Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Personal Bankruptcy or Public Insurance ? ∗

Bankruptcy and formal public insurance both partially insure households from sharp changes in their income or employment status. Both come at potentially nontrivial societal costs: more bankruptcy results in less credit and/or higher costs of credit, while public insurance is financed by income taxation. Additionally, both may distort search effort when unemployed. In this paper, we consider the relationship between these two commonly-used insurance mechanisms within an incomplete markets model with moral hazard. Our central policy implications are twofold. First, the ideal policy is to tighten both bankruptcy law and social insurance unconditionally relative to the levels currently observed. Second, social insurance programs are substantially more damaging when bankruptcy is an option than when it is not. That is, if policymakers keep social insurance programs at their current levels, they should increase the costs of default relative to current levels to improve aggregate welfare. JEL Codes: D52, D58, G33, J64 ∗The authors would like to thank Elise Couper for excellent research assistance. We also appreciate comments from seminar participants at the Universities of Iowa and Virginia, The Delhi School of Economics, and the Indian Statistical Institute. †Research Department, P.O. Box 27622, Richmond, VA 23261; (804)697-8225, kartik.athreya@rich.frb. org. ‡Department of Economics, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; (315)228-7991, nsimpson@mail.colgate. edu.
Blazing Fast 2PC in the Offline/Online Setting with Security for Malicious Adversaries

Recently, several new techniques were presented to dramatically improve key parts of secure two-party computation (2PC) protocols that use the cut-and-choose paradigm on garbled circuits for 2PC with security against malicious adversaries. These include techniques for reducing the number of garbled circuits (Lindell 13, Huang et al. 13, Lindell and Riva 14, Huang et al. 14) and techniques for reducing the overheads besides garbled circuits (Mohassel and Riva 13, Shen and Shelat~13). We design a highly optimized protocol in the offline/online setting that makes use of all state-of-the-art techniques, along with several new techniques that we introduce. A crucial part of our protocol is a new technique for enforcing consistency of the inputs used by the party who garbles the circuits. This technique has both theoretical and practical advantages over previous methods. We present a prototype implementation of our new protocol. This is the first implementation of the amortized cut-and-choose technique of Lindell and Riva (Crypto 2014). Our prototype achieves a speed of just 7 ms in the online stage} and just 74 ms in the offline stage per 2PC invoked, for securely computing AES in the presence of malicious adversaries (using 9 threads on a 2.9GHz machine). We note that no prior work has gone below one second overall on average for the secure computation of AES for malicious adversaries (nor below 20ms in the online stage). Our implementation securely evaluates SHA-256 (which is a much bigger circuit) with 33 ms online time and $206$ ms offline time, per 2PC invoked.
Social Anxiety and Premorbid Personality Disorders in Paranoid Schizophrenic Patients Treated With Clozapine

Abstract The concept of anxiety as a distinct comorbid disorder in schizophrenia has recently been rediscovered after having been neglected for a long period of time due to both theoretical and clinical approaches adopted from the appearance of the first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1950. This rediscovery was accentuated by the fact that the concept of comorbidity in various psychiatric disorders has recently won widespread favor within the scientific community, and that the use of atypical neuroleptic medication to treat patients with schizophrenia has been reported to lead to the emergence of anxiety symptoms. Of the atypical neuroleptic medications used to treat schizophrenia, clozapine has most frequently been reported to induce anxiety symptoms. In this paper, 12 cases of patients with paranoid schizophrenia who developed social phobia during clozapine treatment are reported, and their response to fluoxetine augmentation is assessed. Premorbid personality disorders were also investigated; patients were assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R—Patient Version and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders (DSM-III-R=Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition Revised; DSM-IV=Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition). In addition, the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms, the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms, the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), the Frankfurt Beschwerde Fragebogen (Frankfurt Questionnaire of Complaints), and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale were used to rate clinical symptomatology. All patients were reevaluated after 12 weeks of cotreatment with clozapine and fluoxetine. In 8 (66.6%) of the 12 cases, symptoms responded (≥35% LSAS score reduction) to an adjunctive regimen of fluoxetine. Furthermore, in 7 (58.3%) of the 12 cases, an anxious personality disorder (avoidant=33.3%; dependent=25%) was identified, but no significant differences in the prevalence of comorbid personality disorders emerged in comparison with a group of 16 patients with paranoid schizophrenia treated with clozapine who did not show symptoms of social phobia. The clinical relevance of the assessment and treatment of anxiety disorders is discussed in light of a clinical therapeutic approach that overcomes the implicit hierarchy of classification. Considering that the onset of anxiety-spectrum disorders (such as social phobia) can occur during the remission of psychotic symptoms in clozapine-treated patients with schizophrenia, a comprehensive approach to pharmacological therapy for patients with schizophrenia (or, at least for those treated with clozapine) should be adopted.
The Role of the Superior Intraparietal Sulcus in Supporting Visual Short-Term Memory for Multifeature Objects

