Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Semi-Distantly Supervised Neural Model for Generating Compact Answers to Open-Domain Why Questions

This paper proposes a neural network-based method for generating compact answers to open-domain why-questions (e.g., "Why was Mr. Trump elected as the president of the US? "). Unlike factoid question answering methods that provide short text spans as answers, existing work for why-question answering have aimed at answering questions by retrieving relatively long text passages, each of which often consists of several sentences, from a text archive. While the actual answer to a why-question may be expressed over several consecutive sentences, these often contain redundant and/or unrelated parts. Such answers would not be suitable for spoken dialog systems and smart speakers such as Amazon Echo, which receive much attention in these days. In this work, we aim at generating non-redundant compact answers to why-questions from answer passages retrieved from a very large web data corpora (4 billion web pages) by an already existing open-domain why-question answering system, using a novel neural network obtained by extending existing summarization methods. We also automatically generate training data using a large number of causal relations automatically extracted from 4 billion web pages by an existing supervised causality recognizer. The data is used to train our neural network, together with manually created training data. Through a series of experiments, we show that both our novel neural network and auto-generated training data improve the quality of the generated answers both in ROUGE score and in a subjective evaluation.
European Companies without European Works Councils: Evidence from Portugal

■ This article analyses the impact of the European Works Councils (EWCs) Directive in Portuguese multinationals. Though seven Portuguese companies are covered by the provisions of the Directive, only one EWC exists. Some of the main obstacles to the establishment of EWCs in Portugal are identified. The experience of the Banco Espírito Santo Group, where the only Portuguese EWC currently exists, is discussed.
The Ethics of Tax Evasion: A Survey of Guatemalan Opinion

In 1944, Martin Crowe, a Catholic priest, wrote a doctoral dissertation titled The Moral Obligation of Paying Just Taxes. His dissertation summarized and analyzed 500 years of theological and philosophical debate on this topic, much of which took place in Latin. Since Crowe's dissertation, not much has been written on the topic of tax evasion from an ethical perspective, with a few exceptions. In 1998 and 1999, a few articles were published on the ethics of tax evasion in the Journal of Accounting, Ethics & Public Policy. An edited book on this topic was published in 1998. The present paper summarizes, updates and expands on Crowe's work. Recent literature is reviewed and the issues discussed in the last 500 years of theological and philosophical debate are incorporated into an 18-statement survey, which was distributed to graduate and upper division undergraduate business and law students at Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala. This target population was selected because these students will become the future opinion leaders and political leaders of Guatemala. Three basic views on the ethics of tax evasion have emerged over the centuries. The survey instrument incorporates all three views, which gives respondents an opportunity to express their opinion regardless of which of the three positions they come closest to. Most statements begin with the phrase Tax evasion is ethical if. , which allows the respondents to either agree or disagree with the statement. Each statement is graded on a 7-point Likert scale. The responses to each statement were tallied and ranked to determine under which circumstances tax evasion might be considered most or least ethical. The results of the survey reveal that the majority of participants fall into the same category, which is that tax evasion may be ethical under certain circumstances. Comparisons are made between the responses given by business and law students and between male and female students.
THE INFLUENCE OF PREDICTABILITY ON DIFFERENCES IN THE MARKET REACTION TO DEBT AND EQUITY ISSUE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Existing empirical evidence suggests that the announcement-day reaction to equity issuance is about 2.88 percent more negative than the reaction to debt. However, announcement-day returns do not accurately reflect investor reaction if issue announcements are anticipated. I reexamine the announcement-day reaction to equity and debt issues after controlling for the predictability of security type and for firms' previous issue experience. Results indicate that the reaction to a first-time seasoned equity issue is more than 4.15 percent more negative than the reaction to debt. This increase over the conventional estimate suggests that the reaction to equity may be more negative, relative to debt, than previously believed. The evidence supports the assertion that giving preference to debt over equity could reduce issue costs when asymmetric information is a problem. Timing and certification strategies for lowering issue costs appear to be relatively unimportant for debt issues.
Competition and Innovation in Product Quality: Theory and Evidence from Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Abstract This paper examines how the degree of competition affects incentives to innovate in product quality in a symmetric Cournot oligopolistic model. We model product quality in a quality-ladder framework and find an inverted-U shaped relationship between the number of firms in an industry and R&D efforts in innovation. We test this theoretical prediction using firm-level data for Eastern European and Central Asian countries from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey and find strong support for it.
Emerging female contraceptives

