Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lineage Networks and Intrahousehold Resource Allocation

A large number of studies of intra-household behavior in developing countries demonstrate that more resources are allocated to children when mothers have more bargaining power relative to fathers. The most widely held interpretation of this finding is that women care more about the well-being of children than men. In this paper, we demonstrate that these findings are consistent with household behavior in lineage systems where men care about an expanded set of children than women. In most of low income societies, men usually play an expanded role in the lineage and their properties often descend to children outside of own household. This raises the possibility that care for the well-being of other children in the lineage dilutes the impact of men’s resources in the household. Using a cooperative bargaining framework we derive testable implications and proceed to the test by taking advantage of differences in lineage systems in order to deal with unobserved heterogeneity. We could not reject an hypothesis of equal parental income effects when fathers do not have siblings and find evidence for lower effect of men’s income in the household when there are possibilities of fathers input into lineage children . Taken together, the results suggest that the scope of policies targeting a specific gender as recipient of a given benefit may be very narrow when inter-household resource sharing in lineage networks is taken into account. JEL Classifications: D10, D11, D13
Amino Acid Imbalance-Biochemical Mechanism and Nutritional Aspects

Amino acid imbalances refer to the deleterious effects that occur when a second-limiting amino acid or mixture of amino acid lacking a particular limiting amino acid is supplemented in diets marginal in one or more indispensable amino acids. In spite of variation in the conditions that have been used to induce amino acid imbalances, such as protein level in the diet, the extent of difference in total nitrogen content between basal and imbalanced diets, and kinds of amino acids used as imbalancing agents, the conspicuous common features of amino acid imbalances have been a decreased concentration of the limiting amino acid in blood, depression of feed intake and weight gain, and increased dietary content of the limiting amino acid needed to correct the imbalances. There is strong evidence that a decrease in the concentration of a limiting amino acid detected in the anterior prepyriform cortex of the brain is followed by behavioral effects, especially a decrease in feed intake. This might be due to the competition between the limiting amino acid and the amino acids in the imbalancing mixture for transport from blood into brain. One of the biochemical responses of animals fed amino acid imbalanced diets is a rapid decrease in the concentration of the limiting amino acid, which are due in part to an increase in catabolism of the limiting amino acid by the increased activities of enzymes involved in the catabolism of the amino acid. Practically, specific amino acid imbalances could be induced in swine and poultry diets that have been supplemented with lysine, methionine, tryptophan when threonine, isoleucine, valine, etc. are potentially third- or fourth-limiting in diets. In these cases supplementation of the limiting amino acid could be beneficial in preventing the decrease of feed intake that could otherwise occur as a result of amino acid imbalance.
The effect of atopic dermatitis on total burden of illness and quality of life on adults and children in a large managed care organization.

OBJECTIVE To assess the impact of atopic dermatitis (AD) on total burden of illness and quality of life in a managed care population. METHODS This study included retrospective evaluation of electronic claims, patient surveys of financial burden and quality of life (QOL), and medical chart review. A total of 962 AD patients had 12 months of claims data available. Of these, the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), SF-36, and Children's Dermatology Life Quality Index (CDLQI) were mailed to 400 participants (42%) who consented to take part in the prospective evaluation, 298 of whom returned evaluable questionnaires (75% response rate to survey and 31% of eligible patients). Survey responders comprised the cohort used for determination of economic and humanistic burden of illness. Additionally, socioeconomic demographics, out-of-pocket expenses, and clinical history (including disease severity) were collected via survey. Provider assessments of disease severity were collected via chart review. RESULTS The patient mean age was 17.22+/-0.94 years, which was not unexpected considering AD is the eighth most common disease in people younger than 25 years. Mean 167 dollars per person, or only 27.4% of the total burden. A vast majority of the direct medical expenditures occurred in the outpatient setting and were composed primarily of clinic visits and medications. Approximately 50% of the total burden of illness associated with AD resulted from days lost from work. The remainder of the burden was out-of-pocket costs to the patients and their families. More than 75% of the out-of-pocket costs resulted from household items and medications. The mean DLQI score for the 107 adults was 6.6+/-5.4, and the mean CDLQI score among the 132 children aged 4 to 16 years was 5.8+/-5.9, compared with adults without skin disease (0.5+/-1.1) and children without skin disease (0.38+/-0.71) in the validation populations. Patient-assessed severity demonstrated a stronger correlation with CDLQI and DLQI than did provider-assessed severity. CONCLUSION Atopic dermatitis, while not a life-threatening illness, imposes a financial burden on the health care system, but even more so on the individual. Indirect costs, such as the purchase of special household items and days lost from work, comprise a great proportion of this burden and should not be overlooked when evaluating this disease.
Developmental changes in Ca2+‐regulated functions of early postnatal Purkinje neurons

