Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fighting Youth Unemployment: The Effects of Active Labor Market Policies

A substantial number of young unemployed participate in active labor market programs (ALMP) in Germany each year. While the aims of these programs are clear – a fast re-integration into employment or enrollment in further education – a comprehensive analysis of their effectiveness has yet to be conducted. We fill this gap using administrative data on youth unemployment entries in 2002 and analyze the short- and long-term impacts for a variety of different programs. With informative data at hand we apply inverse probability weighting, thereby accounting for a dynamic treatment assignment and cyclical availability of programs. Our results indicate positive long-term employment effects for nearly all measures aimed at labor market integration. Measures aimed at integrating youths in apprenticeships are effective in terms of education participation, but fail to show any impact on employment outcomes until the end of our observation period. Public sector job creation is found to be harmful for the medium-term employment prospects and ineffective in the long-run. Our analysis further indicates that the targeting of German ALMP systematically ignores low-educated youths as neediest of labor market groups. While no employment program shows a positive impact on further education participation for any subgroup, the employment impact of participation is often significantly lower for low-educated youths.
Prolate spheroidal wave functions induce Gaussian chip waveforms

Slepianpsilas prolate spheroidal wave function (PSWF) is optimum in energy concentration within given frequency bandwidth and time-width. However it is not employed in communications mainly because its inter-symbol interference is unfavorable. We show that introducing Markovian spreading codes makes PSWF be a strong candidate for the chip waveform in CDMA systems. For design tractability, Gaussian waveform is recommended.
Functional Analysis of the OCA-B Promoter1

OCA-B was identified as a B cell-specific coactivator that functions with either Oct-1 or Oct-2 to mediate efficient cell type-specific transcription via the octamer site (ATGCAAAT) both in vivo and in vitro. Mice lacking OCA-B exhibit normal Ag-independent B cell maturation. In contrast, Ag-dependent functions, including production of secondary Ig isotypes and germinal center formation, are greatly affected. To better understand OCA-B expression and, ultimately, the defects observed in the OCA-B knockout mice, we have cloned the OCA-B promoter and examined its function in both transformed and primary B cells. We show here that the OCA-B promoter is developmentally regulated, with activity increasing throughout B cell differentiation. Through physical and functional assays, we have found an activating transcription factor/cAMP response element binding protein binding site (or cAMP response element) that is crucial for OCA-B promoter activity. Furthermore, we demonstrate that IL-4 and anti-CD40 induce both the OCA-B promoter and octamer-dependent promoters, thus implicating OCA-B in B cell signaling events in the nucleus.
Driven and active colloids at fluid interfaces

Abstract We derive expressions for the leading-order far-field flows generated by externally driven and active (swimming) colloids at planar fluid–fluid interfaces. We consider colloids adjacent to the interface or adhered to the interface with a pinned contact line. The Reynolds and capillary numbers are assumed much less than unity, in line with typical micron-scale colloids involving air– or alkane–aqueous interfaces. For driven colloids, the leading-order flow is given by the point-force (and/or torque) response of this system. For active colloids, the force-dipole (stresslet) response occurs at leading order. At clean (surfactant-free) interfaces, these hydrodynamic modes are essentially a restricted set of the usual Stokes multipoles in a bulk fluid. To leading order, driven colloids exert Stokeslets parallel to the interface, while active colloids drive differently oriented stresslets depending on the colloid's orientation. We then consider how these modes are altered by the presence of an incompressible interface, a typical circumstance for colloidal systems at small capillary numbers in the presence of surfactant. The leading-order modes for driven and active colloids are restructured dramatically. For driven colloids, interfacial incompressibility substantially weakens the far-field flow normal to the interface; the point-force response drives flow only parallel to the interface. However, Marangoni stresses induce a new dipolar mode, which lacks an analogue on a clean interface. Surface-viscous stresses, if present, potentially generate very long-ranged flow on the interface and the surrounding fluids. Our results have important implications for colloid assembly and advective mass transport enhancement near fluid boundaries.
Categorical and gradient homophony avoidance: Evidence from Japanese

