Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How a Welfare Approach to Maternity Has Facilitated Low Workforce Participation Rates for Australian Women of Child-bearing Age

Australia is only one of two OECD countries that has no legislated universal paid maternity leave scheme. It also ranks eighth lowest in the OECD for the workforce participation rate of women of child-bearing age. This paper examines why consecutive Australian governments have opted to provide a welfare approach to the issue of maternity rather than encourage and embrace women's workforce participation by providing legal entitlements within an employment relations context. The paper examines the history of welfare and paid maternity leave in Australia through an institutional framework in which society, politics and the economy become the bases for the argument. By using this framework for the examination, the paper aims to provide an understanding for the comparatively low workforce participation rate of women of child-bearing age observed within Australia.
A notification service for next-generation IT systems in air traffic control

Next generation Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems must be adaptable to different settings and flexible to handle new operational procedures in order to cope with the challenges of rapidly growing traffic. To achieve a high degree of maintainability, configurability and expandability, they should be constructed following the paradigm of component-oriented software architecture. Integration of components in such a distributed and heterogeneous environment has been specified by ATC authorities to be realized through the deployment of CORBA middleware. Whereas the main model of interaction in CORBA is one-to-one request-reply, many ATC applications show typical one-to-many interaction characteristics. In this paper we focus on applications that feature state change notifications, particularly operational data display services as specified in a recent OMG proposal. We present the design and implementation of our prototype for such a publish/subscribe notification service. Our prototype leverages upon TIBIOP, a CORBA addressing profile that implements GIOP on top of TIBCO's multicast messaging middleware.We discuss to which extent the multicast RMI features match the application requirements and discuss the resulting implications on service specification and implementation. We show how one can profit from subject-based addressing and that failure recovery can thereby be simplified.
Self-consistent calculations of fission barriers in the Fm region

The fission barriers of the nuclei 254 Fm, 256 Fm, 258 Fm, 258 No, and 260 Rf are investigated in a fully microscopic way up to the scission point. The analysis is based on the constrained Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory and Gogny’s D1S force. The quadrupole, octupole, and hexadecapole moments as well as the number of nucleons in the neck region are used as constraints. Two fission paths, corresponding to the bimodal fission, are found. The decrease with isotope mass of the half-life times of heavy Fm isotopes is also explained.
Stock Market Cycles and Supply Side Dynamics: Two Worlds, One Vision?

The paper compares two state-of-art but very dinstinct methods used in macroeconomics: rational-expectations DSGE and bounded rationality behavioural models. Both models are extended to include a financial friction on the supply side.The result in both models is that production, supply of credit and the front payment to capital producers depend heavily on the stock market cycles. During phases of optimism, credit is abundant, access to production capital is easy, the cash-in-advance constraint is lax, the risks are undervalued, and production is booming. But upon reversal in market sentiment, the contraction in all these parameters is deeper and asymmetric. This is even more evident in the behavioural model, where cognitive limitations of economic agents result in exacerbation of the contraction. While both models capture the empirical regularities very well, the validation exercise is even more favourable to the behavioural model.
The time course of attentional allocation while women high and low in body dissatisfaction view self and model physiques

The purpose of this study was to examine trait levels of dissatisfaction with specific bodily regions and attentional characteristics associated with those regions among women high (HBD, n = 15) and low (LBD, n = 14) in body dissatisfaction. Separate laboratory visits were completed, during, which eye movements were recorded as participants viewed slides of self-physiques or model-physiques. Comparisons of search tendencies were made across the entire 5 s of slide presentation, and then within each of the ten 500 ms epochs that comprised the 5 s viewing period. The HBD group made initial fixations to the pelvis region proportionately more than the LBD group, and avoided looking at their own bodies relative to the LBD group. They also viewed the model's legs significantly longer than the LBD group. When considering the time course of attentional allocation, the HBD group preferentially viewed areas typical of dissatisfaction during the latter viewing periods, regardless of whether they were looking at themselves or the model. Results are discussed in the context of an integrated social cognitive view with regard to the formation of a negative body schema that both results from and then perpetuates the negative affective consequences that characterize individuals who are symptomatic for eating disorders.
Determinants of University Tuition in Japan

