Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The security and financial implications of blockchain technologies: Regulating emerging technologies in Canada

Driven by advances in data analytics, machine learning, and smart devices, financial technology is changing the way Canadians interact with the financial sector. The evolving landscape is further influenced by cryptocurrencies: non-fiat, decentralized digital payment systems, like Bitcoin, that operate outside the formal financial sector. While Bitcoin has garnered attention for facilitating criminal activity, including money laundering, terrorism financing, digital ransomware, weapons trafficking, and tax evasion, it is Bitcoin's underlying protocol, the blockchain, that represents an innovation capable of transforming financial services and challenging existing security, financial, and public safety regulations and policies. Canada's challenge is to find the right balance between oversight and innovation. Our paper examines these competing interests: we provide an overview of blockchain technologies, illustrate their potential in Canada and abroad, and examine the government's role in fostering innovation while concurrently bolstering regulations, maintaining public safety, and securing the integrity of financial systems.
Prevalence and Predictors of Disability 24-Months after Injury for Hospitalised and Non-Hospitalised Participants: Results from a Longitudinal Cohort Study in New Zealand

Introduction Most studies investigating disability outcomes following injury have examined hospitalised patients. It is not known whether variables associated with disability outcomes are similar for injured people who are not hospitalised. Aims This paper compares the prevalence of disability 24 months after injury for participants in the Prospective Outcomes of Injury Study who were hospitalised and those non-hospitalised, and also seeks to identify pre-injury and injury-related predictors of disability among hospitalised and non-hospitalised participants. Methods Participants, aged 18–64 years, were recruited from an injury claims register managed by New Zealand’s no-fault injury compensation insurer after referral by health care professionals. A wide range of pre-injury socio-demographic, health and psychosocial characteristics were collected, as well as injury-related characteristics; outcome is assessed using the WHODAS. Multivariable models estimating relative risks of disability for hospitalised and non-hospitalised participants were developed using Poisson regression methods. Results Of 2856 participants, analyses were restricted to 2184 (76%) participants for whom both pre-injury and 24 month WHODAS data were available. Of these, 25% were hospitalised. In both hospitalised and non-hospitalised groups, 13% experience disability (WHODAS≥10) 24 months after injury; higher than pre-injury (5%). Of 28 predictor variables, seven independently placed injured participants in the hospitalised group at increased risk of disability 24 months after injury; eight in the non-hospitalised. Only four predictors (pre-injury disability, two or more pre-injury chronic conditions, pre-injury BMI≥30 and trouble accessing healthcare services) were common to both the hospitalised and non-hospitalised groups. There is some evidence to suggest that among the hospitalised group, Māori have higher risk of disability relative to non-Māori. Conclusions At 24 months considerable disability is borne, equally, by hospitalised and non-hospitalised groups. However, predictors of disability are not necessarily consistent between the hospitalised and non-hospitalised groups, suggesting caution in generalising results from one group to the other.
Toward personalized guidance in interactive narratives

A drama manager is an omniscient agent responsible for guiding players through the story space and delivering an enjoyable experience to the players. Most drama managers only consider the designer’s intent. We present a drama manager that can provide personalized guidance while giving players the appearance of full agency. Our system is evaluated on an interactive storytelling game built with ChooseYour-Own-Adventure (CYOA) stories. The human study results show that our drama manager can significantly increase the likelihood that players make choices that lead toward intended story plot points.
Time to Reconsider Work: Dual-Earner Couples’ Work-Related Adaptive Strategies and Preferences for Reduced Work Hours

