Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biological Parenthood: Gestational, Not Genetic

ABSTRACT Common-sense morality and legislations around the world ascribe normative relevance to biological connections between parents and children. Procreators who meet a modest standard of parental competence are believed to have a right to rear the children whom they brought into the world. I explore various attempts to justify this belief, and find most of these attempts lacking. I distinguish between two kinds of biological connection between parents and children: the genetic link and the gestational link. I argue that the second can better justify a right to rear.
Bootstrapping opportunistic networks using social roles

Opportunistic routing protocols can enable message delivery in disconnected networks of mobile devices. To conserve energy in mobile environments, such routing protocols must minimise unnecessary message-forwarding. This paper presents an opportunistic routing protocol that leverages social role information. We compute node roles from a social network graph to identify nodes with similar contact relationships, and use these roles to determine routing decisions. By using pre-existing social network information, such as online social network friends, to determine roles, we show that our protocol can bootstrap a new opportunistic network without the delay incurred by encounter-history-based routing protocols such as SimbetTS. Simulations with four real-world datasets show improved performance over SimbetTS, with performance approaching Epidemic routing in some scenarios.
Rotational Line Emission from Water in Protoplanetary Disks

Circumstellar disks provide the material reservoir for the growth of young stars and for planet formation. We combine a high-level radiative transfer program with a thermal-chemical model of a typical T Tauri star disk to investigate the diagnostic potential of the far-infrared lines of water for probing disk structure. We discuss the observability of pure rotational H2O lines with the Herschel Space Observatory, specifically the residual gas where water is mainly frozen out. We find that measuring both the line profile of the ground 110–101 ortho-H2O transition and the ratio of this line to the 312–303 and 221–212 lines can provide information on the gas-phase water between 5 and 100 AU, but not on the snow line which is expected to occur at smaller radii.
Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation of Coordination by Airline Operations Control

This paper implements and compares four coordination policies through agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS), motivated by the need to understand and further optimize coordination processes in the highly complex socio-technical air transportation system. Three policies are based on established practices, whereas a fourth is based on the joint activity coordination theory from the psychology research domain. For each of these four policies, the relation with the literature on coordination is identified. The specific application of the four policies concerns airline operations control (AOC), which core's functionality is one of coordination and taking corrective actions in response to a large variety of airline operational disruptions. In order to evaluate the four policies, an agent-based model of the AOC and crew processes has been developed. Subsequently, this agent-based model is used to assess the effects of the four AOC policies on a challenging airline disruption scenario. For the specific scenario considered, the joint-activity coordination-based AOC policy outperforms the other three policies. More importantly, the simulation results provide novel insight in the operational effects of each of the four AOC policies, which demonstrate that the ABMS allows to analyze the effectiveness of different coordination policies in the complex socio-technical air transportation system.
Fixed Point vs. First-Order Logic on Finite Ordered Structures with Unary Relations

Abstract We prove that first order logic is strictly weaker than fixed point logic over every infinite classes of finite ordered structures with additional unary relations: Over these classes there is always an inductive unary relation which cannot be defined by a first-order formula, even when every inductive sentence (i.e., closed formula) can be expressed in first-order over this particular class. Our proof first establishes a property valid for every unary relation definable by first-order logic over these classes which is peculiar to classes of ordered structures with unary relations. In a second step we show that this property itself can be expressed in fixed point logic and can be used to construct a non-elementary unary relation.
“We are often invisible”: A survey on safe space for LGBTQ students in secondary school choral programs

This article presents data from a large-scale cross-sectional survey of LGBTQ college students (N = 1,123) reflecting on their middle and high school experiences in choral music. The quantitative data indicate that students felt safer in high school than in middle school and that a small majority of high school teachers voiced support for LGBTQ students. These data indicate that high school choral classrooms were perceived as safe for a majority of respondents. The open-ended responses highlight themes including: the plight of transgender students who faced difficulty navigating their gender identities in the choral environment, the importance of enumerated non-discrimination policies, and the importance of words/semantics. Respondents discussed helpful and hurtful words and/or policies that influenced their choral experiences. A main theme was encouragement of open acknowledgement of LGBTQ identities and issues in the choral classroom. Suggestions for teaching practice and policy are provided based upon these data.
Current Status of Gil-Vernet Trigonoplasty Technique