Introduction: Fifty years after the first contraceptive, the market remains restricted regarding composition, cost and routes of administration, and satisfying the needs of millions of women with different requirements according to their stage in life. Areas covered: Women need contraception for almost 30 years of their life. Currently available contraceptives are highly effective with few side effects. This review provides information on emerging female contraceptives including some registered and others at different stages of development. Research efforts aim to reduce costs, improve acceptability and refine ‘forgettable’ reversible methods. Although developing and testing a new method is laborious and expensive, many new contraceptives are currently under development including different routes of administration. Expert opinion: New methods should be affordable, simple to use and suitable for many women. Much work remains to be done and new methods that act on the fusion process between both gametes are desirable without affecting the hormonal milieu.
Empower Sequence Labeling with Task-Aware Neural Language Model

Linguistic sequence labeling is a general approach encompassing a variety of problems, such as part-of-speech tagging and named entity recognition. Recent advances in neural networks (NNs) make it possible to build reliable models without handcrafted features. However, in many cases, it is hard to obtain sufficient annotations to train these models. In this study, we develop a neural framework to extract knowledge from raw texts and empower the sequence labeling task. Besides word-level knowledge contained in pre-trained word embeddings, character-aware neural language models are incorporated to extract character-level knowledge. Transfer learning techniques are further adopted to mediate different components and guide the language model towards the key knowledge. Comparing to previous methods, these task-specific knowledge allows us to adopt a more concise model and conduct more efficient training. Different from most transfer learning methods, the proposed framework does not rely on any additional supervision. It extracts knowledge from self-contained order information of training sequences. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of leveraging character-level knowledge and the efficiency of co-training. For example, on the CoNLL03 NER task, model training completes in about 6 hours on a single GPU, reaching F_1 score of 91.71+/-0.10 without using any extra annotations.
The structure and dynamics of secretory component and its interactions with polymeric immunoglobulins

As a first-line vertebrate immune defense, the polymeric immunoglobulin receptor (pIgR) transports polymeric IgA and IgM across epithelia to mucosal secretions, where the cleaved ectodomain (secretory component; SC) becomes a component of secretory antibodies, or when unliganded, binds and excludes bacteria. Here we report the 2. 6Å crystal structure of unliganded human SC (hSC) and comparisons with a 1. 7Å structure of teleost fish SC (tSC), an early pIgR ancestor. The hSC structure comprises five immunoglobulin-like domains (D1-D5) arranged as a triangle, with an interface between ligand-binding domains D1 and D5. Electron paramagnetic resonance measurements confirmed the D1-D5 interface in solution and revealed that it breaks upon ligand binding. Together with binding studies of mutant and chimeric SCs, which revealed domain contributions to secretory antibody formation, these results provide detailed models for SC structure, address pIgR evolution, and demonstrate that SC uses multiple conformations to protect mammals from pathogens. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.10640. 001
Weight loss, weight maintenance, and adaptive thermogenesis.

