Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Information Revelation and Pandering in Elections∗

Does electoral competition promote efficient aggregation of politicians’ policy-relevant information? Or do office-motivated politicians pander to the electorate’s beliefs in lieu of using their own information? This paper studies a two-candidate Downsian model in which each politician privately holds imperfect but socially valuable information about policy consequences. Under general conditions, we establish that voter welfare is uniquely maximized by equilibria in which one candidate is always elected and chooses policy based on his information alone. Thus, office motivation precludes efficient information aggregation. However, the inefficiency is not necessarily due to politicians’ incentives to pander. For familiar information structures, we show that office motivation impels politicians to overreact to their information relative to the electorate’s prior belief, i.e. to anti-pander. Such behavior is compatible with equilibrium. Moreover, we find that an appropriate degree of pandering would improve voters’ welfare instead of harming it. ∗For helpful comments and discussions, we thank Nageeb Ali, Kfir Eliaz, Andrea Galeotti, Matias Iaryczower, Alessandro Lizzeri, Massimo Morelli, David Rahman, several seminar and conference audiences, and, especially, Alfonso Goncalves da Silva, Johannes Hörner, and Balazs Szentes. Kartik gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Sloan Foundation, the National Science Foundation (Grant SES-115593), and the hospitality of and funding from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. †Columbia University, Department of Economics. Email: nkartik@columbia.edu. ‡Warwick University, Department of Economics. Email: F.Squintani@warwick.ac. uk. §Imperial College, Business School. Email: k.tinn@imperial.ac. uk.
A Conceptual Framework for Modelling and Simulation of Variable Structure Hybrid Systems

This paper introduces a conceptual framework for modeling and simulation of variable structure hybrid systems. The framework proposed is based on and further extends the DEVS-formalism, providing a novel definition for modularhierarchical systems with discrete structural changes. An interactive, graphical model development approach and Object Oriented implementation are also presented. Finally, an application of the framework to variable structure systems is demonstrated.
Acute Cardiovascular Events after Herpes Zoster: A Self-Controlled Case Series Analysis in Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Older Residents of the United States

Background Herpes zoster is common and can have serious consequences. Additionally, emerging data suggest an increased risk of acute cardiovascular events following herpes zoster. However, to our knowledge, existing association studies compare outcomes between individuals and are therefore vulnerable to between-person confounding. In this study, we used a within-person study design to quantify any short-term increased risk of acute cardiovascular events (stroke and myocardial infarction [MI]) after zoster and to assess whether zoster vaccination modifies this association. Methods and Findings The self-controlled case series method was used to estimate rates of stroke and acute MI in defined periods after herpes zoster compared to other time periods, within individuals. Participants were fully eligible Medicare beneficiaries aged ≥65 y with a herpes zoster diagnosis and either an ischemic stroke (n = 42,954) or MI (n = 24,237) between 1 January 2006 and 31 December 2011. Age-adjusted incidence ratios (IRs) for stroke and MI during predefined periods up to 12 mo after zoster relative to unexposed time periods were calculated using conditional Poisson regression. We observed a marked increase in the rate of acute cardiovascular events in the first week after zoster diagnosis: a 2.4-fold increased ischemic stroke rate (IR 2.37, 95% CI 2.17–2.59) and a 1.7-fold increased MI rate (IR 1.68, 95% CI 1.47–1.92), followed by a gradual resolution over 6 mo. Zoster vaccination did not appear to modify the association with MI (interaction p-value = 0.44). We also found no evidence for a difference in the IR for ischemic stroke between vaccinated (IR 1.14, 95% CI 0.75–1.74) and unvaccinated (IR 1.78, 95% CI 1.68–1.88) individuals during the first 4 wk after zoster diagnosis (interaction p-value = 0.28). The relatively few vaccinated individuals limited the study’s power to assess the role of vaccination. Conclusions Stroke and MI rates are transiently increased after exposure to herpes zoster. We found no evidence for a role of zoster vaccination in these associations. These findings enhance our understanding of the temporality and magnitude of the association between zoster and acute cardiovascular events.
Vulnerability: personal and programmatic.