Significant controversy exists regarding vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) management, due to lack of sufficient prospective studies. The rationale for surgical management is that VUR can cause recurrent episodes of pyelonephritis and long-term renal damage. Several surgical techniques have been introduced during the past decades. Open anti-reflux operations have high success rate, exceeding 95%, and long durability. The goal of this article is to review the Gil-Vernet trigonoplasty technique, which is a simple and highly successful technique but has not gained the attention it deserves. The mainstay of this technique is approximation of medial aspects of ureteral orifices to midline by one mattress suture. A unique advantage of Gil-Vernet trigonoplasty is its bilateral nature, which results in prevention from contralateral new reflux. Regarding not altering the normal course of the ureter in Gil-Vernet procedure, later catheterization of and retrograde access to the ureter can be performed normally. There is no report of ureterovesical junction obstruction following Gil-Vernet procedure. Gil-Vernet trigonoplasty can be performed without inserting a bladder catheter and drain on an outpatient setting. Several exclusive advantages of Gil-Vernet trigonoplasty make it necessary to reconsider the technique role in VUR management.
Life cycle impacts of forest management and wood utilization on carbon mitigation: knowns and unknowns

This review on research on life cycle carbon accounting examines the complexities in accounting for carbon emissions given the many different ways that wood is used. Recent objectives to increase the use of renewable fuels have raised policy questions, with respect to the sustainability of managing our forests as well as the impacts of how best to use wood from our forests. There has been general support for the benefits of sustainably managing forests for carbon mitigation as expressed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. However, there are many integrated carbon pools involved, which have led to conflicting implications for best practices and policy. In particular, sustainable management of forests for products produces substantially different impacts than a focus on a single stand or on specific carbon pools with each contributing to different policy implications. In this article, we review many recent research findings on carbon impacts across all stages of processing from cradle-to-grave, based on life cycle accounting, which is necessary to understand the carbon interactions across many different carbon pools. The focus is on where findings are robust and where uncertainties may be large enough to question key assumptions that impact carbon in the forest and its many uses. Many opportunities for reducing carbon emissions are identified along with unintended consequences of proposed policies.
Digital nomads – a quest for holistic freedom in work and leisure

ABSTRACT Digital nomads are portrayed as young professionals working solely in an online environment while leading a location independent and often travel reliant lifestyle where the boundaries between work, leisure and travel appear blurred. This paper aims to conceptualize the digital nomad phenomenon by establishing a definition of digital nomads. Further, it explores their motivations for adapting this lifestyle and how these are addressed in practice, and examines how work, leisure and travel are interpreted. Digital nomads aim to create a holistic lifestyle characterized by comprehensive freedom where both areas of life are regarded as equally enjoyable and do so through professional, spatial and personal freedom. Ideally, digital nomads perceive work not as an imposed obligation but regard it – much as their leisure activities – as intrinsically motivated and fulfilling. Although crucial for a positive perception of this lifestyle, travel comes with personal challenges that are considered a different type of work.
Persistent and transient Helicobacter pylori infections in early childhood.

BACKGROUND Helicobacter pylori, the main cause of peptic ulcer disease and gastric cancer in adult populations, is generally acquired during the first years of life. Infection can be persistent or transient and bacterial and host factors determining persistence are largely unknown and may prove relevant for future disease. METHODS Two cohorts of healthy Chilean infants (313 total) were evaluated every 3 months for 18-57 months to determine pathogen- and host-factors associated with persistent and transient infection. RESULTS One-third had at least one positive stool ELISA by age 3, with 20% overall persistence. Persistent infections were acquired at an earlier age, associated with more household members, decreased duration of breastfeeding, and nonsecretor status compared to transient infections. The cagA positive strains were more common in persistent stools, and nearly 60% of fully characterized persistent stool samples amplified cagA/vacAs1m1. Persistent children were more likely to elicit a serologic immune response, and both infection groups had differential gene expression profiles, including genes associated with cancer suppression when compared to healthy controls. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that persistent H. pylori infections acquired early in life are associated with specific host and/or strain profiles possibly associated with future disease occurrence.
A change in the outburst recurrence time of the Rapid Burster

