Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Parental Divorce on the Intergenerational Transmission of Crime

This study first examines the effects of parental divorce and paternal crime on offspring offending. Then, it tests whether parental divorce moderates the intergenerational transmission of crime. Diversity within the offending population is taken into account by examining whether effects are different for fathers who commit crimes at different points of the life-course and by distinguishing between violent and non-violent offending. A sample of 2374 individuals from three consecutive generations from 198 Dutch families was used. The results show that parental divorce increases offspring non-violent offending, but does not increase offspring violence after controlling for parental violence. Moreover, the intergenerational transmission of violence is moderated by parental divorce: empirical evidence for intergenerational transmission of violence is only found for children who did not experience parental divorce during their youth. This moderating effect of parental divorce is even stronger if the father committed violent crimes during the child’s youth. The moderating influence of parental divorce on the intergenerational transmission of non-violent crime is less clear, and the effects are overall stronger for violent crime than for non-violent crime. These results suggest that social learning mechanisms play an important role in the intergenerational transmission of violent crime, although genetic influences cannot be ruled out.
Bacterial Lifestyle in a Deep-sea Hydrothermal Vent Chimney Revealed by the Genome Sequence of the Thermophilic Bacterium Deferribacter desulfuricans SSM1

The complete genome sequence of the thermophilic sulphur-reducing bacterium, Deferribacter desulfuricans SMM1, isolated from a hydrothermal vent chimney has been determined. The genome comprises a single circular chromosome of 2 234 389 bp and a megaplasmid of 308 544 bp. Many genes encoded in the genome are most similar to the genes of sulphur- or sulphate-reducing bacterial species within Deltaproteobacteria. The reconstructed central metabolisms showed a heterotrophic lifestyle primarily driven by C1 to C3 organics, e.g. formate, acetate, and pyruvate, and also suggested that the inability of autotrophy via a reductive tricarboxylic acid cycle may be due to the lack of ATP-dependent citrate lyase. In addition, the genome encodes numerous genes for chemoreceptors, chemotaxis-like systems, and signal transduction machineries. These signalling networks may be linked to this bacterium's versatile energy metabolisms and may provide ecophysiological advantages for D. desulfuricans SSM1 thriving in the physically and chemically fluctuating environments near hydrothermal vents. This is the first genome sequence from the phylum Deferribacteres.
Aid, Trade and Migration : How are OECD countries policies connected in times of crisis?

This paper aims at explaining how aid, trade and migration in developed nations are connected, in particular in times of economics crisis. It relates to a new strand of the aid allocation literature, which aims at determining how donors’ domestic policies and their political environment can delineate bilateral aid allocations. We use a gravity model framework to jointly determine aid, trade and migration between pairs of developed and developing countries as well as their relation to unemployment in OECD nations. Namely, we focus on the core determinants of these policies with the particular aim of determining whether aid, trade, migration and unemployment policies are interdependent or not. We apply a three-stage least squares method on a data set covering 22 Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries and 153 recipient countries from 2000 and 2010. Our data reveal that not only aid, trade and migration policies affect respectively aid, trade and migration flows but also they affect each other. Likewise, these policies can be substitutes for developed countries unemployment policies.
The Pathway To Permanent Jobs: A Time Event Analysis Of Young Italian Workers

The paper analyses the effect of fixed-term contracts on the probability of finding a permanent job in the Italian labour market. I estimate a continuous proportional hazard model with nonparametric smoothing splines for time varying continuous covariates. It will be shown that such a method excellently improves the model specification with regard to proportionality assumption. Results surprisingly suggest that the hazard rate of switching to permanent employment is higher for unskilled workers than skilled workers; while transition probability is not affected by gender differences per se, rather individual traits for females and males act differently on the baseline hazard. Results show that a period of temporary employment varying between two or three years is needed before obtaining a permanent jobs. Potential implications of the main findings are provided.
New frontiers in pediatric oncologic imaging

Abstract As imaging technologies advance, a paradigm shift is emerging in the assessment of tumor response to therapy. The traditional method of measuring tumor size may not reflect changes in tumor viability induced by chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Today's oncologists and radiologists seek objective methods for assessing tumor metabolism and blood flow, measures that provide earlier, more accurate information about treatment effects. Pediatric imaging presents unique challenges not encountered in adult imaging, including the need for sedation and consideration of the long-term effects of radiation exposure in a growing child. Therefore, the potential risks and benefits of new imaging approaches for monitoring anticancer treatment in children require careful consideration. Several new imaging techniques are currently under investigation for use in pediatric oncology. These include dynamic enhanced magnetic resonance imaging and quantitative contrast-enhanced ultrasonography for assessment of blood flow in solid tumors such as osteosarcoma and neuroblastoma, and nuclear imaging, including positron emission tomography–computed tomography, for assessment of pediatric musculoskeletal tumors and neuroblastoma. The potential value, relative advantages, and limitations of these new methods in monitoring anticancer therapy in children are discussed.
Two Fallacies Concerning Central Bank Independence

