Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Convergence across States and Regions

A key economic issue is whether poor countries or regions tend to grow faster than rich ones: are there automatic forces that lead to convergence over time in the levels of per capita income and product? The authors use the neoclassical growth model as a framework to study convergence across the forty-eight contiguous U.S. states. They exploit data on personal income since 1840 and on gross state product since 1963. The U.S. states provide clear evidence of convergence, but the findings can be reconciled quantitatively with the neoclassical model only if diminishing returns to capital set in very slowly. Copyright 1992 by University of Chicago Press. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
Emotion regulation in depression: Relation to cognitive inhibition

Depression is a disorder of impaired emotion regulation. Consequently, examining individual differences in the habitual use of emotion-regulation strategies has considerable potential to inform models of this debilitating disorder. The aim of the current study was to identify cognitive processes that may be associated with the use of emotion-regulation strategies and to elucidate their relation to depression. Depression has been found to be associated with difficulties in cognitive control and, more specifically, with difficulties inhibiting the processing of negative material. We used a negative affective priming task to assess the relations among inhibition and individual differences in the habitual use of rumination, reappraisal, and expressive suppression in clinically depressed, formerly depressed, and never-depressed participants. We found that depressed participants exhibited the predicted lack of inhibition when processing negative material. Moreover, within the group of depressed participants, reduced inhibition of negative material was associated with greater rumination. Across the entire sample, reduced inhibition of negative material was related to less use of reappraisal and more use of expressive suppression. Finally, within the formerly depressed group, less use of reappraisal, more use of rumination, and greater expressive suppression were related to higher levels of depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that individual differences in the use of emotion-regulation strategies play an important role in depression, and that deficits in cognitive control are related to the use of maladaptive emotion-regulation strategies in this disorder.
Four Essays on the Economics of Social Programs

This dissertation consists of four essays focusing on specific aspects of social program design, including eligibility criteria, benefit levels, and financing. By considering the effects of these program features on labor supply, other program use, and spending, these essays aim to quantify potential costs and benefits of social policies. The first chapter, “Should UI Eligibility Be Expanded to Low-Earning Workers? Evidence on Employment, Transfer Receipt, and Income from Administrative Data,” co-authored with Christopher O’Leary, examines the impact of unemployment insurance (UI) eligibility on workers’ incomes after job loss. Using administrative data from Michigan, we find that while UI eligibility increases jobless durations by up to 25 percent and temporarily lowers cash assistance receipt by 63 percent, it increases income by 46-61 percent on net immediately following layoff. The second chapter, “The Effect of Unemployment Benefits on the Duration of Unemployment Insurance Receipt: New Evidence from a Regression Kink Design in Missouri, 2003-2013,” coauthored with David Card, Andrew Johnston, Alex Mas, and Zhuan Pei, considers the effect of UI benefit levels on UI durations. By exploiting quasi-experimental variation generated by a kinked benefit schedule, we find that durations are more responsive to benefit levels during and following the recession, with an elasticity of 0.65-0.9 as compared to 0.35 pre-recession. The third chapter, “Employment Effects of the ACA Medicaid Expansions,” co-authored with Alex Mas, examines whether the recent Medicaid expansions from the Affordable Care Act reduced employment lock among previously ineligible childless adults. By comparing states that did or did not choose to expand Medicaid, before and after implementation, we find that although Medicaid coverage increased by 3.0 percentage points among childless adults, there was no significant impact on employment. The fourth chapter, “State Responses to Federal Matching Grants: The Case of Medicaid,” studies the effect of federal matching payments on state Medicaid expenditures. Using variation in the state’s share of Medicaid costs generated by an expenditure cap, I estimate a price elasticity
A transformation method for the reconstruction of functions from nonuniformly spaced samples

The reconstruction of functions from their samples at nonuniformly distributed locations is an important task for many applications. This paper presents a sampling theory which extends the uniform sampling theory of Whittaker et al. [11] to include nonuniform sample distributions. This extension is similar to the analysis of Papoulis [15], who considered reconstructions of functions that had been sampled at positions deviating slightly from a uniform sequence. Instead of treating the sample sequence as deviating from a uniform sequence, we show that a more general result can be obtained by treating the sample sequence as the result of applying a coordinate transformation to the uniform sequence. It is shown that the class of functions reconstructible in this manner generally include nonband-limited functions. The two-dimensional uniform sampling theory of Petersen and Middle ton [16] can be similarly extended as is shown in this paper. A practical algorithm for performing reconstructions of two-dimensional functions from nonuniformly spaced samples is described, as well as examples illustrating the performance of the algorithm.
PGC-1&agr; Induces SPP1 to Activate Macrophages and Orchestrate Functional Angiogenesis in Skeletal Muscle