Abstract In this study, we use the life course perspective and the paradigm of the social construction of gender to examine the relationships between dual-earner couples’ adaptive strategies, such as their work-hour arrangements, conjoint occupational status, and relative earnings, and men’s and women’s own preferences for reduced work hours as well as their desire for reduced work hours of their spouses. Using the 2010 European Social Survey, we document a pervasive preference for reduced work hours in European countries, which is common to both men and women. Our findings indicate that, regardless of their actual work hour arrangements, conjoint occupational status, and relative earnings, couples generally report preferences for working hours for themselves and their spouses that conform to a modified male breadwinner/female homemaker template. More specifically, the ideal couple-level working time arrangement combines a husband who has a full-time job but does not work long hours and a wife working shorter hours, either in a part-time or full-time job. We discuss the impact of these findings on gender inequality, individuals, and organizations.
A revised model for the last deglaciation of eastern Scotland

A ccelerator mass spectrometry C ages on monospecific marine microfauna from raised mud record initial deglaciation of the eastern coast of Scotland before 21.0 cal ka bp. Two subsequent ice-margin readvances occurred prior to the Loch Lomond Advance and are identified from ice-contact deposits overlying marine mud. The Lunan Bay Readvance dates to <20.2 cal ka bp, and possibly <18.2 cal ka bp. The younger Perth Readvance occurred between c. 17.5 cal ka bp and 14.5 Be ka. Within dating uncertainties, these readvances are similar in age to ice-margin fluctuations documented from the Irish Sea Basin and northwestern Ireland and record three near-synchronous fluctuations of much of the British–Irish Ice Sheet margin during the last deglaciation, suggesting a common response to regional climate forcing.
Iterative oblique projection onto convex sets and the split feasibility problem

Let C and Q be nonempty closed convex sets in RN and RM, respectively, and A an M by N real matrix. The split feasibility problem (SFP) is to find x C with Ax Q, if such x exist. An iterative method for solving the SFP, called the CQ algorithm, has the following iterative step: xk+1 = P C (xk + γAT (P Q − I)Axk),where γ (0, 2L) with L the largest eigenvalue of the matrix ATA and PC and PQ denote the orthogonal projections onto C and Q, respectively; that is, PCx minimizes ||c − x||, over all c C. The CQ algorithm converges to a solution of the SFP, or, more generally, to a minimizer of ||PQAc − Ac|| over c in C, whenever such exist. The CQ algorithm involves only the orthogonal projections onto C and Q, which we shall assume are easily calculated, and involves no matrix inverses. If A is normalized so that each row has length one, then L does not exceed the maximum number of nonzero entries in any column of A, which provides a helpful estimate of L for sparse matrices. Particular cases of the CQ algorithm are the Landweber and projected Landweber methods for obtaining exact or approximate solutions of the linear equations Ax = b; the algebraic reconstruction technique of Gordon, Bender and Herman is a particular case of a block-iterative version of the CQ algorithm. One application of the CQ algorithm that is the subject of ongoing work is dynamic emission tomographic image reconstruction, in which the vector x is the concatenation of several images corresponding to successive discrete times. The matrix A and the set Q can then be selected to impose constraints on the behaviour over time of the intensities at fixed voxels, as well as to require consistency (or near consistency) with measured data.
Context Modulates Early Stimulus Processing when Resolving Stimulus-response Conflict

When responding to stimuli in our environment, the presence of multiple items associated with task-relevant responses affects both ongoing response selection and subsequent behavior. Computational modeling of conflict monitoring and neuroimaging data predict that the recent context of response competition will bias the selection of certain stimuli over others very early in the processing stream through increased focal spatial attention. We used high-density EEG to test this hypothesis and to investigate the contextual effects on nonspatial, early stimulus processing in a modified flanker task. Subjects were required to respond to a central arrow and to ignore potentially conflicting information from flanking arrows in trials preceded by a series of either compatible or incompatible trials. On some trials, we presented the flanking arrows in the absence of the central target. The visual P1 component was selectively enhanced only for incompatible trials when preceded by incompatible ones, suggesting that contextual effects depend on feature-based processing, and not only simple enhancement of the target location. Context effects also occurred on no-target trials as evidenced by an enhanced early-evoked response when they followed compatible compared to incompatible trials, suggesting that spatial attention was also modulated by recent context. These results support a multi-componential account of spatial and nonspatial attention and they suggest that contextually driven cognitive control mechanisms can operate on specific stimulus features at extremely early stages of processing within stimulus-response conflict tasks.
Traditional Feature Engineering and Deep Learning Approaches at Medical Classification Task of ImageCLEF 2016

