Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The organizational identity of Ukrainian universities as claimed through their mission statements

After the Revolution of Dignity (2014), Ukraine signed an Association Agreement with the European Union. In the context of European integration, new legislation on higher education has been adopted. Changes in the institutional environment expect responses from higher education institutions, in particular changes in the organizational identities of Ukrainian universities that are claimed through the mission statements. As Ukrainian universities are in the stage of transition from the Soviet past to the European future, it is of primary importance how they interpret and respond to the changes in the institutional environment, claiming their organizational identity through mission statements. To answer this question, sociological institutionalism is applied as a theoretical framework for the exploration of how institutions shape the organizational identities of universities. A content analysis of the mission statements of 46 Ukrainian universities was conducted: 26 defined before the adoption of the new legislation on higher education in 2014 and 20 formulated after this date.
An Empirical Stationary Equilibrium Search Model of the Housing Market

This article specifies and estimates a computationally tractable stationary equilibrium model of the housing market. The model is rich and incorporates many of its unique features: buyers’ and sellers’ simultaneous search behavior, heterogeneity in their motivation to trade, transaction costs, a trading mechanism with posting prices and bargaining, and the availability of an exogenous advertising technology that induces endogenous matching. Estimation uses Maximum Likelihood methods and Multiple Listing Services data. The estimated model is used to simulate housing market outcomes when (a) the amount of information displayed on housing listings increases and (b) real estate agent’s commission rates change.
Maximum Likelihood Estimation in Gaussian Chain Graph Models under the Alternative Markov Property

Abstract. The Andersson–Madigan–Perlman (AMP) Markov property is a recently proposed alternative Markov property (AMP) for chain graphs. In the case of continuous variables with a joint multivariate Gaussian distribution, it is the AMP rather than the earlier introduced Lauritzen–Wermuth–Frydenberg Markov property that is coherent with data‐generation by natural block‐recursive regressions. In this paper, we show that maximum likelihood estimates in Gaussian AMP chain graph models can be obtained by combining generalized least squares and iterative proportional fitting to an iterative algorithm. In an appendix, we give useful convergence results for iterative partial maximization algorithms that apply in particular to the described algorithm.
Added Value and Pricing with Information Technology

This study evaluates the extent to which the added value to customers from a supplier's application of information technology (IT) is manifested through premium prices of a traded good. We demonstrate that IT can add value to an otherwise undifferentiated good and study how these benefits accrue to customers from the adoption of IT. Analyzing a case in which the traded good is a homogeneous commodity, commercial fueling, our data shows that the critical impacts of IT are convenience and control -- that is, convenience that provides improved access to fuel and control that reduces problems of delegating purchasing authority for the customer. The value of this additional service is exhibited in premium prices customers are willing to pay for the IT-enhanced traded good, relative to the same good without IT. Compared to the price without IT, statistical analysis of the supplier's pricing history demonstrates the application of IT to commercial fuel yielded price premiums of between five and 12 percent of the retail fuel price.
Piggins Response to Photoperiod Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity in the Electrical Activity of Suprachiasmatic Nuclei Neurons and their

The coordinated activity of thousands of cellular oscillators in the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) temporally regulates mammalian physiology to anticipate daily environmental changes across the seasons. The phasing of clock gene expression varies according to anatomical location in the SCN and is thought to encode photoperiodic information. However, it is unclear whether similar variations in phase occur in the electrical activity of SCN neurons, a measure of both intraSCN signaling and clock output. To address this, we recorded single-unit and multiunit activity (SUA/MUA) from dorsal and ventral subregions of the middle level of the rostrocaudal axis of the SCN in coronal brain slices prepared from mice housed under different photoperiods. We demonstrate that under a symmetrical (12 h light:12 h dark) photoperiod, cells in the dorsal SCN are less tightly synchronized than those in the ventral SCN. Comparison of recordings made from mice under short (8 h light:16 h dark) or long (16 h light:8 h dark) photoperiods shows that the phase distribution of ventral, but not dorsal, SCN neurons expands with increasing day length. Conversely, the duration that individual neurons are active increases in dorsal, but not ventral, SCN under long days. These data indicate that in the ventral SCN photoperiod is encoded at the network level, while this coding occurs at the level of individual cells in the dorsal SCN.
Public Speaking in Virtual Reality: Facing an Audience of Avatars