Abstract Many languages have been claimed to have phonological patterns that are sensitive to the need to avoid homophony – for example, a rule that is blocked if it would create a surface form that is identical to another word in the language. Such patterns always involve comparisons between words in the same morphological paradigm (e.g., singular and plural forms with the same stem). The lone exception to this generalization is Ichimura (2006), who argues that a nasal contraction pattern in Japanese is blocked by potential homophony between verbs with different stems. We present experimental evidence that homophony avoidance is not part of the correct synchronic description of the environment in which this pattern applies; rather, nasal contraction does not productively delete stem-final vowels. However, homophony avoidance does appear to affect the probability with which contraction applies. We conclude that homophony avoidance affects phonological behavior, but that absolute homophony-related blocking is restricted to morphological paradigms.
Off-piste QoS-aware routing protocol

QoS-aware routing protocols have been the focus of much attention in the past decade. This is due to the interesting challenges posed by the problem of QoS routing, in the absence of precise information - or even partial and altogether imprecise information. We present a new QoS-aware routing protocol, OPsAR, which achieves very good performance results at a very reasonable cost, in terms of memory and messages, OPsAR is based on the multi-path routing approach, but constrains the number of paths used and leverages on previous resource reservation attempts. Every reservation attempt - successful or not - results in an update to the knowledge-state recorded at all the nodes that had participated in those attempts. This knowledge helps in avoiding network bottlenecks and coping with congested path when they are encountered. We present extensive simulation results and even compare ourselves favorably with a protocol that explores all possible paths.
The Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality in the European Parliament: Taking Advantage of Institutional Power Play

The European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM Committee) is a core actor within the European Union's gender equality policy machinery. Its capacity to act, though, is shaped by the institutional setting within the European Parliament (EP). Using a qualitative approach, this article shows how this particular committee exploits parliamentary rules and routines to maximise its influence. Existing scholarship has suggested that the voluntary nature of its membership implies a weak position within the EP. However, there is evidence to support a contrary interpretation that its voluntary membership assures institutional persistence, thematic inclusion, organisational attention and networked integration.
Part of the job: The role of physical work conditions in the nurse turnover process

Background: Retention of nursing staff remains an important issue for health care managers. Turnover research has focused primarily on motivational and social factors as keys to retention, whereas the role of the physical work conditions has received considerably less attention. However, work design theory suggests that physical work conditions may be an important factor in fostering retention among nursing staff. Purpose: The aim of this study was to integrate work design theory with turnover process models to explore the influence of perceptions of physical work conditions on the development of turnover intentions among nursing staff. Methods: Drawing on two samples of registered nurses working in cancer units in metropolitan hospitals in the southeastern United States, this study explores the impact of perceptions of physical work conditions on turnover intentions using ordinary least squares regression. Hypotheses are tested in Study 1 and replicated in Study 2. A measure of perceptions of physical work conditions is also developed and validated using exploratory (Study 1) and confirmatory (Study 2) factor analyses. Findings: Perceptions of physical work conditions explain variance in turnover intentions above than that explained by motivational and social factors. Specifically, employee perceptions of noisy work conditions are found to significantly increase turnover intentions, whereas perceptions that work conditions facilitate tasks were found to significantly reduce turnover intentions. Perceptions of temperature and health hazard did not show significant effects. Practice Implications: Results suggest that health care managers and scholars should re-examine the role of physical work conditions in the turnover process. Investments in upgrades that facilitate tasks may foster retention better than investments that simply improve employee comfort. Negative perceptions of work conditions may have no impact if they are considered a normal “part of the job,” although negative perceptions of conditions that are viewed as under the organization’s control may be important in creating a desire to leave.
Interconnecting LANs and MANs to ATM

One of the challenges in the interconnection of LANs and MANs to ATM is the support of connectionless traffic in the ATM network. Several solutions have been proposed. A popular strategy seems to be that of maintaining a 'thin' (i.e. low bandwidth) VP (virtual path) between each pair of gateways, and of requesting more bandwidth whenever a burst comes in from the LAN or MAN. Unfortunately, this strategy places a heavy burden on the ATM control processors; furthermore, it is overly conservative in the use of bandwidth. An alternative solution is proposed: on-the-fly transmission of bursts, without prior bandwidth reservation. The key conditions for this scheme to work are the use of the CLP (cell loss priority) bit, and the knowledge of available bandwidth on the path through 'bandwidth advertising'. An 'on-the-fly' strategy for connectionless traffic is described and is compared with a bandwidth renegotiation strategy. <<ETX>>
Higher education in Lebanon: an empirical investigation on the academic reward system

