Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Missing Data Problems in Machine Learning

Learning, inference, and prediction in the presence of missing data are pervasive problems in machine learning and statistical data analysis. This thesis focuses on the problems of collaborative prediction with non-random missing data and classification with missing features. We begin by presenting and elaborating on the theory of missing data due to Little and Rubin. We place a particular emphasis on the missing at random assumption in the multivariate setting with arbitrary patterns of missing data. We derive inference and prediction methods in the presence of random missing data for a variety of probabilistic models including finite mixture models, Dirichlet process mixture models, and factor analysis. Based on this foundation, we develop several novel models and inference procedures for both the collaborative prediction problem and the problem of classification with missing features. We develop models and methods for collaborative prediction with non-random missing data by combining standard models for complete data with models of the missing data process. Using a novel recommender system data set and experimental protocol, we show that each proposed method achieves a substantial increase in rating prediction performance compared to models that assume missing ratings are missing at random. We describe several strategies for classification with missing features including the use of generative classifiers, and the combination of standard discriminative classifiers with single imputation, multiple imputation, classification in subspaces, and an approach based on modifying the classifier input representation to include response indicators. Results on real and synthetic data sets show that in some cases performance gains over baseline methods can be achieved by methods that do not learn a detailed model of the feature space.
How transformational leadership predicts employees’ affective commitment and performance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of transformational leadership (TL) on employees’ individual performance (IP) through the mediating role of affective commitment (AC). More specifically, it aims to understand how TL relates to employees’ AC, TL relates to employees’ IP, employees’ AC relates to IP and employees’ AC mediates the relationship between TL and employees’ IP. Design/methodology/approach A total of 476 Turkish healthcare professionals participated in this study. The mediation effect of AC in the relationship between TL and employees’ IP was tested by structural equation modeling. Findings The results indicate that AC mediates the relationship between TL and employees’ IP. In others words, transformational leaders promote employees’ AC which, in turn, increases their IP. Practical implications This study suggests that organizations should select, develop and invest in leaders who adopt a TL style because they build a climate of admiration, loyalty, respect, participation and involvement for employees which will in turn enhance their commitment and performance. Originality/value This study responds to calls for research studies to explore the mediating mechanism in the TL process (Judge et al., 2006), as the mediation effects explain the conditions in which TL is related to the favorable outcomes.
Using Vulnerability Trees for Decision Making in Threat Assessment

An electron tube device for measuring light pulses generated at a high repetition rate which includes an electron tube, power supply device and deflection voltage generator. The electron tube has a photocathode, focusing electrode, deflection electrodes, slit electrode, dynodes and a collector electrode positioned within an evacuated envelope. The power supply device supplies voltages to the dynodes and to the focusing and slit electrodes, and the deflection voltage generator supplies deflection voltages to the deflection electrodes which successively change in phase with respect to light pulses impinging on the photocathode so that different portions of the light pulses can be successively sampled.
Review of Phylogenetic Tree Construction

Motivation: Phylogenetic tree construction is a complex yet important problem in the field of bioinformatics. Once constructed, a phylogenetic or evolutionary tree can lend insight into the evolution of different species. The issue is that for a large number of species the problem grows to a computational complexity that is not easily solved. For this reason, new methods are being researched and applied to phylogenetic tree construction and have provided some promising results. Two topics of interest for this paper are the use of Ant Colony Optimization and Particle Swarm Optimization both of which are based on algorithms discovered from studding the pat-
The Impact of Information Systems on the Performance of Human Resources Department

Owing to the revolution in information technology, the face of the contemporary workplace has changed and systems have been made more effective by introducing new techniques. Majority of the organizations have now understood the importance of information storage and retrieval. In this paper, we focus on how modern technology is helping in ensuring effectiveness of HR functions. Human Resource Information System (HRIS) is an opportunity for organizations to make the HR department administratively and strategically participative in operating the organization. The main objective is to understand the extent to which HRIS is being used in increasing the administrative and strategic functions of the HR department. For this purpose, we have conducted a survey of 18 HR Managers from various private corporations operating in Lahore, Pakistan. The results show that HRIS is positively used as a tool to achieve greater administrative efficiency by adding value in the department. However, all of its benefits are difficult o quantify. HRIS utility as a strategic tool is still not been fully recognized, and this is preventing the system to be used to its fullest potential. Suggestions and recommendations are provided.
A Five-Year, In Situ Growth Study on Shallow-Water Populations of the Gorgonian Octocoral Calcigorgia spiculifera in the Gulf of Alaska