BACKGROUND Diet-induced weight loss is accompanied by adaptive thermogenesis, ie, a disproportional or greater than expected reduction of resting metabolic rate (RMR). OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate whether adaptive thermogenesis is sustained during weight maintenance after weight loss. DESIGN Subjects were 22 men and 69 women [mean ± SD age: 40 ± 9 y; body mass index (BMI; in kg/m(2)): 31.9 ± 3.0]. They followed a very-low-energy diet for 8 wk, followed by a 44-wk period of weight maintenance. Body composition was assessed with a 3-compartment model based on body weight, total body water (deuterium dilution), and body volume. RMR was measured (RMRm) with a ventilated hood. In addition, RMR was predicted (RMRp) on the basis of the measured body composition: RMRp (MJ/d) = 0.024 × fat mass (kg) + 0.102 × fat-free mass (kg) + 0.85. Measurements took place before the diet and 8, 20, and 52 wk after the start of the diet. RESULTS The ratio of RMRm to RMRp decreased from 1.004 ± 0.077 before the diet to 0.963 ± 0.073 after the diet (P < 0.001), and the decrease was sustained after 20 wk (0.983 ± 0.063; P < 0.01) and 52 wk (0.984 ± 0.068; P < 0.01). RMRm/RMRp was correlated with the weight loss after 8 wk (P < 0.01), 20 wk (P < 0.05), and 52 wk (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION Weight loss results in adaptive thermogenesis, and there is no indication for a change in adaptive thermogenesis up to 1 y, when weight loss is maintained. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01015508.
Vocational Study and Public Service Motivation: Disentangling the Socializing Effects of Higher Education

ABSTRACT Most studies of public service motivation investigate differences in motivation between public and private sector employees, but how these differences emerge and evolve in a pre-entry setting is still puzzling. Based on cross-sectional survey data with 3,521 Danish students enrolled in different vocational studies and at different stages (years) of their educational programs, this article investigates the socializing effects of higher education into different levels of public service motivation. The analysis demonstrates that students’ levels of public service motivation at different stages of their educational programs depend on the field of study: The level of public service motivation among students in vocational studies aimed at jobs with core public service delivery stays the same during education, whereas the level of public service motivation among students in other fields increases substantively with the length of their studies. This reveals that the association between education and public service motivation is perhaps not as uniform as previous studies have assumed.
Measuring Attitudes in Research on Residential Self‐Selection and Travel Behaviour: A Review of Theories and Empirical Research

Abstract Empirical studies that include travel‐related attitudes to identify the role of residential self‐selection in the relationship between the built environment and travel behaviour display a wide variety in the type of attitudes that they include, the relationships between the variables that they analyse and the ways they measure attitude. This paper discusses what theories on attitudes and behaviour can contribute to examining the role of self‐selection and reviews those studies on residential self‐selection and travel behaviour that explicitly include attitudes. Although several studies state that residential self‐selection is accounted for by the inclusion of attitudes, the complexity of the inclusion and the measurement of attitudes often leads to an underestimation of the role of residential self‐selection. Because of their relevance to the reliability of results, the options for measuring travel‐related attitudes are also discussed. When attitudes are included in questionnaires, it is essential to consider reliability, efficiency, response and the number of variables.
Non-motorised Level of Service: Addressing Challenges in Pedestrian and Bicycle Level of Service

Motorised vehicle conditions have been evaluated by many researchers. In contrast, there are very limited studies on vulnerable and non-motorised users, such as cyclists and pedestrians, specifically children, the elderly and the disabled. Thus, this paper reviews prominent studies on street evaluations to identify effective indicators for non-motorised trips. The street condition for these trips is measured by the bicycle level of service (BLOS) and the pedestrian level of service (PLOS). In previous studies, different methods have been introduced for PLOS and BLOS. However, these methods have several major shortcomings. First, pedestrians and cyclists are assumed to be users who can share street facilities with motorised vehicles and thus are considered equivalent to cars. Second, the majority of these methods are complicated and time-consuming, and it is difficult to connect them to a design process. Furthermore, these methods support only a limited number of walking and cycling facilities; therefore, they may not be valid for a wide range of pedestrians and cyclists with a diverse variety of abilities and ages. This study discusses the challenges in the BLOS and PLOS research and attempts to introduce new objectives for further studies in this field to eliminate the aforementioned shortcomings.
Morphological study on the intestine of the must shrew, Suncus murinus.

