Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The General Basis of Arbitrator Behavior: an Empirical Analysis of Conventional and Final-Offer Arbitration

A general model of arbitrator behavior in conventional and final-offer arbitration is developed that is based on an underlying notion of an appropriate award in a particular case. This appropriate award is defined as a function of the facts of the case independently of the offers of the parties. In conventional arbitration the arbitration award is argued to be a function of both the offers of the parties and the appropriate award. The weight that the arbitrator puts on the appropriate award relative to the offers is hypothesized to be a function of the quality of the offers as measured by the difference between the offers. In final-offer arbitration itis argued that the arbitrator chooses the offer that is closest to the appropriate award.The model is implemented empirically using data gathered from practicing arbitrators regarding their decisions in twenty-five hypothetical cases. The estimates of the general model strongly support the characterizations of arbitrator behavior in the two schemes. No substantial differences were found in the determination of the appropriate award implicit in the conventional arbitration decisions and the determination of the appropriate award implicitin the final-offer decisions.
Regular Models of Phonological Rule Systems

This paper presents a set of mathematical and computational tools for manipulating and reasoning about regular languages and regular relations and argues that they provide a solid basis for computational phonology. It shows in detail how this framework applies to ordered sets of context-sensitive rewriting rules and also to grammars in Koskenniemi's two-level formalism. This analysis provides a common representation of phonological constraints that supports efficient generation and recognition by a single simple interpreter.
Alfred Marshall Lecture Social Capital as Good Culture

To explain the extremely long-term persistence (more than 500 years) of positive historical experiences of cooperation (Putnam 1993), we model the intergenerational transmission of priors about the trustworthiness of others. We show that this transmission tends to be biased toward excessively conservative priors. As a result, societies can be trapped in a low-trust equilibrium. In this context, a temporary shock to the return to trusting can have a permanent effect on the level of trust. We validate the model by testing its predictions on the World Values Survey data and the German Socio Economic Panel. We also present some anecdotal evidence that these priors are reflected in novels that originate in different parts of the country. (JEL: 04, 016, 043, P16) (c) 2008 by the European Economic Association.
Implementation and evaluation of shufflenet, gemnet and de bruijn graph logical network topologies

In this paper, a generic model for implementing logical interconnection topologies in software has been proposed in order to investigate the performance of the logical topologies and their routing algorithms for packet based synchronous networks. This model is generic for synchronous transfer modes and therefore can be used in implementing any logical topology by using any programming language. Three topologies have been investigated and implemented namely: Shufflenet, De Bruijn graph and Gemnet. Results for the average packet delay show that the De Bruijn graph performed the worst. Also, it is observed that the De Bruijn graph makes use of buffering more efficiently compared to the other algorithms.
Self-Ligating Brackets and Their Impact on Oral Health-Related Quality of Life in Chinese Adolescence Patients: A Longitudinal Prospective Study

Introduction. Although the associations between orthodontic and oral health-related quality of life (OHRQOL) have been explored, little research has been done to address the influence of brackets type on perceived OHRQOL. The aim of this study was to assess whether the levels of OHRQOL in Chinese adolescence patients were influenced by the type of brackets. Materials and Methods. One hundred fifty Chinese orthodontic adolescence patients completed the 14-item Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14, Chinese version) at five distinct intervals: after insertion of the fixed appliance at 1 week (T1), 1 month (T2), 3 months (T3), and 6 months (T4); and after treatment (T5). Results. Patients with self-ligating brackets were associated with less pain and discomfort at any intervals compared with conventional brackets, but no significant difference of overall OHIP-14 scores could be found between two groups. Moreover, in both groups, overall scores at T1 and T2 were significantly higher than the scores at any other intervals in both groups. Conclusions. The type of orthodontic appliance did not affect oral health-related quality of life in Chinese adolescence patients.
Glutamate synthase of Corynebacterium glutamicum is not essential for glutamate synthesis and is regulated by the nitrogen status.