Gorgonian octocorals are the most abundant corals in Alaska where they provide important structural habitat for managed species of demersal fish and invertebrates. Fifty-nine gorgonian species have been reported from Alaska waters but little is known about their life history characteristics to help us gauge their ability to recover from seafloor disturbance. Colonies of the holaxonian Calcigorgia spiculifera were tagged beginning in 1999 at three sites in Chatham Strait, Southeast Alaska, using scuba and their growth measured annually for up to 5 years. Colonies were video recorded, and computer image analysis tools provided calibration of video images for measuring the length of several branches. Growth data indicate that C. spiculifera grows much slower (6.0 mm yr-1) than other gorgonians in Alaska for which there are data and that intraspecific growth is highly variable. We fit a Bayesian linear mixed-effects model that showed that average colony growth was significantly reduced with warmer temperature and presence of necrosis. The model further indicated that growth may slow among larger (older) colonies. Based on these results and previous studies, we propose that gorgonian growth rates are taxonomically constrained at the Suborder level and that holaxonians grow the slowest followed by scleraxonians and calcaxonians (2–3 times as fast). Findings of this study indicate that it would take approximately 60 years for C. spiculifera to grow to its maximum size and depending on the location and size of the parental standing stock, at least one and possibly 10 additional years for recruitment to occur. Our results further indicate that colonies that are injured, perhaps chronically in areas of frequent disturbance, grow at slower rates and if the current trend of ocean warming continues then we can expect these corals to grow more slowly, and the habitats they form will require more time to recover from disturbance.
Emerging Adults Embarking on Their Careers: Job and Identity Explorations in the Transition to Work

It has been argued that the transition from adolescence to adulthood has been prolonged in many industrialized countries with many young adults pursuing a higher education degree. Accordingly, Arnett introduced a new life phase “emerging adulthood” in which the transition from education to work is a central event. The current systematic literature study aims to provide insight into how young adults experience this life event. Our search strategy revealed 23,966 unique search results. After a thorough selection and quality appraisal of the studies, 29 studies focusing on job and identity explorations were selected. Results show that emerging adults expect to hold different jobs after graduating and indications were found that job mobility does take place in this period. However, it is important to distinguish conscious exploration from floundering. Findings also show that the development of a professional identity is challenging and entails searching for a balance between different aspects of life.
Chenopodium littoreum (Chenopodiaceae), a New Goosefoot from Dunes of South-Central Coastal California

Abstract Chenopodium littoreum is described as new. It had been incorrectly cited in the past as C. carnosulum Moq. var. patagonicum (Phil.) Wahl, a variety of the South American C. carnosulum. However, C. littoreum differs from the C. carnosulum complex in having narrowly elliptic to lanceolate and mostly unlobed leaves, consistently five stamens per flower, and seeds that are invariably horizontal. Chenopodium littoreum is similar to another South American taxon, C. patagonicum Phil. ( = C. philippianum Aellen), but the latter differs in having basally lobed leaves, sepals fused above the middle, and generally one or two (rarely five) stamens. Chenopodium littoreum has a range currently known only from coastal dunes of San Luis Obispo Co. and Santa Barbara Co. of the Central Coast of California, plus a single historic collection from Los Angeles Co. of the South Coast of California.
Composantes de petite codimension du lieu de Noether-Lefschetz: Un argument asymptotique en faveur de la conjecture de Hodge pour les hypersurfaces

This paper gives an asymptotic description of the Noether-Lefschetz locus for smooth projective hypersurfaces in P C of large degree. I prove that successive small codimensional components of this locus correspond to surfaces containing a small degree subvariety of dimension n. This result generalises the work of Green and Voisin for surfaces in PC containing a line and a conic. Résumé Cet article donne une description asymptotique du lieu de NoetherLefschetz pour les hypersurfaces lisses de grand degré dans P C : les composantes succéssives de plus petite codimension de ce lieu sont constituées par les hypersurfaces contenant une sous-variété de dimension n et de petit degré. Ce résultat généralise les travaus de Green et Voisin sur les surfaces de PC contenant une droite et une conique.
Uncertainties in climate responses to past land cover change: First results from the LUCID intercomparison study

Seven climate models were used to explore the biogeophysical impacts of human‐induced land cover change (LCC) at regional and global scales. The imposed LCC led to statistically significant decreases in the northern hemisphere summer latent heat flux in three models, and increases in three models. Five models simulated statistically significant cooling in summer in near‐surface temperature over regions of LCC and one simulated warming. There were few significant changes in precipitation. Our results show no common remote impacts of LCC. The lack of consistency among the seven models was due to: 1) the implementation of LCC despite agreed maps of agricultural land, 2) the representation of crop phenology, 3) the parameterisation of albedo, and 4) the representation of evapotranspiration for different land cover types. This study highlights a dilemma: LCC is regionally significant, but it is not feasible to impose a common LCC across multiple models for the next IPCC assessment.
Peripheral vascular changes after electrically stimulated cycle training in people with spinal cord injury.

