Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ON THE CONNECTIVITY OF SOME COMPLETE INTERSECTIONS

ALEXANDRU DIMCAAbstract. We show that the complement of a degree d hypersurface in a pro-jective complete intersection, whose deﬁning equations have degrees strictly largerthan d, has a rational connectivity higher than expected. The key new feature isthat a positivity result replaces the usual transversality conditions needed to getsuch connectivity results.
Detection of Respiratory Syncytial Virus A and B and Parainfluenzavirus 3 Sequences in Respiratory Tracts of Infants by a Single PCR with Primers Targeted to the L-Polymerase Gene and Differential Hybridization

ABSTRACT A reverse transcription-PCR and hybridization-enzyme immunoassay (RT-PCR-EIA) has been developed to identify the major agents of bronchiolitis in infants: respiratory syncytial viruses A and B (RSVA and RSVB) and parainfluenzavirus 3 (PIV3). Two primer sets (P1-P2 and P1-P3) were selected in a conserved region of the polymerase L gene. In infected cell cultures, this method detected RSVA (n = 14), RSVB (n = 13), and PIV3 (n = 13), with the exclusion of PIV1 (n = 4), PIV2 (n = 3), measles virus (n = 6), mumps virus (n = 4), influenza A virus (n = 11), and influenza B virus (n = 4). The differentiation of the amplicons by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) showed a PvuII site for PIV3 strains and an AvaII site for RSV strains, with RSVA distinguished from RSVB by BglII. The hybridization-EIA, using three internal probes specific for each virus, correlated with the immunofluorescence assay (IFA) and RFLP results. Clinical aspirates from 261 infants hospitalized with bronchiolitis were tested by IFA, viral isolation technique (VIT), and RT-PCR-EIA. RT-PCR-EIA detected RSV sequences in 103 samples (39.4%), and IFA-VIT detected RSV sequences in 109 cases (41.7%). A few samples (2.6%) were IFA-VIT positive but PCR negative, and one sample was RT-PCR-EIA positive only. RT-PCR-EIA detected PIV3 sequences in 14 of the 15 IFA-VIT-positive isolates. The two methods showed very good correlation (96.9%), but RT-PCR-EIA was clearly more efficient in typing, leaving 5% non-A, non-B isolates, while IFA failed to resolve 23% of the isolates. The two methods contradicted each other for <5% of the isolates.
Best-bases feature extraction algorithms for classification of hyperspectral data

Due to advances in sensor technology, it is now possible to acquire hyperspectral data simultaneously in hundreds of bands. Algorithms that both reduce the dimensionality of the data sets and handle highly correlated bands are required to exploit the information in these data sets effectively. the authors propose a set of best-bases feature extraction algorithms that are simple, fast, and highly effective for classification of hyperspectral data. These techniques intelligently combine subsets of adjacent bands into a smaller number of features. Both top-down and bottom-up algorithms are proposed. The top-down algorithm recursively partitions the bands into two (not necessarily equal) sets of bands and then replaces each final set of bands by its mean value. The bottom-up algorithm builds an agglomerative tree by merging highly correlated adjacent bands and projecting them onto their Fisher direction, yielding high discrimination among classes. Both these algorithms are used in a pairwise classifier framework where the original C-class problem is divided into a set of (/sub 2//sup C/) two-class problems. The new algorithms (1) find variable length bases localized in wavelength, (2) favor grouping highly correlated adjacent bands that, when merged either by taking their mean or Fisher linear projection, yield maximum discrimination, and (3) seek orthogonal bases for each of the (/sub 2//sup C/) two-class problems into which a C-class problem can be decomposed. Experiments on an AVIRIS data set for a 12-class problem show significant improvements in classification accuracies while using a much smaller number of features.
South African Parties Hardly Politicise Immigration in Their Electoral Manifestos

ABSTRACT To what extent do political parties in South Africa politicise immigration? We systematically analyse the party manifestos of all major parties in post-apartheid South Africa, using two separate approaches of content analysis: coding all sentences about immigration individually, and coding the electoral manifesto overall using a ‘checklist’. Although we can expect high politicisation of immigrants in new democracies, most party manifestos do not treat immigration at all. If parties in South Africa treat immigration in their manifestos, they tend to take relatively inclusive positions, focus on immigrant integration rather than immigration control, and use instrumental frames. It appears that the nation-building project of a post-apartheid South Africa has not led to an increased politicisation of immigration by political parties qua parties, although individual politicians certainly play a role.
Bank Loan-Loss Provisioning, Methodology and Application

