Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two-dimensional line-strength maps in three well-studied early-type galaxies

Integral field spectroscopy has been obtained for the nuclear regions of three large, well-studied, early-type galaxies. From these spectra we have obtained line-strength maps for about 20 absorption lines, mostly belonging to the Lick system. An extensive comparison with multilenslet spectroscopy shows that accurate kinematic maps can be obtained, and also reproducible line-strength maps. Comparison with long-slit spectroscopy also produces good agreement. We show that Mg is enhanced with respect to Fe in the inner disc of one of the three galaxies studied, the Sombrero. [Mg/Fe] there is larger than in the rest of the bulge. The large values of Mg/Fe in the central disc are consistent with the centres of other early-type galaxies, and not with large discs, like the disc of our Galaxy, where [Mg/Fe] ∼0. We confirm with this observation a recent result of Worthey: that Mg/Fe is determined only by the central kinetic energy, or escape velocity, of the stars, and not by the formation time-scale of the stars. A stellar population analysis using the models of Vazdekis et al. shows that our observed Hγ agrees well with what is predicted based on the other lines. Given the fact that Hβ is often contaminated by emission lines, we confirm the statement of Worthey & Ottaviani, Kuntschner & Davies and others that if one tries to measure ages of galaxies, Hγ is a much better index to use than Hβ. Using the line strength of the Ca ii IR triplet as an indicator of the abundance of Ca, we find that Ca follows Fe, and not Mg, in these galaxies. This is peculiar, given the fact that Ca is an α element. Finally, by combining the results of this paper with those of Vazdekis et al., we find that the line-strength gradients in the three galaxies are primarily caused by variations in metallicity.
Solving the state assignment problem for signal transition graphs

The authors propose a novel framework to solve the state assignment problem arising from the signal transition graph (STG) representation of an asynchronous circuit. They first solve the STG state assignment problem by minimizing the number of states in the corresponding finite-state machine (FSM) and by using a critical race-free state assignment technique. State signal transitions may be added to the original STG. A lower bound on the number of signals necessary to implement the STG is given. The technique significantly increases the applicability of STGs for specifying asynchronous circuits. <<ETX>>
A little good is good enough: Ethical consumption, cheap excuses, and moral self-licensing

This paper explores the role of cheap excuses in product choice. If agents feel that they fulfill one ethical aspect, they may care less about other independent ethical facets within product choice. Choosing a product that fulfills one ethical aspect may then suffice for maintaining a high moral self-image in agents and render it easier to ignore other ethically relevant aspects they would otherwise care about more. The use of such cheap excuses could thus lead to a “static moral self-licensing” effect, and this would extend the logic of the well-known dynamic moral self-licensing. Our experimental study provides empirical evidence that the static counterpart of moral self-licensing exists. Furthermore, effects spill over to unrelated, ethically relevant contexts later in time. Thus, static moral self-licensing and dynamic moral self-licensing can exist next to each other. However, it is critical that agents do not feel that they fulfilled an ethical criterion out of sheer luck, that is, agents need some room so that they can attribute the ethical improvement at least partly to themselves. Outsiders, although monetarily incentivized for correct estimates, are completely oblivious to the effects of moral self-licensing, both static and dynamic.
A Replication and Reproduction of Code Clone Detection Studies

Code clones, fragments of code that are similar in some way, are regarded as costly. In order to understand the level of threat and opportunity of clones, we need to be able to efficiently detect clones in existing code. Recently, a new clone detection technique, CMCD, has been proposed. Our goal is to evaluate it and, if possible, improve on the original. We replicated the original study to evaluate the effectiveness of basic CMCD technique, improved it based on our experience with the replication, and applied it to a 43 open-source Java code from the Qualitas Corpus. We confirmed the effectiveness of the original technique but found some weaknesses. We improved the technique, and applied our improved technique. We found that that 1 in 2 systems had at least 10% cloned code, not counting the original, indicating that cloned code is quite common.
Strong uniqueness for certain infinite dimensional Dirichlet operators and applications to stochastic quantization

Strong and Markov uniqueness problems in L2 for Dirichlet operators on rigged Hilbert spaces are studied. An analytic approach based on a priori estimates is used. The extension of the problem to the Lp-setting is discussed. As a direct application essential self-adjointness and strong uniqueness in Lp is proved for the generator (with initial domain the bounded smooth cylinder functions) of the stochastic quantization process for Euclidean quantum field theory in finite volume
A Robotic Interface to a Medication Review Expert System

