Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Risk and Uncertainty: Macroeconomic Perspective

The paper discusses main concepts and definitions related to macroeconomic uncertainty as operational concept. It proposes classifications of uncertainty according to areas of application and measurements. Properties of different methodologies of assessing uncertainty used in empirical analysis are discussed. The paper also analyses positive and negative aspects of particular methods and illustrates one of the most relevant problems, which is the biasness of the expertsâ€™ based assessments, by the analysis of the National Bank of Poland Survey of Professional Forecasters. A simple uncertainty indicator based on forecast errors for the analysis of inflation uncertainty in Poland is computed and evaluated.
The future of Canadian counselling psychology: Doctoral students

Little is known about the overall characteristics and beliefs of Canadian counselling psychology doctoral students. An online survey was administered to 43 doctoral students across all Canadian counselling psychology programmes, representing an approximate 26% response rate. Results indicated that the average age of doctoral students in the sample was about 32 years and that the majority were women (about 77% in the sample). Additionally, findings can be taken to suggest that participants were satisfied with their choice of counselling psychology as a career. The doctoral students sampled primarily practised from an integrationist theoretical standpoint and spent very little of their practice time providing formal psychological assessment services or career counselling. Participants generally intervened through individual counselling or psychotherapy and were focused on disorder treatment rather than preventative or developmental services. Curriculum changes that should be considered from the results of this study pertain to the topics of assessment, career counselling, advocacy/media skills, professional identity development and prevention/developmental interventions. The results of this study can also be taken to predict characteristics of the next generation of Canadian counselling psychologists and the future practice of counselling psychology in Canada.
454 Pyrosequencing and Sanger sequencing of tropical mycorrhizal fungi provide similar results but reveal substantial methodological biases.

• Compared with Sanger sequencing-based methods, pyrosequencing provides orders of magnitude more data on the diversity of organisms in their natural habitat, but its technological biases and relative accuracy remain poorly understood. • This study compares the performance of pyrosequencing and traditional sequencing for species' recovery of ectomycorrhizal fungi on root tips in a Cameroonian rain forest and addresses biases related to multi-template PCR and pyrosequencing analyses. • Pyrosequencing and the traditional method yielded qualitatively similar results, but there were slight, but significant, differences that affected the taxonomic view of the fungal community. We found that most pyrosequencing singletons were artifactual and contained a strongly elevated proportion of insertions compared with natural intra- and interspecific variation. The alternative primers, DNA extraction methods and PCR replicates strongly influenced the richness and community composition as recovered by pyrosequencing. • Pyrosequencing offers a powerful alternative for the identification of ectomycorrhizal fungi in pooled root samples, but requires careful selection of molecular tools. A well-populated backbone database facilitates the detection of biological and technical artifacts. The pyrosequencing pipeline is available at http://unite.ut. ee/454pipeline.tgz.
Toward Culturally Sensitive Financial Education Interventions with Latinos

ABSTACT To expand the financial capability of Latinos, culturally sensitive interventions are needed. A literature search was conducted to examine how financial education interventions have been used to improve financial outcomes for Latinos. Just 7 peer-reviewed intervention studies were identified, suggesting a substantial gap in knowledge in this area. Although conclusions about the effectiveness of financial education interventions with Latinos are limited, each study finds positive changes in financial attitudes or behaviors. Using Resnicow’s (1999) cultural sensitivity framework, surface and deep structure methods of tailoring financial education were identified. Implications for designing and testing culturally sensitive financial education interventions are discussed.
Land Use Regulation as a Barrier to Entry: Evidence from the Texas Lodging Industry

This article examines the anticompetitive effects of land use regulation using microdata on midscale chain hotels in Texas. I construct a dynamic entry–exit model that endogenizes hotel chains’ reactions to land use regulation. My estimates indicate that imposing stringent regulation increases costs considerably. Hotel chains nonetheless enter highly regulated markets even if entry probabilities are lower, anticipating fewer rivals and hence greater market power. Consumers incur the costs of regulation indirectly in the form of higher prices.
Modeling Goal Setting Within a Multimedia Environment on Complex Physics Content

Observational tutoring has been found to be an effective method for teaching a variety of subjects by reusing dialogue from previous successful tutoring sessions. While it has been shown content can be learned through observational tutoring, it has yet to been examined if a secondary behavior such as goal setting can be influenced. The present study investigated whether observing virtual humans engaging in a tutoring session on a difficult learning topic, rotational kinematics, with embedded positive goal-oriented dialogue would increase knowledge of the material and perpetuate a shift in an observer's goal orientation from performance avoidance goal orientation (PAVGO) to learning goal orientation (LGO). Learning gains were observed in pretest to posttest knowledge retention tests. Significant negative changes from pretest to posttest occurred across conditions for LGO. Additionally, significant increases from PAVGO pretest to posttest were observed in the control condition; however, PAVGO did not significantly change in the experimental condition.
COLLECTIVE TACIT KNOWLEDGE: INTEGRATING CATEGORIES IN THE PROCESS OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