This paper takes issue with two basic conclusions prevalent in the literature on central bank behavior. First, the paper argues that it is inappropriate to presume that central banks will, in the absence of any precommitment technology, necessarily behave in a 'discretionary' fashion that implies an inflationary bias. Since there is no functional connection between average rates of money creation (or inflation) and policy responsiveness to cyclical disturbances, it is entirely feasible for the bias to be avoided. In other words, there is no necessary tradeoff between 'flexibility and commitment. ' Second, to the extent that the absence of any absolute precommitment technology is nevertheless a problem, it will apply to a consolidated central bank plus government entity as well as to the central bank alone. Thus contracts between governments and central banks do not overcome the motivation for dynamic inconsistency, they merely relocate it.
Is a binary fraction-age relation responsible for the lack of EHB binaries in globular clusters?

Context. The recently-discovered lack of close binaries, among extreme horizontal branch (EHB) stars in Galactic globular clusters, has thus far constituted a major puzzle, in view of the fact that blue subdwarf stars ‐ the field counterparts of cluster EHB stars ‐ are well-known to present a high binary fraction. Aims. In this Letter, we provide new results that confirm the lack of close EHB bina ries in globular clusters, and present a first scenario to explain the difference between field and cluster EHB stars. Methods. First, in order to confirm that the lack of EHB binaries in glob ular clusters is a statistically robust result, we undertoo k a new analysis of 145 horizontal branch stars in NGC 6752, out of which forty-one belong to the EHB. To search for radial-velocity variations as a function of time, we repeated high-resoluti on (R = 18 500) spectroscopy of all stars, four times during a single night of observations. Results. We detected a single, hot (25 000 K), radial-velocity variable star as a close-binary candidate. From these results, we e stimate an upper-limit for the close (period P≤ 5 day) binary fraction f among NGC 6752 EHB stars of 16% (95% confidence level), with the most probable value being f = 4%. Thus our results clearly confirm the lack of close binarie s among the hot HB stars in this cluster. Conclusions. We suggest that the confirmed discrepancy between the binary fractions for field and cluster EHB stars is the consequence of an f -age relation, with close binaries being more likely in the c ase of younger systems. We analyze theoretical and observational results available in the literature, which s upport this scenario. If so, an age difference between the EHB progenitors in the field and in clusters, the former being younger (on aver age) by up to several Gyr, would naturally account for the startling differences in binary fraction between the two populations.
Young people in transition in local contexts: an exploration of how place and time frame young people’s educational aspirations, decisions and anticipated transitions

It has been well documented that young people’s social class, gender and ethnicity have significant bearing upon their participation in post-16 and higher education. Less research has considered how decisions regarding participation in post-16 education and HE are framed by the places and timeframe in which young people live. This comparative and qualitative study of young people aged 16-18 in the Rhondda Valleys and Newport considers how place and the contemporary economic context bears upon their aspirations and educational choices. The research shows that the contemporary economic climate and popular commentaries of ‘recession’ ‘cuts’ and ‘crisis’ persuade young people to remain in post-16 education and HE as a means of avoiding entry into this risky landscape and investing in human capital. The study revealed that place did appear to bear upon their decisions – albeit in subtle ways. Firstly, local opportunity structures informed the type of transitions young people made from compulsory to post-compulsory education. Drawing on Gambetta’s typology, where opportunities are limited but available, young people jumped into post-16 education but where opportunities are severely restricted, they were pushed into post-16 education. Local opportunity structures also informed young people’s plans to leave or stay within their locality, compelling them to leave places where opportunities are scarce. Place also matters to young people’s university choices and future aspirations through their emotional attachments to immediate and national localities. The research offers new insights into the importance of place in informing the processes by which educational decisions are made. It raises important questions regarding the extent to which differences in young people’s decision making processes have implications for their future experiences of education and life chances. It also has political implications regarding the geographical location of higher education opportunities and the role of universities in outward migration.
Negative refraction and focusing in hyperbolic transmission-line periodic grids

