Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Timing of Second Language Singletons and Geminates

This study investigated the realization of Italian geminate-singleton contrasts by naive and advanced L2 speakers of Italian whose L1 was German, a language with no consonantal length contrasts. We show that geminate-singleton differences could be established by all groups although there were significant differences in the geminate-singleton duration ratios across groups (Italian > advanced learners > naive). Closer
Country Selection Strategies Based on Quality

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to examine country-level parallels of the stock-level anomalies related to quality, i.e. profitability, leverage, liquidity, accruals, payout and turnover. Design/methodology/approach - – The study uses sorting and cross-sectional tests within a sample of 77 countries over the period of 1999-2014. Findings - – Markets populated with low-leveraged and cash-rich companies significantly outperform highly leveraged and cash-poor markets, respectively. The both cross-sectional patterns are stronger across small markets than across large ones. Furthermore, additional sorts on leverage and profitability markedly improve performance of cross-national value strategies. Finally, markets with companies with high-cash holdings earn additional premium in times of tight liquidity conditions. Practical implications - – Considering the diminishing benefits of international diversification in recent decades, investors should consider the country-level quality strategies in a strategic asset allocation, and not to postpone them to a later stage of the investment process. Furthermore, investments in cash-rich markets provide a hedge against liquidity distress. Originality/value - – The first study to comprehensively examine country-level quality effects across global stock markets.
Welfare Work Requirements with Paternalistic Government Preferences

Work requirements in means-tested transfer programs have grown in importance in the U.S. and in some other countries. The theoretical literature which considers their possible optimality generally operates within a traditional welfarist framework where some function of the utility of the poor is maximized. Here we consider a case where society is paternalistic and instead has preferences over the actual work allocations of welfare recipients. With this social welfare function, optimality of work requirements is possible but depends on the accuracy of the screening mechanism which assigns work requirements to some benefit recipients and not others. Numerical simulations show that the accuracy must be high for such optimality to occur. The simulations also show that earnings subsidies can be justified with the type of social welfare function used here.
Adaptive stated preference analysis of shippers? transport and logistics choice

In this paper we propose a micro analysis of freight transport demand. Current research concentrates with few exceptions on shippers? choice of a transport mode and offers consistent evidence on the importance of characteristics. However, with globalised production and liberalisation, the market offers services which range from simple movement to integrated logistics. As a consequence, shippers? behaviour is conceived here as a complex decision which considers transport mode choice as only a part of a firm? s logistics strategy. Since there exists no data to directly estimate the marginal willingness to pay for different qualities of transport and logistics services a stated preference approach is applied. Adaptive stated preference experiments are performed and completed by background information on long term logistics strategy. Here, we present first results combining the outcome of choice analysis with evidence on the cases from which the data has been collected.
Multi-wavelength observations of Galactic hard X-ray sources discovered by INTEGRAL. II. The environment of the companion star

Context: The INTEGRAL mission has led to the discovery of a new type of supergiant X-ray binaries (SGXBs), whose physical properties differ from those of previously known SGXBs. Those sources are in the course of being unveiled by means of multi-wavelength X-rays, optical, near- and mid-infrared observations, and two classes are appearing. The first class consists of obscured persistent SGXBs and the second is populated by the so-called supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs). Aims: We report here mid-infrared (MIR) observations of the companion stars of twelve SGXBs from these two classes in order to assess the contribution of the star and the material enshrouding the system to the total emission. } Methods: We used data from observations we carried out at ESO/VLT with VISIR, as well as archival and published data, to perform broad-band spectral energy distributions of the companion stars and fitted them with a combination of two black bodies representing the star and a MIR excess due to the absorbing material enshrouding the star, if there was any. Results: We detect a MIR excess in the emission of IGR J16318-4848, IGR J16358-4726, and perhaps IGR J16195-4945. The other sources do not exhibit any MIR excess even when the intrinsic absorption is very high. (abridged)
Marijuana Use and Its Association With Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy Among HIV-Infected Persons With Moderate to Severe Nausea