What happens when someone talks in public to an audience they know to be entirely computer generated-to an audience of avatars? If the virtual audience seems attentive, well-behaved, and interested, if they show positive facial expressions with complimentary actions such as clapping and nodding, does the speaker infer correspondingly positive evaluations of performance and show fewer signs of anxiety? On the other hand, if the audience seems hostile, disinterested, and visibly bored, if they have negative facial expressions and exhibit reactions such as head-shaking, loud yawning, turning away, falling asleep, and walking out, does the speaker infer correspondingly negative evaluations of performance and show more signs of anxiety? We set out to study this question during the summer of 1998. We designed a virtual public speaking scenario, followed by an experimental study. We wanted mainly to explore the effectiveness of virtual environments (VEs) in psychotherapy for social phobias. Rather than plunge straight in and design a virtual reality therapy tool, we first tackled the question of whether real people's emotional responses are appropriate to the behavior of the virtual people with whom they may interact. The project used DIVE (Distributive Interactive Virtual Environment) as the basis for constructing a working prototype of a virtual public speaking simulation. We constructed as a Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) model, a virtual seminar room that matched the actual seminar room in which subjects completed their various questionnaires and met with the experimenters.
Convex optimization problem prototyping for image reconstruction in computed tomography with the Chambolle–Pock algorithm

The primal–dual optimization algorithm developed in Chambolle and Pock (CP) (2011 J. Math. Imag. Vis. 40 1–26) is applied to various convex optimization problems of interest in computed tomography (CT) image reconstruction. This algorithm allows for rapid prototyping of optimization problems for the purpose of designing iterative image reconstruction algorithms for CT. The primal–dual algorithm is briefly summarized in this paper, and its potential for prototyping is demonstrated by explicitly deriving CP algorithm instances for many optimization problems relevant to CT. An example application modeling breast CT with low-intensity x-ray illumination is presented.
Development of fMRI compatible lower body negative pressure system

DEVELOPMENT OF AN fMRI COMPATIBLE LOWER BODY NEGATIVE PRESSURE SYSTEM by Pratap Singh Kunwar The lower body negative pressure (LBNP) system provides a controlled, measured orthostatic stress to the cardiovascular system, which can be used with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine to study cardiovascular and cerebrovascular responses to graded LBNP. In the past, even though functional MRI (fMRI) was considered as one of the best modalities with which to measure small metabolic changes in the brain, it has not been used with an LBNP system to measure cerebrovascular changes. This was due to the lack of an fMRI compatible LBNP system. In this project, an fMRI compatible LBNP system was first constructed without using any ferromagnetic materials. The LBNP system was then tested to verify its compatibility with an MRI system. Concurrently, a software program was also developed for data acquisition and analysis. Using the developed software, an electrocardiogram (ECG) and measurements of blood pressure, heart rate, chamber pressure and blood flow in the brain were collected at 3 minutes each of 0, -10, -20, -30, -40 and -50 mm Hg lower body suction to confirm the accuracy and the reliability of the developed system. The measured heart rate increased and changes of blood flow in the brain decreased with the graded LBNP. The results of this pilot study support the literature. It has been demonstrated that this newly developed LBNP system is fMRI compatible, accurate, safe to use, reliable and can be used to study cardiovascular and cerebrovascular responses to graded LBNP. DEVELOPMENT OF AN fMRI COMPATIBLE LOWER BODY NEGATIVE PRESSURE SYSTEM by Pratap Singh Kunwar A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of New Jersey Institute of Technology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering Department of Biomedical Engineering
Recognizing Thousands of Legal Entities through Instance-based Visual Classification

This paper considers the problem of recognizing legal entities in visual contents in a similar way to named-entity recognizers for text documents. Whereas previous works were restricted to the recognition of a few tens of logotypes, we generalize the problem to the recognition of thousands of legal persons, each being modeled by a rich corporate identity automatically built from web images. We introduce a new geometrically-consistent instance-based classification method that is shown to outperform state-of-the-art techniques on several challenging datasets while being much more scalable. Further experiments performed on an automatic web crawl of 5,824 legal entities demonstrates the scalability of the approach.
Bar Diagnostics in Edge-On Spiral Galaxies. III. N-Body Simulations of Disks

Present in over 45% of local spirals, boxy and peanut-shaped bulges are generally interpreted as edge-on bars and may represent a key phase in bar evolution. Aiming to test such claims, the kinematic properties of self-consistent three-dimensional N-body simulations of bar-unstable disks are studied. Using Gauss-Hermite polynomials to describe the major-axis stellar kinematics, a number of characteristic bar signatures are identified in edge-on disks: (1) a major-axis light profile with a quasi-exponential central peak and a plateau at moderate radii (Freeman type II profile); (2) a "double-hump" rotation curve; (3) a sometimes flat central velocity dispersion peak with a plateau at moderate radii and occasional local central minimum and secondary peak; and (4) an h3-V correlation over the projected bar length. All of these kinematic features are spatially correlated and can easily be understood from the orbital structure of barred disks. They thus provide a reliable and easy-to-use tool to identify edge-on bars. Interestingly, they are all produced without dissipation and are increasingly realized to be common in spirals, lending support to bar-driven evolution scenarios for bulge formation. So called "figure-of-eight" position-velocity diagrams are never observed, as expected for realistic orbital configurations. Although not uniquely related to triaxiality, line-of-sight velocity distributions with a high-velocity tail (i.e., an h3-V correlation) appear as particularly promising tracers of bars. The stellar kinematic features identified grow in strength as the bar evolves and vary only slightly for small inclination variations. Many can be used to trace the bar length. Comparisons with observations are encouraging and support the view that boxy and peanut-shaped bulges are simply thick bars viewed edge-on.
Vascular leakage in severe dengue virus infections: a potential role for the nonstructural viral protein NS1 and complement.