We propose a class of anisotropic periodic structures with spatial hyperbolic dispersion characteristics, synthesized by arranging unloaded transmission lines (TLs) in a two-dimensional planar grid. These planar periodic grids support the formation of sharp beams, called resonance cones. Analogous resonance-cone effects are observed in highly anisotropic resonant plasmas. By interfacing transposed versions of these anisotropic periodic grids, negative refraction and focusing of resonance cones can be achieved. Simulation results are presented for ideal TL grids and are verified experimentally using planar microstrip grids. These grids are easy to fabricate at a low cost. Moreover, since the TLs are unloaded and the periodicity is comparable to the wavelength, the structures are scalable from microwave to millimeter-wave frequencies and could be utilized for spatial filtering, multiplexing, and demultiplexing.
Analysis and construction of noun hypernym hierarchies to enhance Roget's Thesaurus

Lexical resources are machine-readable dictionaries or lists of words, where semantic relationships between the terms are somehow expressed. These lexical resources have been used for many tasks such as word sense disambiguation and determining semantic similarity between terms. In recent years some research has been put into automatically building lexical resources from large corpora. In this thesis I examine methods of constructing a lexical resource, not from scratch, but rather expanding existing ones. Roget’s Thesaurus is a lexical resource that groups terms together based on degrees of semantic relatedness. One of Rogets Thesaurus’ weaknesses is that it does not specify the nature of the relationships between terms, it only indicates that there is a relationship. I attempt to label the relationships between terms in the thesaurus. These relationships could include: synonymy, hyponymy/hypernymy and meronymy/holonymy. I examine the Thesaurus for all of these relationships. Sources of these relationships include other lexical resources such as WordNet, and also large corpora and specialized texts such as dictionaries. Roget’s Thesaurus has other weaknesses including a somewhat outdated lexicon. Our version of Roget’s Thesaurus was created in 1987 and so does not contain words/phrases related to the Internet and other advances since 1987. I examine methods of creating a hypernym hierarchy of nouns. A hierarchy is constructed automatically and evaluated manually by several annotators who are fluent in English. These hypernyms are intended to be used in a system where a human annotator is given a set of hypernyms and indicates which are correct and which are incorrect. This is done to facilitate the process of constructing a lexical resource, a process which was previously done manually. I import over 50,000 hypernym relationships to Roget’s Thesaurus. An estimated overall accuracy of 73% is achieved across the entire hypernym set. As a final test the new relationships imported to the Thesaurus are used to improve Roget’s Thesaurus capacity of calculating semantic similarity between terms/phrases. The improved similarity function is tested on several applications that make use of semantic similarity. The relationships are also used to improve Roget’s Thesaurus’ capacity for solving SAT style analogy questions.
Is There a Competition-Stability Trade-Off in European Banking?

The existence of a trade-off between bank competition and financial stability has always been a controversial issue, both among policy makers and academics. This paper empirically re-investigates the relationship between competition and bank risk across a large sample of European listed banks over the period 2004–2013. However, in contrast to most extant literature, we consider both individual and systemic dimensions of risk. Bank-individual risk is measured by the Z-score and the distance-to-default, while we consider the SRISK as a proxy for bank systemic risk. Using the Lerner index as an inverse measure of competition and after controlling for a variety of bank-specific and macroeconomic factors, our results suggest that competition encourages bank risk-taking and then increases individual bank fragility. This result is in line with the traditional “competition-fragility” view. Our most important findings concern the relationship between competition and systemic risk. Indeed, contrary to our previous results, we find that competition enhances financial stability by decreasing systemic risk. This result can be explained by the fact that weak competition tends to increase the correlation in the risk-taking behavior of banks.
SN 2005ap: A Most Brilliant Explosion

We present unfiltered photometric observations with ROTSE-III and optical spectroscopic follow-up with HET and the Keck telescope of the most luminous supernova yet identified, SN 2005ap. The spectra taken about 3 days before and 6 days after maximum light show narrow emission lines (likely originating in the dwarf host) and absorption lines at a redshift of z = 0.2832, which puts the peak unfiltered magnitude at -22.7 ± 0.1 absolute. Broad P Cygni features corresponding to Hα, C III, N III, and O III are further detected with a photospheric velocity of ~20,000 km s-1. Unlike other highly luminous supernovae such as 2006gy and 2006tf that show slow photometric evolution, the light curve of SN 2005ap indicates a 1-3 week rise to peak followed by a relatively rapid decay. The spectra also lack the distinct emission peaks from moderately broadened (FWHM ~2000 km s-1) Balmer lines seen in SN 2006gy and SN 2006tf. We briefly discuss the origin of the extraordinary luminosity from a strong interaction as may be expected from a pair instability eruption or a GRB-like engine encased in a H/He envelope.
Analytical modeling of VFET