This book chapter considers personal and programmatic vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. Vulnerability is defined by the extent to which individuals can make and act on free and informed decisions about their life with those most able to do so being the least vulnerable. The degree of personal vulnerability to HIV/AIDS is heightened or reduced by cognitive factors (including the amount of information or education a person has) and by personal skills and characteristics. Programmatic vulnerability is related to the contributions of HIV/AIDS programs toward reducing or increasing personal vulnerability through 1) the provision of information and education 2) the provision of health and social services and 3) fostering nondiscrimination towards people with HIV/AIDS. Efforts to date to reduce programmatic vulnerability have largely focused on services and service delivery and have not dealt with the social factors that influence the nature of personal vulnerability. While some nongovernmental organizations national and international agencies and researchers have grappled with the social aspect of vulnerability the dominant effort has reflected a limited appreciation of the nature of vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.
Environmental Entrepreneurship as a Multi‐Component and Dynamic Construct: Duality of Goals, Environmental Agency, and Environmental Value Creation

Environmental entrepreneurship (EE) is a scholarly field that has gained traction in recent years under the premise that it might represent a solution to pressing environmental grand challenges. Despite substantial advances in recent decades, the field still lacks consensus on the conceptualization of EE. The lack of a settled and unified notion of EE hinders the progress of the field because it challenges EE&#8217;s legitimacy, hampers theoretical development, creates measurement, and empirical problems. In this study, we aim to provide an integrative theoretical conceptualization of EE that can help build bridges between fragmented views of the phenomenon. First, we perform a systematic literature review to identify existing definitions of EE, and second, we follow an inductive approach to analyze them. Drawing on past definitions, we propose EE as a multi&#8208;component and dynamic construct that consists of three interrelated core components: duality of goals, environmental agency, and environmental value creation. This conceptualization of EE might help connect the fragmented literature and build internal coherence, and it could be instrumental to further developing the current theoretical approaches that inform the phenomenon.
Usefulness of Immunological Detection of the Human Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase

Objective: Recent years have seen a considerable wealth of studies conducted on the potential usefulness of telomerase determination in diagnosis, prognosis and targeted cancer therapy. The frequently used Telomeric Repeat Amplification Protocol assay suffers from some drawbacks, the most important being the rate of false positives. In situ analysis using well characterised antibodies directed against the human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) would therefore appear to be important to morphologically identify the nature of telomerase positive cells. Methods: We performed immunostaining in a series of cultured cells and in normal, preneoplastic and tumour tissues from different organs using a monoclonal antibody directed against the catalytic subunit of telomerase. Results: Immunoreactivity was not observed in perennial cells of terminally differentiated cardiac and skeletal muscular tissues or in small pyramidal cells of the cerebral cortex. Conversely, it was found in other normal somatic tissues as well as in precancerous lesions and in all tumour histotypes. Conclusions: Immunohistochemistry with a well characterised hTERT-specific monoclonal antibody permitted the identification of hTERT immunopositive cells in normal somatic tissues. Whether hTERT protein detected by immunostaining with hTERT-specific Tel 3 36-10 antibody is actually the degraded form of the protein that retains hTERT antigenicity but not enzymatic function, or whether it represents the real, potentially functional catalytic subunit of the enzyme, immunohistochemistry would not seem to represent a useful tool to investigate the role of telomerase and the mechanisms involved in its regulation.
Essays on voting, cheap talk and information transmission

The first part of the thesis studies the voting behaviour of careerist experts in a secret committee where voting profiles get `leaked' to the public with a given probability. For informative voting (where every expert votes according to his posterior probability) in equilibrium, the committee must use the unanimity voting rule along with an intermediate probability of transparency. No committee that enforces informative voting can maximise social welfare, that is, informative voting and welfare-maximisation are mutually exclusive properties. Either full transparency or complete secrecy is required in a committee under the unanimity voting rule to maximise welfare. For low priors, a fully transparent majoritarian committee is better for the society than any unanimous committee. In the second part of the thesis, the transmission of information is studied where an informed media, whose interests are partially in conflict with a finite group of rational voters, transmits news items in an attempt to manipulate democratic decisions. In a common-interest two-alternative voting model where due to reputation concerns the media can credibly commit to send any news reliably, we show that even if voters welcome the news when it arrives, media's presence can hurt their ex-ante welfare in both large and small constituencies.
Collective Emotions in Conflict Situations: Societal Implications

It is well established today that emotions are an important part of most societal dynamics. The current article focuses on the role of different collective emotional elements in creating, preserving, and resolving conflicts. The main premise is that collective emotions play a pivotal role in shaping individual and societal responses to conflicting events and in contributing to the evolvement of a social context that maintains the emotional climate and collective emotional orientation that have developed. The first part of the article provides a conceptual framework to discuss the relations between conflict, context, and collective emotions. The second part uses the conceptual framework to discuss the societal implications of the articles presented in this issue. Taken together, the parts create a platform for future research on the role of collective emotions in conflict resolution and the construction of cultures of peace.
Deep multi-task learning with low level tasks supervised at lower layers

In all previous work on deep multi-task learning we are aware of, all task supervisions are on the same (outermost) layer. We present a multi-task learning architecture with deep bi-directional RNNs, where different tasks supervision can happen at different layers. We present experiments in syntactic chunking and CCG supertagging, coupled with the additional task of POS-tagging. We show that it is consistently better to have POS supervision at the innermost rather than the outermost layer. We argue that this is because “lowlevel” tasks are better kept at the lower layers, enabling the higher-level tasks to make use of the shared representation of the lower-level tasks. Finally, we also show how this architecture can be used for domain adaptation.
TagFree: Identifying users without tags in smart home environments

