Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A people's Entente Cordiale? The role of implicit attitude in the relationship between English-French contact, levels of categorization, and explicit intergroup attitudes

The Common Ingroup Identity Model (CIIM) holds that four levels of categorization (the interpersonal, intergroup, and particularly, superordinate group, and dual identity levels) mediate the intergroup contact-bias relationship. CIIM was tested in an Anglo-French intergroup context with explicit and implicit (IAT) measures of prejudice. Results showed that the intergroup level partially mediated an increase in bias and all other levels partially mediated a reduction in bias. Implicit attitude moderated three effects of contact and levels of categorization on intergroup anxiety. Contact, superordinate and dual identity levels of categorization were associated with reduced anxiety when implicit bias was high, but not when it was low.
Validation of coastal sea and lake surface temperature measurements derived from NOAA/AVHRR data

An interactive validation monitoring system is being used at the NOAA/NESDIS to validate the sea surface temperature (SST) derived from the NOAA-12 and NOAA-14 polar orbiting satellite AVHRR sensors for the NOAA CoastWatch program. In 1997, we validated the SST in coastal regions of the Gulf of Mexico, Southeast US and Northeast US and the lake surface temperatures in the Great Lakes every other month. The in situ
Sex-Related Discordance Between Aortic Valve Calcification and Hemodynamic Severity of Aortic Stenosis: Is Valvular Fibrosis the Explanation?

Rationale: Calcific aortic stenosis (AS) is characterized by calcium deposition in valve leaflets. However, women present lower aortic valve calcification loads than men for the same AS hemodynamic severity. Objective: We, thus, aimed to assess sex differences in aortic valve fibrocalcific remodeling. Methods and Results: One hundred and twenty-five patients underwent Doppler echocardiography and multidetector computed tomography within 3 months before aortic valve replacement. Explanted stenotic tricuspid aortic valves were weighed, and fibrosis degree was determined. Sixty-four men and 39 women were frequency matched for age, body mass index, hypertension, renal disease, diabetes mellitus, and AS severity. Mean age (75±9 years), mean gradient (41±18 mm Hg), and indexed aortic valve area (0.41±0.12 cm2/m2) were similar between men and women (all P≥0.18). Median aortic valve calcification (1973 [1124–3490] Agatston units) and mean valve weight (2.36±0.99 g) were lower in women compared with men (both P<0.0001). Aortic valve calcification density correlated better with valve weight in men (r2=0.57; P<0.0001) than in women (r2=0.26; P=0.0008). After adjustment for age, body mass index, aortic valve calcification density, and aortic annulus diameter, female sex was an independent risk factor for higher fibrosis score in AS valves (P=0.003). Picrosirius red staining of explanted valves showed greater amount of collagen fibers (P=0.01), and Masson trichrome staining revealed a greater proportion of dense connective tissue (P=0.02) in women compared with men. Conclusions: In this series of patients with tricuspid aortic valve and similar AS severity, women have less valvular calcification but more fibrosis compared with men. These findings suggest that the pathophysiology of AS and thus potential targets for drug development may be different according to sex.
Using Intraday Data to Gauge Financial Market Responses to Federal Reserve and ECB Monetary Policy Decisions

This paper examines bond and stock market volatility reactions in the euro area and the United States following their respective economies’ monetary policy decisions, over a uniform sample period (April 1999–May 2006). For this purpose, intraday data on the U.S. and euro-area bond and stock markets are used. A strong upsurge in intraday volatility at the time of the release of the monetary policy decisions by the two central banks is found, which is more pronounced for the U.S. financial markets following Federal Reserve monetary policy decisions. Part of the increase in intraday volatility in the two economies surrounding monetary policy decisions can be explained by both news of the level of monetary policy and revisions in the expected future monetary policy path. The observed strong discrepancy between asset-price reactions in the United States and in the euro area following monetary policy decisions still remains a puzzle, although some tentative explanations are provided in the paper.
Separating physical and meteorological controls of variable transit times in zero‐order catchments