Everyday objects can vary in a number of feature dimensions, such as color and shape. To identify and recognize a particular object, often times we need to encode and store multiple features of an object simultaneously. Previous studies have highlighted the role of the superior intraparietal sulcus (IPS) in storing single object features in visual short-term memory (VSTM), such as color, orientation, shape outline, and shape topology. The role of this brain area in storing multiple features of an object together in VSTM, however, remains mostly unknown. In this study, using an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging design and an independent region-of-interest-based approach, how an object's color and shape may be retained together in the superior IPS during VSTM was investigated. Results from four experiments indicate that the superior IPS holds neither integrated whole objects nor the total number of objects (both whole and partial) stored in VSTM. Rather, it represents the total amount of feature information retained in VSTM. The ability to accumulate information acquired from different visual feature dimensions suggests that the superior IPS may be a flexible information storage device, consistent with the involvement of the parietal cortex in a variety of other cognitive tasks. These results also bring new understanding to the object benefit reported in behavioral VSTM studies and provide new insights into solving the binding problem in the brain.
Clinical Vignettes Provide an Understanding of Antibiotic Prescribing Practices in Neonatal Intensive Care Units

Objective. To use clinical vignettes to understand antimicrobial prescribing practices in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Design. Vignette-based survey. Setting. Four tertiary care NICUs. Participants. Antibiotic prescribers in NICUs. Methods. Clinicians from 4 tertiary care NICUs completed an anonymous survey containing 12 vignettes that described empiric, targeted, or prophylactic antibiotic use. Responses were compared with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for appropriate use. Results. Overall, 161 (59% of 271 eligible respondents) completed the survey, 37% of whom had worked in NICUs for 7 or more years. Respondents were more likely to appropriately identify use of targeted therapy for methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus, that is, use of oxacillin rather than vancomycin, than for Escherichia coli, that is, use of first-generation rather than third-generation cephalosporin, (P < .01). Increased experience significantly predicted appropriate prescribing (P = .02 ). The proportion of respondents choosing appropriate duration of postsurgical prophylaxis (P < .01) and treatment for necrotizing enterocolitis differed by study site (P = .03). Conclusions. The survey provides insight into antibiotic prescribing practices and informs the development of future antibiotic stewardship interventions for NICUs.
A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE USE OF VINCRISTINE (VCR) AS A TUMOUR CELL SYNCHRONIZING AGENT IN CANCER THERAPY

Vincristine (VCR) has been used clinically in so‐called ‘tumour cell synchronization therapy schedules'. These schedules are based on the assumption that cells, arrested in metaphase by low doses of VCR, subsequently re‐enter the proliferative cycle synchronously. However, the evidence that tumour cell synchrony can be achieved under clinical conditions or that ‘cell synchronization therapy schedules’ yield a better therapeutic response than other efficient combination schemes, is scanty. Further, even in experimental systems, the efficacy of VCR as a cell synchronizing agent is disputed. Indeed, in some systems, cells arrested in metaphase by low doses of VCR, do not re‐enter a normal proliferative cycle at all following arrest. In addition, the complex nature of the VCR—tumour interaction and the heterogeneous nature of the tumour cell populations against which it is used augurs badly for the successful application of cell synchronization therapy schedules.
Thrombophilia Due to Factor V and Factor II Mutations and Formation of a Dural Arteriovenous Fistula: Case Report and Review of a Rare Entity

Genetic mutations underlying thrombophilia are often recognized in patients with thromboembolic episodes. However, the clinical and therapeutic implications of such findings often remain unclear. We report the first case of a dural arteriovenous fistula (DAVF) in a patient with a combined factor II and factor V Leiden mutation. A 40-year-old man presented with a large left temporal and intraventricular hemorrhage. An initial angiogram showed thrombosis of the left sigmoid sinus but no evidence of a vascular malformation. One year after the hemorrhage, an angiographic study showed the appearance of a right DAVF. During the follow-up period, the patient was found to harbor heterozygosity for a mutation of factor V and a mutation of factor II. Recognition of the patient's thrombophilia led to prolonged oral anticoagulation therapy to reduce the risk of a recurrent thrombotic episode. Despite the increased risk of bleeding, the therapy was considered justified. DAVFs may occur after sinus thrombosis in patients with combined factor II and factor V mutations. This observation indicates the association of multiple hematological disorders with DAVFs in individual patients. Moreover, it raises the clinical conundrum of how to manage patients with thrombophilia, intracranial hemorrhage, and DAVFs.
Effective User Relevance Feedback for Image Retrieval with Image Signatures