A fair level of provisions on bad and doubtful loans is an essential input in mark-to-market accounting, and in the calculation of bank capital and solvency. Few academic studies have analyzed the adequacy of loan-loss provisioning because, due to the private nature of bank loan transactions, few micro data are readily available. Access to data on recovery over time on bad and doubtful bank loans allows developing and applying two methodologies to calculate a fair level of loan-loss provisions. Empirical estimates are then compared to a regulatory provisioning schedule imposed by a central bank.
Distribution of Primary and Specialized Metabolites in Nigella sativa Seeds, a Spice with Vast Traditional and Historical Uses

Black cumin (Nigella sativa L., Ranunculaceae) is an annual herb commonly used in the Middle East, India and nowadays gaining worldwide acceptance. Historical and traditional uses are extensively documented in ancient texts and historical documents. Black cumin seeds and oil are commonly used as a traditional tonic and remedy for many ailments as well as in confectionery and bakery. Little is known however about the mechanisms that allow the accumulation and localization of its active components in the seed. Chemical and anatomical evidence indicates the presence of active compounds in seed coats. Seed volatiles consist largely of olefinic and oxygenated monoterpenes, mainly p-cymene, thymohydroquinone, thymoquinone, γ-terpinene and α-thujene, with lower levels of sesquiterpenes, mainly longifolene. Monoterpene composition changes during seed maturation. γ-Terpinene and α-thujene are the major monoterpenes accumulated in immature seeds, and the former is gradually replaced by p-cymene, carvacrol, thymo-hydroquinone and thymoquinone upon seed development. These compounds, as well as the indazole alkaloids nigellidine and nigellicine, are almost exclusively accumulated in the seed coat. In contrast, organic and amino acids are primarily accumulated in the inner seed tissues. Sugars and sugar alcohols, as well as the amino alkaloid dopamine and the saponin α-hederin accumulate both in the seed coats and the inner seed tissues at different ratios. Chemical analyses shed light to the ample traditional and historical uses of this plant.
Surficial Deposits at Gusev Crater Along Spirit Rover Traverses

The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has traversed a fairly flat, rock-strewn terrain whose surface is shaped primarily by impact events, although some of the landscape has been altered by eolian processes. Impacts ejected basaltic rocks that probably were part of locally formed lava flows from at least 10 meters depth. Some rocks have been textured and/or partially buried by windblown sediments less than 2 millimeters in diameter that concentrate within shallow, partially filled, circular impact depressions referred to as hollows. The terrain traversed during the 90-sol (martian solar day) nominal mission shows no evidence for an ancient lake in Gusev crater.
Biomass Production by Rainfed Maize Cultivars in a Coastal Savannah Agro-Ecological Environment

Maize (Zea mays L.) is grown in diverse environments characterized by varying seasonal rainfall. The pattern of dry matter accumulation and partitioning varies with cultivars and the environment in which the maize crop grows. This study was conducted under rainfed conditions in a coastal savannah agro-ecological environment to explore the pattern of dry matter accumulation and partitioning of improved maize cultivars Golden Crystal, Mamaba and Obatanpa, as a way of identifying specific uses for these maize cultivars which could be beneficial to the experimental area and maize production in Ghana, generally. The three maize cultivars were cultivated under rainfed conditions during the major and minor cropping seasons in four replicates in each cropping season. Total, leaf, stem, cob husk and grain dry matter as well as harvest index were determined for each maize cultivar and analyzed for pattern of distribution in relation to the cropping season. Generally, the bulk of the total dry matter (TDM) was partitioned into grain dry matter, with Obatanpa and Mamaba consistently maintaining stable grain dry matter of about 80 and 90% of TDM, respectively, at crop maturity during the major and minor cropping seasons. Additionally, the harvest indices ranged from 32.6% for Golden Crystal to 57.5% for Mamaba during the major cropping season with Obatanpa maintaining a fairly constant harvest index of about 38% in both cropping seasons and the harvest index of Golden Crystal dropped from the highest value of 57.5% during the major cropping season to below 20% during the minor cropping season when the seasonal rainfall stood at 290.7 mm. Results of the study seemed to suggest that Golden Crystal could not partition its superior TDM into grains under low and poor seasonal rainfall. Therefore, Golden Crystal is the maize cultivar having the potential for making silage for animal feed to support and enhance sustainable animal production in the coastal savannah agro-ecological environment of Ghana, where seasonal rainfall is characteristically low and erratic. While, Obatanpa proved suitable for grain production regardless of the cropping seasons, Mamaba could serve a dual purpose of providing grain yield as well as being used for silage production because of its prolific production of TDM in both the major and minor cropping seasons in the coastal savannah agro-ecological environment of Ghana.
A critical analysis of the 'Every Child a Talker' language programme and its possible influence on the formation of dispositions towards language/s in early years in England