The Corynebacterium glutamicum gltB and gltD genes, encoding the large (alpha) and small (beta) subunit of glutamate synthase (GOGAT), were investigated in this study. Using RT-PCR, a common transcript of gltB and gltD was shown. Reporter gene assays and Northern hybridization experiments revealed that transcription of this operon depends on nitrogen starvation. The expression of gltBD is under control of the global repressor protein AmtR as demonstrated by gel shift experiments and analysis of gltB transcription in an amtR deletion strain. In contrast to other bacteria, in C. glutamicum GOGAT plays no pivotal role; e.g. gltB and gltD inactivation did not result in growth defects when cells were grown in standard minimal medium and only a slight increase in the doubling time of the corresponding mutant strains was observed in the presence of limiting amounts of ammonia or urea. Additionally, mutant analyses revealed that GOGAT has no essential function in glutamate production by C. glutamicum.
Combined model for detecting, localizing, interpreting and recognizing faces

This work describes a method that combines face detection, localization, part interpretation and recognition, and which is capable of learning from very limited data, in a semi-supervised or even fully unsupervised manner. Current state-of-the-art techniques for face detection and recognition are subject to two major limitations: extensive training requirement, often demanding tens of thousands of images, and detecting faces without explicitly detecting relevant facial parts. Both of these limitations hinder the recognition task, since for a speciﬁc face the number of available examples is usually small, and because the strongest cues for identity lie in the speciﬁc appearance of facial parts. The proposed method alleviates both these limitations by eﬀective learning from a small training set and by detecting the face through, and together with, its main parts. This is obtained by a novel unsupervised training method, which iterates phases of part geometry and part detector learning, to incrementally learn an object category from a set of unlabeled images, containing both class and non-class examples given in unknown order. We tested our method on face detection and localization tasks both in a set of ’real life’ images collected from the web as well as in LFW and MIT-CMU databases. We also show promising results of our method when applied to a face recognition task.
Animal-Based Remedies as Complementary Medicines in the Semi-Arid Region of Northeastern Brazil

Animals (and their derived products) are essential ingredients in the preparation of many traditional remedies. Despite its prevalence in traditional medical practices worldwide, research on medicinal animals has often been neglected in comparison to medicinal plant research. This work documents the medicinal animals used by a rural community in the semi-arid region, inserted in Caatinga Biome, where 66 respondents provided information on animal species used as medicine, body parts used to prepare the remedies and illnesses to which the remedies were prescribed. We calculated the informant consensus factor to determine the consensus over which species are effective for particular ailments, as well as the species use value to determine the extent of utilization of each species. We recorded the use of 51 animal species as medicines, whose products were recommended for the treatment of 68 illnesses. The informant consensus in the use of many specific remedies is fairly high, giving an additional validity to this folk medicine. Eight species not previously reported as having medicinal use were recorded. The local medicinal fauna is largely based on wild animals, including some endangered species. Given a high proportion of medicinal animals observed in the study area, it is logical to conclude that any conservation strategy should include access to modern health care.
Network-Based Statistic Show Aberrant Functional Connectivity in Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have been associated with impaired communication among large-scale brain networks. Given nature that interconnected subnetworks are responsible for daily behavior than a single pair of functional connectivity, it is valid to use a network-based statistic (NBS) method to exploit the clustering structure of connectivity alterations in AD/MCI. We explored abnormal network components using NBS based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)connectivity in a sample of patients with AD (N = 35), MCI (N = 27) and age-matched healthy subjects (N = 27). The results demonstrated that patients had reduced functional connectivity strength in several components, including the default mode network, sensorimotor network, visual-sensory network, and visual-attention network. In patients with AD, the functional connectivity of these components of interest (COIs) exhibited greater attenuation than that in MCI subjects compared with normal cognition. A greater degree of cognitive impairment was correlated with a greater decrease in functional connectivity in the identified COIs. These results indicate that the neurodegenerative disruption of fMRI connectivity is widely distributed in several networks in AD/MCI. These profiles deepen our understanding of the neural basis of AD/MCI dysfunction and indicate the potential of resting-state fMRI measures as biomarkers or predictors of AD.
Transgenic induction of mitochondrial rearrangements for cytoplasmic male sterility in crop plants