This paper describes the modeling approaches used for the Subﬁgure Classiﬁcation subtask at ImageCLEF 2016 by the FHDO Biomedical Computer Science Group (BCSG) . Besides traditional feature engineering, modern Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNN) were used, trained from scratch and using a transfer learning scenario. In addition Bag-of-Visual-Words (BoVW) were computed in Opponent color space, since some classes in this subtask can be distinguished by color. To remove unimportant visual words the Information Gain is used for Feature Selection . Overall BCSG achieved top performance for all three types of features: textual, visual and mixed.
Physiological Characteristics and Anti-obesity Effect of Lactobacillus plantarum Q180 Isolated from Feces

Obesity is strongly associated with several metabolic and chronic diseases and has become a major public health problem of worldwide concern. This study aimed to investigate the physiological characteristics and anti-obesity effects of Lactobacillus plantarum Q180. Lactobacillus plantarum Q180 was isolated from the faces of healthy adults and found to have a lipase inhibitory activity of 83.61±2.32% and inhibited adipocyte differentiation of 3T3-L1 cells (14.63±1.37%) at a concentration of 100 μg/mL. The strain was investigated for its physiological characteristics. The optimum growth temperature of L. plantarum Q180 was 37℃. Lactobacillus plantarum Q180 showed higher sensitivity to novobiocin in a comparison of fifteen different antibiotics and showed the highest resistance to rifampicin, polymyxin B and vancomycin. The strain showed higher β-galactosidase and N-acetyl-β-glucosaminidase activities. It also did not produce carcinogenic enzymes such as β-glucuronidase. The survival rate of L. plantarum Q180 in MRS broth containing 0.3% bile was 97.8%. Moreover, the strain showed a 97.2% survival rate after incubation for 3 h in pH 2.0. Lactobacillus plantarum Q180 was displayed resistance to Escherichia coli, Salmonella Typhimurium and Staphylococcus aureus with rates of 55.6%, 38.0% and 47.6%, respectively. These results demonstrate that L. plantarum Q180 has potential as a probiotic with anti-obesity effects.
Affordances and the musically extended mind

I defend a model of the musically extended mind. I consider how acts of “musicking” grant access to novel emotional experiences otherwise inaccessible. First, I discuss the idea of “musical affordances” and specify both what musical affordances are and how they invite different forms of entrainment. Next, I argue that musical affordances – via soliciting different forms of entrainment – enhance the functionality of various endogenous, emotion-granting regulative processes, drawing novel experiences out of us with an expanded complexity and phenomenal character. I argue that music therefore ought to be thought of as part of the vehicle needed to realize these emotional experiences. I appeal to different sources of empirical work to develop this idea.
Advanced and Integrated Petrophysical Characterization for CO2 Storage: Application to the Ketzin Site