This paper describes a study of tacit knowledge (TK) which began with contemporary categorizations (eg. tacit-explicit and individual-collective). However, from fieldwork, we find that TK is by nature collective (CTK) and is re-described (developed and changed) through action. These findings are depicted in our helix model of TK, which explains 'how' TK works in practice. We also distinguish four orientations to 'redescription' which act as powerful mediators of organizational learning, renewal (change) and preservation (no-change). We conclude that the distinction between categories eg. tacit, explicit, individual and collective knowledge is artificial and instead, these forms of knowledge co-exist at the collective level. Differing orientations to TK-inaction is an exciting development in appreciating organizational learning.
Artificial Neural Network classification of operator workload with an assessment of time variation and noise-enhancement to increase performance

Workload classification—the determination of whether a human operator is in a high or low workload state to allow their working environment to be optimized—is an emerging application of passive Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) systems. Practical systems must not only accurately detect the current workload state, but also have good temporal performance: requiring little time to set up and train the classifier, and ensuring that the reported performance level is consistent and predictable over time. This paper investigates the temporal performance of an Artificial Neural Network based classification system. For networks trained on little EEG data good classification accuracies (86%) are achieved over very short time frames, but substantial decreases in accuracy are found as the time gap between the network training and the actual use is increased. Noise-enhanced processing, where artificially generated noise is deliberately added to the testing signals, is investigated as a potential technique to mitigate this degradation without requiring the network to be re-trained using more data. Small stochastic resonance effects are demonstrated whereby the classification process gets better in the presence of more noise. The effect is small and does not eliminate the need for re-training, but it is consistent, and this is the first demonstration of such effects for non-evoked/free-running EEG signals suitable for passive BCI.
Uncertain Time-Series Similarity: Return to the Basics

In the last years there has been a considerable increase in the availability of continuous sensor measurements in a wide range of application domains, such as Location-Based Services (LBS), medical monitoring systems, manufacturing plants and engineering facilities to ensure efficiency, product quality and safety, hydrologic and geologic observing systems, pollution management, and others. Due to the inherent imprecision of sensor observations, many investigations have recently turned into querying, mining and storing uncertain data. Uncertainty can also be due to data aggregation, privacy-preserving transforms, and error-prone mining algorithms. In this study, we survey the techniques that have been proposed specifically for modeling and processing uncertain time series, an important model for temporal data. We provide an analytical evaluation of the alternatives that have been proposed in the literature, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, and further compare these alternatives with two additional techniques that were carefully studied before. We conduct an extensive experimental evaluation with 17 real datasets, and discuss some surprising results, which suggest that a fruitful research direction is to take into account the temporal correlations in the time series. Based on our evaluations, we also provide guidelines useful for the practitioners in the field.
Gender, Entrepreneurial Self–Efficacy, and Entrepreneurial Career Intentions: Implications for Entrepreneurship Education 1

The relationships between gender, entrepreneurial self–efficacy, and entrepreneurial intentions were examined for two sample groups: adolescents and adult master of business administration (MBA) students. Similar gender effects on entrepreneurial self–efficacy are shown for both groups and support earlier research on the relationship between self–efficacy and career intentions. Additionally, the effects of entrepreneurship education in MBA programs on entrepreneurial self–efficacy proved stronger for women than for men. Implications for educators and policy makers were discussed, and areas for future research outlined.
Germ cell differentiation in the marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) during fetal and neonatal life closely parallels that in the human

BACKGROUND Testicular germ cell tumours (TGCT) are thought to originate from fetal germ cells that fail to differentiate normally, but no animal model for these events has been described. We evaluated the marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) as a model by comparing perinatal germ cell differentiation with that in humans. METHODS Immunohistochemical profiling was used to investigate germ cell differentiation (OCT4, NANOG, AP-2γ, MAGE-A4, VASA, NANOS-1) and proliferation (Ki67) in fetal and neonatal marmoset testes in comparison with the human and, to a lesser extent, the rat. RESULTS In marmosets and humans, differentiation of gonocytes into spermatogonia is associated with the gradual loss of pluripotency markers such as OCT4 and NANOG, and the expression of germ cell-specific proteins such as VASA. This differentiation occurs asynchronously within individual cords during fetal and early postnatal life. This contrasts with rapid and synchronous germ cell differentiation within and between cords in the rat. Similarly, germ cell proliferation in the marmoset and human occurs throughout perinatal life, in contrast to rats in which proliferation ceases during this period. CONCLUSIONS The marmoset provides a good model for normal human germ cell differentiation and proliferation. The perinatal marmoset may be a useful model in which to establish factors that lead to failure of normal germ cell differentiation and the origins of TGCT.
LEARNING TO LISTEN: EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE AND THE CHILD