Background: Adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) is essential to successful treatment of HIV infection. Two recent studies reported a negative correlation between marijuana use and adherence to ART. Some patients, however, report that smoking marijuana improves adherence to ART. This study therefore sought to identify which subgroups of patients may have differential adherence to ART in association with recent marijuana use. Methods: Cross-sectional survey design within a public health care system for HIV/AIDS. Results: With a 5% refusal rate, 252 patients completed the interview, 175 (69%) were on ART, and 168 (67%) provided ART adherence data. Forty-one subjects (24%), predominantly whites, used marijuana. In bivariate analysis, no association between ART adherence and marijuana use was found (odds ratio [OR] = 0.92, 95% CI = 0.4-1.9). Adherence was positively associated with undetectable plasma virus and negatively associated with alcohol and other illicit drug use. Examining subgroups of patients, among those with nausea, marijuana users were more likely to show an association with adherence than nonusers (OR = 3.3), while among those without nausea, marijuana use was lower associated with adherence (OR = 0.52, P for homogeneity 0.02). This relationship was confirmed in multivariate analyses controlling for the interactions between nausea and marijuana use, in which other illicit drug use remained a factor related to nonadherence. Discussion: These data suggest that medicinal use of marijuana may facilitate, rather than impede, ART adherence for patients with nausea, in contrast to the use of other illicit substances, which were associated with lower rates of ART adherence. To demonstrate any causal relationship between marijuana and adherence would require a longitudinal or controlled study.
Association of Dyslipidemia with Renal Cell Carcinoma: A 1∶2 Matched Case-Control Study

Abnormal serum lipid profiles are associated with the risk of some cancers, but the direction and magnitude of the association with renal cell carcinoma is unclear. We explore the relationship between serum lipids and renal cell carcinoma via a matched case-control study. A 1∶2-matched case-control study design was applied, where one renal cell carcinoma patient was matched to two non-renal-cell-carcinoma residents with respect to age (±0 year) and gender. Cases (n = 248) were inpatients with a primary diagnosis of renal cell carcinoma, confirmed by pathology after operations. Controls were sampled from a community survey database matched on age and gender with cases, 2 controls for each case. Stratified Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was used to obtain hazard ratios and corresponding 95% confidence intervals of lipids level and dyslipidemia for the risk of renal cell carcinoma. Elevated serum cholesterol (p<0.001), LDL cholesterol (p<0.001), and HDL cholesterol (p = 0.003) are associated with decreased hazard of renal cell carcinoma, adjusting for obesity, smoke, hypertension and diabetes. However, risk caused by hTG showed no statistical significance (p = 0.263). This study indicates that abnormal lipid profile influences the risk of renal cell carcinoma.
Categorize arabic data sets using multi-class classification based on association rule approach

Associative classification (AC) is a promising data mining approach which builds more accurate classifiers than traditional classification technique such as decision trees and rule induction. By integrating association rules mining with classification, AC has two main phases which are rule generation and classifier building. In this paper, we investigate one of the well known AC algorithm i.e. MCAR, Naïve Bayesian method (NB) and Support Vector Machine algorithm (SVM) on different Arabic data sets. The bases of our comparison are the most popular text evaluation measures. The Experimental results against different Arabic text categorization data sets reveal that MCAR algorithm outperforms the NB and SVM algorithms with regards to all measures.
Hubble space telescope imaging of star-forming galaxies at redshifts Z>3

We present HST images of star-forming galaxies at redshifts z>3. These galaxies have been color selected for having a Lyman discontinuity in the otherwise flat (in f_\nu units) UV spectra of unreddened star formation. The spectroscopic confirmation of these z>3 galaxies is reported in a companion paper (Steidel et al. 1996). The HST images probe the rest-frame UV at 1400--1900 Ang and show that the morphologies of the z>3 galaxies are generally compact, although we find a few cases of more diffuse light profiles and objects comprised of multiple compact structures. Overall, the dispersion of morphologies is relatively narrow, in contrast to the variety found in star-forming galaxies at intermediate redshifts (z~1). The galaxies with compact morphology are typically characterized by a small but resolved ``core'', approximately 3 galaxies are characterized by a relatively high degree of spherical symmetry. Morphology, space density, star-formation rates, masses, and epoch of the star-formation phase all support the hypothesis that we have identified the progenitors of present-day luminous galaxies at the epoch when they were forming the stars of
Rethinking school health : a key component of education for all

Education is one of the most important drivers of the development of individuals and societies. It not only has powerful implications for the creation of human capacity, but also helps people realize their full potential and expand their connections with the world. Economic analyses repeatedly demonstrate that education gives a high economic return within the life - span of an individual and is a key factor underlying the economic growth of nations. Viewed from these perspectives, the decision at the turn of the millennium of governments and development partners to pursue the goal of Education for All (EFA) was not only an important contribution to one sector, but the launch of an endeavor with major implications for the future of humanity. The early perception of the goal of EFA was that all children should have access to education-every child should be able to exercise the right to go to school. This limited goal soon broadened to address the quality of the education that a child received at school and the factors that ensured the child was able to stay in school long enough to learn enough. These additional objectives have expanded the goal of EFA, so that it now aims to ensure that every child has the opportunity to complete an education of good quality, although definitions of quality and completeness remain under discussion. The question now is not whether school health and school feeding programs are necessary to EFA, but how they can be implemented at meaningful scale in the poorest countries, which need them the most.
Tuberculosis Is Not a Risk Factor for Primary Biliary Cirrhosis: A Review of the Literature