This thesis analyses the positions that minority languages were given in a language programme for early years provision in England. Every Child a Talker (ECaT) was an initiative that was designed to strengthen children’s early language development by improving the quality of language provision in early years settings (DfCSF, 2008b). These resources are still in use today in early years services. For this study, ECaT was interpreted as a market whose members were engaged in institutionalised activities to produce, reproduce, exchange and accumulate valued capital (Bourdieu, 1977; 1991). Critical discourse analysis (mainly inspired by Fairclough, 2010; 2009) was applied using a range of analytical tools in order to provide a systematic interpretation of discursive constructions of language practice. The resources and guidelines that were distributed to support this initiative were interpreted as institutionalised macro discourses designed to influence local language practice. Two consultants who worked in the implementation of the initiative were interviewed with the intention of recontextualising the discursive constructions around language practice at the micro level. This research suggests that there is a pervasive process of legitimation of one dominant language at the expense of the ‘other languages’, thus perpetuating monolingual ideologies and practices. While the ‘other languages’ were partially included, this analysis argues that they were also extensively excluded and underappreciated as value capital. Although resistance to and transformation of dominant discourses appeared in the interviews, the highly regulated structure of the initiative tends to diminish local knowledge. Significant contradictory discourses about inclusivity and multicultural practices in the early years sector, as well as the potential marginalisation of home language/s, are also reported.
Empowered and engaged: Exploring social media best practices for nonprofits

Although nonprofits see value and potential in social media, many have not yet mastered social media and harnessed their full potential. This phenomenological study sought to identify the best social media strategies and tactics for effectively engaging existing and potential donors, volunteers and stakeholders, according to social media nonprofit professionals. Six themes emerged: listening to the audience; engaging instead of fundraising; sharing relevant, valuable and actionable content; being honest, accessible and responsive; using social media as part of a multi-channel strategy; and that measuring is mandatory.
Social Network Monetization via Sponsored Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is a powerful tool for online advertising and sales because it exploits the influence people have on one another. While this marketing technique has been beneficial for advertisers, it has not been shown how the social network providers such as Facebook and Twitter can benefit from it. In this paper, we initiate the study of sponsored viral marketing where a social network provider that has complete knowledge of its network is hired by several advertisers to provide viral marketing. Each advertiser has its own advertising budget and a fixed amount they are willing to pay for each user that adopts their product or shares their ads. The goal of the social network provider is to gain the most revenue from the advertisers. Since the products or ads from different advertisers may compete with each other in getting users' attention, and advertisers pay differently per share and have different budgets, it is very important that the social network providers start the "seeds" of the viral marketing of each product at the right places in order to gain the most benefit. We study both when advertisers have limited and unlimited budgets. In the unlimited budget setting, we give a tight approximation algorithm for the above task: we present a polynomial-time O(log n)-approximation algorithm for maximizing the expected revenue, where n is the number of nodes (i.e., users) in the social network, and show that no polynomial-time O(log1-ε n)-approximation algorithm exists, unless NP ⊆ DTIME}(npoly log n). In the limited budget setting, we show that it is hopeless to solve the problem (even approximately): unless P = NP, there is no polynomial-time O(n1-ε)-approximation algorithm. We perform experiments on several data sets to compare our provable algorithms to several heuristic baselines.
User Modeling and Tweets Recommendation Based on Wikipedia Concept Graph ∗

As a microblogging service, Twitter is playing a more and more important role in our life. Users follow various accounts, such as friends or celebrities, to get the most recent information. However, as one follows more and more people, he/she may be overwhelmed by the huge amount of status updates. Twitter messages are only displayed by time recency, which means if one cannot read all messages, he/she may miss some important or interesting tweets. In this paper, we propose to re-rank tweets in user’s timeline, by constructing a user profile based on user’s previous tweets and measuring the relevance between a tweet and user interest. The user interest profile is represented as concepts from Wikipedia, which is quite a large and inter-linked online knowledge base. We make use of Explicit Semantic Analysis algorithm to extract related concepts from tweets, and then expand user’s profile by random walk on Wikipedia concept graph, utilizing the inter-links between Wikipedia articles. Our experiments show that our model is effective and efficient to recommend tweets to users.
Personality, motivation, and performance: a theory of the relationship between individual differences and information processing.

