Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
White Racial Identity, Party Identification, and Party Affect: An Experiment in Priming

The notion of white racial identity is a fairly new one, especially in relation to political science. This study works to explore how white racial identity is used in identifying with and evaluating political parties through an experimental survey conducted using Mechanical-Turk®, in which subjects were given one of five conditions (one control and four stimulus) and then asked about party identification and party affect. I find that importance of race for personal identity is strongly related to strength of partisanship, positive affect for the Republican Party, and conservative ideology. These results reflect similar findings by other authors (Mendelberg 2001; Jackson 2011). The ever increasing minority populations in the United States and decline in proportional representation of whites (Vickerman 2007) is leading whites to examine their own racial identity as they are introduced to " the increased prominence of non-whites in various public spheres " (Hughey 2010, 1291). This creates a society where " whiteness renders itself more visible and less of a synonym for invisible normality " (Hughey 2010, 1291). In this new era of American racial identity, with a more dynamic view of 'whiteness', the political sphere may be ready to change: in particular, partisanship and party affection of whites based on racial identity. This study aims to investigate the link between white racial identity and partisanship and the ability of party identification and party affect to be manipulated vis-à-vis racial identity. If there is indeed a link and party identification can in fact be manipulated through racial cues we as a nation may see a shift in the political sphere of America, affecting communications, campaigns, and public opinion. Racial identity has been shown to be a strong predictor of vote choice (Graves & Lee 2000; Jackson 2011), issue preference (Graves & Lee 2000), and party identification (Nyugen & Lee 2009) among minority groups – Latinos and Asians respectively. (2010) presented above it would follow that whites may adhere to the model set by racial minorities – increases in white racial identity over the past four decades (Wong & Cho 2005, 705). In this study I focus on the effects of white racial identity on party identification and party affect when people are primed to affiliate whites with a party or to affiliate an out-group (blacks) with a party through a survey experiment. I randomly assign respondents to five groups. Subjects read articles that suggest a relation between …
Asset Inequality Matters: An Assessment of the World Bank's Approach to Poverty Reduction.

The fight against poverty has been adopted by the multilateral development banks as their principal objective. Almost three decades after Robert McNamara announced that the World Bank's fundamental work was to improve the lives of the poor, its new president, James Wolfensohn, has reiterated that poverty reduction is the World Bank's principal purpose. Similarly, in 1994 the Inter-American Development Bank set social progress and social equity as its central objective. The emphasis in the international institutions contrasts with disappointing results in the real world. Although life expectancy, school enrollmuent, and other indicators of social wellbeing have improved dramatically across the developing world, and although the proportion of the poor has declined in the last few decades, the absolute number of poor people in the world has actually increased. Today about 1.3 billion people in less developed countries still subsist on less than $1 per day (World Bank, 1980, 1990, 1996). The case of Latin America is dramatic. While in the 1970's the number of poor fell, it nearly doubled in the 1980's, increasing from about 80 to almost 150 million; and in the last few years, the number of poor, now 33 percent of the total population, has failed to fall despite economic recovery (Birdsall and Londofio, 1997). The contrast between the multilateral banks' goals and these disappointing results suggests the need for a critical reassessment of their approach to poverty reduction. In this paper we describe the approach reflected in the work of World Bank economists and, based on new empirical work, assess its relevance for Latin America. '
Peer to Peer Botnet Detection Using Data Mining Scheme

Botnet was composed of the virus-infected computers severely threaten the security of internet. Hackers, firstly, implanted virus in targeted computers, which were then commanded and controlled by them via the internet to operate distributed denial of services (DDoS), steal confidential information, distribute junk mails and other malicious acts. By imitating P2P software, P2P botnet used multiple main controller to avoid single point of failure, and failed various misuse detecting technologies together with encryption technologies. Differentiating from the normal network behavior, P2P botnet sets up numerous sessions without consuming bandwidth substantially, causing itself exposed to the anomaly detection technology. The data mining scheme was tested in real internet to prove its capability of discovering the host of P2P botnet. Crucially, the research applied the original dissimilarity of P2P botnet differing from normal internet behaviors as parameters of data mining, which were then clustered and distinguished to obtain reliable results with acceptable accuracy.
A family of models of partially relaxed stellar systems. I. Dynamical properties