Ca2+ influx through L‐type Ca2+ channels regulates several different cellular processes in developing Purkinje neurons, including activation of transcription factors and expression of cellular proteins. In the current studies, we examined the age dependence of these actions of Ca2+ during the early developmental period. Purkinje neurons acutely isolated from postnatal day 4–8 rat pups were studied. We also examined the sensitivity of the Ca2+‐regulated processes to a toxic environmental factor (ethanol) known to show age‐dependent actions on developing Purkinje neurons. Results show that Ca2+ activation of the transcription factor cAMP‐responsive element binding protein (CREB) and Ca2+‐induced alterations in the level of the apoptotic enzyme caspase 3 show both dose and age dependence in the early‐developing Purkinje neurons. Interestingly, the age dependence was opposite for the two proteins. Ca2+ regulation of calbindin, a Ca2+ binding protein, was dose dependent but showed little age dependence. Exposure to ethanol altered Ca2+ activation of pCREB in an age‐dependent manner but did not alter Ca2+ regulation of caspase 3 or calbindin levels. Taken together, these results show that the downstream effects of Ca2+ signaling have age‐dependent components during early Purkinje neuron development. This age dependence may play an important role in the normal developmental program and could contribute to the critical window of sensitivity observed for certain toxic agents during early development. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Home Urine C-Peptide Creatinine Ratio Can Be Used to Monitor Islet Transplant Function

OBJECTIVE Islet graft function is defined by serum C-peptide in a standardized challenge test. We assessed whether urine C-peptide creatinine ratio (UCPCR) sent from home could provide a viable alternative. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Seventeen islet recipients provided 90-min serum C-peptide (sCP90) and 120-min UCPCR (UCPCR120) samples during 68 interval posttransplant mixed-meal tolerance tests, also posting from home a 120-min postbreakfast UCPCR sample every 2 weeks. UCPCR was compared with a clinical score of islet function, derived from HbA1c and insulin dose. RESULTS UCPCR120 and mean home postmeal UCPCR were strongly correlated with sCP90 (rs = 0.73, P < 0.001; and rs = 0.73, P < 0.01, respectively). Mean home UCPCR increased with clinical score (rs = 0.75; P < 0.001) and with graft function defined both by sCP90 >200 pmol/L and insulin independence. UCPCR cutoffs to detect insulin independence and poor graft function were sensitive and specific. CONCLUSIONS Home UCPCR provides a valid measure of C-peptide production in islet transplant recipients.
Recording Agent libc Castor Runtime Operating System Application Ring Buffers Shared Memory

We present Castor, a record/replay system for multi-core applications that provides consistently low and predictable overheads. With Castor, developers can leave record and replay on by default, making it practical to record and reproduce production bugs, or employ fault tolerance to recover from hardware failures. Castor is inspired by several observations: First, an efficient mechanism for logging non-deterministic events is critical for recording demanding workloads with low overhead. Through careful use of hardware we were able to increase log throughput by 10× or more, e.g., we could record a server handling 10× more requests per second for the same record overhead. Second, most applications can be recorded without modifying source code by using the compiler to instrument language level sources of non-determinism, in conjunction with more familiar techniques like shared library interposition. Third, while Castor cannot deterministically replay all data races, this limitation is generally unimportant in practice, contrary to what prior work has assumed. Castor currently supports applications written in C, C++, and Go on FreeBSD. We have evaluated Castor on parallel and server workloads, including a commercial implementation of memcached in Go, which runs Castor in production. CCS Concepts •Software and its engineering → Operating systems
TheYTA 7 gene is involved in the regulationofthe isoprenoid pathway in theyeastSaccharomyces cerevisiae

TheYTA7gene is involved in the regulationofthe isoprenoid pathway in theyeastSaccharomyces cerevisiae Klaudia Kuranda, Kariona Grabinska, Thierry Berges, Francis Karst, Veronique Leberre, Serguei Sokol, Jean François & Grazyna Palamarczyk Université de Toulouse, INSA, UPS, INP, Toulouse, France; INRA, UMR792 Ingénierie des Systèmes Biologiques et des Procédés, Toulouse, France; CNRS, UMR5504, Toulouse, France; Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, PAS, Warsaw, Poland; Université de Poitiers, CNRS, FRE3091, PhyMoTS, France; and Université de Strasbourg 1, INRA, UMR1131, Colmar, France
Processor Choice For Wireless Sensor Networks