The main purpose of this study is to find the factors involved in determining private university tuition level. Furthermore, we test whether or not university tuition of prestigious (higher standard deviation score) private universities is lower than that of less prestigious private universities. Japanese researchers have drawn conflicting conclusions about this issue. We obtain the following results. First, important factors affecting tuition are (i) the size of university (i.e. the number of attending students), (ii) the quality of the university (i.e. standard deviation scores), (iii) urban and competition factors (i.e. the inverse of HHI), and (iv) subsidies to private universities. Second, empirical results show that university tuition is higher at very prestigious universities, a tendency similar to that in the US. Third, bigger university size and greater availability of subsidies tend to reduce the tuition level.
Interoperable Open-Source Sensor-Net Frameworks with Sensor-Package Workbench Capabilities: Motivation, Survey of Resources, and Exploratory Results

Abstract : Low-cost sensor technologies, such as Micro-Aerial Vehicles (MAVs), present an opportunity to facilitate improved transformational Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance Targeting, and Information Operations (ISRT/IO) capabilities in support of tactical network-centric ISRT/IO Warfighter and First-Responder operations. There is an exigency for realistic rehearsal frameworks to enable efficient and rapid deployment of MAVs in support of ISRT/IO; physics-based 3D simulation and modeling capabilities improve mission planning and efficiency. The incorporation of Free Open Source Software (FOSS) such as the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Autonomous Unmanned Vehicle (AUV) workbench into the Sensor-net Self-Organization and Control (SenSOC) initiative enables highly reconfigurable realistic and dynamic mission planning capabilities thereby creating more responsive Systems-of-Systems Engineering (SOSE). The current work, reported herein, focuses on the incorporation of a scalable sensor-package in the NPS AUV platform-oriented modeling, simulation, and experimentation framework which would support operational use-cases and CONOPS (i.e. concepts of operation) for tactical ISRT/IO mission-threads and associated scenarios.
The Informational Efficiency of the Corporate Bond Market: An Intraday Analysis

Using a unique dataset based on daily and hourly high-yield bond transaction prices, we find the informational efficiency of corporate bond prices is similar to that of the underlying stocks. We find that stocks do not lead bonds in reflecting firm-specific information. We further examine price behavior around earnings news and find that information is quickly incorporated into both bond and stock prices, even at short return horizons. Finally, we find that measures of market quality are no poorer for the bonds in our sample than for the underlying stocks. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.
The RIG-I ATPase core has evolved a functional requirement for allosteric stabilization by the Pincer domain

Retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) is a pattern recognition receptor expressed in metazoan cells that is responsible for eliciting the production of type I interferons and pro-inflammatory cytokines upon detection of intracellular, non-self RNA. Structural studies of RIG-I have identified a novel Pincer domain composed of two alpha helices that physically tethers the C-terminal domain to the SF2 helicase core. We find that the Pincer plays an important role in mediating the enzymatic and signaling activities of RIG-I. We identify a series of mutations that additively decouple the Pincer motif from the ATPase core and show that this decoupling results in impaired signaling. Through enzymological and biophysical analysis, we further show that the Pincer domain controls coupled enzymatic activity of the protein through allosteric control of the ATPase core. Further, we show that select regions of the HEL1 domain have evolved to potentiate interactions with the Pincer domain, resulting in an adapted ATPase cleft that is now responsive to adjacent domains that selectively bind viral RNA.
Community involvement in out of hospital cardiac arrest

Abstract Out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is a leading cause of death worldwide. Developing countries including Lebanon report low survival rates and poor neurologic outcomes in affected victims. Community involvement through early recognition and bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can improve OHCA survival. This study assesses knowledge and attitude of university students in Lebanon and identifies potential barriers and facilitators to learning and performing CPR. A cross-sectional survey was administered to university students. The questionnaire included questions regarding the following data elements: demographics, knowledge, and awareness about sudden cardiac arrest, CPR, automated external defibrillator (AED) use, prior CPR and AED training, ability to perform CPR or use AED, barriers to performing/learning CPR/AED, and preferred location for attending CPR/AED courses. Descriptive analysis followed by multivariate analysis was carried out to identify predictors and barriers to learning and performing CPR. A total of 948 students completed the survey. Participants’ mean age was 20.1 (±2.1) years with 53.1% women. Less than half of participants (42.9%) were able to identify all the presenting signs of cardiac arrest. Only 33.7% of participants felt able to perform CPR when witnessing a cardiac arrest. Fewer participants (20.3%) reported receiving previous CPR training. Several perceived barriers to learning and performing CPR were also reported. Significant predictors of willingness to perform CPR when faced with a cardiac arrest were: earning higher income, previous CPR training and feeling confident in one's ability to apply an AED, or perform CPR. Lacking enough expertise in performing CPR was a significant barrier to willingness to perform CPR. University students in Lebanon are familiar with the symptoms of cardiac arrest, however, they are not well trained in CPR and lack confidence to perform it. The attitude towards the importance of bystander CPR and the need to learn CPR is very positive. Interventions should focus on public awareness campaigns regarding the importance of initiating bystander CPR while activating emergency medical services (EMS) and on making CPR training more available.
LoneStar RAID