Rationale: Mechanisms of angiogenesis in skeletal muscle remain poorly understood. Efforts to induce physiological angiogenesis hold promise for the treatment of diabetic microvascular disease and peripheral artery disease but are hindered by the complexity of physiological angiogenesis and by the poor angiogenic response of aged and patients with diabetes mellitus. To date, the best therapy for diabetic vascular disease remains exercise, often a challenging option for patients with leg pain. Peroxisome proliferation activator receptor-&ggr; coactivator-1&agr; (PGC-1&agr;), a powerful regulator of metabolism, mediates exercise-induced angiogenesis in skeletal muscle. Objective: To test whether, and how, PGC-1&agr; can induce functional angiogenesis in adult skeletal muscle. Methods and Results: Here, we show that muscle PGC-1&agr; robustly induces functional angiogenesis in adult, aged, and diabetic mice. The process involves the orchestration of numerous cell types and leads to patent, nonleaky, properly organized, and functional nascent vessels. These findings contrast sharply with the disorganized vasculature elicited by induction of vascular endothelial growth factor alone. Bioinformatic analyses revealed that PGC-1&agr; induces the secretion of secreted phosphoprotein 1 and the recruitment of macrophages. Secreted phosphoprotein 1 stimulates macrophages to secrete monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, which then activates adjacent endothelial cells, pericytes, and smooth muscle cells. In contrast, induction of PGC-1&agr; in secreted phosphoprotein 1−/− mice leads to immature capillarization and blunted arteriolarization. Finally, adenoviral delivery of PGC-1&agr; into skeletal muscle of either young or old and diabetic mice improved the recovery of blood flow in the murine hindlimb ischemia model of peripheral artery disease. Conclusions: PGC-1&agr; drives functional angiogenesis in skeletal muscle and likely recapitulates the complex physiological angiogenesis elicited by exercise.
Improving Receiver Performance of Diffusive Molecular Communication With Enzymes

This paper studies the mitigation of intersymbol interference in a diffusive molecular communication system using enzymes that freely diffuse in the propagation environment. The enzymes form reaction intermediates with information molecules and then degrade them so that they cannot interfere with future transmissions. A lower bound expression on the expected number of molecules measured at the receiver is derived. A simple binary receiver detection scheme is proposed where the number of observed molecules is sampled at the time when the maximum number of molecules is expected. Insight is also provided into the selection of an appropriate bit interval. The expected bit error probability is derived as a function of the current and all previously transmitted bits. Simulation results show the accuracy of the bit error probability expression and the improvement in communication performance by having active enzymes present.
Security Forces, Electoral Conduct and the 2003 General Elections in Nigeria

Abstract Leadership succession in Nigeria has before the 2003 elections, assumed a problematic status. This is so because earlier attempts, particularly transition from civilian to civilian ruler-ship, had often resulted in serious national political crisis. The 2003 elections seem to have destroyed the myth associated with such transitional projects. While the 2003 transition might have been seen as successful, opposition political parties, international poll observers, pro-democracy non-governmental organizations and critical analysts have adjudged the elections as lacking in electoral transparency and fairness, and therefore, not devoid of malpractice. Accusing fingers have been pointed to, and aspersions cast at, the security forces especially the police, and the military, which were allegedly ready-made state machinery for perpetuating electoral frauds. The paper intends to investigate the collaborative role of the security forces in allegedly rigging the 2003 elections in favour of the incumbent ruling party. In addition, the paper shall interrogate the expected role of security forces in sustaining and consolidating Nigeria’s nascent democracy.
Archaea in Organic-Lean and Organic-Rich Marine Subsurface Sediments: An Environmental Gradient Reflected in Distinct Phylogenetic Lineages

Examining the patterns of archaeal diversity in little-explored organic-lean marine subsurface sediments presents an opportunity to study the association of phylogenetic affiliation and habitat preference in uncultured marine Archaea. Here we have compiled and re-analyzed published archaeal 16S rRNA clone library datasets across a spectrum of sediment trophic states characterized by a wide range of terminal electron-accepting processes. Our results show that organic-lean marine sediments in deep marine basins and oligotrophic open ocean locations are inhabited by distinct lineages of archaea that are not found in the more frequently studied, organic-rich continental margin sediments. We hypothesize that different combinations of electron donor and acceptor concentrations along the organic-rich/organic-lean spectrum result in distinct archaeal communities, and propose an integrated classification of habitat characteristics and archaeal community structure.
Building spiritual sensitivity through an online spirituality course

