteins and RNAs fold. In this paper, we present an overview of our work with a computational method we have adapted from robotic motion planning to study molecular motions. We have val- idated against experimental data and have demonstrated that our method can capture biological results such as stochastic folding pathways, population kinetics of various conformations, and rela- tive folding rates. Thus, our method provides both a detailed view (e.g., individual pathways) and a global view (e.g., population kinetics, relative folding rates, and reaction coordinates) of energy land- scapes of both proteins and RNAs. We have validated these techniques by showing that we observe the same relative folding rates as shown in experiments for structurally similar protein molecules that exhibit different folding behaviors. Our analysis has also been able to predict the same relative gene expression rate for wild-type MS2 phage RNA and three of its mutants.
Integrating basic research with prevention/intervention to reduce risky substance use among college students

Too often basic research on etiological processes that contribute to substance use outcomes is disconnected from efforts to develop prevention and intervention programming. Substance use on college campuses is an area of concern where translational efforts that bring together basic scientists and prevention/intervention practitioners have potential for high impact. We describe an effort at a large, public, urban university in the United States to bring together researchers across the campus with expertise in college behavioral health with university administration and health/wellness practitioners to address college student substance use and mental health. The project “Spit for Science” examines how genetic and environmental influences contribute to behavioral health outcomes across the college years. We argue that findings coming out of basic research can be used to develop more tailored prevention and intervention programming that incorporates both biologically and psychosocially influenced risk factors. Examples of personalized programming suggest this may be a fruitful way to advance the field and reduce risky substance use.
Collective entity linking in web text: a graph-based method

Entity Linking (EL) is the task of linking name mentions in Web text with their referent entities in a knowledge base. Traditional EL methods usually link name mentions in a document by assuming them to be independent. However, there is often additional interdependence between different EL decisions, i.e., the entities in the same document should be semantically related to each other. In these cases, Collective Entity Linking, in which the name mentions in the same document are linked jointly by exploiting the interdependence between them, can improve the entity linking accuracy. This paper proposes a graph-based collective EL method, which can model and exploit the global interdependence between different EL decisions. Specifically, we first propose a graph-based representation, called Referent Graph, which can model the global interdependence between different EL decisions. Then we propose a collective inference algorithm, which can jointly infer the referent entities of all name mentions by exploiting the interdependence captured in Referent Graph. The key benefit of our method comes from: 1) The global interdependence model of EL decisions; 2) The purely collective nature of the inference algorithm, in which evidence for related EL decisions can be reinforced into high-probability decisions. Experimental results show that our method can achieve significant performance improvement over the traditional EL methods.
Work-related psychosocial factors and carotid atherosclerosis.

BACKGROUND In order to better understand the role of work environment in the earlier stages of the cardiovascular disease process, we wanted to investigate the influence of work-related psychosocial factors on preclinical atherosclerosis. METHODS Cross-sectional data was used to examine the association between psychological job demands, job decision latitude, and carotid atherosclerosis in 2658 vocationally-active Swedish men and women, ages 46-65, from the general population. Odds ratios of carotid plaque prevalence and carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT), determined by B-mode ultrasound, were estimated across combinations of job demands and decision latitude. RESULTS Women in job situations with high demands and low decision latitude ('job strain') showed a high plaque prevalence odds (odds ratio [OR] = 1.68, 95% CI: 1.14, 2.48), and a thicker IMT in the carotid bifurcation area (mean difference: 0.15 mm, 95% CI: 0.07, 0.23) compared with women in job situations with low demands and high decision latitude ('relaxed'). Adjustment for covariates only slightly reduced the magnitude of these associations. No such associations were seen in men. However, women in job situations with high demands and high decision latitude ('active') also showed high odds for carotid plaque, and a thicker IMT in the carotid bifurcation, compared with women in 'relaxed' job situations. In men, those in 'active' job situations had a low carotid plaque prevalence odds, while IMT in the carotid bifurcation did not differ from those in 'relaxed' job situations. Results showed only weak associations with IMT in the common carotid artery (CCA) in both men and women. CONCLUSION The specific hypothesis that high job demands interact synergistically with low decision latitude in the development of carotid atherosclerosis could not be supported in this study, neither in men nor in women. Instead a more complex pattern of interaction between job demands and decision latitude was shown.
A review of multivariate analyses in imaging genetics