The need for huge storage archives rises with the ever growing creation of data. With today’s big data and data analytics applications, some of these huge archives become active in the sense that all stored data can be accessed at any time. Running and evolving these archives is a constant tradeoff between performance, capacity, and price. We present the LoneStar RAID, a disk-based storage architecture, which focuses on high reliability, low energy consumption, and cheap reads. It is designed for MAID systems with up to hundreds of disk drives per server and is optimized for “write once, read sometimes” workloads. We use dedicated data and parity disks, and export the data disks as individually accessible buckets. By intertwining disk groups into a two-dimensional RAID and improving single-disk reliability with intradisk redundancy, the system achieves an elastic fault tolerance that can at least recover all 3-disk failures. Furthermore, we integrate a cache to offload parity updates and a journal to track the RAID’s state. The LoneStar RAID scheme provides a mean time to data loss (MTTDL) that competes with today’s erasure codes and is optimized to require only a minimal set of running disk drives.
Private Transfers And The Effectiveness Of Public Income Redistribution In The Philippines

Private, inter-household income transfers in the Philippines are large and widespread. They are responsive to the economic status of households. Transfers are targeted to households headed by the non-employed and those without access to retirement pensions. Among the very poorest households, decreases in their pre-transfer income appear to prompt large increases in private transfers suggesting that transfers are in part motivated by altruism. The responsiveness of transfers to household income implies that attempts to improve the economic status of poor households could be thwarted by private responses. If a poor household can tap increased government aid, its private benefactors would cut back on their on transfers, For example, we estimate that if unemployment insurance were instituted in the Philippines, the policy would prompt such large reductions in private transfers that the jobless households would only be slightly better off. We also find that social security prompts similar, though smaller, reductions in private transfers, and those government efforts to alleviate poverty would fall short of the mark because of private-transfer responses. In spite of the private-transfer response, however, public transfers still confer benefits are smaller than those implied my analyses that ignore private-transfer behavior.
Resource‐dependent sex‐allocation in a simultaneous hermaphrodite

Most sex allocation theory is based on the relationship between the resource investment into male and female reproduction and the consequent fitness returns (often called fitness‐gain curves). Here we investigate the effects of resource availability on the sex allocation of a simultaneously hermaphroditic animal, the free‐living flatworm Macrostomum lignano. We kept the worms under different resource levels and determined the size of their testes and ovaries over a period of time. At higher resource levels, worms allocated relatively more into the female function, suggesting a saturating male fitness‐gain curve for this species. A large part of the observed effect was due to a correlated increase in body size, showing size‐dependent sex allocation in M. lignano. However, a significant part of the overall effect was independent of body size, and therefore likely due to the differences in resource availability. Moreover, in accordance with a saturating male fitness‐gain curve, the worms developed the male gonads first. As the group size was kept constant, our results contrast with expectations from sex allocation models that deal with local mate competition alone, and with previous experiments that test these models.
Inhibition of cytochrome systems of heart muscle and certain bacteria by the antagonists of dihydrostreptomycin: 2-alkyl-4-hydroxyquinoline N-oxides.

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The empirical analysis of the determinants of migration and remittances in Kenya and the impact on household expenditure patterns