ABSTRACT The National Association of Social Workers and Council on Social Work Education define cultural competence and acknowledge the role of spirituality within cultural experiences. Both describe cultural competence as a linear experience that begins with awareness and sensitivity, leading to competence. Understanding the role of spiritual sensitivity in building spiritual competence is essential in social work practice where spirituality informs both assessment and intervention. This qualitative study examines the experiences of 37 undergraduate students in an online spirituality course. Results reveal the emergence of spiritual sensitivity indicated by an awareness of spiritual diversity and need for spiritual competence.
Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow? Revisiting Eric Raymond with bug bounty programs

Bug bounty programs offer a modern platform for organizations to crowdsource their software security and for security researchers to be fairly rewarded for the vulnerabilities they find. Little is known however on the incentives set by bug bounty programs: How they drive new bug discoveries, and how they supposedly improve security through the progressive exhaustion of discoverable vulnerabilities. Here, we recognize that bug bounty programs create tensions, for organizations running them on the one hand, and for security researchers on the other hand. At the level of one bug bounty program, security researchers face a sort of St-Petersburg paradox: The probability of finding additional bugs decays fast, and thus can hardly be matched with a sufficient increase of monetary rewards. Furthermore, bug bounty program managers have an incentive to gather the largest possible crowd to ensure a larger pool of expertise, which in turn increases competition among security researchers. As a result, we find that researchers have high incentives to switch to newly launched programs, for which a reserve of low-hanging fruit vulnerabilities is still available. Our results inform on the technical and economic mechanisms underlying the dynamics of bug bounty program contributions, and may in turn help improve the mechanism design of bug bounty programs that get increasingly adopted by cybersecurity savvy organizations.
An Adaptive Bayesian Approach to Fusion of Imaging and Kinematic Data

The primary goal of this paper is to develop an approach to fusion of two streams of data – imaging and kinematic – for optimization of target identification. Specifically, we focus on the fusion of rangeprofile data (obtained from a high range resolution sensor) and kinematic information for observation-to-track assignment and target recognition. A more reliable target identification is possible due to the strong correlation between kinematic characteristics and range profile. Indeed, the range profile signal depends on the range to the target and its aspect angle, while the latter is related to the target velocity (via Euler’s equation), thus yielding a strong correlation of both types of data with the aspect angle. Effective estimation of the aspect angle is therefore the key to successful target identification. The dynamics of the aspect angle is modeled by a Markov process with a switching parameter. The latter parameter describes transitions from one target maneuver to another. In this model the state process and the observation are nonlinear. This rules out application of standard methods of estimation based on Kalman filter and necessitates the use of a nonlinear filtering algorithm. The crucial part of the fusion and identification algorithm is the fully coupled optimal nonlinear filter for the aspect angle. This filter allows us to compute recursively joint unnormalized posterior distributions of the target class and aspect angle. Then specially designed adaptive sequential multihypothesis classification procedures, which exploit the optimal nonlinear estimates of the aspect angle for all classes, are used to identify targets of interest.
Discourse-level Annotation over Europarl for Machine Translation: Connectives and Pronouns

This paper describes methods and results for the annotation of two discourse-level phenomena, connectives and pronouns, over a multilingual parallel corpus. Excerpts from Europarl in English and French have been annotated with disambiguation information for connectives and pronouns, for about 3600 tokens. This data is then used in several ways: for cross-linguistic studies, for training automatic disambiguation software, and ultimately for training and testing discourse-aware statistical machine translation systems. The paper presents the annotation procedures and their results in detail, and overviews the first systems trained on the annotated resources and their use for machine translation.
When intended remembering leads to unintended forgetting

As a means of clarifying the memory dynamics that underlie retrieval-induced forgetting, we explored how instructing participants either to remember or to forget a previously presented list of items influences the susceptibility of those items to inhibition. According to the inhibitory account of retrieval-induced forgetting, it is the items that interfere most with retrieval practice that should be the most susceptible to the effects of inhibition. Consistent with this prediction, items from lists that participants were told to remember suffered from significantly more retrieval-induced forgetting than did items from lists that participants were told to forget.
Combining tissue segmentation and neural network for brain tumor detection