BACKGROUND Vascular leakage and shock are the major causes of death in patients with dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS). Thirty years ago, complement activation was proposed to be a key underlying event, but the cause of complement activation has remained unknown. METHODS The major nonstructural dengue virus (DV) protein NS1 was tested for its capacity to activate human complement in its membrane-associated and soluble forms. Plasma samples from 163 patients with DV infection and from 19 patients with other febrile illnesses were prospectively analyzed for viral load and for levels of NS1 and complement-activation products. Blood and pleural fluids from 9 patients with DSS were also analyzed. RESULTS Soluble NS1 activated complement to completion, and activation was enhanced by polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies against NS1. Complement was also activated by cell-associated NS1 in the presence of specific antibodies. Plasma levels of NS1 and terminal SC5b-9 complexes correlated with disease severity. Large amounts of NS1, complement anaphylatoxin C5a, and the terminal complement complex SC5b-9 were present in pleural fluids from patients with DSS. CONCLUSIONS Complement activation mediated by NS1 leads to local and systemic generation of anaphylatoxins and SC5b-9, which may contribute to the pathogenesis of the vascular leakage that occurs in patients with DHF/DSS.
Multiple Representations for Systems of Linear Equations Via the Computer Algebra System Maple

A number of different representational methods exist for presenting the theory of linear equations and associated solution spaces. Discussed in this paper are the findings of a case study where first year undergraduate students were exposed to a new (to the department) method of teaching linear systems which used visual, algebraic and data-based representations constructed using the computer algebra system Maple. Positive and negative impacts on the students are discussed as they apply to representational translation and perceived learning.
On the Nash Equilibria in Decentralized Parallel Interference Channels

In this paper, the 2-dimensional decentralized parallel interference channel (IC) with 2 transmitter-receiver pairs is modelled as a non-cooperative static game. Each transmitter is assumed to be a fully rational entity with complete information on the game, aiming to maximize its own individual spectral efficiency by tuning its own power allocation (PA) vector. Two scenarios are analysed. First, we consider that transmitters can split their transmit power between both dimensions (PA game). Second, we consider that each transmitter is limited to use only one dimension (channel selection CS game). In the first scenario, the game might have either one or three NE in pure strategies (PS). However, two or infinitely many NE in PS might also be observed with zero probability. In the second scenario, there always exists either one or two NE in PS. Using Monte-Carlo simulations, we show that in both games there always exists a non-zero probability of observing more than one NE. More interestingly, we show that the highest and lowest network spectral efficiency at any of the NE in the CS game are always higher than the ones in the PA.
The persistent congestion problem of FAST-TCP: analysis and solutions

FAST-TCP achieves better performance than traditional TCP-Reno schemes, but unfortunately it is inherently unfair to older connections due to wrong estimations of the round-trip propagation delay. This paper presents a model for this anomalous behaviour of FAST flows, known as the persistent congestion problem. We first develop an elementary analysis for a scenario with just two flows, and then build up the general case with an arbitrary number of flows. The model correctly quantifies how much unfairness shows up among the different connections, confirming experimental observations made by several previous studies. We built on this model to develop an algorithm to obtain a good estimate of the propagation delay for FAST-TCP that enables to achieve fairness between aged and new connections while preserving the high throughput and low buffer occupancy of the original protocol. Furthermore, our proposal only requires a modification of the sender host, avoiding the need to upgrade the intermediate routers in any way. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Motion Sickness, Stress and the Endocannabinoid System