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a progressive cholestatic liver disease characterised serologically by cholestasis and the presence of high-titre antimitochondrial antibodies, and histologically by chronic nonsuppurative cholangitis and granulomata. As PBC is a granulomatous disease and Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the most frequent cause of granulomata, a causal relation between tuberculosis and PBC has been suggested. Attempts to find serological evidence of PBC-specific autoantibodies such as AMA have been made and, conversely, granulomatous livers from patients with PBC have been investigated for molecular evidence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This paper discusses in detail the reported data in support or against an association between Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and PBC. We discuss the immunological and microbiological data exploring the association of PBC with exposure to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We also discuss the findings of large epidemiologic studies investigating the association of PBC with preexistent or concomitant disorders and the relevance of these findings with tuberculosis. Genome-wide association studies in patients with tuberculosis as well as in patients with PBC provide conclusive hints regarding the assumed association between exposure to this mycobacterium and the induction of PBC. Analysis of these data suggest that Mycobacterium tuberculosis is an unlikely infectious trigger of PBC.
On-Line Handwriting Word Recognition Using a Bi-character Model

This paper deals with on-line handwriting recognition. Analytic approaches have attracted an increasing interest during the last ten years. These approaches rely on a preliminary segmentation stage, which remains one of the most difficult problems and may affect strongly the quality of the global recognition process. In order to circumvent this problem, this paper introduces a bi-character model, where each character is recognized jointly with its neighboring characters. This model yields two main advantages. First, it reduces the number of confusions due to connections between characters during the character recognition step. Second, it avoids some possible confusion at the character recognition level during the word recognition stage. Our experimentation on significant databases shows some interesting improvements of the recognition rate, since the recognition rate is increased from 65% to 83% by using this bi-character strategy.
A modeling analysis of a heavy air pollution episode occurred in Beijing

The concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM) and ozone in Beijing often exceed healthful levels in recent years, therefore China is to taking steps to improve Beijing's air quality for the 2008 Olympic Games. In this paper, the Models-3 Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) Modeling System was used to investigate a heavy air pollution episode in Beijing during 3–7 April 2005 to obtain the basic information of how heavy air pollution formed and the contributions of local sources and surround emissions. The modeling domain covered from East Asia with four nested grids with 81 to 3 km horizontal resolution focusing on urban Beijing. This was coupled with a regional emissions inventory with a 10 km resolution and a local 1 km Beijing emissions database. The trend of predicted concentrations of various pollutants agreed reasonably well with the observations and captured the main features of this heavy pollution episode. The simulated column concentration distribution of PM was correlated well with the MODIS remote sensing products. Control runs with and without Beijing emissions were conducted to quantify the contributions of non-Beijing sources (NBS) to the Beijing local air pollution. The contributions of NBS to each species differed spatially and temporally with the order of PM 2.5 >PM 10 >SO 2 > soil for this episode. The percentage contribution of NBS to fine particle (PM 2.5 ) in Beijing was averaged about 39%, up to 53% at the northwest of urban Beijing and only 15% at southwest. The spatial distribution of NBS contributions for PM 10 was similar to that for PM 2.5 , with a slightly less average percentage of about 30%. The average NBS contributions for SO 2 and soil (diameter between 2.5 μm and 10 μm) were 18% and 10%. In addition, the pollutant transport flux was calculated and compared at different levels to investigate transport pathway and magnitude. It was found that the NBS contribution correlated with the transport flux, contributing 60% of PM 10 concentration in Beijing at the time of transport flux peak during a strong episode with a transport path from southwest to northeast.
Stock Market Dispersion, Sectoral Shocks, and the German Business Cycle

This paper elaborates on the relative importance of sectoral shocks for real economic activity in Germany. Implications of multisectoral real business cycle models are examined by resorting to testing techniques based on stock market returns. The empirical evidence is obtained by calculating cross-correlation coefficients of sectoral stock market returns with industrial production, by estimating a limited dependent variable model, and by setting up a trivariate structural vectorautoregression model including a stock market dispersion measure. The results suggest that the influence of sectoral shocks on the dynamics of real output is rather small.
Collaborative Representation for Face Recognition based on Bilateral Filtering