Advanced and Integrated Petrophysical Characterization for CO2 Storage: Application to the Ketzin Site — Reservoir simulations and monitoring of CO2 storage require specific petrophysical data. We show a workflow that can be applied to saline aquifers and caprocks in order to provide the minimum data set for realistic estimations of storage potential and perform pertinent simulations of CO2 injection. The presented series of experiments are fully integrated with quantitative log data analysis to estimate porosity, irreducible saturation, drainage capillary pressure and water relative permeability, residual gas saturation, resistivity-saturation relationships and caprock transport properties (permeability and diffusivity). The case considered is a saline aquifer of the Triassic Stuttgart formation studied in the framework of the CO2 SINK onshore research storage, the first in situ testing site of CO2 injection in Germany located near the city of Ketzin.We used petrophysical methods that can provide the required data in a reasonable amount of time while still being representative of the in situ injection process. For two phase transport properties, we used the centrifuge technique. For resistivity measurements, we used the Fast Resistivity Index Measurement (FRIM) method in drainage and imbibition, at ambient and storage conditions. For caprock characterization, we used a fast NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) deuterium tracer technique to measure diffusivity and a modified steady state innovative technique to determine permeability. Entry pressure has also been evaluated using several methods. Resistivity and NMR logs were analyzed to provide a continuous estimation of irreducible saturation for the entire storage zone and to judge on the representativity of the samples analyzed in the laboratory.For the Ketzin site, the storage zone is a clayey sandstone of fluvial origin locally highly cemented, with porosity around 30% and permeability ranging from 100 to 300 mD. Two zones were identified on the logs characterized by two different irreducible saturation ranging from 15 up to 35%. The measured relative permeability curves show a sharp decrease of the water effective permeability and suggest that a saturation lower than 50% cannot be reached in practice. The exponent of the resistivity index curve is about 1.7, lower than the default value of 2. The caprock has a permeability of 27 nD, a porosity around 15% and a pore diffusivity of 0.8 x 10-9 m2 /s
Evidence of an Alternative Currency for Altruism in Laboratory-Based Experiments

Research shows that altruistic behaviours arise in varying social situations in line with different theories of causes of such behaviours. However most research uses financial costs only, which makes our understanding of altruism currently limited. This study presents findings of three experiments that use a novel and simple laboratory-based task that measures altruism based on the amount of time participants are willing to spend as a cost to help others. This task assessed two specific theories; altruistic punishment (Experiments 1 & 2) and empathy-altruism (Experiment 3). All experiments showed that the task was successful, as participants were more likely to altruistically punish violators of social contracts than other scenarios (Experiments 1 and 2), and also incur more costs to behave altruistically towards others when feeling empathic than different emotional states (Experiment 3). These results provide clear support for the use and value of this novel task in future research.
Characteristics of the western United States snowpack from snowpack telemetry (SNOTEL) data

Daily station data from U.S. Department of Agriculture snowpack telemetry (SNOTEL) archives through the 1995/1996 season are used to examine the climatic characteristics of snow water equivalent (SWE) for the mountainous western United States and linkages with precipitation (PRE) and temperature. Quality control procedures were developed to screen outliers in each variable. SWE for April 1 at the SNOTEL sites compares favorably with colocated snow course values. Regional differences in the seasonal cycle of SWE are discussed in terms of winter‐half precipitation, temperature, and the corresponding SWE/PRE ratio. The percentage of annual precipitation represented by snowfall is highest for the Sierra Nevada (67%), northwestern Wyoming (64%), Colorado (63%), and Idaho/western Montana (62%) sectors, manifesting high SWE/PRE ratios and winter‐half precipitation maxima. Lower percentages for the Pacific Northwest (50%) and Arizona/New Mexico (39%) reflect lower ratios and, especially for the latter region, a larger fraction of PRE falling outside of the accumulation season. Interannual variability in SWE in the colder inland regions is primarily controlled by available precipitation. For the warmer Pacific coast regions and Arizona/New Mexico the more important factor is the SWE/PRE ratio, illustrating the sensitivity of these areas to climate change.
Genetic analysis of the breeding system of an invasive subterranean termite, Reticulitermes santonensis, in urban and natural habitats