OBJECTIVE To test whether a short period of training leads to adaptations in the cross-sectional area of large conduit arteries and improved blood flow to the paralyzed legs of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). DESIGN Before-after trial. SETTING Rehabilitation center, academic medical center. PARTICIPANTS Nine men with spinal cord lesions. INTERVENTION Six weeks of cycling using a functional electrically stimulated leg cycle ergometer (FES-LCE). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Longitudinal images and simultaneous velocity spectra were measured in the common carotid (CA) and femoral (FA) arteries using quantitative duplex Doppler ultrasound examination. Arterial diameters, peak systolic inflow volumes (PSIVs), mean inflow volumes (MIVs), and a velocity index (VI), representing the peripheral resistance, were obtained at rest. PSIVs and VI were obtained during 3 minutes of hyperemia following 20 minutes of FA occlusion. RESULTS Training resulted in significant increases in diameter (p < .01), PSIVs (p < .01), and MIVs (p < .05), and reduced VI (p < .01) of the FA, whereas values in the CA remained unchanged. Postocclusive hyperemic responses were augmented, indicated by significantly higher PSIVs (p <.01) and a trend toward lower VI. CONCLUSION Six weeks of FES-LCE training increased the cross-sectional area of large conduit arteries and improved blood flow to the paralyzed legs of individuals with SCI.
Trends in large scale structure observations and thelikelihood of early reionizationAndrew

With the imminent promise of constraints on the epoch of reionization from observations of microwave background anisotropies, the question of whether or not the standard Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model permits early reionization has been subjected to detailed investigation by various authors, with the conclusion that reionization may occur at quite high redshift. However, it is widely accepted that this model is excluded, as when normalised to the COBE observations it possesses excessive galaxy clustering on scales below tens of megaparsecs. We examine the trends of observations, rst in a fairly model independent way, and second by considering variants on the standard CDM model introduced to resolve the observational connicts. We conclude that the epoch of reionization favoured by the observational data is typically considerably later than the standard CDM model suggests, and amongst models which may t the observational data only the introduction of a cosmological constant leads to a reionization redshift close to that of standard CDM.
An Ideal Student Factor and the Validity of Noncognitive Measures of Student Potential

The presence of a general factor has been found in previous research on the utilization of personality tests in selection contexts. Termed the Ideal Employee Factor (IEF), this factor is thought to represent an effort to present oneself as an ideal employee to some degree on all items in the test. Examining the responses to biodata and situational judgment items, we provide evidence for the existence of a factor similar to the IEF within the college admissions context, termed the Ideal Student Factor (ISF), but the magnitude of this factor relative to specific factors was small. Mixed support was found for the hypothesized differences in the factor loadings on the ISF for different constructs included in the model. The presence of the ISF was not found to substantially impact the validity of other predictors within this study. The overall conclusion is that this general factor would not impact the use of these biodata and situational judgment items in college admissions.
Neuroimage: Clinical Multimodal Evidence of Regional Midcingulate Gray Matter Volume Underlying Conflict Monitoring

Functional neuroimaging studies have long implicated the mid-cingulate cortex (MCC) in conflict monitoring, but it is not clear whether its structural integrity (i.e., the gray matter volume) influences its conflict monitoring function. In this multimodal study, we used T1-weighted MRI scans as well as event-related potentials (ERPs) to test whether the MCC gray matter volume is associated with the electrocortical marker (i.e., No-go N200 ERP component) of conflict monitoring in healthy individuals. The specificity of such a relationship in health was determined in two ways: by (A) acquiring the same data from individuals with cocaine use disorder (CUD), known to have deficits in executive function including behavioral monitoring; and (B) acquiring the P300 ERP component that is linked with attention allocation and not specifically with conflict monitoring.viduals with CUD underwent a rewarded Go / No-go task during which the ERP data was collected, and they also underwent a structural MRI scan. The whole brain regression analysis showed a significant correlation between MCC structural integrity and the well-known ERP measure of conflict monitoring (N200, but not the P300) in healthy individuals, which was absent in CUD who were characterized by reduced MCC gray matter volume, N200 abnormalities as well as reduced task accuracy. In individuals with CUD instead, the N200 amplitude was associated with drug addiction symptomatology. These results show that the integrity of MCC volume is directly associated with the electrocortical correlates of conflict monitoring in healthy individuals, and such an association breaks down in psychopathologies that impact these brain processes. Taken together, this MCC–N200 association may serve as a biomarker of improved behavioral monitoring processes in diseased populations.
Halfspace Depth and Regression Depth Characterize the Empirical Distribution