Medication problems are responsible for a significant percentage of health problems in the aged. A robot in the patient's home may assist in monitoring their condition and medication use. This application allows us to address issues with integrating the sensory and interactive capabilities of robots with the high-level problem solving of expert systems. The robot needs to provide and recieve information from the patient with a simple interface, take sensor readings and use this data to make inferences using the expert system. This paper describes a system in development and gives a step-by-step example of an interaction between patient, robot and medication expert system.
The Company You Keep

Studies on personality and friendship have focused on similarities between friends, while differences in friendship patterns have received less attention. We used data from the British Household Panel Survey data (N = 12,098) to investigate how people’s personalities are related to various characteristics of their three closest friends. All personality traits of the five-factor model were associated with several friendship characteristics with effect sizes corresponding to correlations between −. 06 and . 09. Openness was especially prominent and idiosyncratic; individuals with high (vs. low) openness were about 3% more likely to have friends who live further away, are of the opposite sex and another ethnicity, and whom they meet less often. Agreeableness and extroversion were related to more traditional friendship ties. Individuals with high agreeableness had known their friends for a longer time, lived close to them, and had more “stay-at-homes” among their friends.
A qualitative examination of factors underlying transitions in problem gambling severity: Findings from the Leisure, Lifestyle, & Lifecycle Project

Abstract Background: The current study sought to explore the narrative accounts of individuals who underwent changes in their problem gambling severity, and identify subjective factors underlying these transitions. Additionally, respondents’ perceived change in their gambling behavior was compared with a validated measure of problem gambling severity. Methods: Participants were recruited from The Leisure, Lifestyle, & Lifecycle Project (LLLP), a prospective cohort study based in Alberta, Canada. In-depth, semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with a subset of participants identified as showing a significant increase or decrease in problem gambling severity between Wave 4 and 5 of the LLLP (n = 41). Principles of phenomenology and grounded theory were used to thematically code interviews. Results: About half of respondents increased in problem gambling severity between Wave 4 and 5 (n = 22), while 19 respondents decreased. For those who perceived this change (n = 13), the most common factors underlying increases in problem gambling severity were the same factors underlying decreases and included financial, social, and internal reasons. More than half of the sample (n = 28) perceived stability in, or a change in their gambling behavior that was incongruent with their problem gambling severity score. These respondents tended to endorse a greater degree of gambling fallacies, dissonant feelings, and mental health issues, compared to those who had accurately perceived their change. Conclusions: The findings suggest that many individuals may not accurately perceive transitions in their gambling. Gambling fallacies and dissonant feelings seem to underlie this discrepancy, highlighting the need for public health initiatives to focus on correcting these erroneous beliefs.
Giving a Little Help to Girls? Evidence on Grade Discrimination and its Effect on Students Achievement

This paper tests if gender-discrimination in grading affects pupils' achievements and course choices. I use a unique dataset containing grades given by teachers, scores obtained anonymously by pupils at different ages, and their course choice during high school. Based on double-differences, the identification of the gender bias in grades suggests that girls benefit from a substantive positive discrimination in math but not in French. This bias is not explained by girls' better behavior and only marginally by their lower initial achievement. I then use the heterogeneity in teachers' discriminatory behavior to show that classes in which teachers present a high degree of discrimination in favor of girls are also classes in which girls tend to progress significantly more than boys, during the school year but also during the next four years. Teachers' biases also increase the relative probability that girls attend a general high school and chose science courses.
Adaptation, equality, and fairness. Towards a sociological understanding of ‘the supportive husband’

ABSTRACT Many heterosexual couples today follow a neo-traditional pattern where she has main responsibility for the workings of domestic daily life – but there is also a growing number of couples where her job takes centre stage and he must adapt to that circumstance. This article focuses on the re-organization of gendered meanings prompted in such a situation. Drawing on narrative interviews with 22 men living in partnerships with career women, we investigate the cultural work required to construct intelligible masculine positions and identities when neo-traditional work/family patterns are unsettled. We identify and explore two central adaption narratives among the men: ‘running the family’ and ‘50/50 advocacy’. Both narratives are rendered intelligible using the cultural narrative of the family as a joint-working community and drawing on the egalitarian notion of mutuality. In this re-organization of meaning, the creation of the time-consuming ‘invisible’ work of practical, emotional, and moral domestic responsibilities is made visible, disentangled from the taken-for-granted link to femininity in ways that contribute to the de-gendering of domestic work.
Semiglobally ISpS Disturbance Attenuation via Adaptive Neural Design for a Class of Nonlinear Systems