In this paper, an analytical model has been developed for the vacuum field-effect transistor (VFET). Mathematical expressions for drive in voltage and current has been derived. A drive in voltage has been modeled based on minimum current density for space charge limited emission. Analytical model of the channel current incorporates the device operating physics such as space charge limited emission and Fowler-Nordheim tunneling. The analytical model has been numerically verified with the practical data available. Proposed model provides the opportunity to evaluate the vacuum device characteristics and determine the future projections as well.
Recursive Constructions of Detecting Matrices for Multiuser Coding: A Unifying Approach

Detecting matrices are a class of combinatorial objects originated from the coin weighing problem of Soderberg and Shapiro in the early 1960s. In this paper, various known recursive construction techniques for binary, bipolar, and ternary detecting matrices are reexamined in a unifying framework. New, general recursive constructions of detecting matrices, which include previous recursive constructions as special cases, are derived. Such matrices find applications in multiuser coding since they are equivalent to a certain class of uniquely decodable multiuser codes for the binary adder channel. Interestingly, it is found that among the three kinds of detecting matrices, ternary detecting matrices are of fundamental significance from the combinatorial theoretic, as well as from the multiuser coding application, point of view.
Quantum computing with defects

The successful development of quantum computers is dependent on identifying quantum systems to function as qubits. Paramagnetic states of point defects in semiconductors or insulators have been shown to provide an effective implementation, with the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond being a prominent example. The spin-1 ground state of this center can be initialized, manipulated, and read out at room temperature. Identifying defects with similar properties in other materials would add flexibility in device design and possibly lead to superior performance or greater functionality. A systematic search for defect-based qubits has been initiated, starting from a list of physical criteria that such centers and their hosts should satisfy. First-principles calculations of atomic and electronic structure are essential in supporting this quest: They provide a deeper understanding of defects that are already being exploited and allow efficient exploration of new materials systems and “defects by design. ”
Exploring the link between player involvement and learning within digital games

Digital games are becoming increasingly popular with the latest generation of consoles bringing games to an even wider audience [20]. Academic interest in the educational potential of video games is also growing and seems to stem from the fact that they are considered motivating [10; 13]. However, while there is some research on what makes games engaging, there is a need to further our understanding of the link between player involvement and learning, and to develop methods to evaluate these aspects of the user experience. This paper aims to report on a study that explored this relationship through a qualitative case-study approach. The methods consisted of a combination of observed game-play and a post-play cued interview in which a video recording of the game-play was reviewed. The Digital Game Experience Model [1; 2] was then used to analyse critical instances and themes within these episodes. Two examples are presented to illustrate how the method was implemented. The findings indicate a very close relationship between learning and involvement and suggest that a certain amount of learning is required before deeper levels of involvement can be experienced. However, further research is required in order to see whether these findings can be generalised and to consider whether different forms of interaction can be incorporated into this model of game play.
Money and growth: An alternative approach

This paper takes an alternative approach to the topic of money and growth by developing a model in which the effects of sustained capital accumulation on an evolving system of payments, in addition to the conventional effects of sustained inflation on growth, are examined. While the effects of inflation on growth are small, the effects of growth on the monetary system are substantial. The results are consistent with ideas about money and growth contained in work that predates that of James Tobin and Miguel Sidrauski, as well as with evidence that money and asset demands vary systematically within economies as they develop. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
Strategic and Operational Benefits of Electronic Integration in B2B Procurement Processes

Our goal is to assess the strategic and operational benefits of electronic integration for industrial procurement. We conduct a field study with an industrial supplier and examine the drivers of performance of the procurement process. Our research quantifies both the operational and strategic impacts of electronic integration in a B2B procurement environment for a supplier. Additionally, we show that the customer also obtains substantial benefits from efficient procurement transaction processing. We isolate the performance impact of technology choice and ordering processes on both the trading partners. A significant finding is that the supplier derives large strategic benefits when the customer initiates the system and the supplier enhances the system's capabilities. With respect to operational benefits, we find that when suppliers have advanced electronic linkages, the order-processing system significantly increases benefits to both parties.
Inflation and Nominal Uncertainty: the case of Greece

This paper examines the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty for Greece between 1981 and 2008. Univariate GARCH models are used to generate alternative measures of inflation uncertainty using both seasonally-adjusted and unadjusted data. Granger causality tests are subsequently employed to investigate causality and to detect its direction and sign. The results suggest that causality runs from inflation to inflation uncertainty while the sign of this effect is positive, in line with the Friedman-Ball hypothesis. Interestingly these findings break down in the post-1993 and post-2000 periods, arguably as a consequence of inflation-targeting, which resulted in lower inflation, reduced uncertainty and anchored expectations.