For multivariate data, the halfspace depth function can be seen as a natural and affine equivariant generalization of the univariate empirical cdf. For any multivariate data set, we show that the resulting halfspace depth function completely determines the empirical distribution. We do this by actually reconstructing the data points from the depth contours. The data need not be in general position. Moreover, we prove the same property for regression depth.
Elimination of current sheets at resonances in three-dimensional toroidal ideal-magnetohydrodynamic equilibria

On the basis of the ideal-magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium code VMEC (Hirshman et al 1986 Comput. Phys. Commun. 43 143) supplemented by transformation of its results into magnetic coordinates, it is shown how current sheets, radially widened by the finite grid size, at rational values of rotational transform in 3d toroidal equilibria can be removed by variation of the equilibrium geometry.
Complicated Firms

We exploit a novel setting in which the same piece of information affects two sets of firms: one set of firms requires straightforward processing to update prices, while the other set requires more complicated analyses to incorporate the same piece of information into prices. We document substantial return predictability from the set of easy-to-analyze firms to their more complicated peers. Specifically, a simple portfolio strategy that takes advantage of this straightforward vs. complicated information processing classification yields returns of 118 basis points per month. Consistent with processing complexity driving the return relation, we further show that the more complicated the firm, the more pronounced the return predictability. In addition, we find that sell-side analysts are subject to these same information processing constraints, as their forecast revisions of easy-to-analyze firms predict their future revisions of more complicated firms.
The causal relationship between subcortical local field potential oscillations and Parkinsonian resting tremor

To study the dynamical mechanism which generates Parkinsonian resting tremor, we apply coupling directionality analysis to local field potentials (LFP) and accelerometer signals recorded in an ensemble of 48 tremor epochs in four Parkinsonian patients with depth electrodes implanted in the ventro-intermediate nucleus of the thalamus (VIM) or the subthalmic nucleus (STN). Apart from the traditional linear Granger causality method we use two nonlinear techniques: phase dynamics modelling and nonlinear Granger causality. We detect a bidirectional coupling between the subcortical (VIM or STN) oscillation and the tremor, in the theta range (around 5 Hz) as well as broadband (>2 Hz). In particular, we show that the theta band LFP oscillations definitely play an efferent role in tremor generation, while beta band LFP oscillations might additionally contribute. The brain→tremor driving is a complex, nonlinear mechanism, which is reliably detected with the two nonlinear techniques only. In contrast, the tremor→brain driving is detected with any of the techniques including the linear one, though the latter is less sensitive. The phase dynamics modelling (applied to theta band oscillations) consistently reveals a long delay in the order of 1–2 mean tremor periods for the brain→tremor driving and a small delay, compatible with the neural transmission time, for the proprioceptive feedback. Granger causality estimation (applied to broadband signals) does not provide reliable estimates of the delay times, but is even more sensitive to detect the brain→tremor influence than the phase dynamics modelling.
Changing evangelical minds on climate change

One quarter of Americans self-identify as evangelical and a strong majority of these reject human-induced climate change. Can one lecture on climate science from a Christian perspective change their minds? Here, we examine the response of undergraduates at three evangelical institutions, located in upper state New York, Texas, and Canada, to a recorded lecture by an evangelical climate scientist. Pre/post-test surveys posed six questions from the Global Warming’s Six Americas instrument with additional questions on participants’ political and theological perspectives. All populations showed significant pre/post-test gains on almost every question, immediately after the intervention, with gains among the most conservative population being as large as the others. A one-month delayed post-survey showed that gains were still significant relative to pre-test values for most of the questions. Furthermore, gains did not decrease when the Christian frame was removed, except on one item related to Christian responsibility. These results suggest that even a limited exposure to accurate information can change minds, and that the context in which the information is presented (here, the evangelical college and faculty sponsor) may be more important than the content frame.
Effectiveness of family-oriented interpretive media with different design characteristics: A study of family visitors’ satisfaction on the worksheets of a botanical garden

Abstract Varying from previous studies that are mostly focused on whether the use of worksheets is effective for environmental education, this study compared three family-oriented worksheets with different design characteristics to explore their effects based on family visitors’ satisfaction. The results revealed that differences in children’s ages influenced family visitors’ satisfaction. Families with younger children tended to be more satisfied with worksheets that featured higher relevance to personal experience and more animal-related content. Families with older children tended to prefer the worksheets with more observation–need tasks and more understanding-based questions. This study contributed to the practical need of interpretive media’s designing and family-oriented programs’ planning in the environmental education field.