Stability of the mitochondrial genome is controlled by nuclear loci. In plants, nuclear genes suppress mitochondrial DNA rearrangements during development. One nuclear gene involved in this process is Msh1. Msh1 appears to be involved in the suppression of illegitimate recombination in plant mitochondria. To test the hypothesis that Msh1 disruption leads to the type of mitochondrial DNA rearrangements associated with naturally occurring cytoplasmic male sterility in plants, a transgenic approach for RNAi was used to modulate expression of Msh1 in tobacco and tomato. In both species, these experiments resulted in reproducible mitochondrial DNA rearrangements and a condition of male (pollen) sterility. The male sterility was, in each case, heritable, associated with normal female fertility, and apparently maternal in its inheritance. Segregation of the transgene did not reverse the male sterile phenotype, producing stable, nontransgenic male sterility. The reproducible transgenic induction of mitochondrial rearrangements in plants is unprecedented, providing a means to develop novel cytoplasmic male sterile lines for release as non-GMO or transgenic materials.
Scottish Press Coverage of UK General Elections after Devolution: the 2001 and 2005 Campaigns

This paper presents preliminary findings from a wider study into the form that political debate takes in Scottish and English/UK newspapers’ reporting of the 2001 and the 2005 UK Elections. The research project aims to contribute to the discussion regarding the role played by the Scottish press in political deliberation after devolution and compares its contribution to the electoral debate with that of newspapers bought in England. This paper explores the results of a content analysis of articles from daily Scottish and UK newspapers during the four weeks of each election campaign period. This reveals that, despite some differences, the overall picture of the coverage of major election issues is consistent. A selection of the coverage of taxation, the most mentioned reserved issue in the 2001 campaign, is subsequently analysed using critical discourse analysis, and the results suggest more distinction between the two sets of newspapers.
SSD: Smooth Signed Distance Surface Reconstruction

We introduce a new variational formulation for the problem of reconstructing a watertight surface defined by an implicit equation, from a finite set of oriented points; a problem which has attracted a lot of attention for more than two decades. As in the Poisson Surface Reconstruction approach, discretizations of the continuous formulation reduce to the solution of sparse linear systems of equations. But rather than forcing the implicit function to approximate the indicator function of the volume bounded by the implicit surface, in our formulation the implicit function is forced to be a smooth approximation of the signed distance function to the surface. Since an indicator function is discontinuous, its gradient does not exist exactly where it needs to be compared with the normal vector data. The smooth signed distance has approximate unit slope in the neighborhood of the data points. As a result, the normal vector data can be incorporated directly into the energy function without implicit function smoothing. In addition, rather than first extending the oriented points to a vector field within the bounding volume, and then approximating the vector field by a gradient field in the least squares sense, here the vector field is constrained to be the gradient of the implicit function, and a single variational problem is solved directly in one step. The formulation allows for a number of different efficient discretizations, reduces to a finite least squares problem for all linearly parameterized families of functions, and does not require boundary conditions. The resulting algorithms are significantly simpler and easier to implement, and produce results of quality comparable with state‐of‐the‐art algorithms. An efficient implementation based on a primal‐graph octree‐based hybrid finite element‐finite difference discretization, and the Dual Marching Cubes isosurface extraction algorithm, is shown to produce high quality crack‐free adaptive manifold polygon meshes.
Contrast Enhancement without Transient Map Expansion for Species-Specific Vocalizations in Core Auditory Cortex during Learning

Visual Abstract Tonotopic map plasticity in the adult auditory cortex (AC) is a well established and oft-cited measure of auditory associative learning in classical conditioning paradigms. However, its necessity as an enduring memory trace has been debated, especially given a recent finding that the areal expansion of core AC tuned to a newly relevant frequency range may arise only transiently to support auditory learning. This has been reinforced by an ethological paradigm showing that map expansion is not observed for ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) or for ultrasound frequencies in postweaning dams for whom USVs emitted by pups acquire behavioral relevance. However, whether transient expansion occurs during maternal experience is not known, and could help to reveal the generality of cortical map expansion as a correlate for auditory learning. We thus mapped the auditory cortices of maternal mice at postnatal time points surrounding the peak in pup USV emission, but found no evidence of frequency map expansion for the behaviorally relevant high ultrasound range in AC. Instead, regions tuned to low frequencies outside of the ultrasound range show progressively greater suppression of activity in response to the playback of ultrasounds or pup USVs for maternally experienced animals assessed at their pups’ postnatal day 9 (P9) to P10, or postweaning. This provides new evidence for a lateral-band suppression mechanism elicited by behaviorally meaningful USVs, likely enhancing their population-level signal-to-noise ratio. These results demonstrate that tonotopic map enlargement has limits as a construct for conceptualizing how experience leaves neural memory traces within sensory cortex in the context of ethological auditory learning.
Current Management of NAFLD