We introduce a model to relate the personality dimensions of introversion- extraversion, achievement motivation, and anxiety to efficient cognitive performance. We show how these personality dimensions in combination with situational moderators (e.g., success, failure, time pressure, incentives, time of day, and stimulant drugs) affect the motivational constructs of arousal and effort. We propose a general information-processing model that accounts for the systematic effects of these motivational states on certain task components (sustained information transfer and some aspect of short-term memory). We combine empirical generalizations about task components in a structural model and derive testable predictions that differentiate alternative motivational hypotheses.
Spot Market Power and Futures Market Trading

When a spot market monopolist participates in the futures market, he has an incentive to adjust spot prices to make his futures market position more pro…table. Rational futures market makers take this into account when they set prices. Spot market power thus creates a moral hazard problem which parallels the adverse selection problem in models with inside information. This moral hazard not only reduces the optimal amount of hedging for those with and without market power, but also makes complete hedging impossible. When market makers cannot distinguish orders placed by those with and without market power, market power provides a venue for strategic trading and market manipulation. The monopolist will strategically randomize his futures market position and then use his market power to make this position profi…table. Furthermore, traders without market power can manipulate futures prices by hiding their orders behind the monopolist's strategic trades.
Accentuate the negative : Social images in the prediction and promotion of condom use

Based on the negativity bias in person perception, we argue that behavioral decisions related to condom use are influenced by the social images that an individual has of people who do not use condoms, but that they are not influenced by the social images that an individual has of people who do use condoms. Three studies with college student samples indicated that the negative evaluations of people who do not use condoms predicts willingness to have sex without condoms. In contrast, positive evaluations of people who do use condoms showed no unique predictions. A fourth study demonstrated that a health message emphasizing the negative social consequences of having sex without condoms decreased willingness to have unsafe sex in comparison to a control, whereas a message that emphasized the positive social consequences of using condoms had no such effects on willingness.
Phantom validation of Monte Carlo modeling for noncontact depth sensitive fluorescence measurements in an epithelial tissue model

Abstract. Experimental investigation and optimization of various optical parameters in the design of depth sensitive optical measurements in layered tissues would require a huge amount of time and resources. A computational method to model light transport in layered tissues using Monte Carlo simulations has been developed for decades to reduce the cost incurred during this process. In this work, we employed the Monte Carlo method to investigate the depth sensitivity achieved by various illumination and detection configurations including both the traditional cone configurations and new cone shell configurations, which are implemented by convex or axicon lenses. Phantom experiments have been carried out to validate the Monte Carlo modeling of fluorescence in a two-layered turbid, epithelial tissue model. The measured fluorescence and depth sensitivity of different illumination–detection configurations were compared with each other. The results indicate excellent agreement between the experimental and simulation results in the trends of fluorescence intensity and depth sensitivity. The findings of this study and the development of the Monte Carlo method for noncontact setups provide useful insight and assistance in the planning and optimization of optical designs for depth sensitive fluorescence measurements.
Investigating the Teacher's Life and Work

This book attempts to bring together the methodological and substantive aspects of studying the teacher’s life and work. Some of the chapters in the book provide a “how to do” approach for those wishing to study the teacher’s life and work employing a life history method, whilst other chapters provide the type of substantive and generic findings which might be anticipated when conducting life history work. The focus on professional life and work has been growing rapidly in the last two or three decades. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly there is a methodological impulse; many new studies are adopting a life history approach. The life history tradition aims to understand the interface between people’s life and their work. It also seeks to explore the historical context and the socio-political circumstances in which people’s life and work is located. A further major reason for investigating the teacher’s life and work at the moment is the huge range of restructuring initiatives taking place throughout the educational world. There is a kind of ‘world movement’ to restructure education and health – certainly in most Western countries. Generally this takes the form of the introduction of the three T’s – targets, tests and tables – and the increasing accountability and performativity regimes associated with these new forms of evaluation. Significantly these initiatives have been introduced at governmental level in most countries with the minimum of consultation with teacher workforces. As a result there is growing evidence of a clash between professional life and work missions and the restructuring initiatives which aim to transform these missions. Perhaps the best way to explore this increasingly acute clash of values is through the investigation of professional life and work. Investigating the Teacher’s Life and Work aims to bring together the methodological and substantive approaches and to show how this kind of study can increase our understanding of the interface between government intentions and teacher’s beliefs and motives.