Recently we have found that a family of models of partially relaxed, anisotropic stellar systems, inspired earlier by studies of incomplete violent relaxation, exhibits some interesting thermodynamic properties. Here we present a systematic investigation of its dynamical characteristics, in order to establish the basis for a detailed comparison with simulations of collisionless collapse, planned for a separate paper. For a full comparison with the observations of elliptical galaxies, the models should be extended to allow for the presence a sizable dark halo and of significant rotation. In the spherical limit, the family is characterized by two dimensionless parameters, i.e. Ψ, measuring the depth of the galaxy potential, and ν, defining the form of a third global quantity Q, which is argued to be approximately conserved during collisionless collapse (in addition to the total energy and the total number of stars). The family of models is found to have the following properties. The intrinsic density profile beyond the half-mass radius rM is basically universal and independent of Ψ. The projected density profiles are well fitted by the R 1/n law, with n ranging from 2.5 to 8.5, dependent on Ψ, with n close to 4 for concentrated models. All models exhibit radial anisotropy in the pressure tensor, especially in their outer parts, already significant at r ≈ rM . A t fi xed values ofν, models with lower Ψ are more anisotropic; at fixed values of Ψ, models with lower ν are more concentrated and more anisotropic. When the global amount of anisotropy, measured by 2Kr/KT, is large, the models are unstable with respect to the radial-orbit instability; still, a wide region of parameter space (i.e., sufficiently high values of Ψ ,f or ν> 3/8) is covered by models that are dynamically stable; for these, the line profiles (line-of-sight velocity distribution) are Gaussian at the 5% level, with a general trend of positive values of h4 at radii larger than the effective radius Re.
The neural bases of reading: Universals and writing system variations

This chapter explores the highly contrastive cases of English and Chinese to examine how the neural basis of reading accommodates variability in the structure of languages. The notion of accommodation, in fact, is central to the analysis. It argues that the reading network must accommodate variation in writing systems by organizing in a way that reflects the properties of each particular writing system. The prior state of the network-the organization of the network when there is a previously learned language-influences how the network adapts to those properties specific to a second language. In particular, to some extent, the prior network may assimilate the second language, using its first-language procedures to the extent possible.
Software techniques to improve virtualized I/O performance on multi-core systems

Virtualization technology is now widely deployed on high performance networks such as 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GE). It offers useful features like functional isolation, manageability and live migration. Unfortunately, the overhead of network I/O virtualization significantly degrades the performance of network-intensive applications. Two major factors of loss in I/O performance result from the extra driver domain to process I/O requests and the extra scheduler inside the virtual machine monitor (VMM) for scheduling domains. In this paper we first examine the negative effect of virtualization in multi-core platforms with 10GE networking. We study virtualization overhead and develop two optimizations for the VMM scheduler to improve I/O performance. The first solution uses cache-aware scheduling to reduce inter-domain communication cost. The second solution steals scheduler credits to favor I/O VCPUs in the driver domain. We also propose two optimizations to improve packet processing in the driver domain. First we re-design a simple bridge for more efficient switching of packets. Second we develop a patch to make transmit (TX) queue length in the driver domain configurable and adaptable to 10GE networks. Using all the above techniques, our experiments show that virtualized I/O bandwidth can be increased by 96%. Our optimizations also improve the efficiency by saving 36% in core utilization per gigabit. All the optimizations are based on pure software approaches and do not hinder live migration. We believe that the findings from our study will be useful to guide future VMM development.
The Ethics of Internet Research: A Rhetorical, Case-Based Process

Drawing from interviews with Internet researchers from across the globe who work in diverse disciplines and in a wide array of online venues, this book examines ethical issues and questions that Internet researchers may encounter throughout the research process. Although the ethics of Internet research are complex, the aim of the book is to provide a rhetorical, case-based process to aid researchers in ethical decision making. In doing so, the book provides Internet researchers with useful resources and heuristics for engaging in ethical practices, interactions, and problem solving for their research.
Fosfomycin, interesting alternative drug for treatment of urinary tract infections created by multiple drug resistant and extended spectrum β-lactamase producing strains

Background and Objectives: The emergence and spread of multidrug resistant (MDR) and extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) producing strains reduces the number of effective drugs that can be used for treatment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the susceptibility profile of Enterobacteriaceae isolated from UTIs, specifically MDR and ESBL producing strains, to fosfomycin and other antibiotics. Materials and Methods: The study was performed during a 6 month period (February 2014 to August 2015). A total of 219 non-duplicate urinary isolates of Enterobacteriaceae were collected. Identification and susceptibility testing was done according to standard microbiological procedures and the Kirby-Bauer test, respectively. Based on the results obtained from susceptibility testing, MDR bacteria were recovered and identification of ESBL production was done according to CLSI recommendation. Results: Isolates of E. coli and Klebsiella spp. were responsible for 80.8% and 12.8% of patients with UTIs respectively. The rates of resistance to ampicillin, cefazolin, nalidixic acid, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole were 86.3%, 79.4%, 68.5% and 63.9% respectively. In contrast, high sensitivity rates were detected to fosfomycin, amikacin and amoxicillin-clavulanic acid with 97.3%, 91.8% and 80.8%, respectively. Of all isolates, 167 (76.3%) were detected as MDR and 75 (34.2%) as ESBL producing strains. Conclusion: The rate of antibiotic resistance among uropathogens Enterobacteriaceae is remarkably high. The most effective antibiotic was fosfomycin. Moreover, susceptibility to fosfomycin is over 90% for MDR and ESBL producer isolates. Therefore, fosfomycin can be a good option for treating UTIs.
Three Ways of Combining Genotyping and Resequencing in Case-Control Association Studies