We observed water fluxes and isotopic compositions within the subsurface of six small nested zero‐order catchments over the course of three North American monsoon seasons and found that mean transit times (mTTs) were variable between seasons and different spatial patterns of mTTs emerged each year. For each monsoon season, it was possible to correlate mTTs with a different physical catchment property. In 2007, mTTs correlated best with mean soil depth, in 2008 soil hydraulic conductivity gained importance in explaining the variability and in 2009 planform curvature showed the best correlation. Differences in meteorological forcing between the three monsoon seasons explained the temporal variability of mTTs. In 2007, a series of precipitation events caused the storage capacity of the soils of some of the zero‐order catchments to be exceeded. As a result those catchments started producing quick runoff (overland and macropore flow). In 2008, precipitation events were more evenly distributed throughout the season, soils did not saturate, runoff coefficients decreased because more water left the catchment via evapotranspiration and soil hydraulic conductivity became a stronger control since matrix flow dominated. The 2009 monsoon was unusually dry, the soil storage became depleted and water flowed mainly through bedrock pathways. Therefore, topographic parameters gained importance in determining how quickly water arrived at the catchment outlet. In order to improve our understanding of what controls mTTs we suggest a dimensionless number that helps identifying partitioning thresholds and sorts precipitation events into one of the three response modes that were observed in our zero‐order catchments.
Analysing Contemporary Metropolitan Spatial Plans in Europe Through Their Institutional Context, Instrumental Content and Planning Process

Abstract This article sets out to propose and apply a qualitative framework for thinking about how to analyse and compare metropolitan spatial plans in a milieu of divergent spatial planning traditions and discretionary planning practices. In doing so, the article reviews and develops an understanding concerning the institutional context, instrumental content and planning processes associated with four contemporary metropolitan spatial plans in Europe, namely those of London, Copenhagen, Paris and Barcelona. Through the results of a multiple case study and a subsequent cross-comparative analysis, the article stresses that contemporary metropolitan spatial plans tend to merge the characteristics associated with project-based and strategy-based spatial plans, thus contrasting with the typical land-use character of municipal plans and the often strategic, growth-oriented pursuit of regional plans in Europe. In this sense, the metropolitan scale is treated less explicitly as a planning scale per se; rather, it tends to emerge as a “concealed” scale between municipal and regional scales and also between local and regional knowledge in planning. Moreover, the analysis suggests that while metropolitan plans seem to converge in terms of their general themes, they cannot be ultimately “typified” in view of ad hoc variations related to their institutional contexts, instrumental contents and planning processes.
Challenging the clinical utility of the 14-3-3 protein for the diagnosis of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

BACKGROUND Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a rapidly progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disorder for which there is no noninvasive and disease-specific test for premortem diagnosis. Previous studies have suggested that, in the proper clinical context, the 14-3-3 protein in cerebrospinal fluid is a reliable marker for sporadic CJD. OBJECTIVE To assess the sensitivity of the cerebrospinal fluid 14-3-3 protein test among patients with definite sporadic CJD. DESIGN AND SETTING We reviewed cases of sporadic CJD referred to our institution that were ultimately proved by pathological examination and on which cerebrospinal fluid 14-3-3 testing had been performed. PARTICIPANTS Patients with CJD referred to our institution for clinical and/or pathological evaluation (biopsy- or autopsy-confirmed diagnosis) from January 1, 1998, through July 15, 2002, and on whom 14-3-3 testing had been performed. Thirty-two such patients with definite sporadic CJD were identified. Main Outcome Measure The 14-3-3 test results, from various laboratories, in these 32 patients. RESULTS Seventeen of the 32 patients had a positive result for the 14-3-3 test, yielding a sensitivity of only 53%. A positive 14-3-3 result was significantly correlated with a shorter time between disease onset and the lumbar puncture for the 14-3-3 test. CONCLUSIONS Testing for the 14-3-3 protein is only modestly sensitive to sporadic CJD, and we caution against ruling out a diagnosis of the disease on the basis of a negative 14-3-3 result.
Do Public and Religious Schools Really Differ? Assessing the European Evidence

education—parents’ freedom to choose their children’s school—is a major topic in educational policy in many European nations.1 In Europe as in the United States, parental choice in educational systems often is advocated as a means to introduce competition for pupils between schools and to decrease the level of bureaucracy in and related to schools, thereby improving the quality of teaching and perhaps reducing the cost of education.2 One common assumption of advocates of publicly funded parental choice in the United States is that private schools—especially religious schools—are more effective than public schools. It is increasingly argued that religious, especially Catholic, schools not only provide more effective learning environments but also offer a more effective civic education. This chapter tests those assumptions by reviewing the available empirical evidence with respect to the relative effectiveness of religious schools in a number of European societies, including some already discussed, in order to make some systematic comparisons and generalizations. Several additional examples are introduced and key points in some previous chapters are briefly recapitulated in an attempt to determine what can be said—and the limits of what can be said—on the basis of the available evidence.
Homological thickness and stability of torus knots