Since family members have their unique features when living in a smart home environment, user identifications are able to achieve without any tags. In this paper, we propose TagFree system in which users freely move in a smart home environment and TagFree system is able to intelligently identify family member according to sensed data. Specifically, TagFree system consists of two phases: the training phase and the prediction phase. In the training phase, sensed data are collected and then, given a huge amount of sensed data, the profile of users, including the most common sensed data (i.e., tones, weights and location), are discovered. Once the profile of users is built up, in the prediction phase, we propose two scoring algorithms to generate likelihood scores according to the sensed data given. A simulation is implemented to verify the correctness of our proposed system and extensive experiments are conducted. Experimental results show that our proposed TagFree is able to achieve high accuracy of identifying family member without any tags. Furthermore, from experimental results, we also provided some guidelines to set some important parameters for TagFree.
Bayesian phylogeny of sucrose transporters: ancient origins, differential expansion and convergent evolution in monocots and dicots

Sucrose transporters (SUTs) are essential for the export and efficient movement of sucrose from source leaves to sink organs in plants. The angiosperm SUT family was previously classified into three or four distinct groups, Types I, II (subgroup IIB), and III, with dicot-specific Type I and monocot-specific Type IIB functioning in phloem loading. To shed light on the underlying drivers of SUT evolution, Bayesian phylogenetic inference was undertaken using 41 sequenced plant genomes, including seven basal lineages at key evolutionary junctures. Our analysis supports four phylogenetically and structurally distinct SUT subfamilies, originating from two ancient groups (AG1 and AG2) that diverged early during terrestrial colonization. In both AG1 and AG2, multiple intron acquisition events in the progenitor vascular plant established the gene structures of modern SUTs. Tonoplastic Type III and plasmalemmal Type II represent evolutionarily conserved descendants of AG1 and AG2, respectively. Type I and Type IIB were previously thought to evolve after the dicot-monocot split. We show, however, that divergence of Type I from Type III SUT predated basal angiosperms, likely associated with evolution of vascular cambium and phloem transport. Type I SUT was subsequently lost in monocots along with vascular cambium, and independent evolution of Type IIB coincided with modified monocot vasculature. Both Type I and Type IIB underwent lineage-specific expansion. In multiple unrelated taxa, the newly-derived SUTs exhibit biased expression in reproductive tissues, suggesting a functional link between phloem loading and reproductive fitness. Convergent evolution of Type I and Type IIB for SUT function in phloem loading and reproductive organs supports the idea that differential vascular development in dicots and monocots is a strong driver for SUT family evolution in angiosperms.
Sparse Cepstral, Phase Codes for Guitar Playing Technique Classification

Automatic recognition of guitar playing techniques is challenging as it is concerned with subtle nuances of guitar timbres. In this paper, we investigate this research problem by a comparative study on the performance of features extracted from the magnitude spectrum, cepstrum and phase derivatives such as group-delay function (GDF) and instantaneous frequency deviation (IFD) for classifying the playing techniques of electric guitar recordings. We consider up to 7 distinct playing techniques of electric guitar and create a new individual-note dataset comprising of 7 types of guitar tones for each playing technique. The dataset contains 6,580 clips and 11,928 notes. Our evaluation shows that sparse coding is an effective means of mining useful patterns from the primitive time-frequency representations and that combining the sparse representations of logarithm cepstrum, GDF and IFD leads to the highest average F-score of 71.7%. Moreover, from analyzing the confusion matrices we find that cepstral and phase features are particularly important in discriminating highly similar techniques such as pull-off, hammer-on and bending. We also report a preliminary study that demonstrates the potential of the proposed methods in automatic transcription of real-world electric guitar solos.
Resisting the Rhetoric of the ‘ HRM Paradigm ’ in Managerial Practice : Reality Bites Back