This paper considers the disturbance attenuation problem in certain practical sense for a class of multi-input multi-output nonlinear systems with structure uncertainties which are modelled by unknown smooth function vectors and matrices. The system under consideration is composed of two cascaded subsystems: a zero-input asymptotically stable nonlinear one and a linearizable one which is controllable. The output of the system is a function vector of the states of these two subsystems. To solve disturbance attenuation problem and cope with the unknown function vectors and matrices in the system, an adaptive control scheme based on neural network technique and Lyapunov theory is developed for the nonlinear system. The resultant closed loop system is semiglobally input-to-state practically stable (ISpS) and the responses of the output to the disturbance inputs are attenuated in certain practical sense. Simulation studies are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the scheme
Juvenile Crime and Punishment : Assessing the Relationship between Violent Crime Rates and Punishment , 1982-1992

Over the past twenty years juvenile violent crime rates have increased tremendously. In light of this disturbing trend, this paper examines whether variation in punishment levels has any impact on juvenile violent crime. To examine this relationship I first establish a behavioral model of juvenile crime, from which point I introduce an empirical model and use available data to estimate this model. Ultimately, my analysis reveals that juvenile violent crime rates are negatively affected by increases in juvenile punishment. Additionally, I also show that the relative punitiveness of the adult and juvenile justice systems negatively affects changes in violent crime rates between juveniles immediately before and after they enter the adult justice system.
You’re Dead —So What? Media, Police, and the Invisibility of Black Women as Victims of Homicide

ter in the making. Nevertheless, the book is not only about less-developed countries, but the developed ones as well. The death toll caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was unusually high for a rich, developed nation. The readers may wonder where it could happen next and how prepared different vicinities are. Slums of Philadelphia, South Chicago, East L.A. , or North Nashville, are they well protected or are they vulnerable? While poor people in disaster areas are being caught in a poverty trap, the rich and powerful cannot effectively use the help of international organizations and NGOs, preoccupied instead with legal land grabs, kickbacks, and extortion from subcontracting, embezzlement from recovery funds, and profiteering of all imaginable forms. Not only socioeconomics, but even nature helps ‘‘the transfer of property from the poor to the rich’’ (p. 158). Disaster Profiteers is a very informative volume, saturated with both facts and thoughts. It informs the public and raises awareness about the dangers of high income and wealth disparities and poor governance. The book also reminds us about major natural disasters that took place over the last century and sometimes even earlier. For those who watch international news, this volume would be a good reminder of major disasters and state and international responses to those unfortunate events. But the author goes far beyond the mere listing of facts, revealing not only the consequences of each particular disaster, but also the social costs and the causes of such high costs. These causes are social, not natural, and thus they can be regulated by society. Mutter concludes, ‘‘disasters are economic and political in nature as much as, perhaps more than, they are natural events’’ (p. 223). This book is for everyone. An excellent account of the social aftermath of natural disasters, it informs us of why deficient societal structures matter. The book may be used by public policy specialists and practitioners. It may also be used as a supplementary reading for an introductory course on international organizations and economic development or urban planning. And, finally, for those who like a little bit of theorizing, there are two appendices with some simple graphs and analytics in the back of the volume. The language of the book is highly accessible to the reader. In fact, I read it on one breath and would recommend others do the same.
Where the wild things are not: crime preventers and the 2016 Ugandan elections

ABSTRACT In Uganda’s 2016 elections, international and national commentators questioned the role that the government’s crime preventers – or community police – would play. Many claimed that they would be used “as tools” to rig the elections, intimidate voters, and vote en masse for the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime. In contrast, this paper shows that the government never intended the crime preventers to play an explicitly coercive role. Instead, the NRM leadership intentionally structured the crime preventer program as indefinite and fluid, allowing political authorities and citizens to understand the purpose of crime preventers alternately as dangerous tools of the regime, family men in search of work, or patriotic citizens of Uganda. Used interchangeably, these logics – which are described in this paper as ideal-typical categories of political, economic, and social – prevented Ugandans from accurately assessing the program. The resultant uncertainty fragmented organization of crime preventers, civil society, and members of the opposition; limited the government’s responsibility for crime preventers; and helped ensure that crime preventers would bolster the strength of the NRM regime in the 2016 elections.
Nuer Dilemmas: Coping with Money, War, and the State

