Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dragon Children: Identifying the Causal Effect of the First Child on Female Labour Supply with the Chinese Lunar Calendar

Instrumental variables (IV) estimates of the effect of fertility on female labour supply have only been able to identify the causal effect of second and higher parity children. This study uses exogenous variation in fertility caused by the Chinese lunar calendar to identify the effect of the first child. Additionally, weighting formulas are presented to interpret IV estimates as weighted average treatment effects in the case of multiple endogenous variables, which are useful when children vary in intensity by both number and age. The effect of the first child is found to be much greater than that of other children.
Boxfish swimming paradox resolved: forces by the flow of water around the body promote manoeuvrability

The shape of the carapace protecting the body of boxfishes has been attributed an important hydrodynamic role in drag reduction and in providing automatic, flow-direction realignment and is therefore used in bioinspired design of cars. However, tight swimming-course stabilization is paradoxical given the frequent, high-performance manoeuvring that boxfishes display in their spatially complex, coral reef territories. Here, by performing flow-tank measurements of hydrodynamic drag and yaw moments together with computational fluid dynamics simulations, we reverse several assumptions about the hydrodynamic role of the boxfish carapace. Firstly, despite serving as a model system in aerodynamic design, drag-reduction performance was relatively low compared with more generalized fish morphologies. Secondly, the current theory of course stabilization owing to flow over the boxfish carapace was rejected, as destabilizing moments were found consistently. This solves the boxfish swimming paradox: destabilizing moments enhance manoeuvrability, which is in accordance with the ecological demands for efficient turning and tilting.
Bmc Complementary and Alternative Medicine Acupuncture in the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis: a Double-blind Controlled Pilot Study

Background: In planning a randomized controlled trial of acupuncture, we conducted a pilot study using validated outcome measures to assess the feasibility of the protocol, and to obtain preliminary data on efficacy and tolerability of 3 different forms of acupuncture treatment as an adjunct for the treatment of chronic pain in patients with Rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Boys , be independent ! Gender Differences in the Development of Conformity

The Asch studies (Asch, 1956) have been replicated in different cultures (See Bond and Smith, 1996, for a review.) However, only a few studies have been carried out to examine the development of conformity, mostly because of the technical limitation regarding the availability of good child confederates. Costanzo & Shaw (1966) conducted a developmental study of conformity using the Crutchfield paradigm (Crutchfield, 1955) with four age groups; 7-9, 11-13, 15-17, and 19-21 year-olds. They participated in groups of four at a time, sitting in an individual booth and giving their answers by pushing one of five buttons. They were given factitious information by means of a flashing light indicating the answers of the other participants. In this way, the equivalent of the Asch experiment was done without using confederates. The results showed that conformity peaked at early adolescence (11-13 years.) Walker & Andrade (1996) conducted the Asch experiments with five different age groups (3-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-14, and 15-17) by training three child confederates for each age group and having them answer as the experimenter asked them to. The results showed that the percentages of conformity decreased with the ages, 85% for 3-5 year-olds, 42% for 6-8, 38% for 9-11, 9% for 12-14, and 0% for 15-17. However, it is doubtful whether the confederates acted properly in the experiments. Recently, Mori & Arai (2007) replicated the Asch (1956) experiment with a new presentation technique (Mori, 2007) that enabled them to present two different visual stimuli without the participants noticing the duality. By presenting two different stimuli to groups of three and to one solitary participants, they replicated the Asch experimental situation without using confederates. They also produced basically the same results as Asch (1956). The present study was designed to examine the development of conformity by applying the Mori and Arai paradigm to two different age groups: junior high school students and elementary school children. Methods Participants: 96 junior high school students (7 th graders, 48 boys and 48 girls) and 80 elementary school children (1 st graders, 40 boys and 40 girls) participated in groups of four of the same sex. Stimuli: The nine stimulus sets used in Asch (1956) were reproduced in approximately the same size when projected on the screen. Procedure: Participants were assigned randomly to the majority or the solitary conditions. In each group of four, three participants observed the same set of stimuli to form …
11C Choline PET Guided Salvage Radiotherapy with Volumetric Modulation Arc Therapy and Hypofractionation for Recurrent Prostate Cancer after HIFU Failure

