Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamic Enfranchisement

Why would a political elite voluntarily dilute its political power by extending the franchise? This paper develops a dynamic recursive framework for studying voter enfranchisement. We study properties of dynamic enfranchisement games, dynamic games in which political rights evolve over time. Each period, private decisions of citizens co-mingle with government policies to act upon a state variable such as capital stock, a public good, or the likelihood of an insurrection. Policies are determined by the median voter of a potentially restricted franchise. The enfranchised group can choose, through its median voter, to expand the set of citizens with voting rights. In this way, each period’s median voter can effectively delegate decision authority to a new median in the next period. We characterize the equilibria of a dynamic enfranchisement game by its Euler equations. In certain games, the equilibria generate paths that display a gradual, sometimes uneven history of enfranchisement that is roughly consistent with observed patterns of extensions. Our main result shows that extensions of the franchise occur in a given period if and only if the private decisions of the citizenry have a net positive spillover to the dynamic payoff of the current median voter. The size of the extension depends on the size of the spillover. Since the class of games we study can accommodate a number of proposed explanations for franchise extension (e.g., the threat of insurrection, or ideological or class conflict within the elite, etc), the result suggests a common causal mechanism for these seemingly different explanations. We describe a number of parametric environments that correspond to the various explanations, and show how the mechanism works in each.
Working Memory Training in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders

In a naturalistic open label non-randomized controlled intervention study, Cogmed© working memory (WM) training effects were compared between different groups of children (n = 99; 65 boys, 34 girls), aged between 7 and 17 years with neurodevelopmental problems, i.e. ADHD (n = 45), learning disorders (LD, n = 34) or learning problems (n = 20). Training efficacy after 25 sessions was measured by WM capacity improvement, ADHD DSM-IV rating scale and the BRIEF. It was hypothesized that training effects may lie on a continuum with those of the LD group at the lower end and those of the learning problems group at the upper end. Results partly confirmed the hypothesis in that all groups improved significantly with ADHD-children or children with learning problems showing the best results.
Simulation of CPG ’ s for Biped Locomotion MAT 351 : Final Paper

Bipedal locomotion is a significantly complex yet surprisingly efficient means of movement. Long thought to require a high degree of feedback control, modern research has shown that periodic bipedal gaits are generated by central pattern generators (CPG) (Ijspeert, 2008). While feedback can and often does play a role in determining the parameters of the CPG when an animal moves, basic periodic gait generation requires minimal stimulus to occur.1 This study is especially interested in exploring and validating two detailed CPG models for the purpose of developing a biomimetic electronic neural network for implementation in the bipedal robot, Roo’bot (Razin, 2011). As Roo’bot was primarily developed as a hopping robot, special attention will be payed to the parameters of the hopping gait. Thus, the goals of the this paper are to:
Family Background and Child Health

Socioeconomic inequity in health is of concern in many developed countries. To reduce inequities, one first needs to establish which factors contribute to differences in health across individuals from different socioeconomic backgrounds. The health of children receives particular interest because of its potential long-run implications on adult outcomes such as educational attainment and labor market success. Disadvantages occurring at this early stage may be hard to mediate and costly to reverse. This study is an investigation into the relationship between child health and family background using nationally representative data from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The empirical results indicate that children from low-income households have worse health on average, with diet-related lifestyle factors also playing a role. Children from high-income families with more educated parents are healthier as they are less likely to skip meals, have a more diverse and balanced diet, and their mother's are more conscious of what they put on the dinner table. Different lifestyle patterns among socioeconomic groups may result in differential risk towards various illnesses. With rising incidence of chronic illnesses, there is a consensus that more emphasis be placed on prevention and early diagnosis. One way to achieve this would be by internalizing healthy lifestyles early in childhood. In addition, differential utilization of health care remains an issue: in an analysis on inequity in health care utilization, low-income households report to mainly seek care at the lowest (health centers) and highest (hospital) level of care, even controlling for need. Disparities also exist in the use of preventive and diagnostic care: poor children are less likely to be immunized, to undergo diagnostic screening tests, and to receive regular check-ups. Several existing government programs to address health inequities are reviewed and ways for improvement suggested. Policy interventions to reduce health inequities should be followed up on and their costeffectiveness properly evaluated.
Impact of hospital volume on operative mortality for major cancer surgery.

