Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Housing Privatization and Household Wealth in Transition

All countries in transition experienced increases in inequality. They have also undertaken massive privatization of key asset housing, often on give-away terms. Are these two phenomena related? Has transfer of ownership rights to residents slowed down the inequality increases or it pushed it up? Surprisingly little is known in this area. This paper attempts to provide empirical evidence to start answering these questions. It shows how housing privatization affected the distribution of personal wealth and inequality in current consumption based on recent representative household surveys from three transition countries: Poland, Russia and Serbia. Survey data are compared with figures derived from national accounts and housing statistics. Contrary to common belief and some earlier evidence of strong equalizing effect of housing distribution in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the paper finds that the contribution of housing to the overall inequality levels is not strong, and is not universally progressive. There is also a significant variation across countries. In Russia and Serbia .
Money Politics in the New Europe: Britain, France and the Single Financial Market

List of Tables - List of Figures - Acknowledgements - Abbreviations - Introduction - Sectoral Policy Networks in EU Politics - Opening Up a Single Market in Financial Services - City of London and Place de Paris - 1992: British and French Responses Compared - Three Case-Studies in Network Activation - The European Dimension - Conclusions - Appendix - Notes - Bibliography - Index
The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Learners' Beliefs about Language Learning: Iranian Advanced EFL Learners in Focus

The aim of this study was twofold: (1) to see whether there is any significant relationship between emotional intelligence and learners’ beliefs about language learning and (2) to examine whether emotional intelligence can predict learners’ beliefs about language learning. The participants of this study were 138 undergraduate EFL learners at two universities in Iran. To this end, two self-reported questionnaires including Trait Emotional Intelligence–short form (TELQue-SF) and Beliefs about Foreign Language Inventory (BALLI) were employed to gather the data. Results revealed that there was a positive and significant relationship between emotional intelligence and learners’ beliefs about language learning. Furthermore, emotional intelligence can predict learners’ beliefs about language learning. The findings could have some implications for EFL teachers and practionairs.
Approximations of continuous functionals by neural networks with application to dynamic systems

The paper gives several strong results on neural network representation in an explicit form. Under very mild conditions a functional defined on a compact set in C[a, b] or L(p)[a, b], spaces of infinite dimensions, can be approximated arbitrarily well by a neural network with one hidden layer. The results are a significant development beyond earlier work, where theorems of approximating continuous functions defined on a finite-dimensional real space by neural networks with one hidden layer were given. All the results are shown to be applicable to the approximation of the output of dynamic systems at any particular time.
Ferritin Level Is Positively Associated with Chronic Kidney Disease in Korean Men, Based on the 2010–2012 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

(1) Background: Oxidative stress and inflammation are associated with higher risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Serum ferritin concentrations correlate with total iron levels and systemic inflammation. (2) Methods: This study was cross-sectionally designed, based on the 2010–2012 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). According to ferritin values, 13,462 participants (6082 men and 7380 women) were categorized into the normal- and high-ferritin groups (cut-off points: 200 ng/mL in men, 150 ng/mL in women). (3) Results: The mean ages of men and women were 44.5 and 48.4 years, respectively. The percentage of participants categorized into the high-ferritin group was 15.1% for men and 3.6% for women. The estimated glomerular filtration rate levels in the normal- and high-ferritin groups were 93.2 and 93.8 mL/min/1.73 m2 for men and 97.1 and 87.7 mL/min/1.73 m2 for women, respectively. The prevalence of CKD in the normal- and high-ferritin groups was 2.6% and 3.9% for men and 3.2% and 8.1% for women, respectively. Compared with the normal-ferritin group, the odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) for CKD of the high-ferritin group were 1.573 (1.014–2.441) in men and 1.061 (0.381–2.955) in women, after adjustments for age and other covariates. (4) Conclusions: High ferritin levels were associated with a higher risk of CKD in men but not in women.
Frequency of sucrose exposure on the cariogenicity of a biofilm-caries model

Objective: Although sucrose is considered the most cariogenic carbohydrate in the human diet, the question of how many exposures are needed to induce damage on the hard dental tissues remains unclear. To approach this question, different frequencies of daily sucrose exposure were tested on a relevant biological caries model. Materials and Methods: Biofilms of the Streptococcus mutans were formed on enamel slabs and exposed to cariogenic challenges with 10% sucrose for 5 min at 0, 1, 3, 5, 8, or 10 times per day. After 5 days, biofilms were retrieved to analyze biomass, protein content, viable bacteria, and polysaccharide formation. Enamel demineralization was evaluated by percentage of microhardness loss (percentage surface hardness loss [%SHL]). Results: Biomass, protein content, polysaccharide production, acidogenicity of the biofilm, and %SHL proportionally increased with the number of daily exposures to sucrose (P < 0.05). One daily sucrose exposure was enough to induce 20% more demineralization than the negative unexposed control. Higher frequencies induced greater demineralization and more virulent biofilms, but eight and ten exposures were not different between them in most of the analyzed variables (P > 0.05). Conclusions: Higher sucrose exposure seems to increase cariogenicity, in a frequency-dependent manner, by the modification of bacterial virulent properties.
The Cationic Ring-Opening Polymerization of Tetrahydrofuran with 12-Tungstophosphoric Acid