The purpose of this work was to evaluate tolerance, feasibility and acute toxicity in patients undergoing salvage radiotherapy after high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) failure. From 2005 to 2011 a total of 15 patients were treated with HIFU as primary radical treatment. Between July 2011 and February 2013, all 15 patients presented biochemical relapse after HIFU and 11C choline PET documenting intrapostatic-only failure. Salvage EBRT was performed with moderate hypofractionation schedule in 28 fractions with volumetric modulation arc therapy (VMAT). Genito-urinary (GU) and rectal and bowel toxicity were scored by common terminology criteria for adverse events version 4 (CTCAE V.4) scale. Biochemical response was assessed by ASTRO Phoenix criteria. Median age of patients was 67 years (range: 53–85). The median Gleason score was 7 (range: 6–9). The median prostate specific antigen (PSA) at the time of biochemical relapse after HIFU was 5.2 ng/mL (range: 2–64.2). Seven of the 15 patients received androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) started after HIFU failure, interrupted before 11C choline PET and radiotherapy. Median prescribed dose was 71.4 Gy (range: 71.4–74.2 Gy) in 28 fractions. No radiation related major upper gastrointestinal (GI), rectal and GU toxicity were experienced. GU, acute grade 1 and grade 2 toxicities were recorded in 7/15 and 4/15 respectively; bowel acute grade 1 and grade 2 toxicities in 4/15 and 1/15; rectal acute grade 1 and grade 2 toxicities in 3/15 and 2/15 respectively. No grade 3 or greater acute or late toxicities occurred. Biochemical control was assessed in 12/15 (80%) patients. With a median follow up of 12 months, three out of 15 patients, with biochemical relapse, showed lymph-nodal recurrence. Our early clinical results and biochemical data confirm the feasibility and show a good tolerance of the 11C choline PET guided salvage radiation therapy after HIFU failure. The findings of low acute toxicity is encouraging, but longer follow-up is needed to assess late toxicity and definitive outcomes.
Executive Compensation at Fannie Mae: A Case Study of Perverse Incentives, Nonperformance Pay, and Camouflage

This paper is a case study of Fannie Mae's executive compensation arrangements during the period 2000-2004. We identify and analyze four problems with these arrangements:- First, by richly rewarding executives for reporting higher earnings, without requiring return of the compensation if earnings turned out to be misstated, Fannie Mae's arrangement provided perverse incentives to inflate earnings. - Second, Fannie Mae's arrangements provided soft landings to executives who were pushed out by the board for failure; expectation of such outcome adversely affected ex ante incentives. - Third, even if the executives had retired after years of unblemished service, the value of their retirement packages would have been largely unrelated to their own performance. - Fourth, both when promising retirement payments to executives and when making theses payments, Fannie Mae's disclosures obscured rather than made transparent the total values of the executives' retirement packages.Because many other companies have practices similar to Fannie Mae's, our case study highlights some general problems with existing pay practices and the need for reform.
Social Context in HCI: A New Framework for Mental Models, Cooperation, and Communication

Abstract This article considers current research in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), computer-mediated communication (CMC), and distributed artificial intelligence (DAl). These areas need an articulated model of social contexts to bridge the persisting gap between social and technological dimensions in computer system design and use. A conceptual model of context is presented to account for both cooperation-conflict and communication-negotiation processes. The model conceives of contexts as including not only physical objects and other people but also social norms which influence both individuals and organizations. It assumes that computer system use occurs in social scenarios in which the features cannot be reduced to any type of input or data in the world that designers and users can process along with other information coming from the current task. The model is built on three levels: from social contexts as normative order (Level 1), to specific and intrinsically complex situations (Level 2), to person-computer interactions for the performance of particular tasks (Level 3). The model has three main implications. First, Human-Computer Interaction (HCl) studies—especially scenario-based design—may profit from a fresh topdown approach to designers' and users' mental models taking into account normative social processes which have been neglected in previous research. Second, CSCW may realize how deeply discrepant perspectives affect multi-agent environments and why in real working life negotiation is intertwined with cooperation. Designers may use this insight to design systems allowing more place for negotiation among actors. Third, we should dismiss the view that CMC lacks adequate social cues and fosters impulsive behavior. Cognitive processes such as categorization, stereotype construction, and social identification can make electronic environments even more strongly sensible to social norms than face-to-face communication. Context, according to our model, is not restricted to the physical copresence of other people but consists mainly of processes providing situations with socially recognizable meaning.
A Customizable Mediation Engine for Metrics Collection, Aggregation and Composition

Management applications such as accounting, intrusion detection, resource provisioning, etc. utilize various metrics to derive information needed for decision making. However, each such application is typically custom built to encode the data manipulation logic specific to the management task at hand. These custom solutions are non-reusable, non-shareable and become increasingly complex and hard to manage as they evolve to meet ever changing needs of the environment. We present metric service, a customizable engine that can be shared and configured to perform data manipulation operations for a wide variety of management applications. It allows application specific manipulation of raw metrics to be performed in the middleware itself and also enables integration of data from heterogeneous systems that may be geographically distributed. We also introduce MS-Policy, an XML based policy specification language that forms the core model of the proposed engine. It allows the data integration and manipulation logic, for a particular management task, to be specified in terms of metrics collection, aggregation and composition. We describe our prototype implementation and report the results of performance experiments
CD26/DPP4 Cell-Surface Expression in Bat Cells Correlates with Bat Cell Susceptibility to Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) Infection and Evolution of Persistent Infection

