Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Productivity in the U.S. Services Sector: New Sources of Economic Growth

The services industries --which include jobs ranging from flipping hamburgers to providing investment advice --can no longer be characterized, as they have in the past, as a stagnant sector marked by low productivity growth. They have emerged as one of the most dynamic and innovative segments of the U.S. economy, now accounting for more than three-quarters of gross domestic product. During the 1990s, 19 million additional jobs were created in this sector, while growth was stagnant in the goods-producing sector. Here, Jack Triplett and Barry Bosworth analyze services sector productivity, demonstrating that fundamental changes have taken place in this sector of the U.S. economy. They show that growth in the services industries fueled the post-1995 expansion in the U.S. productivity and assess the role of information technology in transforming and accelerating services productivity. In addition to their findings for the services sector as a whole, they include separate chapters for a diverse range of industries within the sector, including transportation and communications, wholesale and retail trade, and finance and insurance. The authors also examine productivity measurement issues, chiefly statistical methods for measuring services industry output. They highlight the importance of making improvements within the U.S. statistical system to provide the more accurate and relevant measures essential for analyzing productivity and economic growth.
Symptom perceptions and help-seeking behaviour prior to lung and colorectal cancer diagnoses: a qualitative study

Background. Lung and colorectal cancer are common and have high UK mortality rates. Early diagnosis is important in reducing cancer mortality, but the literature on lung and colorectal cancers suggests many people wait for a considerable time before presenting symptoms. Objective. To gain in-depth understanding of patients’ interpretations of symptoms of lung and colorectal cancer prior to diagnosis, and to explore processes leading to help-seeking. Methods. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with patients diagnosed with lung (N = 9) or colorectal (N = 20) cancer within the previous 12 months. Patients were asked about symptoms experienced in the period preceding diagnosis, their interpretations of symptoms, and decision making for help-seeking. Thematic analysis was conducted and comparisons drawn within and across the patient groups. Results. Patients were proactive and rational in addressing symptoms; many developed alternative, non-cancer explanations based on their knowledge and experience. Discussions with important others frequently provided the impetus to consult, but paradoxically others often initially reinforced alternative explanations. Fear and denial did not emerge as barriers to help-seeking, but help-seeking was triggered when patients’ alternative explanations could no longer be maintained, for instance due to persistence or progression of symptoms. Conclusion. Patients’ reasoning, decision making and interpersonal interactions prior to diagnosis were complex. Prompting patients for additional detail on symptoms within consultations could elicit critical contextual information to aid referral decisions. Findings also have implications for the design of public health campaigns.
Personalized Multi-Document Summarization using N-Gram Topic Model Fusion

We consider the problem of probabilistic topic modeling for query-focused multi-document summarization. Rather than modeling topics as distributions over a vocabulary of terms, we extend the probabilistic latent semantic analysis (PLSA) approach with a bigram language model. This allows us to relax the conditional independence assumption between words made by standard topic models. We present a unified topic model which evolves from sentence-term and sentence-bigram co-occurrences in parallel. Sentences and queries are represented as probability distributions over latent topics to compute thematic and query-focused sentence features in the topic space. We find that the inclusion of bigrams improves the descriptive quality of the latent topics, and substantially reduces the number of latent topics required for representing document content. Experimental results on DUC 2007 data show an improved performance compared to a standard term-based topic model. We further find that our method performs at the level of current state-of-the art summarizers, while being built on a considerably simpler model than previous topic modeling approaches to summarization.
Immune Responses to Inhalant Allergens

This overview describes the nature of the immune responses induced by the inhalation of allergens. There is a dichotomy in that B cells have multiple mechanisms that limit the amount of immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibody production, whereas T-cell responses are large even in nonallergic subjects. With the possible exception of responses to cat allergen, however, T cells from nonallergic subjects have limited effector function of helping IgG antibody, and in house-dust mite allergy, this declines with age. Regulation by interleukin 10 (IL-10)-producing cells and CD25+ T-regulatory cells has been proposed, but critically, there is limited evidence for this, and many studies show the highest IL-10 production by cells from allergic subjects. Recent studies have shown the importance of nonlymphoid chemokines thymic stromal lymphopoietin and IL-27, so studying responses in situ is critical. Most sources of allergens have 1 or 2 dominant allergens, and for house-dust mite, it has been shown that people have a predictable responsiveness to high-, mid-and poor-IgE-binding proteins regardless of the total size of their response. This allergen hierarchy can be used to design improved allergen preparations and to investigate how antiallergen responses are regulated.
DT-bottlenecks in serial production lines: theory and application

The bottleneck (BN) of a production line is a machine that impedes the system's performance in the strongest manner. It has been shown in previous work that the so-called downtime bottlenecks (DT-BNs) are of main industrial importance. In this paper, a method for DT-BN identification is developed in the framework of serial production lines with unreliable (Markovian) machines and finite buffers. The identification tool derived is based on the probabilities of machine blockages and starvations. To evaluate these probabilities, a novel aggregation technique is proposed. The results obtained are applied to the design of a production line at an automotive component plant.
An explicit formula for the Skorokhod map on [0,a].