Networking and power management of wireless sensor networks is an important area of current research. The choice of microcontroller to control such devices is critical to their performance. We discuss some of the features that affect the performance of a microcontroller in sensing applications, with particular reference to power. Consideration is given to the particular demands of TinyOS, the most prevalent sensor operating system. We survey some popular existing devices, and suggest how the performance of a new design might be optimised.
The Effect of Private School Competition on Public School Performance in Georgia

This article presents estimates of the effect of private school competition on public school performance. Using data on school districts in Georgia, the authors estimate models relating tenth- and third-grade test scores for either reading or mathematics to the level of private school competition. Test scores are not measurably or significantly higher in areas with greater private school competition, a result robust through multiple estimations using three measures of private school competition and a variety of control variables. The authors address the possible endogeneity between test scores and private school competition using instrumental variables estimators, with percentage of the population that is Catholic, county population in 1980, lagged competition, and various other measures as alternative instruments.
A Neuroanatomical Signature for Schizophrenia Across Different Ethnic Groups

Schizophrenia is a disabling clinical syndrome found across the world. While the incidence and clinical expression of this illness are strongly influenced by ethnic factors, it is unclear whether patients from different ethnicities show distinct brain deficits. In this multicentre study, we used structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging to investigate neuroanatomy in 126 patients with first episode schizophrenia who came from 4 ethnically distinct cohorts (White Caucasians, African-Caribbeans, Japanese, and Chinese). Each patient was individually matched with a healthy control of the same ethnicity, gender, and age (±1 year). We report a reduction in the gray matter volume of the right anterior insula in patients relative to controls (P < .05 corrected); this reduction was detected in all 4 ethnic groups despite differences in psychopathology, exposure to antipsychotic medication and image acquisition sequence. This finding provides evidence for a neuroanatomical signature of schizophrenia expressed above and beyond ethnic variations in incidence and clinical expression. In light of the existing literature, implicating the right anterior insula in bipolar disorder, depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety, we speculate that the neuroanatomical deficit reported here may represent a transdiagnostic feature of Axis I disorders.
Airspace configuration using air traffic complexity metrics

Flow regulation is a critical process in air traffic management, ensuring that the incoming traffic does not exceed the ability of air traffic controllers to handle it safely and efficiently. Currently, the european Flow Management Positions (FMP) use flight counts and sector capacities to assess the traffic load and build predicted opening schemes. These schemes, made of predefined airspace configurations, are used to detect potential overloads. Some past research undertaken at the Global Optimization Laboratory led to think that this process was not grounded on solid scientific notions, as concerns the quantification of the controllers workload. Consequently, it is proposed to stop using flight counts and sector capacities to predict this workload, and to use relevant air traffic complexity metrics instead. Another proposal is to explore all the possible combinations of elementary sectors, instead of the small subset of pre-defined configurations currently being used, so as to offer the maximum capacity to the incoming traffic. In previous works, we assessed the relevance of complexity metrics by comparing their relative influence on the sector status prediction (merged, manned1, or split) made by a neural network. Real sector statuses issued from filed configurations were used to train the neural network2. A fairly simple relationship between the relevant metrics and the sector status was found. The main contribution of this paper is to use the relevant metrics and the sector status prediction to build realistic airspace configurations. The computed configurations are compared to the actual configurations archived by the ATC centers, and to the FMP opening schemes.
Italian Political Communication and Gender Bias: Press Representations of Men/Women Presidents of the Houses of Parliament (1979, 1994, and 2013)

The study considers mass media communication as intertwined with social norms, as assumed by the perspective of social representations. It explores the Italian press communication by focusing on three pairs of men and women politicians with different political orientations and all serving as presidents of the Houses of Parliament in three legislatures. The article concentrates on five newspapers in order to sound out the presence of a possible gender bias in favor of men in the coverage. It explores the strategic use of language to enhance or penalize the role of women politicians. In order to scrutinize the role of gender visibility and discrimination, the study compares how women and men presidents are named and examines the linguistic sexism/nonsexism used for women politicians also in relation to the ideological/cultural orientations of newspapers. Thereby, 591 headlines were collected and analyzed with SPAD-T statistical package. The results, for some cases, confirm the trends revealed in the international literature, in other cases, disprove expectations.
Coalitions in the EU Council: Pitfalls of Multidimensional Analysis

The paper identifies the main problems, which are encountered in the statistical analysis of the patterns of decision-making of the EU Council. Compared to most legislative bodies in democratic political systems, in the EU Council decision-making we only see a scarce occurrence of contested legislation and in these cases, only few dissenting positions of the legislators are recorded. Consequently, when analysing the dimensionality of the Council policy space, we have to deal with extremely lopsided data, which may pose serious problems to standard multivariate methods. The paper aims to identify these problems and discuss the implications for the inference on the coalition formation in the EU Council. The assessment is done based on distribution of the data on voting in the EU Council and results of multivariate methods which are available.
HOW CAPABILITY DIFFERENCES, TRANSACTION COSTS