This thesis conducts empirical analysis on the determinants of migration and remittance sending decisions in Kenya and the impact on the expenditure patterns of households using cross-sectional household survey data. The first empirical chapter explores the factors that influence the subsequent migration decisions of Kenyan siblings using binary logit models. The findings reveal that preceding sibling migrants have a strong negative effect on the probability of migration for other siblings. Evidence in support of migration as a joint household level decision is obtained as preceding sibling and non-sibling migrants are found to exhibit similar effects. Conditional on migrating, siblings are shown to utilize existing sibling networks by moving to the same internal or external destination as preceding migrants. Discrete failure time models are also employed so as to account for any neglected heterogeneity at the household level. Controlling for neglected heterogeneity, the overall effect of preceding sibling migrants is found to be statistically insignificant. However, non-sibling migrants are found to decrease the probability of migrating. The second empirical chapter examines the remittance behaviour of multiple compared to sole sibling migrants, and the motivations of Kenyan siblings in sending remittances to their household of origin. No evidence of selection bias in the decision to remit is detected when a Heckman selection model is estimated. Using probit and OLS models, the presence of other siblings is found to decrease the probability of remitting but to have no effect on the amount of remittances sent. The amount of remittances sent by other siblings is also found to have no statistically significant effect on the remittances sent by a sibling using IV regression methods. In the third empirical chapter, the expenditure patterns of Kenyan households are investigated according to whether the household is a migrant or non-migrant household, and whether a migrant household is in receipt of remittances or not using an Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) approach. The analysis reveals that remitters who are spouses and siblings of the household have higher bargaining power towards the allocation of remittances to physical investments and durable goods, respectively. The expenditure patterns also show that remittances are not pooled together with general income when allocating the household budget towards durable goods and physical investments. In addition, the findings reveal that the reported uses of remittances by Kenyan households contrast with their actual uses. In the fourth chapter, the uses of remittances for the acquisition of physical investments and durable goods are analysed in more detail using IV and bivariate probit models. Remittances are found to be exogenous for the durable goods category but endogenous for physical investments. The evidence obtained is supportive of remittances being used by households to purchase these categories of commodities
Stability, Intracellular Delivery, and Release of siRNA from Chitosan Nanoparticles Using Different Cross-Linkers

Chitosan (CS) nanoparticles have been extensively studied for siRNA delivery; however, their stability and efficacy are highly dependent on the types of cross-linker used. To address this issue, three common cross-linkers; tripolyphosphate (TPP), dextran sulphate (DS) and poly-D-glutamic acid (PGA) were used to prepare siRNA loaded CS-TPP/DS/PGA nanoparticles by ionic gelation method. The resulting nanoparticles were compared with regard to their physicochemical properties including particle size, zeta potential, morphology, binding and encapsulation efficiencies. Among all the formulations prepared with different cross linkers, CS-TPP-siRNA had the smallest particle size (ranged from 127 ± 9.7 to 455 ± 12.9 nm) with zeta potential ranged from +25.1 ± 1.5 to +39.4 ± 0.5 mV, and high entrapment (>95%) and binding efficiencies. Similarly, CS-TPP nanoparticles showed better siRNA protection during storage at 4˚C and as determined by serum protection assay. TEM micrographs revealed the assorted morphology of CS-TPP-siRNA nanoparticles in contrast to irregular morphology displayed by CS-DS-siRNA and CS-PGA-siRNA nanoparticles. All siRNA loaded CS-TPP/DS/PGA nanoparticles showed initial burst release followed by sustained release of siRNA. Moreover, all the formulations showed low and concentration-dependent cytotoxicity with human colorectal cancer cells (DLD-1), in vitro. The cellular uptake studies with CS-TPP-siRNA nanoparticles showed successful delivery of siRNA within cytoplasm of DLD-1 cells. The results demonstrate that ionically cross-linked CS-TPP nanoparticles are biocompatible non-viral gene delivery system and generate a solid ground for further optimization studies, for example with regard to steric stabilization and targeting.
Von Neumann Entropy Penalization and Low Rank Matrix Estimation

A problem of statistical estimation of a Hermitian nonnegatively definite matrix of unit trace (for instance, a density matrix in quantum state tomography) is studied. The approach is based on penalized least squares method with a complexity penalty defined in terms of von Neumann entropy. A number of oracle inequalities have been proved showing how the error of the estimator depends on the rank and other characteristics of the oracles. The methods of proofs are based on empirical processes theory and probabilistic inequalities for random matrices, in particular, noncommutative versions of Bernstein inequality.
Genomic computing: explanatory modelling for functional genomics

Many newly discovered genes are of unknown function. DNA microarrays are a method for determining the expression levels of all genes in an organism for which a complete genome sequence is available. By comparing the expression changes under different conditions it should be possible to assign functions to these genes. However, many hundreds of thousands of data points may be produced over a series of experiments. Genetic programming provided simple explanatory rules for gene function from such datasets, where previous approaches had not succeeded.