HRM may have become co-terminus with the new managerialism in the rhetorical orthodoxies of the HRM textbooks and other platforms for its professional claims. However, we have detailed case-study data suggesting that the managerial practice of HRM indicates that HRM practices can be much more complicated, nuanced and indeed resistive within organizational settings. Using actor-network theory, we analyse practices of managerial resistance and counter-enrolment through which an unofficial network of managers used formal HRM systems and procedures to successfully counteract the official strategy of the firm, which was to close a substantial chemicals plant. As a consequence, this network of middle managers effectively changed top management strategy and did so through official HRM practices, coupled with other actor-network-building processes, arguably for the ultimate benefit of the organization, though against the views of the top management of the time. Similar to the work of Dalton (1959a) the paper finds that managers lower down the organisation adapt and change the strategy in order that 'it works'. One of the authors was a senior manager at a factory ('Burnsland') and also engaged in 'overt' participant observation for eighteen months. The research shows how the organisation ('Chemco') attempted to use performance related pay, appraisals, career succession and general day-today counselling as tools to get managers to show commitment to the agenda. This is consistent with the idea of managerialism as the pursuit of organisational efficiency at all costs (Thompson and McHugh, 1995: 12). Managers were told by the Site Manager to be 'good foot soldiers' and to 'trust their leadership'. In addition some were told that they 'could have a good career ahead of them' with the implication that they could choose to commit to the agenda. One manager, who challenged the organisation, was told that his job would disappear and would be relocated. This left him in an untenable position and he decided to leave but this also strengthened the resolve of other managers and became the catalyst prompting them to establish an unofficial network. These managers were then able to resist top management pressures and draw upon their unofficial network of fellow managers, trade unions, the Press and local politicians to push back against the top management agenda. We conclude by drawing implications for the so-called orthodox 'HRM paradigm' suggesting that rather than seeking to eliminate management resistance, HRM professionals should seek to understand it and develop greater levels of participation, consultation …
Seasonal variation in cryptogenic and noncryptogenic hemoptysis hospitalizations in France.

STUDY OBJECTIVE To determine the potential role of seasonality in hospitalizations for cryptogenic and noncryptogenic hemoptysis in the French population. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of hospital discharge data from a National Register. SETTING All 29 French university hospitals, between July 1, 1994, and June 30, 1997. PATIENTS Two thousand six hundred seventy-seven and 3,672 adult hospitalizations for cryptogenic and other hemoptysis, respectively. MEASUREMENTS Cumulative monthly averages were determined, expressed as the percentage above or below the average monthly value during the entire study period. RESULTS The distribution of cumulative monthly hospitalizations for cryptogenic hemoptysis peaked in March (32% above the average) and was lowest in summer (30% below the average; p < 0.001). Hospitalizations for noncryptogenic hemoptysis followed a similar seasonal pattern (p < 0. 001). In the 16- to 34-year-old individuals, cryptogenic hemoptysis, compared with noncryptogenic hemoptysis, showed a higher incidence with a larger seasonal amplitude (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS A better understanding of the fundamental pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying this respiratory and hemorrhagic condition may be helpful in developing preventive measures, especially in patients with a risk of recurrence.
The location of the broad H i absorption in 3C 305: clear evidence for a jet-accelerated neutral outflow

We present high-spatial resolution 21-cm HI VLA observations of the radio galaxy 3C 305 ( z = 0.041). These new high-resolution data show that the similar to 1000 km s(-1) broad H. absorption, earlier detected in low-resolution WSRT observations, is occurring against the bright, eastern radio lobe, about 1.6 kpc from the nucleus. We use new optical spectra taken with the WHT to make a detailed comparison of the kinematics of the neutral hydrogen with that of the ionised gas. The striking similarity between the complex kinematics of the two gas phases suggests that both the ionised gas and the neutral gas are part of the same outflow. Earlier studies of the ionised gas had already found evidence for a strong interaction between the radio jet and the interstellar medium at the location of the eastern radio lobe. Our results show that the fast outflow produced by this interaction also contains a component of neutral atomic hydrogen. The most likely interpretation is that the radio jet ionises the ISM and accelerates it to the high outflow velocities observed. Our observations demonstrate that, following this strong jet-cloud interaction, not all gas clouds are destroyed and that part of the gas can cool and become neutral. The mass outflow rate measured in 3C 305 is comparable, although at the lower end of the distribution, to that found in Ultra-Luminous IR galaxies. This suggests that AGN-driven outflows, and in particular jet-driven outflows, can have a similar impact on the evolution of a galaxy as starburst-driven superwinds.
BPM Design and Impedance Considerations for a Rotatable Collimator for the LHC Collimation Upgrade

The Phase II upgrade to the LHC collimation system calls for complementing the 30 high robust Phase I graphite secondary collimators with 30 high Z Phase II collimators. This paper reports on BPM and impedance considerations and measurements of the integrated BPMs in the prototype rotatable collimator to be installed in the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) at CERN. The BPMs are necessary to align the jaws with the beam. Without careful design the beam impedance can result in unacceptable heating of the chamber wall or beam instabilities. The impedance measurements involve utilizing both a single displaced wire and two wires excited in opposite phase to disentangle the driving and detuning transverse impedances. Trapped mode resonances and longitudinal impedance are to also be measured and compared with simulations. These measurements, when completed, will demonstrate the device is fully operational and has the impedance characteristics and BPM performance acceptable for installation in the SPS.