The decisive plan in a large number of image processing applications is to take out the significant features from image data, in which a description, interpretation, or understanding of the scene can be provided by the machine. The segmentation of brain tumor from Magnetic Resonance (MR) images is a vital, but time(consuming task performed by medical experts. In this paper, we have presented an effective brain tumor detection technique based on Neural Network (NN) and our previously designed brain tissue segmentation. This technique hits the target with the aid of the following major steps, which includes: Pre(processing of the brain images., segmentation of pathological tissues (Tumor), normal tissues (White Matter (WM) and Gray Matter (GM)) and fluid (Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF)), extraction of the relevant features from each segmented tissues and classification of the tumor images with NN. As well, the experimental results and analysis is evaluated by means of Quality Rate (QR) with normal and the abnormal Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) images. The performance of the proposed technique is been validated and compared with the standard evaluation metrics such as sensitivity, specificity and accuracy values for NN, K(NN classification and bayesian classification techniques. The obtained results depicts that the classification results yields better results in NNs when compared with the other techniques.
A disaggregate approach to economic models of voting in U.S. presidential elections: forecasts of the 2008 election

By examining disaggregate state-level data, we address two weaknesses of prior estimates of economic voting models in U.S. Presidential elections. First, our disaggregate approach substantially improves statistical power, thus reducing the danger of “over- fitting. ” Second, our analysis demonstrates systematic differences in voting behavior across states, which have been ignored: voters in higher-income states respond significantly to inflation, changes in the Dow-Jones stock market average, the number of terms the incumbent party has held office, and measures of national security concerns, yet voters in lower-income states respond significantly only to economic growth. Our forecasts for the 2008 U.S. Presidential election predict a statistical dead-heat overall, but a systematic preference for Senator John McCain in lower-income states and for Senator Barack Obama in higher-income states.
Moderation and the primary school context

ABSTRACT This study presents an examination of the enactment of moderation in a Scottish primary school. The study investigated how an individual school made sense of moderation. Documentary evidence was gathered providing an in-depth understanding of both moderation and the wider context of the school. Audio recordings of three moderation meetings provided data on moderation enactment. Unstructured, semi-structured and focus group interviews captured the views of all participants involved in moderation. Moderation was viewed positively, understood as a social process enhancing collegiality and curriculum improvement. Finally, a typology for moderation is proposed.
What Are the Most Important Factors for Accounting Information Quality and Their Impact on AIS Data Quality Outcomes?

The accounting information system (AIS) is one of the most critical systems in any organization. Data quality plays a critical role in a data-intensive, knowledge-based economy. The objective of this study is to identify the most important factors for accounting information quality and their impact on AIS data quality outcomes. The article includes an extensive literature review and summarizes studies in quality management, data quality, accounting information systems, and enterprise planning in helping to identify a set of critical success factors for data quality. The study uses empirical data to answer the research question and test the research hypothesis. Study results show that the top three most important factors that affect accounting information systems’ data quality are top management commitment, the nature of the accounting information systems (such as the suitability of the systems), and input controls. The article further uses regression analysis to test the effect of those factors on AIS data quality, finding that there is a significant positive relationship between the perceived performance of the three most important factors and perceived AIS data quality outcomes.
Aging and suppression: memory for previously relevant information.

In the 1st part of the experiment, older and younger adults read a series of high-cloze sentence frames, each missing its final word (e.g., "She ladled the soup into her____."). Subjects were instructed to predict the ending for each. For critical sentences, the predicted final word (bowl) was not shown. Instead, an unexpected but acceptable ending (lap) was provided as the target. On a subsequent indirect memory test in which subjects generated endings to medium-cloze sentences, older adults showed reliable retention of both the disconfirmed (bowl) and target (lap) endings. Younger adults showed retention of only the targets. Results are consistent with the Hasher and Zacks (1988) view that the impaired inhibitory mechanisms of older adults impede the abandonment of no-longer-relevant thoughts.
The rank and generators of Kihara's elliptic curve with torsion $\mathbb{Z}/4\mathbb{Z}$ over $\mathbb{Q}(t)$

For the elliptic curve $E$ over $\mathbb{Q}(t)$ found by Kihara, with torsion group $\mathbb{Z}/4\mathbb{Z}$ and rank $\geq 5$, which is the current record for the rank of such curves, by using a suitable injective specialization, we determine exactly the rank and generators of $E(\mathbb{Q}(t))$.