In this paper we show that the non-alternating torus knots are homologically thick, i.e. that their Khovanov homology occupies at least three diagonals. Furthermore, we show that we can reduce the number of full twists of the torus knot without changing certain part of its homology, and consequently, we show that there exists stable homology of torus knots conjectured by Dunfield, Gukov and Rasmussen in \cite{dgr}. Since our main tool is the long exact sequence in homology, we have applied our approach in the case of the Khovanov-Rozansky ($sl(n)$) homology, and thus obtained analogous stability properties of $sl(n)$ homology of torus knots, also conjectured in \cite{dgr}.
Patient injuries in primary total hip replacement

Background and purpose — Although the results of primary total hip replacements (THRs) are generally excellent, sometimes serious complications arise. Some of these severe complications are considered to be patient injuries. We analyzed primary THR-related patient injuries in a nationwide setting. Patients and methods — We evaluated all the primary THR-related patient injury claims in Finland between 2008 and 2010. We used the original medical records and 2 nationwide registries, the Care Register for Social Welfare and Health Care and the Patient Injury Claim Register. Results — We identified 563 claims, 44% of which were compensated (n = 250). Of these 250 compensated claims, 79% were considered to be avoidable (treatment injuries) and 21% were severe unexpected infections (with a preoperative infection risk of less than 2%). The most common type of technical error was cup malposition (31%). High-volume hospitals (with an annual primary THR volume ≥ 400) had a lower patient injury rate. In lower-volume hospitals (with an annual primary THR volume of < 400), the relative risks (RRs) of patient injury for any reason, due to technical errors, or because of cup malposition were 2-fold (95% CI: 1.6–3.1), 4-fold (95% CI: 2.3–6.2), and 9-fold (95% CI: 3–28), respectively, compared to high-volume hospitals. Interpretation — Our study provides the first comprehensive nationwide data on THR-related patient injury types. Hospital volume was associated with the quality and quantity of errors detected. An annual hospital volume of ≥ 400 primary THRs was established as a protective factor against patient injuries.
Mispricing Following Public News: Overreaction for Losers, Underreaction for Winners

We document an important relation between two well-established anomalies: momentum and short-term reversal. Only stocks with negative momentum experience short-term reversal. Using Chan's (2003) news database, we show that the market appears to overreact to public news following bad past performance and underreact following strong past performance. The results are robust to using alternative methodologies. Stocks with current good news and negative momentum earn on average -9.3% annual raw returns during the subsequent month, while stocks with current good news and positive momentum earn 32.2%. The large, negative raw returns point to cognitive biases, rather than risk-based explanations, as the source of abnormal returns.
Confident prior guided level-set segmentation using adaptive external force

In this paper we propose a new level-set based image segmentation method. Our contributions lie in two aspects. Firstly, to solve initialization sensitivity of existing methods, we propose an adaptive external force. It can dynamically determine its direction according to the change of contrast between two sides of the curve during the evolving process, in contrast to balloon force in traditional snakes which either contract or expand according to initial condition. Secondly, we propose a shape matching criterion and use it to select the mostly matched template and evaluate its confidence value. We integrate these two techniques into level-set based segmentation. The resulting contours are more accurate due to the fact that large intra-class deformation and clutter has been considered in confident shape prior. We compare experimental results with other deformable models and two state-of-art models. We analyze advantages and disadvantages of our model.
User Cooperation with Punctured Turbo Codes

In wireless network transmission, a recently introduced form of spatial diversity, known as user cooperation diversity is an effective way to overcome deep fading. Cooperative users share their antennas and other resources to create a virtual array through distributed transmission and signal processing. In particular, the user cooperation technique is capable of providing sufficient diversity gain in many wireless systems where other conventional transmit diversity methods might not be practical. Recently proposed cooperative schemes rely on powerful channel codes suitable for cooperation. Here we study cooperative coding performance of punctured turbo codes for a quasi-static fading channel and a strict decoding delay constraint. Based on the threshold behavior analysis of the mother and punctured turbo codes, we derive a frame error rate (FER) upper bound for the cooperative coding scheme as a function of user-todestination SNRs, inter-user SNRs, the noise threshold of the mother turbo code, and the puncturing rate which relates the lengths of the originating and partnering users’ codeword transmissions. We show that the FER of cooperative turbo codes demonstrates the expected diversity gain for a sufficiently good inter-user channel quality.
The End of Large Current Account Deficits, 1970-2002: Are There Lessons for the United States?