Through the pioneering efforts of the famed British anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard, the Nuer of southern Sudan have become one of anthropology's most celebrated case studies. Now Sharon Hutchinson combines fresh ethnographic evidence and contemporary theoretical perspectives to show not only what has happened to the Nuer since their 1930s encounters with Evans-Pritchard, but, more importantly, what is to be gained from a thoroughly historicized treatment of ethnographic materials. Hutchinson's work provides a vision for what anthropology has become in the 1990s. Concentrating on Nuer perceptions, experiences, and evaluations of change, Hutchinson traces the historical conditions that have led contemporary men and women to reconsider fundamental aspects of their lives. She raises a number of important issues that Evans-Pritchard did not: How can we move beyond static structural models based on notions of cultural 'boundedness', 'homogeneity', and 'order'? How have Nuer people been actively reshaping and reassessing local forms of power in light of dramatic economic shifts, religious proselytizing, civil war, and colonial and post colonial rule? Hutchinson has produced a rich ethnographic document that offers a new rhetorical strategy for writing ethnographies that is processual, dialogical, and reflexive all at once.
Percutaneous vertebroplasty and balloon kyphoplasty for the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures and osteolytic tumours.

Back pain is the principal manifestation of most osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures, and may be either acute and excruciating, or chronic and persistent. [1][1],[2][2] Acute back pain, usually caused by a recent osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture, is expected to subside as the
Quantifying Rotations of Spheric Objects

This work presents an approach to quantify rotations of spheric objects with a single camera. We apply this method to objectively classify racket sports equipment. Therefore, we observe the ball impact on a racket and compare diﬀerences in rotations quantiﬁed prior to and after the impact. Our approach combines motion segmentation with tracking both the ball center and corners of the surface texture. A 2D warping of these corner positions reveals the rotation. We neither require a motion model nor any user intervention. Experimental results verify our approach and prove the feasibility of our application scenario based on visual rotation quan-tiﬁcation.
Early rise in exhaled nitric oxide and mast cell activation in repeated low-dose allergen challenge

Repeated low-dose allergen inhalation challenge mimics natural allergen exposure, providing a model for early mechanisms in the triggering of asthma. The current authors performed a controlled study to evaluate the time course of changes in exhaled nitric oxide fraction (Fe,NO) and urinary biomarkers of airway inflammation. Eight subjects with mild allergic asthma completed two 7-day repeated low-dose challenge periods, with diluent and allergen, respectively. Subjects were symptom free at inclusion and were investigated when not exposed to specific allergen. Pulmonary function and symptoms were followed, and Fe,NO and urinary mediators were correlated to changes in airway responsiveness to histamine and adenosine. Despite no change in pulmonary function (forced expiratory volume in one second mean±sem fall 0.3±0.7 versus 0.6±1.0%, for diluent and allergen, respectively) and no asthma symptoms, repeated allergen exposure, in contrast to diluent, caused significant increases in histamine responsiveness (2.3 doubling doses), an early and gradual increase in Fe,NO (up to a doubling from baseline) and a small increase in the mast cell marker 9α11β-prostaglandin F2 after adenosine challenge. In conclusion, serial measurements of exhaled nitric oxide fraction have the potential to provide a very sensitive strategy for early detection of emerging airway inflammation and subsequent changes in airway hyperresponsiveness to histamine.
Neuronal organization of the cochlear nuclei in alligator lizards: A light and electron microscopic investigation

The organization of neurons and fibers in the cochlear nuclei of the alligator lizard (Gerrhonotus multicarinatus) was examined with light and electron microscopy. In this species, much is known about the anatomy and physiology of the inner ear including the cochlear nerve, but little is known about the synaptic connections of cochlear fibers on second‐order neurons. These data will help to develop general principles addressing the cellular organization of the vertebrate auditory system.
Exploiting Semantic Annotations for Clustering Geographic Areas and Users in Location-based Social Networks

Location-Based Social Networks (LBSN) present so far the most vivid realization of the convergence of the physical and virtual social planes. In this work we propose a novel approach on modeling human activity and geographical areas by means of place categories. We apply a spectral clustering algorithm on areas and users of two metropolitan cities on a dataset sourced from the most vibrant LBSN, Foursquare. Our methodology allows the identification of user communities that visit similar categories of places and the comparison of urban neighborhoods within and across cities. We demonstrate how semantic information attached to places could be plausibly used as a modeling interface for applications such as recommender systems and digital tourist guides.
Modeling and Measuring Russian Corporate Governance: The Case of Russian Preferred and Common Shares

This paper examines governance explanations for the discount of preferred shares to common shares in the Russian market. conflicts between shareholder classes may help explain the discount. However, for this to be the sole explanation the estimated models suggest that the magnitude of future adverse shareholder events would have to be very high. Nevertheless, evidence of a common factor potentially related to governance seems evident in the date, implying that corporate control issues may at least be partially responsible for the observed preferred share discount