CONTEXT Hospitals that treat a relatively high volume of patients for selected surgical oncology procedures report lower surgical in-hospital mortality rates than hospitals with a low volume of the procedures, but the reports do not take into account length of stay or adjust for case mix. OBJECTIVE To determine whether hospital volume was inversely associated with 30-day operative mortality, after adjusting for case mix. DESIGN AND SETTING Retrospective cohort study using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked database in which the hypothesis was prospectively specified. Surgeons determined in advance the surgical oncology procedures for which the experience of treating a larger volume of patients was most likely to lead to the knowledge or technical expertise that might offset surgical fatalities. PATIENTS All 5013 patients in the SEER registry aged 65 years or older at cancer diagnosis who underwent pancreatectomy, esophagectomy, pneumonectomy, liver resection, or pelvic exenteration, using incident cancers of the pancreas, esophagus, lung, colon, and rectum, and various genitourinary cancers diagnosed between 1984 and 1993. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Thirty-day mortality in relation to procedure volume, adjusted for comorbidity, patient age, and cancer stage. RESULTS Higher volume was linked with lower mortality for pancreatectomy (P=.004), esophagectomy (P<.001), liver resection (P=.04), and pelvic exenteration (P=.04), but not for pneumonectomy (P=.32). The most striking results were for esophagectomy, for which the operative mortality rose to 17.3% in low-volume hospitals, compared with 3.4% in high-volume hospitals, and for pancreatectomy, for which the corresponding rates were 12.9% vs 5.8%. Adjustments for case mix and other patient factors did not change the finding that low volume was strongly associated with excess mortality. CONCLUSIONS These data support the hypothesis that when complex surgical oncologic procedures are provided by surgical teams in hospitals with specialty expertise, mortality rates are lower.
INFORMATION QUALITY, TECHNOLOGY DEPRECIATION, AND BT COTTON ADOPTION IN THE SOUTHEAST

In 1996, Bt cotton became one of the first genetically engineered crops to be available commercially. This study focuses on the various sources and quality of information about Bt cotton profitability available to farmers in the Southeast and assesses the relative importance of such information in the farmers' adoption decisions. A model of the individual decision to adopt is developed to incorporate two recent theories of the role of information quality (the "effective information" hypothesis and the "popularity" hypothesis) as well as the effect of current technology depreciation. The data show some support for all three factors as determinants of adoption.
A general stochastic approach to solving problems with hard and soft constraints

Many AI problems can be conveniently encoded as discrete constraint satisfaction problems. It is often the case that not all solutions to a CSP are equally desirable | in general, one is interested in a set of \preferred" solutions (for example, solutions that minimize some cost function). Preferences can be encoded by incorporating \soft" constraints in the problem instance. We show how both hard and soft constraints can be handled by encoding problems as instances of weighted MAX-SAT ((nd-ing a model that maximizes the sum of the weights of the satissed clauses that make up a problem instance). We generalize a local-search algorithm for satissability to handle weighted MAX-SAT. To demonstrate the eeec-tiveness of our approach, we present experimental results on encodings of a set of well-studied network Steiner-tree problems. This approach turns out to be competitive with some of the best current specialized algorithms developed in operations research.
Coastal hypoxia responses to remediation

Coastal hypoxia responses to remediation W. M. Kemp, J. M. Testa, D. J. Conley, D. Gilbert, and J. D. Hagy University of Maryland, Center for Environmental Science, Horn Point Laboratory, Cambridge, MD 21673, USA GeoBiosphere Science Centre, Department of Geology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden Maurice-Lamontagne Institute, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Mont-Joli, Quebec, Canada, G5H 3Z4, Canada US Environmental Protection Agency, National Health and Environmental Effects Laboratory, Gulf Ecology Division, Gulf Breeze, FL, USA Received: 26 June 2009 – Accepted: 29 June 2009 – Published: 14 July 2009 Correspondence to: W. M. Kemp (kemp@hpl.umces.edu) Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.
Financially Constrained Arbitrage and Cross-Market Contagion ∗

We propose a continuous time infinite horizon equilibrium model of financial markets in which arbitrageurs have multiple valuable investment opportunities but face financial constraints. The investment opportunities, heterogeneous along different dimensions, are provided by pairs of similar assets trading at different prices in segmented markets. By exploiting these opportunities, arbitrageurs alleviate the segmentation of markets, providing liquidity to other investors by intermediating their trades. We characterize the arbitrageurs’ optimal investment policy, and derive implications for market liquidity and asset prices.
The rhizospheric microbial community structure and diversity of deciduous and evergreen forests in Taihu Lake area, China