食虫目トガリネズミ科に属するリュウキュウジャコウネズミの腸管の形態学的特徴を体重のほぼ等しい齧歯類のマウス・ハムスターのそれらと光学顕微鏡, 走査型および透過型電子顕微鏡を用いて比較検討した. ジャコウネズミの腸管の特微として, まずその長さが非常に短かくまた盲腸の欠如している事があげられる. このため小腸と大腸の境界は不明瞭である. 絨毛は小腸ばかりでなく, 大腸に相当する部位にも存在する. これらの絨毛は齧歯類とは異なり, 表面の小皺襞は未発達で, 杯細胞の粘液放出像が多数観察される. 腸腺にパネート細胞は存在しないが, 2種類の基底顆粒細胞はしばしば観察され, 特に直腸部において多数認められる. 吸収上皮細胞の構造は他の哺乳類とほとんど同じでまた腸管各部の上皮細胞の構造にも変化は認められない. これら吸収上皮細胞間には, しばしば明調のリンパ球が散在し, 固有層には暗調の顆粒をもった特微的な細胞がリンパ球や形質細胞に混在して認められた。
Frequency Response Capability of Full Converter Wind Turbine Generators in Comparison to Conventional Generation

With an increased number of wind turbine generators (WTGs) connected to an electricity network the system operator may request that they participate in frequency control in the event of a sudden unbalancing of power generated and consumed on the system. In this paper the frequency response capability of the full converter variable speed wind turbine generator (FCWTG) with permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) is investigated. A control scheme is developed that improves the frequency control performance, illustrating the importance of the initial active power output of the FCWTG. A method of carefully ending the frequency support of a wind farm is proposed and simulated. The resulting frequency control performance compares favorably to that of a conventional synchronous generator plant.
Consistency of Consumer Valuation Under Different Information Sets: An Experimental Auction with Sweet Potatoes

We used a controlled, uniform 5th-price auction to elicit values for sweet potatoes—both when location is known and unknown, and before and after tasting and providing health information. Significant differences were found between pre- and post-consumption valuations and also found that there were significant effects for location of origin and health information. Interestingly, we also find that location of origin not only affects the level of bids, but also the marginal differences in bids between different potatoes. Overall, however, these results suggest little consistency in bid values across information sets, suggesting that attempting to elicit values of attributes in isolation may lead to erroneous results.
Midterm Outcomes and Return to Sports Among Athletes Undergoing Hip Arthroscopy

Background: Hip arthroscopy is an established surgical treatment for pathologic hip conditions in athletes. There is a paucity in the literature regarding outcomes and return to sport for athletes in the midterm. Purpose: To report minimum 5-year outcomes, return to sport, and level of sport among athletic patients who underwent hip arthroscopy. In addition, we compared 2- and 5-year outcomes to evaluate whether there is a deterioration in functional status. Study Design: Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: Data were prospectively collected on all patients who underwent hip arthroscopy between February 2009 and November 2011 at 1 institution. Athletes at the high school, collegiate, or professional level who underwent hip arthroscopy and had preoperative patient-reported outcome (PRO) scores were considered for inclusion. Exclusion criteria were preoperative Tönnis grade >1 or prior ipsilateral hip conditions or surgery. Data on sports participation, competition level, and ability were collected. At a minimum of 5 years postoperatively, PROs, visual analog scale (VAS), iHOT-12 (short version of International Hip Outcome Tool), satisfaction, and postoperative complication data were collected. Results: Seventy-seven hips met all criteria, among which 66 (85.7%) had a minimum 5-year follow-up and were included. There were 37 high school, 20 collegiate, and 9 professional athletes. Mean ± SD improvements at a minimum of 5 years were as follows: modified Harris Hip Score, 66.8 ± 16.3 to 87.0 ± 14.8 (P < .001); nonarthritic hip score, 66.2 ± 19.9 to 87.2 ± 15.2 (P < .001); Hip Outcome Score–Sports Specific Subscale, 47.0 ± 22.4 to 79.1 ± 23.0 (P < .001); and VAS, 5.4 ± 2.5 to 1.8 ± 2.1 (P < .001). At latest follow-up, mean iHOT-12 was 78.8 ± 22.7, and satisfaction was 8.2. A total of 50 athletes (53 hips, 80.3%) reported that they returned to sports; 71.2% reported “same” or “higher” sport ability as compared with a year before surgery. Postoperative complications included 3 cases (4.5%) of numbness and 1 case (1.5%) of pulmonary embolism. Ten hips (15.2%) required secondary arthroscopies, and no hips were converted to total hip arthroplasty. There were no significant differences between 2- and 5-year PROs, VAS, or satisfaction. Conclusion: Midterm results of hip arthroscopy in athletes are shown to be safe and favorable. Most athletes return to sports and continue to play after 5 years with the same or higher ability.
‘They have embraced a different behaviour’: transactional sex and family dynamics in eastern Congo's conflict

