Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Economy of People's Republic of China from 1953

This paper studies growth and structural transformation of the Chinese economy from 1953 to 2012 through a lens of a two-sector growth model. The main goal of the paper is to provide a systematic analysis of both the pre-1978 reform and post-1978 reform periods in a unified framework. First, we construct a dataset that allows the application of the neoclassical model and computation of wedges, their components, and rates of TFP growth. Second, we determine the key quantitative factors behind growth and structural transformation. The changes in the intersectoral labor wedge play the dominant role in accounting for the change in the share of labor force in agriculture. TFP growth and changes in the intersectoral wedges are the two most significant factors contributing to GDP growth. Further decomposing the effects of reduction in wedges, we find that two components: the production component (the gap between the ratio of the marginal products of labor and relative wages) and the consumption component (the gap between the marginal rate of substitution and the relative prices) play a particularly large role. Third, we use the pre-reform period as a key benchmark to measure the success of the post-1978 reforms. We show that reforms yielded a significant growth and structural transformation differential. GDP growth is 4.2 percentage points higher and the share of the labor force in agriculture is 23.9 percentage points lower compared with the continuation of the pre-1978 policies. We provide extensive historical evidence for the reforms that are consistent with the evolution of the components of the wedges. The decrease in the production component of the intersectoral wedge is consistent with increased competition and demonopolization of the economy. The decrease in the consumption component of the wedge is consistent with the price and housing reforms. Finally, we project the path of the Chinese economy until 2050 and also calculate a lower bound on future growth by projecting pre-reform trends.
Sun‐Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence, Photosynthesis, and Light Use Efficiency of a Soybean Field from Seasonally Continuous Measurements

Recent development of sun‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) technology is stimulating studies to remotely approximate canopy photosynthesis (measured as gross primary production, GPP). While multiple applications have advanced the empirical relationship between GPP and SIF, mechanistic understanding of this relationship is still limited. GPP:SIF relationship, using the standard light use efficiency framework, is determined by absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (APAR) and the relationship between photosynthetic light use efficiency (LUE) and fluorescence yield (SIFy). While previous studies have found that APAR is the dominant factor of the GPP:SIF relationship, the LUE:SIFy relationship remains unclear. For a better understanding of the LUE:SIFy relationship, we deployed a ground‐based system (FluoSpec2), with an eddy‐covariance flux tower at a soybean field in the Midwestern U.S. during the 2016 growing season to collect SIF and GPP data simultaneously. With the measurements categorized by plant growth stages, light conditions, and time scales, we confirmed that a strong positive GPP:SIF relationship was dominated by an even stronger linear SIF:APAR relationship. By normalizing both GPP and SIF by APAR, we found that under sunny conditions our soybean field exhibited a clear positive SIFy:APAR relationship and a weak negative LUE:SIFy relationship, opposite to the positive LUE:SIFy relationship reported previously in other ecosystems. Our study provides a first continuous SIF record over multiple growth stages for agricultural systems and reveals a distinctive pattern related to the LUE:SIFy relationship compared with previous work. The observed positive relationship of SIFy:APAR at the soybean site provides new insights of the previous understanding on the SIF's physiological implications.
Particle size distribution of gas metal and flux cored arc welding fumes

A cascade impactor was employed to separate the fume particles in order to determine the size distribution of welding fume. Clear images of coarse welding fume particles (microspatter) from scanning electron microscopy are presented. The particle size distribution of the welding fume reveals that gas metal arc welding (GMAW) fume consists predominately of particle agglomerates smaller than approximately one micrometer. Less than 10% of the fume by weight is microspatter, which is larger than a micrometer. This fraction of microspatter does not change greatly as the GMAW parameters are changed. Flux cored arc welding (FCAW) fume contains more microspatter, approximately 30% by weight.
Acute ischemic preconditioning does not influence high-intensity intermittent exercise performance

This study evaluated the acute effect of ischemic preconditioning (IPC) on a high-intensity intermittent exercise performance and physiological indicators in amateur soccer players. Thirteen players (21.5 ± 2 yrs) attended three trials separated by 3–5 days in a counterbalanced randomized cross-over design: IPC (4 × 5-min occlusion 220 mmHg/reperfusion 0 mmHg) in each thigh; SHAM (similar to the IPC protocol but “occlusion” at 20 mmHg) and control (seated during the same time of IPC). After 6-min of each trial (IPC, SHAM or control), the players performed the YoYo Intermittent Endurance Test level 2 (YoYoIE2). The distance covered in the YoYoIE2 (IPC 867 ± 205 m; SHAM 873 ± 212 m; control 921 ± 206 m) was not different among trials (p = 0.10), furthermore, lactate concentration and rate of perceived exertion did not differ (P > 0.05) among protocols. There were also no significant differences in either mean heart rate (HR) or peak HR (p > 0.05) for both IPC and SHAM compared to control. Therefore, we conclude that acute IPC does not influence high-intensity intermittent exercise performance in amateur soccer players and that rate of perceived exertion, heart rate and lactate do not differ between the intervention IPC, SHAM and control.
Red and processed meat consumption and mortality: dose–response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies

Abstract Objective To examine and quantify the potential dose–response relationship between red and processed meat consumption and risk of all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality. Design We searched MEDLINE, Embase, ISI Web of Knowledge, CINHAL, Scopus, the Cochrane library and reference lists of retrieved articles up to 30 November 2014 without language restrictions. We retrieved prospective cohort studies that reported risk estimates for all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality by red and/or processed meat intake levels. The dose–response relationships were estimated using data from red and processed meat intake categories in each study. Random-effects models were used to calculate pooled relative risks and 95 % confidence intervals and to incorporate between-study variations. Results Nine articles with seventeen prospective cohorts were eligible in this meta-analysis, including a total of 150 328 deaths. There was evidence of a non-linear association between processed meat consumption and risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, but not for cancer mortality. For processed meat, the pooled relative risk with an increase of one serving per day was 1·15 (95 % CI 1·11, 1·19) for all-cause mortality (five studies; P<0·001 for linear trend), 1·15 (95 % CI 1·07, 1·24) for cardiovascular mortality (six studies; P<0·001) and 1·08 (95 % CI 1·06, 1·11) for cancer mortality (five studies; P<0·001). Similar associations were found with total meat intake. The association between unprocessed red meat consumption and mortality risk was found in the US populations, but not in European or Asian populations. Conclusions The present meta-analysis indicates that higher consumption of total red meat and processed meat is associated with an increased risk of total, cardiovascular and cancer mortality.
Perceived Records Management Practice and Decision Making Among University Administrators in Nigeria

Information is needed to develop, deliver and assess the effectiveness of organizational policies, make informed choices between alternative courses of action, provide the basis for openness and accountability, protect individual rights and enforce legal obligations. The general disposition of people, and especially office personnel, to have little regard for records has contributed to the poor state of records today in all of the nation's institutions of higher learning. The aim of this study was to investigate perceived record management practices and administrative decision-making among University administrators in Nigeria and to make appropriate recommendations to strengthen efficiency and effectiveness in the university sector. The study was an ex post facto in which the researcher used a semi-structured questionnaire to obtain information about perceived records management and administrative decision making from 795 senate members enrolled by stratified random sampling of universities within Nigeria.The results showed that respondents were federal universities 521 (65.5%), State 224 (28-2%) and Private 50(6.3%). The median age of respondents was 41-50years and 543(68-3%) males and 226(28.4%) females. Regarding awareness of Record management practice, 133(16.7%) respondents reported not being aware of any organized system of records management programme. Further, respondents' perceived records management practice and their decision -making process showed a significant relationship with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.840 (p<0.0001). Testing for variations in records management (F=147.3; p<0.0001), and administrative decision-making process (F= 142.91; p<0.0001) among respondents in the categories of universities surveyed revealed that a significant difference thus exist suggesting that they perceive and processed their records differently for decision-making. The findings in this study suggest that respondents sampled from the three categories of universities demonstrated perceived records management practice to be contingent in administrative decision-making process. Recommendations made includes; the establishment of a comprehensive functional Records Management Programme in all Nigerian universities and a university Archive, also that the National University Commission (NUC) should make as a matter of policy the establishment of a functional Records Management Programme and University Archives as a benchmark for accreditation.
Calcium supplements: benefits and risks

Calcium is an essential element in the diet, but there is continuing controversy regarding its optimal intake, and its role in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis. Most studies show little evidence of a relationship between calcium intake and bone density, or the rate of bone loss. Re‐analysis of data from the placebo group from the Auckland Calcium Study demonstrates no relationship between dietary calcium intake and rate of bone loss over 5 years in healthy older women with intakes varying from <400 to >1500 mg day−1. Thus, supplements are not needed within this range of intakes to compensate for a demonstrable dietary deficiency, but might be acting as weak anti‐resorptive agents via effects on parathyroid hormone and calcitonin. Consistent with this, supplements do acutely reduce bone resorption and produce small short‐term effects on bone density, without evidence of a cumulative density benefit. As a result, anti‐fracture efficacy remains unproven, with no evidence to support hip fracture prevention (other than in a cohort with severe vitamin D deficiency) and total fracture numbers are reduced by 0–10%, depending on which meta‐analysis is considered. Five recent large studies have failed to demonstrate fracture prevention in their primary analyses. This must be balanced against an increase in gastrointestinal side effects (including a doubling of hospital admissions for these problems), a 17% increase in renal calculi and a 20–40% increase in risk of myocardial infarction. Each of these adverse events alone neutralizes any possible benefit in fracture prevention. Thus, calcium supplements appear to have a negative risk–benefit effect, and so should not be used routinely in the prevention or treatment of osteoporosis.
Malathion Neurotoxic Effects on Dopaminergic System in Mice: Role ofInflammation