Recent advances in neuroimaging technology and molecular genetics provide the unique opportunity to investigate genetic influence on the variation of brain attributes. Since the year 2000, when the initial publication on brain imaging and genetics was released, imaging genetics has been a rapidly growing research approach with increasing publications every year. Several reviews have been offered to the research community focusing on various study designs. In addition to study design, analytic tools and their proper implementation are also critical to the success of a study. In this review, we survey recent publications using data from neuroimaging and genetics, focusing on methods capturing multivariate effects accommodating the large number of variables from both imaging data and genetic data. We group the analyses of genetic or genomic data into either a priori driven or data driven approach, including gene-set enrichment analysis, multifactor dimensionality reduction, principal component analysis, independent component analysis (ICA), and clustering. For the analyses of imaging data, ICA and extensions of ICA are the most widely used multivariate methods. Given detailed reviews of multivariate analyses of imaging data available elsewhere, we provide a brief summary here that includes a recently proposed method known as independent vector analysis. Finally, we review methods focused on bridging the imaging and genetic data by establishing multivariate and multiple genotype-phenotype-associations, including sparse partial least squares, sparse canonical correlation analysis, sparse reduced rank regression and parallel ICA. These methods are designed to extract latent variables from both genetic and imaging data, which become new genotypes and phenotypes, and the links between the new genotype-phenotype pairs are maximized using different cost functions. The relationship between these methods along with their assumptions, advantages, and limitations are discussed.
The New Black Middle Class in South Africa

Southall’s The New Black Middle Class in South Africa, locates itself in the present day South Africa and narrates the story of the emergence of the so-called ‘black middle class’. The narrative can be discussed broadly in three fundamental components outlined below. Firstly, Southall begins by emphasising the necessity to conceptualise the so-called ‘black middle class’. He stipulates that there is consensus that the middle class refers to the category of people who are middle range in terms of income, wealth, property ownership and occupation (1). Southall further elaborates upon the global issue of inequality and what the causes thereof are. He uses two theories coined by philosophers Karl Marx and Max Weber to locate the middle class in modern day society (2–4). He points out that Weber’s conception of social stratification differs from Marx’s in two significant ways; firstly, that Weber interposes a range of status groups to bridge the gap between the two major classes in capitalist society and secondly by suggesting a different idea of social hierarchy. The conceptualisation of the middle class is summarised by highlighting three generalisations that stand out (21): firstly, with the advancement of capitalist industrialisation the middle class has become increasingly differentiated, thus reference should be made to ‘middle classes’ instead of ‘middle class’; secondly different segments of the middle class are pulled in different directions, this is owing to their relation to capital and the state and thirdly, by asking the relevant question of just how far can theories developed in the global north be applicable to the global south? Moreover, Southall gives an historic overview of the black middle class in South Africa by focusing on the period 1910–1994 and the most significant events that shaped South Africa’s history leading up to the liberation of the black people in South Africa (37). The year 1910 is significant in that it saw the formation of the Union of South Africa and this formation
More than one-half of the erythroblasts in the fetal circulation and cord blood are TUNEL positive.

The relationship between the transfer of fetal cells to the maternal circulation and the identification of cell-free fetal DNA in maternal plasma has raised many questions and prompted us and others to investigate the possible involvement of apoptosis in this process. van Wijk et al. (1) recently reported the presence of a relatively large number of TUNEL (terminal dUTP nuclear end labeling)-positive cells (which the authors considered as being apoptotic cells) in maternal plasma. Sekizawa et al. (2) showed that a large percentage of TUNEL-positive cells in the maternal circulation in posttermination samples were fetal erythroblasts. Thus, these authors suggested that apoptosis of fetal cells induced by the maternal immune system may play a role in the clearance of fetal cells from the maternal circulation without causing inflammatory damage to the mother. The morphology of erythroblasts changes dramatically, however, during terminal erythroid differentiation and enucleation, and some of these changes … [↵][1]bAuthor for correspondence. Fax 31-20-4443895; e-mail ij.vanwijk{at}vumc.nl [1]: #xref-corresp-2-1
Magnetic fields and Turbulence in Star Formation using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

Abstract Firstly, we give a historical overview of attempts to incorporate magnetic fields into the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method by solving the equations of Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), leading an honest assessment of the current state-of-the-art in terms of the limitations to performing realistic calculations of the star formation process. Secondly, we discuss the results of a recent comparison we have performed on simulations of driven, supersonic turbulence with SPH and Eulerian techniques. Finally we present some new results on the relationship between the density variance and the Mach number in supersonic turbulent flows, finding σ2ln ρ = ln(1 + b22 with b = 0.33 up to Mach 20, consistent with other numerical results at lower Mach number (Lemaster & Stone 2008) but inconsistent with observational constraints on σρ and in Taurus and IC5146.
Teachers' Epistemic Beliefs and Their Pedagogical Beliefs: A Qualitative Case Study among Singaporean Teachers in the Context of ICT-Supported Reforms.