Abstract In Epistemic Injustice Miranda Fricker argues that there is a distinctively epistemic type of injustice in which someone is wronged specifically in his or her capacity as a knower. Fricker's examples of identity-prejudicial credibility deficit primarily involve gender, race, and class, in which individuals are given less credibility due to prejudicial stereotypes. We argue that children, as a class, are also subject to testimonial injustice and receive less epistemic credibility than they deserve. To illustrate the prevalence of testimonial injustice against children we document examples of negative prejudicial treatment in forensic contexts where children frequently act as testifiers. These examples, along with research on the child's competence and reliability as a testifier, reveal widespread epistemic prejudice against children. Given that subjection to prejudice can have a detrimental impact on children we discuss ways to ameliorate this form of testimonial injustice. We argue that, both in formal and natural contexts, the child's testimony should be evaluated alongside the relationships that support (or fail to support) her development as a testifier. The adult can play a central role in creating successful testimonial interactions with children by acting as a “responsible hearer. ”
High-efficiency channelrhodopsins for fast neuronal stimulation at low light levels

Channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) has become an indispensable tool in neuroscience, allowing precise induction of action potentials with short light pulses. A limiting factor for many optophysiological experiments is the relatively small photocurrent induced by ChR2. We screened a large number of ChR2 point mutants and discovered a dramatic increase in photocurrent amplitude after threonine-to-cysteine substitution at position 159. When we tested the T159C mutant in hippocampal pyramidal neurons, action potentials could be induced at very low light intensities, where currently available channelrhodopsins were unable to drive spiking. Biophysical characterization revealed that the kinetics of most ChR2 variants slows down considerably at depolarized membrane potentials. We show that the recently published E123T substitution abolishes this voltage sensitivity and speeds up channel kinetics. When we combined T159C with E123T, the resulting double mutant delivered fast photocurrents with large amplitudes and increased the precision of single action potential induction over a broad range of frequencies, suggesting it may become the standard for light-controlled activation of neurons.
Mood and anxiety related phenotypes in mice : characterization using behavioral tests

The open field test (OFT) is a common measure of exploratory behavior and general activity in both mice and rats, where both the quality and quantity of the activity can be measured. Principally, the open field (OF) is an enclosure, generally square, rectangular, or circular in shape with surrounding walls that prevent escape. The most basic and common outcome of interest is ‘‘movement’’; however, this can be influenced by motor output, exploratory drive, freezing or other fear-related behavior, sickness, relative time in circadian cycle, among many other variables. Distance moved, time spent moving, rearing, and change in activity over time are among many measures that can be tabulated and reported. Some outcomes, particularly defecation, center time, and activity within the first 5 minutes, likely gauge some aspects of emotionality including anxiety. The OFT is also commonly used as a mechanism to assess the sedative, toxic, or stimulant effects of compounds. Thus, the OFT measures a number of facets of behavior beyond simple locomotion. As such, the test has a number of uses and is included in almost every thorough analysis
Using Retail Data for Upstream Merger Analysis

The typical situation faced by antitrust authorities is to analyze a proposed manufacturer merger using scanner data at retail-level. Starting with a benchmark model of manufacturers' and retailers' sequential Bertrand-Nash pricing behavior, I perform counterfactual experiments to explore the relationship between downstream retailer pricing models and the resulting estimates of upstream mergers, in the absence of wholesale prices. Looking at scanner data for the ground coffee category sold at several retail chains in Germany I find that not considering retail pricing explicitly when analyzing the potential consequences of an upstream merger, implies simulated changes in welfare that are significantly different given the underlying model of retail pricing behavior. These findings are relevant for competition policy, and authorities should consider incorporating the role of retailers in upstream merger analyzes, especially in the presence of an increasingly consolidated retail food industry.
Load-Aware Channel Assignment Exploiting Partially Overlapping Channels for Wireless Mesh Networks