Background A substantial number of individuals are at risk for the development of motion sickness induced nausea and vomiting (N&V) during road, air or sea travel. Motion sickness can be extremely stressful but the neurobiologic mechanisms leading to motion sickness are not clear. The endocannabinoid system (ECS) represents an important neuromodulator of stress and N&V. Inhibitory effects of the ECS on N&V are mediated by endocannabinoid-receptor activation. Methodology/Principal Findings We studied the activity of the ECS in human volunteers (n = 21) during parabolic flight maneuvers (PFs). During PFs, microgravity conditions (<10−2 g) are generated for approximately 22 s which results in a profound kinetic stimulus. Blood endocannabinoids (anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol, 2-AG) were measured from blood samples taken in-flight before start of the parabolic maneuvers, after 10, 20, and 30 parabolas, in-flight after termination of PFs and 24 h later. Volunteers who developed acute motion sickness (n = 7) showed significantly higher stress scores but lower endocannabinoid levels during PFs. After 20 parabolas, blood anandamide levels had dropped significantly in volunteers with motion sickness (from 0.39±0.40 to 0.22±0.25 ng/ml) but increased in participants without the condition (from 0.43±0.23 to 0.60±0.38 ng/ml) resulting in significantly higher anandamide levels in participants without motion sickness (p = 0.02). 2-AG levels in individuals with motion sickness were low and almost unchanged throughout the experiment but showed a robust increase in participants without motion sickness. Cannabinoid-receptor 1 (CB1) but not cannabinoid-receptor 2 (CB2) mRNA expression in leucocytes 4 h after the experiment was significantly lower in volunteers with motion sickness than in participants without N&V. Conclusions/Significance These findings demonstrate that stress and motion sickness in humans are associated with impaired endocannabinoid activity. Enhancing ECS signaling may represent an alternative therapeutic strategy for motion sickness in individuals who do not respond to currently available treatments.
The Structure of Intertemporal Preferences under Uncertain Lifetime

Does experimental evidence of the common difference effect imply that intertemporal preferences are time inconsistent? Do these features of choice suggest inherent characteristics of preferences, or could they be traced to an underlying factor that shapes the environment? The effect of uncertain lifetime on intertemporal preferences is studied. A demographic model that allows for unobservable heterogeneity in frailty (risk of mortality) accommodates the common difference effect, even in the presence of stationarity and time consistency. Furthermore, uncertain lifetime transforms any consumption path into a series of lotteries over consumption. If preferences are disproportionately sensitive to certainty, which is a key feature of present consumption, choices will be time inconsistent. JEL Classification: D81, D91
Physical and psychological determinants of injury in Ontario forest firefighters.

BACKGROUND Forest firefighters are faced with multiple physical and psychological challenges as a result of their duties. Little is known about the determinants of injury among these workers. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) Aviation, Forest Fire and Emergency Services (AFFES) records detailed information on two mutually exclusive types of workplace injury: First aid (self-reported) and Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB, i.e. received medical attention). AIMS To identify the contributions of physical and psychological factors on the likelihood of injury among forest firefighters. METHODS Participants were male and female forest firefighters aged between 18 and 65. Data were collected using two self-administered instruments: The NEO Personality Inventory and the Job Stress Survey. Secondary data were collected from the OMNR AFFES and data were analysed by way of multivariate statistical procedures. RESULTS There were 252 participants. Those who were older, had a history of injury, had high scores for the personality construct of Neuroticism or low scores for the Openness construct were significantly more likely to incur a first aid injury, while those with high experience levels were significantly less likely to incur injury (P < 0.05). High job stress was the only significant predictor of WSIB injury (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS First aid and WSIB injuries in the OMNR AFFES were quite distinct phenomena and different factors need consideration in their prediction. It is recommended that managers and decision-makers in this field consider factors such as job stress, personality and the prior occurrence of injuries in their assessment of risk.
Earnings Dynamics with Heteroskedastic Permanent Shocks

In a standard model of earnings dynamics, we allow earnings risk to depend in an arbitrary way on the unobserved level of past permanent earnings. We show the nonparametric identification of earnings risk, as well as of the densities of the permanent and transitory components of earnings. Applying our model to the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics (PSID), we find that earnings dispersion depends in a nontrivial way on the past level of permanent earnings. During the three recent recessions we analyze, we find that workers with lower pre-recession permanent earnings have higher earnings risk. One important implication of our findings is heterogeneous consumption growth rates in a standard buffer-stock savings model.
Cognitive Load and Cooperation

We study the effect of intuitive and reflective processes on cooperation using cognitive load. Compared with time constraint, which has been used in the previous literature, cognitive load is a more direct way to block reflective processes, and thus a more suitable way to study the link between intuition and cooperation. Using a repeated public goods game, we study the effect of different levels of cognitive load on contributions. We show that a higher cognitive load increases the initial level of cooperation. In particular, subjects are significantly less likely to fully free ride under high cognitive load.
Explaining Pure Spinor Superspace

In the pure spinor formalism for the superstring and supermembrane, supersymmetric invariants are constructed by integrating over five $\theta$'s in d=10 and over nine $\theta$'s in d=11. This pure spinor superspace is easily explained using the superform (or ''ectoplasm'') method developed by Gates and collaborators, and generalizes the standard chiral superspace in d=4. The ectoplasm method is also useful for constructing d=10 and d=11 supersymmetric invariants in curved supergravity backgrounds.