Many current ICT-supported reform efforts demand teachers to assume the role of epistemic facilitator of knowledge construction supported by technology. It is thus important for teacher educators to understand teachers’ epistemic beliefs. This qualitative study investigated seven Singaporean in-service teachers’ epistemic beliefs and their pedagogical beliefs. Two interviews were conducted for each teacher. Employing a case study design, the transcripts were analyzed for assertions that reflected the teachers’ beliefs. Results indicated that all seven teachers expressed more or less relativistic epistemic beliefs. The pedagogical beliefs held by teachers were more knowledge transmissionist in orientation. Results also implied that the relationship between epistemic beliefs and pedagogical beliefs seemed to be mediated by teachers’ awareness of students’ readiness and what they perceived as their priorities in the school context.
Efficacy of Hypnosis-Based Treatment in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Pilot Study

Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and its devastating neurodegenerative consequences have an inevitably psychological impact on patients and their caregivers: however, although it would be strongly needed, there is a lack of research on the efficacy of psychological intervention. Our aim was to investigate the effect of hypnosis-based intervention on psychological and perceived physical wellbeing in patients and the indirect effect on caregivers. Methods: We recruited eight ALS volunteers patients as a pilot sample for an hypnosis intervention and self-hypnosis training protocol lasting 1 month. Anxiety and depression level was measured in patients and caregivers at pre and post treatment phase. Quality of life and perceived physical symptoms changes were also investigated in patients. Results: One month pre-post treatment improvement in depression, anxiety, and quality of life was clearly clinically observed and confirmed by psychometric analyses on questionnaire data. Moreover, decreases in physical symptoms such as pain, sleep disorders, emotional lability, and fasciculations were reported by our patients. Improvements in caregiver psychological wellbeing, likely as a consequence of patients psychological and perceived physical symptomatology improvement, were also observed. Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, even if at a preliminary level, this is the first report on efficacy psychological intervention protocol on ALS patients. The findings provide initial support for using hypnosis and self-hypnosis training to manage some ALS physical consequences and mainly to cope its dramatic psychological implications for patients and, indirectly, for their caregivers.
Intensive Care Unit (ICU) – Managed Elderly Hospitalizations with Dementia in Texas, 2001–2010: A Population-Level Analysis

Background The demand for critical care services among elderly with dementia outpaces that of their non-dementia elderly counterparts. However, there are scarce data on the corresponding attributes among ICU-managed patients with dementia. Material/Methods We used the Texas Inpatient Public Use Data File to examine temporal trends of the demographics, burden of comorbidities, measures of severity of illness, use of healthcare resources, and short-term outcomes among hospitalizations aged 65 years or older with a reported diagnosis of dementia, who were admitted to ICU (D-ICU hospitalizations) between 2001 and 2010. Average annual percent changes (AAPC) were derived. Results D-ICU hospitalizations (n=276,056) had increasing mean (SD) Charlson comorbidity index [1.7 (1.5) vs. 2.6 (1.9)], with reported organ failure (OF) nearly doubling from 25% to 48.5%, between 2001–2001 and 2009–2010, respectively. Use of life support interventions was infrequent, but rose in parallel with corresponding changes in respiratory and renal failure. Median total hospital charges increased from $26,442 to $36,380 between 2001–2002 and 2009–2010. Routine home discharge declined (−5.2%/year [−6.2%– −4.1%]) with corresponding rising use of home health services (+7.2%/year [4.4–10%]). Rates of discharge to another hospital or a nursing facility remained unchanged, together accounting for 60.4% of discharges of hospital survivors in 2010. Transfers to a long-term acute care hospital increased 9.2%/year (6.9–11.5%). Hospital mortality (7.5%) remained unchanged. Conclusions Elderly D-ICU hospitalizations have increasing comorbidity burden, with rising severity of illness, and increasing use of health care resources. Though the majority survived hospitalization, most D-ICU hospitalizations were discharged to another facility.