The cationic ring-opening polymerization reaction of tetrahydrofuran at 20 °C was catalyzed by H3PW12O40·13H2O as solid acid catalyst. The effect of the proportions of acetic anhydride and catalyst, reaction time and support on the polymerization reaction was investigated. It has been found that the yield and the viscosity of the polymer depend on the proportion of acetic anhydride, the presence of the latter in the reactant mixture being required for the ring-opening. The catalytic activity of the alumina-supported heteropolyacid results showed that Brønsted acid sites are more effective than Lewis ones for the cationic ring-opening polymerization.
Controversies in Second Language Writing: Dilemmas and Decisions in Research and Instruction

Controversies in Second Language Writing is not a how-to book, but one that focuses on how teachers in L2 writing can be helped to make reasoned decisions by understanding some of the key issues and conflicting opinions about L2 writing research and pedagogy. This book will assist teachers in making informed decisions about teaching writing in the ESL classroom. To counteract some of the debates, Casanave explores the different sides of the arguments and provides examples of how other teachers have dealt with these issues. The book presents novice and seasoned teachers with thought-provoking issues and questions to consider when determining and reflecting on their own teaching strategies and criteria. Topics discussed include: contrastive rhetoric product vs. process fluency and accuracy assessment of student work audience plagiarism politics and ideology.
A Strict Correlation between Dendritic and Somatic Plateau Depolarizations in the Rat Prefrontal Cortex Pyramidal Neurons

One of the fundamental problems in neurobiology is to understand the cellular mechanism for sustained neuronal activity (neuronal UP states). Prefrontal pyramidal neurons readily switch to a long-lasting depolarized state after suprathreshold stimulation of basal dendrites. Analysis of the dendritic input-output function revealed that basal dendrites operate in a somewhat binary regimen (DOWN or UP) in regard to the amplitude of the glutamate-evoked electrical signal. Although the amplitude of the dendritic potential quickly becomes saturated (dendritic UP state), basal dendrites preserve their ability to code additional increase in glutamatergic input. Namely, after the saturation of the plateau amplitude, an additional increase in excitatory input is interpreted as an increase in plateau duration. Experiments performed in tetrodotoxin indicate that the maintenance of a stable depolarized state does not require inhibitory inputs to “balance” the excitation. In the absence of action potential-dependent (network-driven) GABAergic transmission, pyramidal neurons respond to brief (5 ms) glutamate pulses with stable long-lasting (∼500 ms) depolarizations. Voltage-sensitive dye recordings revealed that this somatic plateau depolarization is precisely time-locked with the regenerative dendritic plateau potential. The somatic plateau rises a few milliseconds after the onset of the dendritic transient and collapses with the breakdown of the dendritic plateau depolarization. In our in vitro model, the stable long-lasting somatic depolarization (UP state like) is a direct consequence of the local processing of a strong excitatory glutamatergic input arriving on the basal dendrite. The slow component of the somatic depolarization accurately mirrors the glutamate-evoked dendritic plateau potential (dendritic UP state).
Residual Expression of Reprogramming Factors Affects the Transcriptional Program and Epigenetic Signatures of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Delivery of the transcription factors Oct4, Klf4, Sox2 and c-Myc via integrating viral vectors has been widely employed to generate induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines from both normal and disease-specific somatic tissues, providing an invaluable resource for medical research and drug development. Residual reprogramming transgene expression from integrated viruses nevertheless alters the biological properties of iPSCs and has been associated with a reduced developmental competence both in vivo and in vitro. We performed transcriptional profiling of mouse iPSC lines before and after excision of a polycistronic lentiviral reprogramming vector to systematically define the overall impact of persistent transgene expression on the molecular features of iPSCs. We demonstrate that residual expression of the Yamanaka factors prevents iPSCs from acquiring the transcriptional program exhibited by embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and that the expression profiles of iPSCs generated with and without c-Myc are indistinguishable. After vector excision, we find 36% of iPSC clones show normal methylation of the Gtl2 region, an imprinted locus that marks ESC-equivalent iPSC lines. Furthermore, we show that the reprogramming factor Klf4 binds to the promoter region of Gtl2. Regardless of Gtl2 methylation status, we find similar endodermal and hepatocyte differentiation potential comparing syngeneic Gtl2ON vs Gtl2OFF iPSC clones. Our findings provide new insights into the reprogramming process and emphasize the importance of generating iPSCs free of any residual transgene expression.
Analysis of the Listeria monocytogenes Population Structure among Isolates from 1931 to 2015 in Australia