In this paper, we propose a new method, called Load-Aware Channel Assignment Exploiting Partially Overlapping Channels (Load-Aware CAEPO), which uses not only non-overlapping channels but also partially overlapping channels. We further improve our scheme by introducing the concept of node grouping to enhance the performance, and develop another new channel assignment algorithm called Load-Aware CAEPO-G. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed schemes can significantly improve the aggregated network performance.
Improving Algorithms for Knowledge Discovery in Genetics Databases

Extracting Knowledge from genetics data-base still one of the most exciting challenges in data mining. Most of the widely association studies algorithm used to determine responsible regions for a complex genetic disease. The objective of our study lies in developing a new approach for knowledge discovery in genetics data base. In this work, firstly we propose some improvements to the existent algorithms applied in this context. Secondly we show that our new algorithm (named NCA) improved the results compared to existents algorithms. As a matter of fact we have applied and compared our approach and existent approach to biological facts concerning hereditary complex illness where the literatures in biology identify the responsible variables for those diseases. Finally, we conclude by proposing suggestions for further research.
Jaw-thrust induces sympathetic responses during induction of general anesthesia

Background Jaw-thrust is a noxious stimulus that might induce sympathetic responses. The purpose of this study, was to evaluate the effects of jaw-thrust on sympathetic responses. Methods We investigated seventy three patients. Patients who received general anesthesia were randomly divided into a control group (maintenance of combined airway maneuver with head tilt, open mouth by mouthpiece, and chin-lift, n = 30) and jaw-thrust group (maintenance of head tilt, open mouth and jaw-thrust, n = 30). In the jaw-thrust group, four minutes of endoscopy-guided force to the mandible to get the best laryngeal view were applied. For the control group, the combined airway maneuver was maintained during the same period. Arterial blood pressure (AP) and heart rate (HR) were recorded at predetermined time points (1 min before anesthesia induction, 2 min after fiberoptic bronchoscopy placement, and thereafter 1 min-interval during each airway maneuver) during jaw-thrust and chin-lift maneuver. The force amplitude applied for best laryngeal view during jaw-thrust was also measured. Results Peak systolic and diastolic AP increased 39.0 ± 17.6 and 39.9 ± 22.8 mmHg from the baseline (P < 0.001) in the jaw-thrust group. HR was also 32.5 ± 19.4 beats/min from the baseline (P < 0.001) in the jaw-thrust group. These remained high at all time points, compared with the control group (P < 0.01). The force magnitude applied for jaw-thrust was not correlated to the AP and HR changes (P > 0.05). Conclusions Performing the jaw-thrust maneuver induces significant sympathetic responses, irrespective of the force magnitude.
Methods for Pricing American Options under Regime Switching

We analyze a number of techniques for pricing American options under a regime switching stochastic process. The techniques analyzed include both explicit and implicit discretizations with the focus being on methods which are unconditionally stable. In the case of implicit methods we also compare a number of iterative procedures for solving the associated nonlinear algebraic equations. Numerical tests indicate that a fixed point policy iteration, coupled with a direct control formulation, is a reliable general purpose method. Finally, we remark that we formulate the American problem as an abstract optimal control problem; hence our results are applicable to more general problems as well.
Antinucleic acid antibodies.

The discovery of the LE cell phenomenon (Hargraves et al., 1948) has had particularly far-reaching effects beyond the immediate clinical field of rheumatology. It was, firstly, a timely spur urging research on the underlying causes of the systemic diseases of connective tissue into the then untrodden immunological paths that are now highways accommodating an ever-increasing army of investigators with ever-increasing expectations. It was also the seed (to change the metaphor) that engendered in the minds of those connected with laboratory investigation of patients the conviction that the more precisely the specificity of autoantibodies such as the LE cell factor can be defined the greater their discriminant value for diagnosis and prognosis and the better the chance of gaining insight into the underlying immunopathology, not to say aetiology. The extent to which these expectations about the role of anti-nuclear antibodies have been realised in the intervening decades is ripe for consideration.
From comparison matrix to Variability Model: The Wikipedia case study

Product comparison matrices (PCMs) provide a convenient way to document the discriminant features of a family of related products and now abound on the internet. Despite their apparent simplicity, the information present in existing PCMs can be very heterogeneous, partial, ambiguous, hard to exploit by users who desire to choose an appropriate product. Variability Models (VMs) can be employed to formulate in a more precise way the semantics of PCMs and enable automated reasoning such as assisted configuration. Yet, the gap between PCMs and VMs should be precisely understood and automated techniques should support the transition between the two. In this paper, we propose variability patterns that describe PCMs content and conduct an empirical analysis of 300+ PCMs mined from Wikipedia. Our findings are a first step toward better engineering techniques for maintaining and configuring PCMs.