Reticulitermes santonensis is a subterranean termite that invades urban areas in France and elsewhere where it causes damage to human‐built structures. We investigated the breeding system, colony and population genetic structure, and mode of dispersal of two French populations of R. santonensis. Termite workers were sampled from 43 and 31 collection points, respectively, from a natural population in west–central France (in and around the island of Oléron) and an urban population (Paris). Ten to 20 workers per collection point were genotyped at nine variable microsatellite loci to determine colony identity and to infer colony breeding structure. There was a total of 26 colonies, some of which were spatially expansive, extending up to 320 linear metres. Altogether, the analysis of genotype distribution, F‐statistics and relatedness coefficients suggested that all colonies were extended families headed by numerous neotenics (nonwinged precocious reproductives) probably descended from pairs of primary (winged) reproductives. Isolation by distance among collection points within two large colonies from both populations suggested spatially separated reproductive centres with restricted movement of workers and neotenics. There was a moderate level of genetic differentiation (FST = 0.10) between the Oléron and Paris populations, and the number of alleles was significantly higher in Oléron than in Paris, as expected if the Paris population went through bottlenecks when it was introduced from western France. We hypothesize that the diverse and flexible breeding systems found in subterranean termites pre‐adapt them to invade new or marginal habitats. Considering that R. santonensis may be an introduced population of the North American species R. flavipes, a breeding system consisting primarily of extended family colonies containing many neotenic reproductives may facilitate human‐mediated spread and establishment of R. santonensis in urban areas with harsh climates.
Solutions to Peto's paradox revealed by mathematical modelling and cross-species cancer gene analysis

Whales have 1000-fold more cells than humans and mice have 1000-fold fewer; however, cancer risk across species does not increase with the number of somatic cells and the lifespan of the organism. This observation is known as Peto's paradox. How much would evolution have to change the parameters of somatic evolution in order to equalize the cancer risk between species that differ by orders of magnitude in size? Analysis of previously published models of colorectal cancer suggests that a two- to three-fold decrease in the mutation rate or stem cell division rate is enough to reduce a whale's cancer risk to that of a human. Similarly, the addition of one to two required tumour-suppressor gene mutations would also be sufficient. We surveyed mammalian genomes and did not find a positive correlation of tumour-suppressor genes with increasing body mass and longevity. However, we found evidence of the amplification of TP53 in elephants, MAL in horses and FBXO31 in microbats, which might explain Peto's paradox in those species. Exploring parameters that evolution may have fine-tuned in large, long-lived organisms will help guide future experiments to reveal the underlying biology responsible for Peto's paradox and guide cancer prevention in humans.
Luhmann, Latour and global petroleum governance

Global energy studies have produced a flurry of empirical analyses. However, the amount of theoretical reflection on the topic remains comparatively low. This article takes two specific limitations of the literature as its starting point: First, the often-unclear relationship between states and markets in global energy governance, and, second, the concept of energy as a material and external structure. With the aim of providing more nuanced perspectives on these issues, the article turns to the work of Niklas Luhmann and Bruno Latour. Luhmann’s ideas of functional differentiation and structural coupling provide a new look at the interaction of states and markets. Latour’s symmetric anthropology allows us to rethink energy as a hybrid that is in the midst of instead of outside society. While these thinkers provide interesting ways forward for global energy studies, they also appear to be utterly incompatible. Instead of accepting this incompatibility, however, the article uses the tension between Luhmann and Latour’s work as a productive resource for further reflection on global energy governance. It develops a ‘Luhtourian’ approach, arguing that hybrid, issue-specific governance systems can emerge whenever a resistant hybrid instigates the emergence of symbolically generalized governance objects.
Star Versus Two Stripes Ramsey Numbers and a Conjecture of Schelp

R. H. Schelp conjectured that if G is a graph with |V(G)| = R(Pn, Pn) such that δ(G) > $$\frac{3|V(G)|}{ 4}$, then in every 2-colouring of the edges of G there is a monochromatic Pn. In other words, the Ramsey number of a path does not change if the graph to be coloured is not complete but has large minimum degree. Here we prove Ramsey-type results that imply the conjecture in a weakened form, first replacing the path by a matching, showing that the star-matching–matching Ramsey number satisfying R(Sn, nK2, nK2) = 3n − 1. This extends R(nK2, nK2) = 3n − 1, an old result of Cockayne and Lorimer. Then we extend this further from matchings to connected matchings, and outline how this implies Schelp's conjecture in an asymptotic sense through a standard application of the Regularity Lemma. It is sad that we are unable to hear Dick Schelp's reaction to our work generated by his conjecture.