The decades-long conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has resulted in major changes to local economies, strained social networks and insecurity. This environment forces many to pursue unconventional and, at times, socially stigmatised avenues for income. This paper explores the ways in which individuals in eastern DRC engage in, and are affected by, the commoditisation of sex within the context of decades of violent conflict. Focus group discussions conducted with men and women in 2009–2010 highlight how the war in the region has placed individuals, particularly women, in dire economic circumstances, while also changing their roles within families. In the face of severe poverty, women and girls may choose to engage in transactional sex in order to support themselves and their families. Discussants detailed how engaging in transactional sex due to an economic imperative has nonetheless damaged women's relationships with family members between spouses as well as parents and their children through breach of trust and failure to provide. These focus group discussions elucidate how transactional sex is both a symptom of, and a catalyst for, changes within family dynamics in eastern DRC.
Seismic Response of a Platform-Frame System with Steel Columns

Timber platform-frame shear walls are characterized by high ductility and diffuse energy dissipation but limited in-plane shear resistance. A novel lightweight constructive system composed of steel columns braced with oriented strand board (OSB) panels was conceived and tested. Preliminary laboratory tests were performed to study the OSB-to-column connections with self-drilling screws. Then, the seismic response of a shear wall was determined performing a quasi-static cyclic-loading test of a full-scale specimen. Results presented in this work in terms of force-displacement capacity show that this system confers to shear walls high in-plane strength and stiffness with good ductility and dissipative capacity. Therefore, the incorporation of steel columns within OSB bracing panels results in a strong and stiff platform-frame system with high potential for low- and medium-rise buildings in seismic-prone areas.
Mineralogic and Petrologic Implications of Viking Geochemical Results From Mars: Interim Report

Chemical results from four samples of martian fines delivered to Viking landers 1 and 2 are remarkably similar in that they all have high iron; moderate magnesium, calcium, and sulfur; low aluminum; and apparently very low alkalies and trace elements. This composition is best interpreted as representing the weathering products of mafic igneous rocks. A mineralogic model, derived from computer mixing studies and laboratory analog preparations, suggests that Mars fines could be an intimate mixture of about 80 percent iron-rich clay, about 10 percent magnesium sulfate (kieserite? ), about 5 percent carbonate (calcite), and about 5 percent iron oxides (hematite, magnetite, maghemite, goethite? ). The mafic nature of the present fines (distributed globally) and their probable source rocks seems to preclude large-scale planetary differentiation of a terrestrial nature.
Modeling Fishery Regulation and Compliance: A Case Study of the Yellowtail Rockfish

─Motivated by declining fish populations and the apparent inability of regulatory agencies to manage important fisheries, this research measures the accuracy of a fishery model that explicitly models the regulatory process and the resulting degree of compliance by fishers. The method involved careful review and enhancement of a prior model with more limited regulatory sub model, and then measuring, for both models, the mean absolute error of model calculated values for historical spawning biomass, acceptable biological catch, and harvest. The most recent five years of data were held back so that model prediction error could also be computed. Results indicated that although the fitness error for the enhanced model was significantly less than the prior model (23% vs. 38%), predictions were improved only for one of the three measures. The implications for researchers seeking to endogenously model fishery management processes are sobering. Policy makers on the other hand will likely see the results as support for their instinctual skepticism regarding policy models.