We describe three statistical results that we have found to be useful in case-control genetic association testing. All three involve combining the discovery of novel genetic variants, usually by sequencing, with genotyping methods that recognize previously discovered variants. We first consider expanding the list of known variants by concentrating variant-discovery in cases. Although the naive inclusion of cases-only sequencing data would create a bias, we show that some sequencing data may be retained, even if controls are not sequenced. Furthermore, for alleles of intermediate frequency, cases-only sequencing with bias-correction entails little if any loss of power, compared to dividing the same sequencing effort among cases and controls. Secondly, we investigate more strongly focused variant discovery to obtain a greater enrichment for disease-related variants. We show how case status, family history, and marker sharing enrich the discovery set by increments that are multiplicative with penetrance, enabling the preferential discovery of high-penetrance variants. A third result applies when sequencing is the primary means of counting alleles in both cases and controls, but a supplementary pooled genotyping sample is used to identify the variants that are very rare. We show that this raises no validity issues, and we evaluate a less expensive and more adaptive approach to judging rarity, based on group-specific variants. We demonstrate the important and unusual caveat that this method requires equal sample sizes for validity. These three results can be used to more efficiently detect the association of rare genetic variants with disease.
A Data-Driven Dependency Parser for Bulgarian

One of the main motivations for building treebanks is that they facilitate the development of syntactic parsers, by providing realistic data for evaluation as well as inductive learning. In this paper we present what we believe to be the first robust data-driven parser for Bulgarian, trained and evaluated on data from BulTreeBank (Simov et al., 2002). The parser uses dependency-based representations and employs a deterministic algorithm to construct dependency structures in a single pass over the input string, guided by a memory-based classifier at each nondeterministic choice point, as described in Nivre et al. (2004). Since the original BulTreeBank annotation is based on HPSG, it has been necessary to extract dependency structures from the original annotation both for training and evaluating the parser. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 introduces the MaltParser system used in the experiments to induce parsers from treebank data. Section 3 presents BulTreeBank, and section 4 shows how the BulTreeBank annotation can be converted into a dependency structure annotation of the kind required by MaltParser. Section 5 describes the experimental conditions, and section 6 discusses the results of the experiments. Section 7 contains our conclusions.
Student mobility policies in the European Union : the case of the Master and Back programme : private returns, job matching and determinants of return migration

Student mobility policies have become a high priority of the European Union since they are expected to result in private and social returns. However, at the same time these policies risk leading to unwanted geographical consequences, particularly brain drain from lagging to core regions, as formerly mobile students may not return on completion of their studies. Accordingly, this thesis focuses on both the private returns to student mobility and the determinants of return migration. It is important to note that, currently, the literature about the mobility of students is scarce and provides mixed evidence regarding both these issues. We contribute to the current academic debate in this field by doing a case study on the Master and Back programme, which was implemented since 2005 by the Italian lagging region of Sardinia. The programme is co-financed by the European Social Fund and consists of providing talented Sardinian students with generous scholarships to pursue Master's and Doctoral degrees in the world's best universities. Concerning the private returns to migration, we evaluate the impact of this scheme on the odds of employment and net monthly income of the recipients. Moreover, we assess whether the scheme has been able to improve their job matching. To perform this analysis we access unique administrative data on the recipients and a suitable control group, complemented by a purpose-designed web survey. In addition, we enquire into the determinants of return migration and the underlying decision-making process by using a mixed-methods approach, which is particularly well-suited for very complex phenomena like the one at hand.
Wills for Everyone: Helping Individuals Opt Out of Intestacy