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a recently isolated betacoronavirus identified as the etiologic agent of a frequently fatal disease in Western Asia, Middle East respiratory syndrome. Attempts to identify the natural reservoirs of MERS-CoV have focused in part on dromedaries. Bats are also suspected to be reservoirs based on frequent detection of other betacoronaviruses in these mammals. For this study, ten distinct cell lines derived from bats of divergent species were exposed to MERS-CoV. Plaque assays, immunofluorescence assays, and transmission electron microscopy confirmed that six bat cell lines can be productively infected. We found that the susceptibility or resistance of these bat cell lines directly correlates with the presence or absence of cell surface-expressed CD26/DPP4, the functional human receptor for MERS-CoV. Human anti-CD26/DPP4 antibodies inhibited infection of susceptible bat cells in a dose-dependent manner. Overexpression of human CD26/DPP4 receptor conferred MERS-CoV susceptibility to resistant bat cell lines. Finally, sequential passage of MERS-CoV in permissive bat cells established persistent infection with concomitant downregulation of CD26/DPP4 surface expression. Together, these results imply that bats indeed could be among the MERS-CoV host spectrum, and that cellular restriction of MERS-CoV is determined by CD26/DPP4 expression rather than by downstream restriction factors.
Bridging and Bonding: How Diverse Networks Influence Organizational Outcomes

Bridging and Bonding: How Diverse Networks Influence Organizational Outcomes by Brad Robert Fulton Department of Sociology Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Mark Chaves, Supervisor ___________________________ Lisa Keister ___________________________ Nan Lin ___________________________ James Moody ___________________________ Richard L. Wood An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Sociology in the Graduate School of Duke University 2015 Copyright by Brad Robert Fulton 2015
Presynaptic α4β2 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors Increase Glutamate Release and Serotonin Neuron Excitability in the Dorsal Raphe Nucleus

Several behavioral effects of nicotine are mediated by changes in serotonin (5-HT) release in brain areas that receive serotonergic afferents from the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN). In vitro experiments have demonstrated that nicotine increases the firing activity in the majority of DRN 5-HT neurons and that DRN contains nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) located at both somata and presynaptic elements. One of the most common presynaptic effects of nicotine is to increase glutamate release. Although DRN receives profuse glutamatergic afferents, the effect of nicotine on glutamate release in the DRN has not been studied in detail. Using whole-cell recording techniques, we investigated the effects of nicotine on the glutamatergic input to 5-HT DRN neurons in rat midbrain slices. Low nicotine concentrations, in the presence of bicuculline and tetrodotoxin (TTX), increased the frequency but did not change the amplitude of glutamate-induced EPSCs, recorded from identified 5-HT neurons. Nicotine-induced increase of glutamatergic EPSC frequency persisted 10–20 min after drug withdrawal. This nicotinic effect was mimicked by exogenous administration of acetylcholine (ACh) or inhibition of ACh metabolism. In addition, the nicotine-induced increase in EPSC frequency was abolished by blockade of α4β2 nAChRs, voltage-gated calcium channels, or intracellular calcium signaling but not by α7 nAChR antagonists. These data suggest that both nicotine and endogenous ACh can increase glutamate release through activation of presynaptic α4β2 but not α7 nAChRs in the DRN. The effect involves long-term changes in synaptic function, and it is dependent on voltage-gated calcium channels and presynaptic calcium stores.
Helicobacter pylori Coinfection Is Associated With Decreased Markers of Immune Activation in ART-Naive HIV-Positive and in HIV-Negative Individuals in Ghana.

BACKGROUND Helicobacter pylori coinfection in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients has been associated with higher CD4+ cell counts and lower HIV-1 viral loads, with the underlying mechanisms being unknown. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of H. pylori infection on markers of T-cell activation in HIV-positive and HIV-negative individuals. METHODS In a cross-sectional, observational study, HIV patients (n = 457) and HIV-negative blood donors (n = 79) presenting to an HIV clinic in Ghana were enrolled. Data on clinical and sociodemographic parameters, CD4+/CD8+ T-cell counts, and HIV-1 viral load were recorded. Helicobacter pylori status was tested using a stool antigen test. Cell surface and intracellular markers related to T-cell immune activation and turnover were quantified by flow cytometry and compared according to HIV and H. pylori status. RESULTS Helicobacter pylori infection was associated with decreased markers of CD4+ T-cell activation (HLA-DR+CD38+CD4+; 22.55% vs 32.70%; P = .002), cell proliferation (Ki67; 15.10% vs 26.80%; P = .016), and immune exhaustion (PD-1; 32.45% vs 40.00%; P = .005) in 243 antiretroviral therapy (ART)-naive patients, but not in 214 patients on ART. In HIV-negative individuals, H. pylori infection was associated with decreased frequencies of activated CD4+ and CD8+ T cells (6.31% vs 10.40%; P = .014 and 18.70% vs 34.85%, P = .006, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that H. pylori coinfection effectuates a systemic immune modulatory effect with decreased T-cell activation in HIV-positive, ART-naive patients but also in HIV-negative individuals. This finding might, in part, explain the observed association of H. pylori infection with favorable parameters of HIV disease progression. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01897909.
A NEW CHANNEL FOR DETECTING DARK MATTER SUBSTRUCTURE IN GALAXIES: GRAVITATIONAL LENS TIME DELAYS