Background: Pesticides exposure is considered a global health problem. Increased risk of neurodegenerative disorders has been strongly associated with chronic repeated exposure to organophosphates. The mechanism of chronic neurotoxicity is still unclear and seems to be different from cholinergic affection in acute toxicity. Methods & Findings: This work aims to verify the degenerative effects of chronic malathion exposure on dopaminergic system in BALB/c mice and to identify the possible contributing mechanism. Behavioural tests were done to assess locomotor performance in malathion-treated mice. To evaluate the histopathological consequences in the mice brains, dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra were assessed by antibodies to tyrosine hydroxylase. Additionally, microglia and neuroinflammation were identified using Iba-1 immunostaining. We also investigated the role of dexamethasone (Dx) and acetyl salicylic acid (ASA) in ameliorating malathion neurotoxic effects. Results revealed that some neurobehavioural deficits were detected in malathion-treated mice. They were associated with decreased corpus striatum fiber density, increased dopaminergic neurodegeneration in substantia nigra and increased number of activated microglia. Treatment with ASA and Dx imparted significant protection against malathion neurotoxicity as evidenced by improved neurobehavioural performance and diminished neurodegeneration in the nigrostriatal system. Conclusion: Our findings advocate the use of antiinflammatory drugs as possible neuroprotective therapy against organophosphates-induced neurodegeneration. It is recommended to perform longer studies to examine the complete reversibility of OPs-induced neurotoxicity in response to different anti-inflammatory agents (the exact doses and duration) and to extrapolate the findings to humans chronically exposed to malathion.
Divergent Paths: Structural Change, Economic Rank, and the Evolution of Black-White Earnings Differences, 1940-2014

This paper presents new evidence on the evolution of black-white earnings differences among all men at different points in the distribution. We study two dimensions of earnings gaps: the black-white difference in earnings; and the difference between a black man’s position in the black earnings and the position he would hold in the white distribution. After narrowing from 1940 to the mid-1970s, the median black-white earning gap has since grown as large as it was in 1950. Even as his relative earnings improved then worsened, the median black man’s relative position in the earnings distribution has remained essentially constant. Black men at higher percentiles have experienced significant gains in relative earnings since 1940. Unlike blacks at the median and below, whose relative earnings changes have been chiefly the result of narrowing and stretching of the overall earnings distribution, higher percentile blacks have also experienced significant positional gains over the past 70 years.
Evolution of Carbon Ion Radiotherapy at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan

Charged particles can achieve better dose distribution and higher biological effectiveness compared to photon radiotherapy. Carbon ions are considered an optimal candidate for cancer treatment using particles. The National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) in Chiba, Japan was the first radiotherapy hospital dedicated for carbon ion treatments in the world. Since its establishment in 1994, the NIRS has pioneered this therapy with more than 69 clinical trials so far, and hundreds of ancillary projects in physics and radiobiology. In this review, we will discuss the evolution of carbon ion radiotherapy at the NIRS and some of the current and future projects in the field.
Physiological and behavioural effects of fruit toxins on seed-predating versus seed-dispersing congeneric rodents

SUMMARY Fleshy, ripe fruits attract seed dispersers but also seed predators. Although many fruit consumers (legitimate seed dispersers as well as seed predators) are clearly exposed to plant secondary compounds (PSCs), their impact on the consumers' physiology and foraging behaviour has been largely overlooked. Here, we document the divergent behavioural and physiological responses to fruit consumption of three congeneric rodent species in the Middle East, representing both seed dispersers and seed predators. The fruit pulp of the desert plant Ochradenus baccatus contains high concentrations of glucosinolates (GLSs). These GLSs are hydrolyzed into active toxic compounds upon contact with the myrosinase enzyme released from seeds crushed during fruit consumption. Acomys russatus and A. cahirinus share a desert habitat. Acomys russatus acts as an O. baccatus seed predator, and A. cahirinus circumvents the activation of the GLSs by orally expelling vital seeds. We found that between the three species examined, A. russatus was physiologically most tolerant to whole fruit consumption and even A. minous, which is evolutionarily naïve to O. baccatus, exhibits greater tolerance to whole fruit consumption than A. cahirinus. However, like A. cahirinus, A. minous may also behaviourally avoid the activation of the GLSs by making a hole in the pulp and consuming only the seeds. Our findings demonstrate that seed predators have a higher physiological tolerance than seed dispersers when consuming fruits containing toxic PSCs. The findings also demonstrate the extreme ecological/evolutionary lability of this plant–animal symbiosis to shift from predation to mutualism and vice versa.
Stackelberg games for adversarial prediction problems