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has attracted much attention due to the exponential growth of digital image collections that have become available in recent years. Relevance feedback (RF) in the context of search engines is a query expansion technique, which is based on relevance judgments about the top results that are initially returned for a given query. RF can be obtained directly from end users, inferred indirectly from user interactions with a result list, or even assumed (aka pseudo relevance feedback). RF information is used to generate a new query, aiming to re-focus the query towards more relevant results. This paper presents a methodology for use of signature based image retrieval with a user in the loop to improve retrieval performance. The significance of this study is twofold. First, it shows how to effectively use explicit RF with signature based image retrieval to improve retrieval quality and efficiency. Second, this approach provides a mechanism for end users to refine their image queries. This is an important contribution because, to date, there is no effective way to reformulate an image query; our approach provides a solution to this problem. Empirical experiments have been carried out to study the behaviour and optimal parameter settings of this approach. Empirical evaluations based on standard benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in improving the performance of CBIR in terms of recall, precision, speed and scalability.
Sustained Polymorphonuclear Leukocyte Transmigration Induces Apoptosis in T84 Intestinal Epithelial Cells

Acute colitis is characterized by a large number of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNLs) migrating across the columnar epithelium in response to inflammatory stimuli. Several of these inflammatory factors have been characterized as proapoptotic inducers for intestinal epithelial cells. Our aim was to elucidate the role of PMNL transmigration in the onset of intestinal epithelial cell apoptosis. We found that PMNL migration, in response to N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine across monolayers of intestinal epithelial cells (T84), was associated with activation of caspase-2, -3, and -9 and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase cleavage within epithelial cells. Moreover, dihydrocytochalasin B treatment of T84 cells induced apoptosis with similar characteristics. Although Fas and Fas ligand were expressed on T84 cells and PMNLs, treatment of epithelial cells with an antagonistic anti-Fas antibody failed to prevent apoptosis induced by migrating PMNLs. Owing to the F-actin reorganization accompanying PMNL transmigration, these findings indicate a direct relationship between PMNL migration and induction of apoptosis in epithelial cells. This apoptotic process appears to involve remodeling of the actin cytoskeleton of enterocytes independent of the Fas/Fas ligand pathway.
A Comparison of Methods to Determine Neuronal Phase-Response Curves

The phase-response curve (PRC) is an important tool to determine the excitability type of single neurons which reveals consequences for their synchronizing properties. We review five methods to compute the PRC from both model data and experimental data and compare the numerically obtained results from each method. The main difference between the methods lies in the reliability which is influenced by the fluctuations in the spiking data and the number of spikes available for analysis. We discuss the significance of our results and provide guidelines to choose the best method based on the available data.
A gene‐based evolutionary explanation for the association between criminal involvement and number of sex partners

Abstract Empirical research has revealed a positive relationship between number of sex partners and involvement in antisocial behaviors. Most attempts to explain this association have taken an evolutionary perspective and argued that the same traits (e.g., impulsiveness, shortsightedness, and aggressiveness) that are related to a large number of sex partners are also related to criminal involvement However, there is also reason to believe that the covariation between sex partners and crime behaviors can be partially explained by a common genetic pathway, where genes that are related to sex partners are also related to antisocial conduct. We test this possibility by using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Specifically, we examine whether variants of the dopamine transporter gene (DAT1) are associated with number of sexual partners and with adult criminal behavior. The results of our analyses reveal two broad findings. First, and in line with prior research, we find that there is a strong positive association between sex partners and antisocial behavior. Second, DAT1 explains variation in both number of sexual partners and in criminal conduct for males. We speak to the implications of our findings.
Evaluation of Labeling Strategies for Rotating Maps

We consider the following problem of labeling points in a dynamic map that allows rotation. We are given a set of feature points in the plane labeled by a set of mutually disjoint labels, where each label is an axis-aligned rectangle attached with one corner to its respective point. We require that each label remains horizontally aligned during the map rotation, and our goal is to find a set of mutually nonoverlapping visible labels for every rotation angle α ∈ [0, 2π) so that the number of visible labels over a full map rotation of 2π is maximized. We discuss and experimentally evaluate several labeling strategies that define additional consistency constraints on label visibility to reduce flickering effects during monotone map rotation. We introduce three heuristic algorithms and compare them experimentally to an existing approximation algorithm and exact solutions obtained from an integer linear program. Our results show that on the one hand, low flickering can be achieved at the expense of only a small reduction in the objective value, and on the other hand, the proposed heuristics achieve a high labeling quality significantly faster than the other methods.
Dendritic Cell Differentiation State and Their Interaction with NKT Cells Determine Th1/Th2 Differentiation in the Murine Model of Leishmania major Infection1