Soil bacteria are important drivers of biogeochemical cycles and participate in many nutrient transformations in the soil. Meanwhile, bacterial diversity and community composition are related to soil physic-chemical properties and vegetation factors. However, how the soil and vegetation factors affect the diversity and community composition of bacteria is poorly understood, especially for bacteria associated with evergreen and deciduous trees in subtropical forest ecosystems. In the present paper, the microbial communities of rhizospheric soils associated with different types of trees were analyzed by Illumina MiSeq sequencing the V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene. A total of 121,219 effective 16S rRNA gene sequences were obtained, which were classified into 29 bacterial phyla and 2 archaeal phyla. The dominant phyla across all samples (>5% of good-quality sequences in each sample) were Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. The bacterial community composition and diversity were largely affected by both soil pH and tree species. The soil pH was the key factor influencing bacterial diversity, with lower pH associated with less diverse communities. Meanwhile, the contents of NO3− were higher in evergreen tree soils than those associated with deciduous trees, while less NH4+ than those associated with deciduous trees, leading to a lower pH and indirectly influencing the diversity and composition of the bacteria. The co-occurrence patterns were assessed by network analysis. A total of 415 pairs of significant and robust correlations (co-occurrence and negative) were identified from 89 genera. Sixteen hubs of co-occurrence patterns, mainly under the phyla Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, may play important roles in sustaining the stability of the rhizospheric microbial communities. In general, our results suggested that local environmental conditions and soil pH were important in shaping the bacterial community of the Taihu Lake zone in east China.
Time series analysis, or the quest for quantitative measures of time dependent behavior

We review some of the tools used to analyze time series —sequences of measurements of one or more variables pertaining to the same system. The tools include timeresolved statistics and spectra; autocorrelations, mutual information and transfer entropy; complexity, predictability and hypothesis testing. We illustrate the use of these tools by analyzing extracellular recordings from the leech, vasomotion data from monkeys, and human electroencephalograms.
Portfolio Choice Over the Life-Cycle in the Presence of Cointegration between Labor Income and Inflation

We study portfolio choice for a finite-horizon investor whose labor income is cointegrated with inflation. We show that this long-run relationship has substantial impact on the riskiness of human capital and consequently on the optimal portfolio strategy. Because cointegration raises the long-run correlation between human capital and inflation, young investors’ human capital effectively hedges inflation risk and crowds out the allocation to inflation-indexed bonds. However, the hedging power of human capital diminishes for older investors because of a weaker cointegration effect and less importance of human capital in total wealth. These effects together show that inflation-indexed bonds matter more for older investors than for young investors.
Asian American Students in Higher Education

Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Critical Racial Contexts Chapter 3: Critical Historical Contexts Chapter 4: Critical Demographic Contexts Chapter 5: Asian American Identity in College Chapter 6: Asian American Race Relations in College Chapter 7: Asian American Success in College Chapter 8: Future Directions for Research on Asian American Students in College
Intelligibility of Speech Produced by Children with Hearing Loss: Conventional Amplification versus Nonlinear Frequency Compression in Hearing Aids

Objective: This study aimed to 1) investigate the influence of nonlinear frequency compression (NLFC) in hearing aids on intelligibility of speech produced by children with hearing loss; and 2) examine whether clinicians’ or parents’ judgments might be correlated with those of inexperienced listeners. Methods: Twenty-seven adult listeners with normal hearing who reported no experience listening to speech produced by people with hearing loss were asked to judge the intelligibility of speech samples of eight hearingimpaired children under four aided conditions. Also, the parents and the clinicians who provided services to the children provided ratings. The children were enrolled in a four-period multi-site trial that was aimed to compare the effects of conventional processing with NLFC in hearing aids on children’s performance. In that study, the children were familiarized with each of four hearing-aid setting for at least six weeks before they were evaluated using a range of tests, including the production of 20 sentences. The current study used the recorded sentences as stimuli for intelligibility judgments. Each listener heard sentences produced by two child-talkers, 40 from each talker. The stimuli were presented to listeners at 65 dB SPL via headphones. Four child-talkers received ratings from eight listeners and four from seven listeners. Results: Group-level results indicate that speech intelligibility was rated to be better by inexperienced listeners when children used NLFC than when they did not. Three child-talkers showed a significant advantage with NLFC activation. These results are consistent with the estimated audible bandwidth of hearing aids for individual talkers. Significant positive correlations for intelligibility ratings between inexperienced listeners and clinicians were found, but neither correlated with ratings from parents. Conclusions: The use of NLFC improved intelligibility of speech produced by children, on average, as rated by inexperienced listeners. Clinicians’ judgment of children’s speech production is a clinically viable tool for evaluating the effectiveness of amplification for children.
Predicting user influence in microblogs