An apparent sudden change in the outburst recurrence time displayed by the Rapid Burster occurred around the end of 1999. The time between consecutive outbursts shrinked from 200 to 100 days somewhere between November 1999 and March 2000. In parallel, the average peak intensity also decreased of a factor ∼2 in all outbursts occurred after November 1999 with respect to those occurred before this date. I discuss these results by comparing them with similar cases of changes in the recurrence time of other transient X-ray binaries and with the behaviour of Dwarf Novae. A viable explanation is connected with changes in the value of the quiescence mass transfer rate from the secondary, although the detailed origin of these changes remains at best speculative. Further, this result has important implications for programming time-constrained observations of the Rapid Burster both in outburst and in quiescence.
Dominant negative effect of cytoplasmic actin isoproteins on cardiomyocyte cytoarchitecture and function

The intracompartmental sorting and functional consequences of ectopic expression of the six vertebrate actin isoforms was investigated in different types of cultured cells. In transfected fibroblasts all isoactin species associated with the endogenous microfilament cytoskeleton, even though cytoplasmic actins also showed partial localization to peripheral submembranous sites. Functional and structural studies were performed in neonatal and adult rat cardiomyocytes. All the muscle isoactin constructs sorted preferentially to sarcomeric sites and, to a lesser extent, also to stress-fiber-like structures. The expression of muscle actins did not interfere with cell contractility, and did not disturb the localization of endogenous sarcomeric proteins. In sharp contrast, ectopic expression of the two cytoplasmic actin isoforms resulted in rapid cessation of cellular contractions and induced severe morphological alterations characterized by an exceptional outgrowth of filopodia and cell flattening. Quantitative analysis in neonatal cardiomyocytes indicated that the levels of accumulation of the different isoactins are very similar and cannot be responsible for the observed isoproteins- specific effects. Structural analysis revealed a remodeling of the cytoarchitecture including a specific alteration of sarcomeric organization; proteins constituting the sarcomeric thin filaments relocated to nonmyofibrillar sites while thick filaments and titin remained unaffected. Experiments with chimeric proteins strongly suggest that isoform specific residues in the carboxy-terminal portion of the cytoplasmic actins are responsible for the dominant negative effects on function and morphology.
Laminin promotes neuritic regeneration from cultured peripheral and central neurons

The ability of axons to grow through tissue in vivo during development or regeneration may be regulated by the availability of specific neurite-promoting macromolecules located within the extracellular matrix. We have used tissue culture methods to examine the relative ability of various extracellular matrix components to elicit neurite outgrowth from dissociated chick embryo parasympathetic (ciliary ganglion) neurons in serum-free monolayer culture. Purified laminin from both mouse and rat sources, as well as a partially purified polyornithine-binding neurite promoting factor (PNPF-1) from rat Schwannoma cells all stimulate neurite production from these neurons. Laminin and PNPF-1 are also potent stimulators of neurite growth from cultured neurons obtained from other peripheral as well as central neural tissues, specifically avian sympathetic and sensory ganglia and spinal cord, optic tectum, neural retina, and telencephalon, as well as from sensory ganglia of the neonatal mouse and hippocampal, septal, and striatal tissues of the fetal rat. A quantitative in vitro bioassay method using ciliary neurons was used to (a) measure and compare the specific neurite-promoting activities of these agents, (b) confirm that during the purification of laminin, the neurite-promoting activity co- purifies with the laminin protein, and (c) compare the influences of antilaminin antibodies on the neurite-promoting activity of laminin and PNPF-1. We conclude that laminin and PNPF-1 are distinct macromolecules capable of expressing their neurite-promoting activities even when presented in nanogram amounts. This neurite-promoting bioassay currently represents the most sensitive test for the biological activity of laminin.
Procyclicality and structural trends in investment allocation by insurance companies and pension funds: A Discussion Paper by the Bank of England and the Procyclicality Working Group