Most Americans die without executing a will, thereby allowing testamentary freedom to lapse and property owned at death to pass by default rules of intestacy rather than the decedent’s expressed intent. This is problematic because most individuals without a will neither intend to die intestate and nor understand the significant undesirable consequences of intestacy. Prior intestacy scholarship evaluated the fairness, efficiency and social consequences of the current rules of heirship, but implicitly accepted the high rate of intestacy as a fait accompli. This Article rejects the assumption that the high rate of intestacy is insusceptible to legal reform. Scholars have traditionally explained the high long-term rate of intestacy as the product of psychological fears regarding mortality and the unwillingness to contemplate matters relating to death. But this explanation seems implausible. Even though humans commonly harbor fears about death, they are psychologically capable of contemplating the succession of property as demonstrated by the widespread use of non-testamentary transfers such as life insurance and jointly titled property with survivorship rights. This Article proposes an alternative explanation for testamentary procrastination, ascribing blame on the relative inaccessibility of the will-making process because of its obscurity, complexity, and cost. To simplify and promote lay access to the will-making process, this Article proposes a theory of lay testation and advocates for renewed consideration of statutory form wills with several important innovations. The most notable proposal is the creation of a “testamentary schedule,” an optional form will attached to the state individual income tax return that could be prepared and filed electronically. By integrating the income tax and estate planning processes, the testamentary schedule would discourage testamentary procrastination by interacting with the testator annually at the optimal moment, when she is required to prepare legally significant tax documents that in many cases take into account considerations relevant to estate planning (e.g., potential beneficiaries and the nature and extent of property). The Appendix includes a sample testamentary schedule and revocation form.
EFFICIENCY OF MONETARY POLICY TRANSMISSION MECHANISM VIA PROFIT RATE CHANNEL FOR ISLAMIC BANKS IN MALAYSIA

This paper aims to measure whether the efficiency o f monetary policy transmission for Islamic banks is affected in the light of syste mically more important Islamic financial system in the Malaysia. Focus will be cen tr d on the pace and magnitude of the transmission via profit rate channel for Islami c banks against interest rates channel of conventional banks. The paper relies on the Vector Auto Regression (VAR) methodology, focusing on the period from January 2000 to December 2012. The results show that the pass-through impact via p rofit channel of Islamic banks is still high and sizable. However, deteriorating sign can be sensed as Islamic banks become more systematically important in the financi l system. Result of this study could justify new approach and strategy for monetar y policy formulation and implementation in Malaysia. There were already a nu mber of studies being done to measure the monetary policy transmission for Islami c banks in Malaysia and these studies in general proved that Islamic banks are th e important conduit for channelling the monetary policy impacts. In contrast, this stud y seeks to measure how more systematically important Islamic banks could post a threat to the overall efficiency of monetary policy transmission, hence justifying new monetary policy approach.
Detection of filled pauses in spontaneous conversational speech

Most automatic speech recognition work has concentrated on read speech, whose acoustic aspects differ significantly from speech found in actual dialogues. A primary difference between read speech and spontaneous speech concerns a high rate of disfluencies (e.g., filled pauses, repetitions, repairs, false starts). Filled pauses (e.g., “uh,” “um”), unlike silences, resemble phones as part of words in continuous speech. In this paper the problem of detection of filled pauses in spontaneous speech and how this can be useful in automatic speech recognition are considered. The acoustic aspects of filled pauses in a widely-used SWITCHBOARD [1] database are examined here, from the point of view of identifying them acoustically using a combination of duration, fundamental frequency and spectra.
Transition to a Fully Funded Pension System: Five Economic Issues

This paper provides a relatively nontechnical discussion of the effects of shifting from a pay-as-you-go system of Social Security pensions to a fully funded plan based on individual accounts. The analysis discusses the rationale for such a shift and deals with five common problems: (1) the nature of the transition path; (2) the effect of the shift on national saving and capital accumulation; (3) the rate of return that such accounts would earn; (4) the risks of unfunded and funded systems; and (5) the distributional effects of the shift.
How New Zealand adjusts to macroeconomic shocks: implications for joining a currency area

In this article we consider how the New Zealand economy might adjust to shocks if it were a member of a currency union. In a currency union the exchange rate can no longer act as a mechanism of adjustment. Consequently, we consider the role of alternative adjustment mechanisms, such as migration, price and wage flexibility, and fiscal adjustment.
Preferences for Fiscal Rules or Discretion : A Case Study on Germany and France

We study the signals that fiscal policies and institutional reforms give about underlying preferences for policy conduct in Germany and France. Results for a wide range of indic ators mostly but not always confirm a first intuition that preferences are tilted towar ds ules in Germany, and towards discretion in France. At the same time, our case study also suggest s that preferences are not fixed, and that fiscal policies and institutions may change as a result. In recent years, ongoing unsustainable debt developments seem to have inspired the introduction of stricter nati onal f scal rules both in Germany and France. It remains to be seen how constraining recent innovations in national fiscal rules will turn out to be in the course of the fiscal exit. * The views expressed in this paper are those of the autho r and do not necessarily reflect the views of De Nederlandsche Bank. † Many thanks to Job Swank for useful comments and to Cee s d Boer for statistical assistance.