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease in Western countries. It affects about 1 billion individuals worldwide. While people with simple steatosis have no higher risk of death than the general population, people with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis are at increased risk of death compared to general population. Current management for NAFLD includes diet and lifestyle changes, management of underlying metabolic risk factors and pharmacological therapies. The objective of therapy is to prevent the complications. The problem with dietary and lifestyle interventions is that they are hard to implement. Compliance is the key. Until now, there is still no approved drug for the treatment of NAFLD. Insulin resistance is the main target of pharmacological therapy, but the question that we ask ourselves as physicians is who should receive medical treatment among NAFLD patients and for how long.
On dynamic resource allocation in systems with bursty sources

There is a trend to use computing resources in a way that is more removed from the technical constraints. Users buy compute time on machines that they do not control or necessarily know the specifics of. Conversely this means the providers of such resources have more freedom in allocating them amongst different tasks. They can use this freedom to provide more, or better, service by reallocating resources as demand for them changes. However deciding when to reallocate resources is not trivial. In order to make good reallocation decisions, this thesis constructs a series of models. Each of the models concerns a resource allocation problem in the presence of bursty sources. The focus of the modelling, however, varies. In its most basic form it considers several different job types competing over the allocation of a limited number of servers. The goal there is to minimize the (weighted) mean time jobs spend in the system. The weighting can reflect the relative importance of the different job types. Reallocation of servers between job types is in general considered to be neither free nor instantaneous. We then show how to find the optimal static allocation of servers over job types. Finding the optimal dynamic allocation of servers is formulated as solving a Markov decision process. We show that this is practically unfeasible for all but the most simple systems. Instead a number of heuristics are introduced. Some are fluid-approximation based and some are parameterless, i.e. do not require the a priori knowledge of parameters of the system. The performance of these heuristic policies is then explored in a series of simulations. A slightly different model is formulated next. Its goal is not to optimize allocation of servers over several job types, but rather between powered up and powered down states. In the powered up state servers can provide service for incoming jobs. In the powered down state servers cannot service incoming jobs but incur a profit due to power savings. Balancing power and performance is again formulated as a Markov decision process. This is not explicitly solved but instead some of the heuristics considered earlier are adapted to give dynamic policies for powering servers up and v down. Their performance is again tested in a number of simulations, including some where the arrival process is not only bursty but also non-Markovian. The third and final model considers allocation of servers over different job types again. This time the servers experience breakdowns and subsequent repairs. During a repair period the servers cannot process any incoming jobs. To reduce the complexity of this model, it is assumed that switches of servers between job types are instantaneous, albeit not necessarily free. This is modeled as a Markov decision process and we show how to find the optimal static allocation of servers. For the dynamic allocation previously considered heuristics are adapted again. Simulations then show the performance of these heuristics and the optimal static allocation in a number of scenarios.
Evolution of high‐latitude snow mass derived from the GRACE gravimetry mission (2002–2004)

Since March 2002, the GRACE mission provides monthly global maps of geoid time‐variations. These new data carry information on the continental water storage, including snow mass variations, with a ground resolution of ∼600–700 km. We have computed monthly snow mass solutions from the inversion of the 22 GRACE geoids (04/2002–05/2004). The inverse approach developed here allows to separate the soil waters from snow signal. These snow mass solutions are further compared to predictions from three global land surface models and snow depths derived from satellite microwave data. We find that the GRACE solutions correlate well with the high‐latitude zones of strong accumulation of snow. Regional means computed for four large boreal basins (Yenisey, Ob, Mac Kenzie and Yukon) show a good agreement at seasonal scale between the snow mass solutions and model predictions (global rms ∼30–40 mm of equivalent‐water height and ∼10–20 mm regionally).