The study discussed in this article investigates the fact of the academic reward system in Lebanon. We first present an overview on the higher education system in Lebanon, and then we examine the nature of rewards and academic reward system in the relevant literature. After related literature review, reward practices have been handled in two groups as intrinsic rewards and extrinsic rewards. In the sample, which consists of 265 academic staff working for higher education institutions in Lebanon, academic reward systempractices of universities on staff results have been analyzed. The results of this survey are analyzed through descriptive analysis. As themain finding of the research, it has been determined that in the Lebanese higher education industry, a well-defined academic reward system is absent. The higher education staffs are promising but are not appreciated, willing to grow and develop but are not recognized, ambitious but are not involved, aware of academic objectives but are not appraised, intrinsically oriented although they are not compensatedwell. Additionally, equality and fairness are highly questionable.
EGFR expression variance in paired colorectal cancer primary and metastatic tumors

Background: Previous studies indicate that drugs targeting the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) signaling pathways can induce objective responses, prolong time to progression and improve survival of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). EGFR expression in the primary tumour may not predict response to these agents and data is conflicting regarding the correlation of EGFR expression in the primary tumour with the metastatic site. In other tumour sites, the presence of EGFR mutations was associated with efficacy in a subset of patients. Objectives: The goal of this study is to correlate tumour EGFR expression between primary and liver metastatic sites, and to assess the mutational status in the EGFR kinase domain. Methods: This is a single center retrospective study of patients who underwent surgical resection of CRC, for whom paired paraffin-embedded tissue blocks of primary tumours and resected liver metastases were available. EGFR immunostaining and mutation analyses were preformed. Results: Fifty eight paired colorectal primaries and metastases were available for analysis. EGFR was detectable in 96.6% of the primary samples and in 89.7% of the metastatic samples. Perfect concordance in the intensity score between the primary and the metastases was found in 46.5% of the cases. While individual pairs were poorly concordant for intensity, the proportion of primaries with intense staining was similar to the proportion with intense staining in the metastatic samples. Overall survival did not correlate with either EGFR expression in the primary tumour, or with EGFR expression in the metastasis. There were 2 cases with mutations in the EGFR kinase domain. Both mutations were found in exon21 C>T. Conclusions: In this analysis, EGFR expression in the primary tumor site was not predictive of its level in the metastasis. EGFR expression levels in the primaries and in the metastases do not appear to be useful prognostic markers.
Prognostic significance of the anatomical location and TNM clinical classification in oral squamous cell carcinoma.

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate the existence of correlation between the TNM clinical classification, anatomical location and prognosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma. STUDY DESIGN A total of 130 oral squamous cell carcinomas were selected from the files of the Dr. Luiz Antonio Hospital (Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil). Data concerning TNM clinical classification, anatomical location and prognosis were obtained. Pearsons correlation test was applied for the statistical analysis of data. RESULTS It revealed a statistically significant correlation (p = 0.01) between TNM clinical classification and prognosis. It also revealed correlation between TNM classification and the anatomical location of oral squamous cell carcinomas (p = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS We concluded that TNM classification presented correlation with prognosis and with the different anatomical locations of oral squamous cell carcinomas.
The Information Architect: A Missing Link?

Motivated but many of the problems faced by computing professionals and what we teach, we propose a framework for designing curricula related to technology. In particular, by using this framework, we argue that a new professional, which we call the information architect, is needed. We propose a specific set of courses, which can also be justified in more standard computer science or information systems programs.
Distribution of Aggregate Utility Using Stochastic Elements of Additive Multiattribute Utility Models

Conventionally, elements of a multiattribute utility model characterizing a decision maker's preferences, such as attribute weights and attribute utilities, are treated as deterministic, which may be unrealistic because assessment of such elements can be imprecise and erroneous, or differ among a group of individuals. Moreover, attempting to make precise assessments can be time consuming and cognitively demanding. We propose to treat such elements as stochastic variables to account for inconsistency and imprecision in such assessments. Under these assumptions, we develop procedures for computing the probability distribution of aggregate utility for an additive multiattribute utility function (MAUF), based on the Edgeworth expansion. When the distributions of aggregate utility for all alternatives in a decision problem are known, stochastic dominance can then be invoked to filter inferior alternatives. We show that, under certain mild conditions, the aggregate utility distribution approaches normality as the number of attributes increases. Thus, only a few terms from the Edgeworth expansion with a standard normal density as the base function will be sufficient for approximating an aggregate utility distribution in practice. Moreover, the more symmetric the attribute utility distributions, the fewer the attributes to achieve normality. The Edgeworth expansion thus can provide a basis for a computationally viable approach for representing an aggregate utility distribution with imprecisely specified attribute weights and utilities assessments (or differing weights and utilities across individuals). Practical guidelines for using the Edgeworth approximation are given. The proposed methodology is illustrated using a vendor selection problem.
Low complexity duty cycle control with joint delay and energy efficiency for beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 wireless sensor networks