This paper provides an integrative analysis of the drivers of vertical scope, and formalizes theory on capability-driven integration, focusing on the following questions: (1) How does the distribution of individual firm capabilities along a value chain affect vertical scope? (2) How do transaction costs interact with capability distributions in vertically linked segments to determine scope at the firm and industry level? (3) How do costs to growth in different parts of the value chain affect vertical scope? To answer these questions, I use analytical and computational methods to build an evolutionary model where firms set their vertical scope in a competitive context. Specifically, I propose a model with two vertical segments (upstream and downstream), firm populations with heterogeneous capabilities, and an intermediate market subject to transaction costs, where firms can choose freely if they are integrated or vertically specialized. By varying the level of transaction costs and changing the structure of the correlation of upstream-downstream capabilities in the industry, as well as of the costs of expansion, I generate numerical results that explain how vertical integration evolves over time. My results suggest that without capability differences, even if transaction costs are nil, firms remain integrated; transaction cost reduction is only relevant if there exists heterogeneity of firms along the value chain, or if there are bottlenecks (uneven limits to growth or costs of expansion) in different parts of the value chain. The model also explains “mixed governance” (concurrent use of the market and of integration) often observed in practice.
Investigating the Effects of Perceived Value and Trust on Customer Loyalty towards Foreign Banks in Sabah, Malaysia

Liberalization of the Malaysian banking industry has attracted a number of foreign banks to set up branches in Malaysia providing competition to the local banking industry. Foreign banks such as Standard Chartered, HSBC, OCBC, and Bangkok Bank have been here for decades and despite facing various restrictions, they have survived and remained competitive until today. Newer banks such as Al-Rajhi Bank and Kuwait Finance House have also joined in this increasingly competitive landscape. This study focused on factors influencing customer loyalty in foreign banks at Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Previous studies have shown that customer loyalty played an important role in determining the competitive advantage of banks. This study examined the level of customer loyalty towards foreign banks in Malaysia and investigated whether factors such as perceived value and trust influenced loyalty. Data were obtained from 239 customers of foreign banks located in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah who responded to a self-administered survey questionnaire. The analyses showed that customer loyalty is relatively above average, at a mean of 4.86 (based on a seven-point Likert scale) and that both perceived value and trust showed positive and significant effects on customer loyalty. Implications of the study are discussed and suggestions for future research are
number EU-SP 0232 Advantage of cooperative traffic light control algorithms

Contemporary traffic light control (TLC) systems rely on sensors for detection of traffic which are costly in purchase, installation and maintenance. Emerging cooperative technology (C-ITS) offers an attractive alternative where only one road-side unit (RSU) per intersection is required, instead of several infrastructure sensors per lane. However, studies showed that traffic control with cooperative detection requires a penetration rate of at least 20% to function effectively. To show the potential of cooperative traffic control, this paper presents three algorithms: (a) the SWARM control algorithm, which is designed to work with very low penetration rates, (b) an extension to the adaptive control algorithm, ImFlow, which uses cooperative data for enhanced queue modelling, and (c) an ImFlow extension to stabilize green planning to enable Green Light Optimal Speed Advice. The results from micro-simulation show a 7.8% improvement for stops and delay time over traditional adaptive control for Swarm, and 14.9% for Cooperative ImFlow. Adding planning stabilization reduced the average perceived change for end users from 9.0% to 2.3%, without performance loss for the overall traffic flow. This shows the large potential of cooperative traffic control. Introduction Without traffic monitoring, i.e. without ‘knowing’ the traffic positions, only fixed time control on intersections is possible. Various plans for different time-of-day, day-of-the-week, or special events can be designed and optimized offline [1], but it is not possible to deal with day-to-day variations. For this purpose, several dynamic control methods exist, each with their own detection requirements. One of them is online plan selection, which selects a fixed time plan based on the current traffic conditions. This method requires at least a few detectors at important locations to determine the traffic state. Another method is vehicle-actuated control in which each signal group needs a detector to determine whether a phase can be cut off or needs extension. Furthermore, adaptive control goes one step further by building a model of the traffic approaching each signal group. Many different adaptive traffic controllers on the market have their own detection requirements, but generally require at least one upstream entry detector per approach. Examples of adaptive control are SCOOT [2], Utopia [3] and ImFlow [4]. Part of the work in this paper builds on ImFlow, which uses an optimizer to test signal plans on the model of the traffic approaching the individual signal groups. These plans are evaluated and selected, based on a cost function which is configured according to the policies specified by the road operator. Public transport priority, bicycle wait time reduction and