Any views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and the Procyclicality Working Group and do not necessarily represent the views of the Bank of England 2 Foreword 1. In early 2013, the Bank established the Procyclicality Working Group (the membership of which is set out overleaf) to examine the question of whether, and if so why, insurance companies and pension funds invest procyclically. 2. The group defined procyclicality as follows:  First, in the short term, as the tendency to invest in a way that exacerbates market movements and contributes to asset price volatility, which can in turn contribute to asset price feedback loops. Asset price volatility has the potential to affect participants across financial markets, as well as to have longer-term macroeconomic effects; and  Second, in the medium term, as a tendency to invest in line with asset price and economic cycles, so that willingness to bear risk diminishes in periods of stress and increases in upturns. A tendency by insurance companies and pension funds to invest procyclically in the medium term might deepen the troughs and exaggerate the peaks of asset price or economic cycles in a way that is potentially detrimental to financial stability and long-term economic growth. 3. In the course of its analysis, the group also examined a number of longer-term structural issues and trends in the asset allocation behaviour of insurance companies and pension funds, going beyond procyclicality. These trends are also relevant for the willingness of insurance companies and pension funds to bear risk in the longer term, and are therefore significant for the appropriate allocation of capital in the real economy. 4. This paper sets out the results of that work. It includes analysis of some of the possible drivers of asset allocation behaviour by insurance companies and pension funds, as well as examining evidence from academic literature and a number of case studies undertaken by Bank of England staff. 5. The analysis presented here suggests that the behaviour of these investors—whether as a result of liability characteristics, regulation, accounting and valuation methodologies, or industry practices (including the tendency for similar investment strategies or 'herding')—could have important consequences for the economy as a whole. 6. The findings of this work are indicative rather than definitive, and the intention of this publication is to stimulate further research and debate in this area, rather than to present a diagnosis of, …
Physical Properties of Semiconducting/Magnetic Nanocomposites

In this review the fabrication of porous silicon/magnetic nanocomposite materials and their physical properties are elucidated. Especially the investigation of the presented systems with respect to their magnetic properties is reported. Furthermore the influence of the semiconducting matrix on the properties of the nanocomposites is highlighted. The main focus will be put on silicon used as template-material. In general the nanocomposite systems are fabricated in a two-step process, first by anodization of a silicon wafer to achieve porous silicon structures, and second by electrodeposition of a magnetic material into the pores. The morphology of the porous silicon template offers straight pores, grown perpendicular to the wafer surface. The magnetic nanostructures deposited within the pores lead to specific properties of the composite dependent on their size and shape. Due to their mutual arrangement magnetic coupling between these structures can occur whereas, coupling between adjacent pores depends on the porous silicon morphology. In a first section different types of such template/metal systems are reviewed and second an experimental part follows implying the porous silicon formation as well as the subsequent metal deposition process. Third the magnetic and optical properties of the systems are described. In a forth chapter the influence of the semiconducting matrix on these properties is elucidated and finally some prospects and conclusions are addressed.
Comparison between three option, four option and five option multiple choice question tests for quality parameters: A randomized study

Background: Most of the academic teachers use four or five options per item of multiple choice question (MCQ) test as formative and summative assessment. Optimal number of options in MCQ item is a matter of considerable debate among academic teachers of various educational fields. There is a scarcity of the published literature regarding the optimum number of option in each item of MCQ in the field of medical education. Objectives: To compare three options, four options, and five options MCQs test for the quality parameters – reliability, validity, item analysis, distracter analysis, and time analysis. Materials and Methods: Participants were 3rd semester M.B. B.S. students. Students were divided randomly into three groups. Each group was given one set of MCQ test out of three options, four options, and five option randomly. Following the marking of the multiple choice tests, the participants’ option selections were analyzed and comparisons were conducted of the mean marks, mean time, validity, reliability and facility value, discrimination index, point biserial value, distracter analysis of three different option formats. Results: Students score more (P = 0.000) and took less time (P = 0.009) for the completion of three options as compared to four options and five options groups. Facility value was more (P = 0.004) in three options group as compared to four and five options groups. There was no significant difference between three groups for the validity, reliability, and item discrimination. Nonfunctioning distracters were more in the four and five options group as compared to three option group. Conclusion: Assessment based on three option MCQs is can be preferred over four option and five option MCQs.
Working Paper Number 78 January 2006 Governance and Corruption in Public Health Care Systems

What factors affect health care delivery in the developing world? Anecdotal evidence of lives cut tragically short and the loss of productivity due to avoidable diseases is an area of salient concern in global health and international development. This working paper looks at factual evidence to describe the main challenges facing health care delivery in developing countries, including absenteeism, corruption, informal payments, and mismanagement. The author concludes that good governance is important in ensuring effective health care delivery, and that returns to investments in health are low where governance issues are not addressed. The Center for Global Development is an independent think tank that works to reduce global poverty and inequality through rigorous research and active engagement with the policy community. This Working Paper was made possible in part by funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Use and dissemination of this Working Paper is encouraged, however reproduced copies may not be used for commercial purposes. Further usage is permitted under the terms of the Creative Commons License. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and should not be attributed to the directors or funders of the Center for Global Development.