Listeriosis remains among the most important bacterial illnesses, with a high associated mortality rate. Efforts to control listeriosis require detailed knowledge of the epidemiology of the disease itself, and its etiological bacterium, Listeria monocytogenes. In this study we provide an in-depth analysis of the epidemiology of 224 L. monocytogenes isolates from Australian clinical and non-clinical sources. Non-human sources included meat, dairy, seafood, fruit, and vegetables, along with animal and environmental isolates. Serotyping, Multi-Locus Sequence Typing, and analysis of inlA gene sequence were performed. Serogroups IIA, IIB, and IVB comprised 94% of all isolates, with IVB over-represented among clinical isolates. Serogroup IIA was the most common among dairy and meat isolates. Lineage I isolates were most common among clinical isolates, and 52% of clinical isolates belonged to ST1. Overall 39 STs were identified in this study, with ST1 and ST3 containing the largest numbers of L. monocytogenes isolates. These STs comprised 40% of the total isolates (n = 90), and both harbored isolates from clinical and non-clinical sources. ST204 was the third most common ST. The high prevalence of this group among L. monocytogenes populations has not been reported outside Australia. Twenty-seven percent of the STs in this study contained exclusively clinical isolates. Analysis of the virulence protein InlA among isolates in this study identified a truncated form of the protein among isolates from ST121 and ST325. The ST325 group contained a previously unreported novel mutation leading to production of a 93 amino acid protein. This study provides insights in the population structure of L. monocytogenes isolated in Australia, which will contribute to public health knowledge relating to this important human pathogen.
Scientific inquiry and nature of science : implications for teaching, learning, and teacher education

Amazon com customer reviews scientific inquiry and, science moe gov sg, research college of education, nature of science 1 slideshare, australian journal of teacher education, book reviews scientific inquiry and nature of science, inspired issue brief inquiry based teaching, l b flick and n g lederman eds scientific inquiry, teaching about scientific models in a science content, teaching science international bureau of education, scientific inquiry and nature of science implications, 3 science teaching standards national science education, the nature of science ucar center for science education, uts 012213 learning in science and technology 1, inquiry teaching and learning philosophical, science buddies an
Two simple examples for understanding posterior p-values whose distributions are far from uniform

Posterior predictive p-values do not in general have uniform dis- tributions under the null hypothesis (except in the special case of ancillary test variables) but instead tend to have distributions more concentrated near 0.5. From di! erent perspectives, such nonuniform distributions have been portrayed as desirable (as reflecting an ability of vagu ep rior distri- butions to nonetheless yield accurate posterior predictions) or undesirable (as making it more di" cult to reject a false model). We explor et his ten- sion through two simple normal-distribution examples. In one example, we argue that the low power of the posterior predictive check is desirable from as tatistical perspective; in the other, the posterior predictive check seems inappropriate. Our conclusion is that the relevance of the p-value depends on the applied context, a point which (ironically) can be see ne ven in these two toy examples.
Impaired β Cell Function in Chinese Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus with Hyperlipidemia

The objective is to explore the effects of hyperlipidemia on β cell function in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). 208 patients were enrolled in the study and were divided into newly diagnosed T2DM with hyperlipidemia (132 patients) and without hyperlipidemia (76 patients). Demographic data, glucose levels, insulin levels, lipid profiles, homeostasis model assessment for β cell function index (HOMA-β), homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance index (HOMA-IR), and quantitative insulin-sensitivity check index (QUICKI) were compared between the two groups. We found that comparing with those of normal lipid levels, the subjects of newly diagnosed T2DM with hyperlipidemia were younger, and had declined HOMA-β. However, the levels of HOMA-β were comparable regardless of different lipid profiles (combined hyperlipidemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and hypercholesterolemia). Multiple stepwise linear regression analysis showed that high fasting plasma glucose (FPG), decreased fasting insulin level (FINS), and high triglyceride (TG) were independent risk factors of β cell dysfunction in newly diagnosed T2DM. Therefore, the management of dyslipidemia, together with glucose control, may be beneficial for T2DM with hyperlipidemia.
ON THE EXTENDED STRUCTURE OF THE PHOENIX DWARF GALAXY