User influence can be described as power - the ability of a person to influence the thoughts or actions of others. In this paper, we investigate the attributes of 244,175 users and the content of their messages, and they are from Sina Weibo which is one of the most notable micro-blogging services. Our first insight is to quantify the influence of individuals within a period of time by using a novel approach. Our second insight is to predict the influence of every user with higher precision. Our third insight is to find the influence of most users changing over time but changing slightly as a whole. In this paper, we include findings from our study.
Agent Heterogeneity and Learning: An Application to Labor Markets

I develop a matching model with heterogeneous workers, firms, and worker-firm matches, and apply it to longitudinal linked data on employers and employees. Workers vary in their marginal product when employed and their value of leisure when unemployed. Firms vary in their marginal product and cost of maintaining a vacancy. The marginal product of a worker-firm match depends on worker and firm marginal productivities, as well as a match-specific interaction between worker and firm that I call match quality. Agents have complete information about worker and firm heterogeneity, and symmetric but incomplete information about match quality. They learn its value slowly by observing production outcomes. There are two key results. First, under a Nash bargain, the equilibrium wage is linear in a person-specific component, a firm-specific component, and the posterior mean of beliefs about match quality. Second, the optimal separation policy is of the reservation wage type. Specifically, the match persists as long as the posterior mean of beliefs about match quality remains above a threshold value. I show the reservation level of beliefs is linear in person and firm specific components, and monotone in tenure. These theoretical results have several implications for an empirical model of earnings with person and firm effects. The first result implies that residuals within a worker-firm match are a martingale; the second result implies the distribution of earnings is truncated. I test predictions from the matching model using data from the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Program at the US Census Bureau. I present both fixed and mixed model specifications of the equilibrium wage function, taking account of structural aspects implied by the learning process. In the most general specification, earnings residuals have a completely unstructured covariance within a worker-firm match. I estimate and test a variety of more parsimonious error structures, including the martingale hypothesis implied by the learning process. I find considerable support for the matching model in these data.
Beyond Core Knowledge: Natural Geometry

For many centuries, philosophers and scientists have pondered the origins and nature of human intuitions about the properties of points, lines, and figures on the Euclidean plane, with most hypothesizing that a system of Euclidean concepts either is innate or is assembled by general learning processes. Recent research from cognitive and developmental psychology, cognitive anthropology, animal cognition, and cognitive neuroscience suggests a different view. Knowledge of geometry may be founded on at least two distinct, evolutionarily ancient, core cognitive systems for representing the shapes of large-scale, navigable surface layouts and of small-scale, movable forms and objects. Each of these systems applies to some but not all perceptible arrays and captures some but not all of the three fundamental Euclidean relationships of distance (or length), angle, and direction (or sense). Like natural number (Carey, 2009), Euclidean geometry may be constructed through the productive combination of representations from these core systems, through the use of uniquely human symbolic systems.
Is Marijuana a Gateway Drug

Although many cocaine users initiated marijuana prior to cocaine, no formal evidence exists that marijuana consumption causes, or is a gateway to, cocaine consumption. This paper employs a two-stage instrumental variable procedure to estimate a structural effect of past marijuana demand on current cocaine demand using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Extensive specification testing verifies that the instruments for marijuana demand, consisting of two state-level marijuana penalty variables, the state beer tax and an indicator of parental alcoholism, have sufficient explanatory power for marijuana demand and have no separate impact on cocaine demand. Results provide strong support for the gateway hypothesis, indicating that marijuana use in 1984 increases the probability of cocaine use in 1988 by 29 percentage points for respondents who have never used cocaine by 1984. The implication is that cocaine use can be more effectively deterred by redirecting some enforcement resources from cocaine to marijuana.
The Changing Role of the Exchange Rate in a Globalised Economy

In addition to its direct effects on the global trading and production structure, the ongoing process of globalisation may have important implications for the interaction of exchange rates and the overall economy. This paper presents evidence regarding possible changes in the role of exchange rates in a more globalised economy. First, it analyses the link between exchange rates and prices, showing that there is at most a moderate decline in exchange rate pass-through for the euro area. Next, it turns to the effect of exchange rate changes on trade flows. The findings indicate that the responsiveness of euro area exports to exchange rate changes may have declined somewhat as a result of globalisation, reflecting mainly shifts in the geographical and sectoral composition of trade flows. The paper also provides a firm-level analysis of the impact of exchange rate changes on corporate profits, which suggests that overall this relationship appears to be relatively stable over time, although there are important crosscountry differences. In addition, it studies the overall impact of exchange rates on GDP and the potential role of valuation effects as a transmission channel in the case of the euro area. JEL Classification: E3, F15, F31.