The standard assumption of identically distributed training and test data is violated when test data are generated in response to a predictive model. This becomes apparent, for example, in the context of email spam filtering, where an email service provider employs a spam filter and the spam sender can take this filter into account when generating new emails. We model the interaction between learner and data generator as a Stackelberg competition in which the learner plays the role of the leader and the data generator may react on the leader's move. We derive an optimization problem to determine the solution of this game and present several instances of the Stackelberg prediction game. We show that the Stackelberg prediction game generalizes existing prediction models. Finally, we explore properties of the discussed models empirically in the context of email spam filtering.
Origin and Distribution of Suspended Organic Matter As Inferred From Carbon Isotope Composition in A Mediterranean Semi-Enclosed Marine System

Abstract The origin and distribution of suspended organic matter, the trophic features and the stable carbon isotopic composition of particulate organic carbon (POC) were studied monthly in a Western Mediterranean semi-enclosed basin. Sampling stations were selected as a function of wind-exposure and the degree of vegetation cover and then compared with an adjacent unvegetated site. the predominant vegetation was seagrass (Posidonia oceanica and Cymodocea nodosa) and Caulerpa prolifera. Water samples were analyzed for total suspended matter (inorganic and organic fractions), photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll-a and phaeopigments), dissolved organic carbon, particulate organic carbon and their isotopic composition. Temperature and salinity were also measured at the same sampling sites within range of Mediterranean limits. the suspended organic matter concentration was 1.77 ± 1.55 mg l−1; the chlorophyll-a concentration was low (0.35 ± 0.24 μg l−1); the disolved organic carbon concentration was 2,140 ± 2,.
A comparative study of user-defined handheld vs. freehand gestures for home entertainment environments

Home entertainment systems have been continuously providing new functionalities to their users in a process in which they evolved from standalone electronic appliances to complex digital milieus superimposed on the home environment. Such complex entertainment environments are in need of appropriate interfaces with gestures standing as a viable option. However, designing gesture commands is a challenging task and today's designs do not always reflect users' natural gestures. For this reason, this work presents the results of a participatory study in which users were involved in the design and evaluation of gesture commands for 22 typical home entertainment tasks. This is the first study to deliver a comparison between user-defined gestures for two different capture technologies: using handheld devices to sense motion and employing freehand gestures and postures. Specifically, we found that: 1 consensus exists among participants in both scenarios; 2 when available, buttons are preferred to motion commands; 3 familiar point & click and drag & drop techniques are naturally reused for new environments; 4 one-hand gestures are preferred to bimanual gestures; 5 hand posture is important yet culture specific; and 6 body-referenced and parametrized gestures appeal to users. We report gesture sets for the handheld and freehand gesture scenarios in order to inform, assist, and inspire practitioners designing the gestural interfaces of our future home environments.
Identification of the REST regulon reveals extensive transposable element-mediated binding site duplication

The genome-wide mapping of gene-regulatory motifs remains a major goal that will facilitate the modelling of gene-regulatory networks and their evolution. The repressor element 1 is a long, conserved transcription factor-binding site which recruits the transcriptional repressor REST to numerous neuron-specific target genes. REST plays important roles in multiple biological processes and disease states. To map RE1 sites and target genes, we created a position specific scoring matrix representing the RE1 and used it to search the human and mouse genomes. We identified 1301 and 997 RE1s inhuman and mouse genomes, respectively, of which >40% are novel. By employing an ontological analysis we show that REST target genes are significantly enriched in a number of functional classes. Taking the novel REST target gene CACNA1A as an experimental model, we show that it can be regulated by multiple RE1s of different binding affinities, which are only partially conserved between human and mouse. A novel BLAST methodology indicated that many RE1s belong to closely related families. Most of these sequences are associated with transposable elements, leading us to propose that transposon-mediated duplication and insertion of RE1s has led to the acquisition of novel target genes by REST during evolution.