We show that dark matter substructure in galaxy-scale halos perturbs the time delays between images in strong gravitational lens systems. The variance of the effect depends on the subhalo mass function, scaling as the product of the substructure mass fraction, and a characteristic mass of subhalos (namely 〈m2〉/〈m〉). Time delay perturbations therefore complement gravitational lens flux ratio anomalies and astrometric perturbations by measuring a different moment of the subhalo mass function. Unlike flux ratio anomalies, “time delay millilensing” is unaffected by dust extinction or stellar microlensing in the lens galaxy. Furthermore, we show that time delay ratios are immune to the radial profile degeneracy that usually plagues lens modeling. We lay out a mathematical theory of time delay perturbations and find it to be tractable and attractive. We predict that in “cusp” lenses with close triplets of images, substructure may change the arrival-time order of the images (compared with smooth models). We discuss the possibility that this effect has already been observed in RX J1131−1231.
Ischemic brain damage and memory impairment: A commentary

Studies in humans and monkeys have identified structures in the medial temporal lobe essential for memory (the hippocampal region, i.e., the dentate gyrus, the hippocampus, and the subicular complex, and the adjacent perirhinal, entorhinal, and parahippocampal cortices). Additional work has revealed that for both species, damage limited to the hippocampal region produces less severe memory impairment than damage that includes additional structures within the medial temporal lobe. This work has been based on both neurosurgical lesions and on lesions produced by global ischemia or anoxia. An important issue about ischemic damage is whether the damage identifiable in histopathological examination provides an accurate estimate of direct neural damage or whether additional direct damage might be present that is sufficient to disrupt neuronal function in areas important for memory and sufficient to impair behavioral performance, but not sufficient to progress to cell death and to be detectable in conventional histopathology. This commentary explores the issue of ischemic damage and memory impairment. Although few studies have addressed this issue directly, the currently available data from global ischemia in rats, monkeys, and humans are consistent with the hypothesis that the detectable neuronal damage is responsible for the severity of the observed behavioral impairment. Yet it is also true that this hypothesis has not been the target of very much systematic work. We encourage additional experimental work, especially in rats, that could further illuminate how to evaluate the behavioral effects of ischemic lesions. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Labour Market Effects of Worksharing Arrangements in Europe

Theory tells us that work-sharing is rarely good for employment. Or, at least, conditions under which work-sharing boosts employment are relatively demanding and are rarely met in practice. However, some countries implemented workweek reductions when others did not. One potential answer to this discrepancy is overly simplistic and populist. In those countries that decided to share work, politicians, union members or leaders, or even the public opinion were never confronted to the basic elements contained in Econ 101, the first course in economics taught at virtually all universities. They suffered from a miscomprehension of basic market mechanisms. Another answer goes as follows. For complex (historical, religious, and institutional more generally) reasons, countries came up with different agreements between the various social forces. These agreements are also the outcomes of collective bargaining, which takes very different routes in continental Europe. Finally, such agreements reflect basic preferences over various fields of each country citizens’ common life (work and family in particular, or the respective importance and role of the private and the public spheres). The outcomes of the social processes at work should be reflected in the multiple ways of sharing work that have been adopted across Europe, as we will see.
Recent advances in ecosystem-atmosphere interactions: an ecological perspective

The atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems are fundamentally coupled on a variety of time–scales. On short time–scales, this bi–directional interaction is dominated by the rapid exchange of CO2, water and energy between the atmosphere and the land surface; on long time–scales, the interaction involves changes in ecosystem structure and composition in response to changes in climate that feed back through biophysical and biogeochemical mechanisms to influence climate over decades and centuries. After briefly describing some early pioneering work, I focus this review on recent advances in understanding long–term ecosystem–atmosphere interactions through a discussion of three case studies. I then examine how efforts to assess the stability and resilience of ecosystem–atmosphere interactions over these long time–scales using Dynamic Global Vegetation Models are hampered by the presence of important functional diversity and heterogeneity within plant communities. Recent work illustrates how this issue can be addressed through the use of Structured Ecosystem Models that more accurately scale between the short–term physiological responses of individual plants and the long–term, large–scale dynamics of heterogeneous, functionally diverse ecosystems.