The Skorokhod map is a convenient tool for constructing solutions to stochastic differential equations with reflecting boundary conditions. In this work, an explicit formula for the Skorokhod map Γ 0,a on [0, a] for any a > 0 is derived. Specifically, it is shown that on the space D[0, ∞) of right-continuous functions with left limits taking values in R, Γ 0,a = Λ a o Γ 0 , where Λ a : D[0, ∞) → D[0, ∞) is defined by Λ a (Φ) (t) = Φ(t)- sups∈[0,t] [(Φ(s)-a) + Λ infu∈[s,t] Φ(u)] and Γ 0 :D[0, ∞) → D[0, ∞) is the Skorokhod map on [0, ∞), which is given explicitly by Γ 0 (ψ)(t) = ψ(t) + sup s∈[0,t] [-ψ(s)] + . In addition, properties of Λ a are developed and comparison properties of Γ 0,a are established.
The hitch-hiking effect of a favourable gene.

When a selectively favourable gene substitution occurs in a population, changes in gene frequencies will occur at closely linked loci. In the case of a neutral polymorphism, average heterozygosity will be reduced to an extent which varies with distance from the substituted locus. The aggregate eifect of substitution on neutral polymorphism is estimated; in populations of total size 10 or more (and perhaps of 10 or more), this eifect will be more important than that of random fixation. This may explain why the extent of polymorphism in natural populations does not vary as much as one would expect from a consideration of the equilibrium between mutation and random fixation in populations of different sizes. For a selectively maintained polymorphism at a linked locus, this process will only be important in the long run if it leads to complete fixation. If the selective coefficients at the linked locus are small compared to those at the substituted locus, it is shown that the probability of complete fixation at the linked locus is approximately exp (— Nc), where c is the recombinant fraction and N the population size. I t follows that in a large population a selective substitution can occur in a cistron without eliminating a selectively maintained polymorphism in the same cistron.
HLA Correlates of Long-Term Survival in Vertically Infected HIV-1-Positive Adolescents in Harare, Zimbabwe

Abstract African infants with vertically acquired HIV infection progress rapidly, with only 50% surviving beyond 2 years in the absence of treatment. Despite this high initial mortality, recent reports describe a substantial burden of older children living with untreated vertically acquired HIV infection in Southern Africa. The immunological and genetic factors associated with long-term survival following vertical infection are poorly understood. We performed medium-to-high resolution HLA typing on DNA samples obtained from a cohort of presumed vertically HIV-1-infected children and age-matched uninfected controls in Harare, Zimbabwe. Overall, 93 HLA class I alleles were detected in the study population with a significant enrichment of HLA-C*08:02 and -C*08:04 in the HIV-1-infected long-term survivor group. Conversely, HLA-A*02:01, A*34:02, and -B*58:02 were overrepresented in the uninfected control group. Our data indicate that HLA alleles may have differential effects against HIV acquisition and disease progression in vertical HIV-1 infection.
Methodological pitfalls of the Unconscious Thought paradigm

According to Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT: Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006), complex decisions are best made after a period of distraction assumed to elicit “unconscious thought”. Over three studies, respectively offering a conceptual, an identical and a methodologically improved replication of Dijksterhuis et al. (2006), we reassessed UTT’s predictions and dissected the decision task used to demonstrate these predictions. We failed to find any evidence for the benefits of unconscious decision-making. By contrast, we found some evidence that conscious deliberation can lead to better decisions. Further, we identified methodological weaknesses in the UTT decision task: (a) attributes weighting was neglected although attributes were seen as different in importance; (b) the material was not properly counterbalanced; and (c) there was some confusion in the experimental instructions. We propose methodological improvements that address these concerns.
Vote Timing and Information Aggregation

Drawing upon recent results on bandwagons in sequential voting, and by deriving analogous results for simultaneous voting, I compare the information aggregation properties of the two processes. The conclusions con.rm commonly held views about the front-loading of presidential primaries: that in tight races a simultaneous vote is preferred as it is more likely to lead to the selection of the “better” candidate, but in lopsided races a sequential vote is preferred. Strangely, the superior performance of sequential voting in lopsided races is precisely because bandwagons occur. ¤Assistant Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208; scal@kellogg.northwestern. edu.
Age-associated changes in the hippocampal-ventral striatum-ventral tegmental loop that impact learning, prediction, and context discrimination