A great deal of research has shown that sparse representation based classification (SRC) is a powerful tool for face recognition. Sparse coding is an unsupervised learning algorithm that learns a succinct high-level representation of the inputs, given only unlabeled data; representing each input as a sparse linear combination of a set of basic functions, whereas the importance of sparsity is greatly affirmed in SRC and in abundant relevant research. Most researchers neglected the collaborative representation (CR) in SRC. In this paper, a modified and efficient approach for face recognition is proposed, based on combining two of the most successful local face representations, collaborative representation based classification and regularized least square (CRC_RLS) with bilateral filtering (BF). The combination of the two yield considerably better performance than either when implemented alone. Furthermore, experiments and their results show that the proposed method in this work outperforms several alternative methods.
Bone Marrow-Derived Cells that Populate the Adult Mouse Brain Preserve Their Hematopoietic Identity

Cytogenesis in the adult brain can result from the recruitment of circulating precursors, but the proposal that some such cells transdifferentiate into neural elements is controversial. We have reinvestigated this issue by following the phenotypic fate of bone marrow cells expressing the green fluorescent protein transplanted into the systemic circulation of irradiated mice. Thousands of donor-derived cells were detected throughout brains of recipients killed 1–12 months after transplantation, but none displayed neuronal, macroglial, or endothelial characteristics, even after injury. Among those that crossed the endothelium of the cerebral cortex, >99.7% were identified as perivascular macrophages. Newly formed parenchymal microglia were found in significant numbers only in the cerebellum and at injury sites. Therefore, bone marrow does supply the mature brain with new specialized cells; however, mesenchymal precursors neither adopt neural phenotypes nor contribute to cerebral vascular remodeling. This continuous traffic of macrophages across the blood–brain barrier provides a vehicle to introduce therapeutic genes into the nervous system.
Resistance to change in the case of mergers and acquisitions: part 3

Purpose Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are inherent to firms evolving in today’s business world, whether they be corporate giants, SMEs or start-ups. While the ultimate objective of an M&A is to improve the newly constructed firm’s performance, financial and technical impacts are but some of the considerations the organization will need to face. Indeed, employee resistance appears to be a major factor in the overall success of this strategic move. Throughout this three-part paper, the purpose of this paper is to provide a thorough overview of the forces at play in employee resistance to change, its influence on the M&A’s success, and the ways to address such resistance. Design/methodology/approach Based on existing empirical studies, industry expert findings and academic reviews, this paper sought to link together the concepts of communication at a time of change, leadership, employee involvement, feeling of adherence to the firm (the four key pillars), and their respective influences in how they may handicap or aid the firm in achieving its M&A objectives. Findings Although it may seem like a straightforward concept, resistance to change in the turbulent time that is an M&A situation is anything but simple. Classic assumptions of resistance being a negative force or participation being a requisite part of overcoming resistance are challenged. At the same time, leadership and employee feeling of adherence to their previous organization play a supporting role when compared to the significant influence of communication pre, during and after the merger. The ensuing portrait is, thus, multifaceted and underscores the complexity of handling an M&A at the human resources level. Research limitations/implications Whilst the paper allowed to identify and link the different factors at play, a thorough empirical study in order to compare and contrast those factors at an M&A’s different stages (pre-during-post), and thus evaluate their respective importance, would be commendable. Practical implications In providing an overview of several aspects at play in employee resistance to change, this paper allows management practitioners to consolidate their knowledge on the process’ four key pillars. Social implications By illustrating not only its – expected – negative outcomes, but by also providing a glimpse at some potential benefits in terms of increased merger performance, this paper gives managers incentives to not always challenge but also embrace their employee’s resistance to change as a healthy part of the firm’s transformation process. Originality/value This literature review provides an overview of resistance to change and draws parallels between the concepts explored herein and the M&A situation, which would be useful to the general practitioner undergoing an M&A.
The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) amongst Young Spanish Adults

The interest in resilience has grown over the last few decades due to its relationships with health, well-being, and quality of life. Several instruments have been developed to measure resilience, with one of the most common being the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). This scale has been validated in many cultures with divergent results. This paper investigates the factor structure of the CD-RISC. Participants were 3,214 students (62.1% female, mean age = 21.01, SD = 2.86) who were randomly divided into two equal subsamples (n = 1,607). One subsample was used to explore which models best fit the data and these models were fitted using the other subsample. Confirmatory factor analysis did not support the original 5-factor CD-RISC. The analyses supported unidimensional scale structures for both the 22-item and 10-item versions of the scale. The shorter instrument reduces the time needed to answer the questionnaire, allows it to be combined with other instruments, and does not require large sample sizes.