Recent reports demonstrated that dendritic cells (DC) sense inflammatory and microbial signals differently, redefining their classical subdivision into an immature endocytic and a mature Ag-presenting differentiation stage. Although both signals induce DC maturation by up-regulating MHC class II and costimulatory molecules, only TLR signals such as LPS are able to trigger proinflammatory cytokine secretion by DCs, including Th1-polarizing IL-12. Here, we explored the murine Leishmania major infection model to examine the CD4+ T cell response induced by differentially matured DCs. When partially matured TNF-DCs were injected into BALB/c mice before infection, the mice failed to control L. major infection and developed a Th2 response which was dependent on IL-4Rα signaling. In contrast, injections of fully matured LPS+CD40-DCs induced a Th1 response controlling the infection. Pulsing DCs with a lysate of L. major did not affect DC maturation with TNF-α or LPS+anti-CD40. When the expression of different Notch ligands on DCs was analyzed, we found increased expression of Th2-promoting Jagged2 in TNF-DCs, whereas LPS+CD40-DCs up-regulated the Th1-inducing Delta4 and Jagged1 molecules. The Th2 polarization induced by TNF-DCs required interaction with CD1d-restricted NKT cells. However, NKT cell activation by L. major lysate-pulsed DCs was not affected by blockade of the endogenous glycolipid, suggesting exchange with exogenous parasite-derived CD1 glycolipid Ag. In sum, the differentiation stage of DCs as well as their interaction with NKT cells determines Th1/Th2 differentiation. These results have generic implications for the understanding of DC-driven Th cell responses and the development of improved DC vaccines against leishmaniasis.
Dynamics of TCP Congestion Avoidance with Random Drop and Random Marking Queues

Title of Dissertation: DYNAMICS of TCP CONGESTION AVOIDANCE with RANDOM DROP and RANDOM MARKING QUEUES Archan Misra, Doctor of Philosophy, 2000 Directed by: Professor John S. Baras, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Development and deployment of newer congestion feedback measures such as RED and ECN provides us a signi cant opportunity for modifying TCP response to congestion. E ective utilization of such opportunities requires detailed analysis of the behavior of congestion avoidance schemes with such randomized feedback mechanisms. In this dissertation, we consider the behavior of generalized TCP congestion avoidance when subject to randomized congestion feedback, such as RED and ECN. The window distribution of individual ows under a variable packet loss/marking probability is established and studied to demonstrate the desirability of specifying a less drastic reduction in the window size in response to ECN-based congestion feedback. A xed-point based analysis is also presented to derive the mean TCP window sizes (and throughputs) and the mean queue occupancy when multiple such generalized TCP ows interact with a single bottleneck queue performing randomized congestion feedback. Recommendations on the use of memory (use of weighted averages of the past queue occupancy) and on the use of `dropbiasing' (minimum separation between consecutive drops) are provided to reduce the variability of the queue occupancy. Finally, the interaction of TCP congestion avoidance with randomized feedback is related to a framework for global optimization of network costs. Such a relation is used to provide the theory behind the shape of the marking (dropping) functions used in a randomized feedback bu er. DYNAMICS of TCP CONGESTION AVOIDANCE with RANDOM DROP AND RANDOM MARKING QUEUES by Archan Misra Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial ful llment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2000 Advisory Committee: Professor John S. Baras, Chair Professor Ashok Agrawala, Professor Armand Makowski, Professor Teunis J Ott, Professor Leandros Tassiulas c Copyright by Archan Misra 2000
Comparison of work-related fear-avoidance beliefs across different anatomical locations with musculoskeletal pain

Background The influence of work-related fear-avoidance on pain and function has been consistently reported for patients with musculoskeletal low back pain. Emerging evidence suggests similar influences exist for other anatomical locations of musculoskeletal pain, such as the cervical spine and extremities. However, research is limited in comparing work-related fear-avoidance and associations with clinical outcomes across different anatomical locations. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between work-related fear-avoidance, gender, and clinical outcomes across four different musculoskeletal pain locations for patients being treated in an outpatient physical therapy setting. Methods This study was a secondary analysis of data obtained prospectively from a cohort of 313 participants receiving physical therapy from an outpatient clinic. Results No interaction was found between gender and anatomical location of musculoskeletal pain on work-related fear-avoidance scores. Work-related fear-avoidance scores were higher in the cervical group versus the lower extremity group; however, there were no other differences across anatomical locations. Work-related fear-avoidance influenced intake pain intensity in patients with spine pain but not extremity pain. Conversely, work-related fear-avoidance influenced intake function for participants with extremity pain but not spine pain. Similar results were observed for change scores, with higher work-related fear-avoidance being associated with more, not less, change in pain and function for certain anatomical locations. Conclusion These findings suggest that work-related fear-avoidance is similar for patients experiencing musculoskeletal pain. However, associations between work-related fear-avoidance and clinical outcomes may differ based on the anatomical location of that pain. Further, increased work-related fear-avoidance may not be indicative of poor clinical outcomes for this type of patient population.