The future of the U.S. current account -- and thus of the U.S. dollar -- depend on whether foreign investors will continue to add U.S. assets to their investment portfolios. However, even under optimistic scenarios, the U.S. current account deficit is likely to go through a significant reversal at some point in time. This adjustment may be as large of 4% to 5% of GDP. In order to have an idea of the possible consequences of this type of adjustment, I have analyzed the international evidence on current account reversals using both non-parametric techniques as well as panel regressions. The results from this empirical investigation indicate that major current account reversals have tended to result in large declines in GDP growth. I also analyze the large U.S. current account adjustment of 1987-1991.
Reasoning about Uncertainty in Design-to-Criteria Scheduling

Design-to-Criteria scheduling is the soft real-time proce ss of custom building a schedule to meet real-time performance go als specified by dynamic client goal criteria (including real-t ime deadlines). Problem solving tasks are represented using a t ask model that lays out alternate ways to achieve tasks and subtasks. Recent extensions to this technology has spawned a po stscheduling contingency analysis step that can be employed i n deadline critical situations where the added computationa l cost is worth the expense. This is based on the evaluation of avail able schedules that can be used to recover from a situation in whic h partially executed schedules cannot be completed successf ully. We describe how this analysis improves the schedule evaluation from the uncertainty perspective, and provide empiric al evidence to support our claims.
Extended Distributed State Estimation: A Detection Method against Tolerable False Data Injection Attacks in Smart Grids

False data injection (FDI) is considered to be one of the most dangerous cyber-attacks in smart grids, as it may lead to energy theft from end users, false dispatch in the distribution process, and device breakdown during power generation. In this paper, a novel kind of FDI attack, named tolerable false data injection (TFDI), is constructed. Such attacks exploit the traditional detector’s tolerance of observation errors to bypass the traditional bad data detection. Then, a method based on extended distributed state estimation (EDSE) is proposed to detect TFDI in smart grids. The smart grid is decomposed into several subsystems, exploiting graph partition algorithms. Each subsystem is extended outward to include the adjacent buses and tie lines, and generate the extended subsystem. The Chi-squares test is applied to detect the false data in each extended subsystem. Through decomposition, the false data stands out distinctively from normal observation errors and the detection sensitivity is increased. Extensive TFDI attack cases are simulated in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 14-, 39-, 118- and 300-bus systems. Simulation results show that the detection precision of the EDSE-based method is much higher than that of the traditional method, while the proposed method significantly reduces the associated computational costs.
The principalship : a study of prescriptions, practices and perceptions within a Christian school context.

The Principalship occupies a unique and defining position that influences the shape of schooling. It is the role of the school principal that has great significance for determining the quality of the education that students receive, and for securing the best outcomes from the educational enterprise in modern society. This portfolio of research explored a deeper understanding of the role of the principal via a three part investigation of the prescriptions, practices and perceptions of the principalship. In Section One, a study of the literature on the principalship was used to define the prescriptions, as a theoretical basis for understanding the principalship. Observation and personal journals were used in Section Two, to document and subsequently analyse 338 hours of day-to-day principalship practice, in five Christian schools. Section Three focussed on perception as a powerful dynamic in the field of social discourse, which has particular relevance for principalship interactions. Perceptions of the principalship from staff, parent, student and board members, in the five Christian schools, were analysed from a total of 840 survey responses. Previous studies, in the area of perceptions of the principalship, have undertaken to identify congruence in the various interest-group’s perceptions of the principalship. In contrast, this study examined the perceptions of the principalship in relation to principalship prescriptions in the literature and principalship practice in the field study. The analysis of data was focussed on the nature and extent of variance and congruence between the perceptions of the principalship and the prescriptions, on the one hand, and actual practices, on the other.
The Reliability of Matches in the 2002-2004 Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey Panel

Tracking households and individuals over time is important for a variety of research and policy questions. Exploring the validity of matched household and individuals within a dataset is a necessary step for ensuring the reliability of analysis designed to address such questions. This paper examines the quality of matching in the household panel between the 2002 and 2004 Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys (VHLSS). Of the original 4,476 matches suggested in the household datasets, 429 matches are found to be incorrect, almost ten percent of total matches. Revised matches are suggested for 402 of these mismatches. Two simple applications illustrate the potential problems associated with analysis conducted using a poorly matched panel. The original panel overestimates the frequency of changes in household size. It also leads to biased estimates of per capita consumption growth, as it overestimates growth for poor households and underestimates growth for rich households.
Kauffman School Evaluation Long-Term Outcomes Report: Year 2

The Kauffman School is a charter school in Kansas City, Missouri that opened in 2011 to serve middle and high school students from the cityâ€™s most economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. This report evaluates the effectiveness of the School at improving student achievement, attendance, and discipline outcomes during its first two years of operation.