IEEE 802.15. 4 defines a duty cycle based medium access control (MAC) protocol to reduce the energy consumption for devices in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). A low duty cycle significantly improves the energy efficiency but reduces the available transmission time, thereby increases end-to-end delay. In this paper, we solve an adaptive duty cycle control problem for beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15. 4 networks, which aims at minimising a joint-cost of energy consumption and end-to-end delay. The problem is formulated as a classical inventory control problem and the optimal adaptive duty cycle of the device is derived by applying dynamic programming (DP). We further propose a low complexity suboptimal adaptive duty cycle control by taking into account the computational limitation of the sensor devices. Simulation results show that the proposed duty cycle control effectively reduces energy consumption, end-to-end delay, and packet drop ratio under various network traffic.
A model of personality and health : coping styles as a moderator in the perfectionism-health connection

The purpose of this study was to examine a model of personality and health. Specifically, this thesis examined perfectionism as a predictor of health status and health behaviours, as moderated by coping styles. A community sample of 813 young adults completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, the Coping Strategy Indicator, and measures of health symptoms, health care utilization, and various health behaviours. Multiple regression analyses revealed a number of significant findings. First, perfectionism and coping styles contributed significant main effects in predicting health status and health behaviours, although coping styles were not shown to moderate the perfectionism-health relationship. The data showed that perfectionism did constitute a health risk, both in terms of health status and health behaviours. Finally, an unexpected finding was that perfectionism also included adaptive features related to health. Specifically, some dimensions of perfectionism were also associated with reports of better health status and involvement in some positive health behaviours. 2
Initial fall of plasma calcium after intravenous injection of parathyroid hormone.

After intravenous injection of parathyroid hormone, the plasma calcium concentration falls transiently before beginning to rise. Such an effect has previously been seen in several animals and in man, but was generally ascribed to contamination with calcitonin, which was then thought to be a hormone produced by the parathyroids. We have investigated the hypocalcemia in dogs by following the precise time course of changes in plasma calcium and phosphate after injection of calcitonin-free parathyroid hormone, and by prelabeling animals with radiocalcium. Results show that the initial hypocalcemia is due to parathyroid hormone itself and results from a rapid outflow of calcium from the blood. This evidence strengthens current theories that the action of parathyroid hormone is initiated by an increase in intracellular calcium. (Endocrinology 89: 735, 1971)
Optimal management of sarcomas of the breast: an update

Breast sarcomas are rare mesenchymal-derived breast tumors. The small number of patients, the different histological subtypes, and the variation in clinical practice impairs the ability to draw firm practice recommendations. Patient management is often extrapolated from other soft tissue sarcomas, mostly of the extremities in which more clinical data is available. Surgical resection with negative margins is the goal of treatment, irrespective of the surgical procedure; the implication of radiation and chemotherapy is variable. Further advances in treatment should follow the assembly of breast sarcoma patients in specific cancer networks in specialized sarcoma referral centers. The characterization of molecular pathways active in tumorogenesis of these tumors may pave the way for the application of novel therapeutic agents.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Reveals Changes in Language Localization in Children With Benign Childhood Epilepsy With Centrotemporal Spikes

In children with benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes, centrotemporal spikes may cause language dysfunction via disruption of underlying functional neuroanatomy. Fifteen patients with benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes and 15 healthy controls completed 3 functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) language paradigms; standardized cognitive and language assessments were also performed. For all paradigms, children with benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes showed specific regional differences in activation compared to controls. Children with benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes also differed from controls on neuropsychological testing. They did not differ in general intelligence, but children with benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes scored significantly lower than controls on tests of language, visuomotor integration, and processing speed. These results extend previous findings of lower language and cognitive skills in patients with benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes, and suggest epilepsy-related remodeling of language networks that may underlie these observed differences.