Studies of the neural mechanisms of navigation and context discrimination have generated a powerful heuristic for understanding how neural codes, circuits, and computations contribute to accurate behavior as animals traverse and learn about spatially extended environments. It is assumed that memories are updated as a result of spatial experience. The mechanism, however, for such a process is not clear. Here we suggest that one revealing approach to study this issue is to integrate our knowledge about limbic system mediated navigation and context discrimination with knowledge about how midbrain neural circuitry mediates decision-making. This perspective should lead to new and specific neural theories about how choices that we make during navigation determine what information is ultimately learned and remembered. This same circuitry may be involved when past experiences come to bias future spatial perceptions and response selection. With old age come not only important changes in limbic system operations, but also significant decline in the function of midbrain regions that underlie accurate and efficient decisions. Thus, suboptimal accuracy of spatial context-based decision-making may be, at least in part, responsible for the common observation of spatial memory decline in old age.
Single-Parent Families in Singapore: Understanding the Challenges of Finances, Housing and Time Poverty

This report is one of three published by the Lien Centre for Social Innovation (LCSI), 1 which are all focused on understanding vulnerable communities in Singapore. This study seeks to explore the unique challenges faced by low-income single-parent families in Singapore, and includes interviews with 88 single parents. As this project prioritised variety over representativeness, the respondents were both male and female; included Chinese, Malay and Indian individuals; and had a variety of circumstances that led to them becoming a single parent (including the death of a partner, divorce, separation, incarceration and having a child outside of marriage). The qualitative interviews sought to gain greater insight into employment and finance, housing, social networks and time poverty from the perspective of single parents. Our findings demonstrate that the lack of adequate childcare are unavailable. Once single parents value understanding flexibility over higher as the to and childcare
Value Investing: The Use of Historical Financial Statement Information to Separate Winners from Losers

This paper examines whether a simple accounting-based fundamental analysis strategy, when applied to a broad portfolio of high book-to-market firms, can shift the distribution of returns earned by an investor. I show that the mean return earned by a high book-to-market investor can be increased by at least 7 percent annually through the selection of financially strong high BM firms while the entire distribution of realized returns is shifted to the right. In addition, an investment strategy that buys expected winners and shorts expected losers generates a 23 percent annual return between 1976 and 1996 and the strategy appears to be robust across time and to controls for alternative investment strategies. Within the portfolio of high BM firms, the benefits to financial statement analysis are concentrated in small and medium sized firms, companies with low share turnover and firms with no analyst following, yet this superior performance is not dependent on purchasing firms with low share prices. A positive relationship between the sign of the initial historical information and both future firm performance and subsequent quarterly earnings announcement reactions suggests that the market initially underreacts to the historical information. In particular, 1/6th of the annual return difference between ex ante strong and weak firms is earned over the four three-day periods surrounding these quarterly earnings announcements. Overall, the evidence suggests that the market does not fully incorporate historical financial information into prices in a timely manner.
A Convex Formulation for Magnetic Particle Imaging X-Space Reconstruction

Magnetic Particle Imaging (mpi) is an emerging imaging modality with exceptional promise for clinical applications in rapid angiography, cell therapy tracking, cancer imaging, and inflammation imaging. Recent publications have demonstrated quantitative mpi across rat sized fields of view with x-space reconstruction methods. Critical to any medical imaging technology is the reliability and accuracy of image reconstruction. Because the average value of the mpi signal is lost during direct-feedthrough signal filtering, mpi reconstruction algorithms must recover this zero-frequency value. Prior x-space mpi recovery techniques were limited to 1d approaches which could introduce artifacts when reconstructing a 3d image. In this paper, we formulate x-space reconstruction as a 3d convex optimization problem and apply robust a priori knowledge of image smoothness and non-negativity to reduce non-physical banding and haze artifacts. We conclude with a discussion of the powerful extensibility of the presented formulation for future applications.
Further evidence on the determinants of regional stock market integration in Latin America

This paper employs a conditional version of the International Capital Asset Pricing Model (ICAPM) to investigate the determinants of regional integration of stock markets in the Latin America over the period 1996-2008. This model allows for three sources of time-varying risks: common regional market risk, exchange rate risk and local market risk. In particular, exchange rate risk exposure is not only measured by bilateral exchange rates against the US dollar as in previous studies, but also by the real effective exchange rate index. At the empirical level, we make use of the asymmetric multivariate DCC-GARCH of Engle and Sheppard (2006) process to simultaneously estimate the ICAPM for four major Latin American emerging countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico). Our findings show that the degrees of trade openness and stock market development are among themost important drivers of regional integration in the Latin America context whatever the measure of the exchange rate risk.
Effect of Removal of Enamel on Rebonding Strength of Resin Composite to Enamel