We present the star formation history (SFH) and its variations with galactocentric distance for the Local Group dwarf galaxy of Phoenix. They have been derived from a (F555W, F814W) color–magnitude diagram obtained from WFPC2@HST data, which reaches the oldest main-sequence turnoffs. The IAC-star and IAC-pop codes and the MinnIAC suite have been used to obtain the star formation rate as a function of time and metallicity, ψ(t, z). We find that Phoenix has had ongoing but gradually decreasing star formation over nearly a Hubble time. The highest level of star formation occurred from the formation of the galaxy till 10.5 Gyr ago, when 50% of the total star formation had already taken place. From that moment, star formation continues at a significant level until 6 Gyr ago (an additional 35% of the stars are formed in this time interval), and at a very low level till the present time. The chemical enrichment law shows a trend of slowly increasing metallicity as a function of time until 6–8 Gyr ago, when metallicity starts to increase steeply to the current value. We have paid particular attention to the study of the variations of the SFH as a function of radius. Young stars are found in the inner region of the galaxy only, but intermediate-age and old stars can be found at all galactocentric distances. The distribution of mass density in alive stars and its evolution with time has been studied. This study shows that star formation started at all galactocentric distances in Phoenix at an early epoch. If stars form in situ in Phoenix, the star formation onset took place all over the galaxy (up to a distance of about 400 pc from the center), but preferentially out of center regions. After that, our results are compatible with a scenario in which the star formation region envelope slowly shrinks as time goes on, possibly as a natural result of pressure support reduction as gas supply diminishes. As a consequence, the star formation stopped first (about 7–8 Gyr ago) in outer regions and the scale length of the stellar mass density distribution decreased with time. Finally, no traces of a true, old halo are apparent in Phoenix either in its stellar age distribution or in the stellar mass density distribution, at least out to 0.5 kpc (about 2.5 scale length) from the center.
International Transmission of the People's Bank of China's Balance Sheet Expansion

type="main"> The People's Bank of China's (PBoC) balance sheet expanded more dramatically than any of its major international counterparts during the past decade. The main contribution to this expansion was the rapid accumulation of the central bank's foreign assets, as a result of foreign exchange market intervention. In this paper, we examine the possible international transmission of this expansion by analyzing monthly data for China and 15 other countries over the period 2000–2012. Impulse response analysis based on vector autoregression modeling suggests that the PBoC's balance sheet expansion has greater impacts on developing than on developed countries. So far the influences appear to be dominated by “trade channels” instead of “financial channels,” possibly due to China's capital account controls. However, the impacts of the PBoC's balance sheet expansion on other countries' interest rates, exchange rates, and stock market prices could strengthen significantly in the coming years as China's economic scale grows and its capital account opens up.
Combining Power and Performance Modeling for Application Analysis: A Case Study Using Aspen

Scientists often rely on analytical modeling for predicting performance because it provides a flexible and fast estimate without the need for low-level details. With traditional performance modeling tools, users first develop a performance model and then repeatedly evaluate and analyze the model manually. As we observe a strong trend towards system designs with significantly more parallelism, such manual investigations prove laborious and error prone. In order to address this problem, some performance tools include a formal specification of an application's performance behavior and an abstract machine model to take advantage of composability, modularity and reusability. While these types of tools address performance at scale, they provide little insight to power and energy use at scale. Nonetheless, curtailing or controlling the power and energy use of systems at scale has been identified as a grand challenge. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of creating application-specific analysis tools that capture fine-grain power and energy information. The result is a prototype tool that aids in exploration of application and architecture specific power and energy tradeoffs. Results show new fine-grain, application-specific models of 3-D Fast Fourier Transform and Matrix-Matrix multiplication are accurate and may lend themselves to automation.
Coordinate Descent with Online Adaptation of Coordinate Frequencies

Coordinate descent (CD) algorithms have become the method of choice for solving a number of optimization problems in machine learning. They are particularly popular for training linear models, including linear support vector machine classification, LASSO regression, and logistic regression. We consider general CD with non-uniform selection of coordinates. Instead of fixing selection frequencies beforehand we propose an online adaptation mechanism for this important parameter, called the adaptive coordinate frequencies (ACF) method. This mechanism removes the need to estimate optimal coordinate frequencies beforehand, and it automatically reacts to changing requirements during an optimization run. We demonstrate the usefulness of our ACF-CD approach for a variety of optimization problems arising in machine learning contexts. Our algorithm offers significant speed-ups over state-of-the-art training methods.
Theoretical and Empirical Validation of Software Product Measures

In this paper we present and discuss a concrete method for validating measures of software product internal attributes and provide guidelines for its application. This method integrates much of the relevant previous work, such as measurement theory, properties of measures, and the Goal/Question/Metric paradigm (GQM). We identify two types of validation: theoretical and empirical. The former addresses the question “ is the measure measuring the attribute it is purporting to measure? ” , and the latter addresses the question “ is the measure useful in the sense that it is related to other variables in expected ways? ”