Objective. To examine the effect of removing the surface layer of enamel on the rebonding strength of resin composite. Methods. Teeth in four groups (n = 10) were etched, a small amount of resin composite was bonded and debonded, then specimens in three groups were ground for different lengths of time (10 s, 20 s, 30 s) to remove an increasing amount of enamel, one group was left untouched. The teeth were bonded again and the bond strengths of 1st and 2nd bonding were compared and analysed against the amount of enamel loss in different groups (7 µm (±2); 12 µm (±1); 16 µm (±3)). Specimens were examined with SEM and by noncontacting optical profilometer. Results. Although results indicated higher rebonding strength with increasing enamel removal ANOVA showed low statistical differences between the groups (p > 0.05). However, values between first bonding and rebonding strengths differed significantly (p < 0.05) in the group that was not ground. SEM revealed that enamel-surfaces that were ground after debonding etched well, compared to the surfaces that still contained adhesive remnants. Conclusions. Removal of small amount of enamel refreshed the surface for rebonding. Rebonding strengths without grinding the surface before bonding were lower than bond strength to intact enamel.
Treatment outcome in patients with triple negative early stage breast cancers compared with other molecular subtypes

Purpose To determine whether triple negative (TN) early stage breast cancers have poorer survival rates compared with other molecular types. Materials and Methods Between August 2000 and July 2006, patients diagnosed with stage I, II early stage breast cancers, in whom all three markers (estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor [HER]-2) were available and treated with modified radical mastectomy or breast conserving surgery followed by radiotherapy, were retrospectively reviewed. Results Of 446 patients, 94 (21.1%) were classified as TN, 57 (12.8%) as HER-2 type, and 295 (66.1%) as luminal. TN was more frequently associated with young patients younger than 35 years old (p = 0.002), higher histologic grade (p < 0.0001), and nuclear (p < 0.0001). The median follow-up period was 78 months (range, 4 to 130 months). There were 9 local relapses (2.0%), 15 nodal (3.4%), 40 distant metastases (9.0%), and 33 deaths (7.4%) for all patients. The rates of 5-year OS, DFS, LFS, and DMFS for all patients were 95.5%, 89.9%, 95.4%, and 91.7%, respectively. There were no significant differences in OS, DFS, LFS, and DMFS between triple negative and other subtypes (p > 0.05). Conclusion We found that patients with TN early stage breast cancers had no difference in survival rates compared with other molecular subtypes. Prospective study in homogeneous treatment group will need for a prognosis of TN early stage breast cancer.
An Ontological Turn in Categories Research: From Standards of Legitimacy to Evidence of Actuality

In this Counterpoint to Durand and Paolella, we argue that prior work on categories has neglected processes of category emergence and dissolution. In response, we call for studies of categories that focus on how they emerge and fall out of use and on what they come to mean. We call this an ontological turn in categories research because systems of categorization and their associated meanings capture and reflect what societies view as social realities, or ontologies. As a guide to this broad topic, we develop a framework that relates the effects of categories to the familiarity of (1) occasions and motivations for their usage and (2) meanings and ontologies they carry, and we use this framework to elaborate two paths by which previously unfamiliar categories become accepted as elements of common knowledge. These paths jointly inform the recognition front of the emergence question, an understudied problem in organization studies. Finally, we outline two methodologies – set theoretic analysis and network‐based analysis – that offer particular promise for analysing processes of category emergence and dissolution.
A High-Capacity Digital Image Data Hiding Scheme Using Adaptive LSB Substitution

Many existing steganographic methods hide more secret data into edged areas than smooth areas in the host image, which does not differentiate textures from edges and causes serious degradation in actual edge areas. To avoid abrupt changes in image edge areas, as well as to achieve better quality of the stego-image, a novel image data hiding technique by adaptive Least Significant Bits (LSBs) substitution is proposed in this paper The scheme exploits the brightness, edges, and texture masking of the host image to estimate the number k of LSBs for data hiding. Pixels in the noise non-sensitive regions are embedded by a k-bit LSB substitution with a lager value of k than that of the pixels in noise sensitive regions. Moreover, an optimal pixel adjustment process is used to enhance stego-image visual quality obtained by simple LSB substitution method. To ensure that the adaptive number k of LSBs remains unchanged after pixel modification, the LSBs number is computed by the high-order bits rather than all the bits of the image pixel value. The theoretical analyses and experiment results show that the proposed method achieves higher embedding capacity and better stegoimage quality compared with some existing LSB methods