Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The governance of memory of migrant communities in Western Europe: a case study of memory transmission among Aramean,Assyrian and Chaldean families

The aim of this research is to provide a contribution, to the state of art, in the governance of memory. This research studies, how the narratives of the violent events of 1915, of Aramean, Assyrian and Chaldean families in the Ottoman Empire, have manifested themselves throughout generations. For this qualitative case study, 50 interviews and observations were used. From analyzing the governance of memory, of the Aramean, Assyrian and Chaldean migrant families, it shows that their tribal memory is still alive and rhapsodists are present throughout generations, even in the fourth generation. The analysis also shows that there is a foundational narrative, that keeps returning in every interview. The fact that this narrative returns, is because of the migrant community’s norms and values throughout generation. Another finding is the transmission of feelings instead of narratives. Respondents claim to start with the transmission of feeling towards their children, at a very early age. The last finding is about the human rights of the migrants, both in Turkey and in Western Europe. It seems that these migrants claim their lives are still influenced by the Turkish government, even though they have fled Turkey as political refugees. These influences affect their memory transmission and the ability to commemorate, they claim. This study concludes that the memory transmission, of the violent events of 1915, were mostly through oral tradition, however during time this changed to commemoration, writing books and songs. The conclusions of this research, have led to practical implications for policy and governance, in particular for commemoration and migration policies.
What can electron paramagnetic resonance tell us about the Si/SiO2 system?

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements of Si/SiO2 systems began over 30 years ago. Most EPR studies of Si/SiO2 systems have dealt with two families of defects: Pb centers and E′ centers. Several variants from each group have been observed in a wide range of Si/SiO2 samples. Some of the most basic aspects of this extensive, body of work remain controversial. EPR is an extraordinary powerful analytical tool quite widely utilized in chemistry, biomedical research, and solid state physics. Although uniquely well suited for metal–oxide–silicon (MOS) device studies, its capabilities are not widely understood in the MOS research and development community. The impact of EPR has been limited in the MOS community by a failure of EPR spectroscopists to effectively communicate with other engineers and scientists in the MOS community. In this article we hope to, first of all, ameliorate the communications problem by providing a brief but quantitative introduction to those aspects of EPR which are most rele.
BEHL WORKING PAPER SERIES WP 201 302 Financing a Planned Economy : Institutions and Credit Allocation in the French Golden Age of Growth

The role of banking and finance in the Golden Age of European growth (1950-1973) is very little known and widely underestimated. This paper studies the French system of economic planning and investment-based strategy that enhanced medium and long-term financing (called “investment credit” at that time). First, I describe the new institutions that were built after WWII to organize credit allocation. I especially highlight the role of the central bank through the National Credit Council. I then use a newly constructed database that matches the amount of credit (that had to be registered at the Banque of France) in 49 sectors to corporate tax sectoral statistics. It shows a significant positive relationship between investment credit and the marginal product of capital. The allocation of medium/long-term credit managed to favor the allocation of productive capital across sectors and thus to ensure the catch-up process. Using GMM estimations in order to avoid the endogeneity bias, I find that the effect of “investment credit” on growth is significant and positive, contrary to short-term credit which did not play any role for investment. Understanding the institutional framework that shaped the mechanisms and success of credit policy in the French mixed economy during the 50s and 60s also helps to understand its failures during the mid-70s.
Model-driven optimization using adaptive probes

In several applications such as databases, planning, and sensor networks, parameters such as selectivity, load, or sensed values are known only with some associated uncertainty. The performance of such a system (as captured by some objective function over the parameters) is significantly improved if some of these parameters can be probed or observed. In a resource constrained situation, deciding which parameters to observe in order to optimize system performance itself becomes an interesting and important optimization problem. This problem is the focus of this paper. Unfortunately designing optimal observation schemes is NP-HARD even for the simplest objective functions, leading to the study of approximation algorithms. In this paper we present general techniques for designing non-adaptive probing algorithms which are at most a constant factor worse than optimal adaptive probing schemes. Interestingly, this shows that for several problems of interest, while probing yields significant improvement in the objective function, being adaptive about the probing is not beneficial beyond constant factors.
Mechanisms for the Modulation of Dopamine D1 Receptor Signaling in Striatal Neurons

In the striatum, dopamine D1 receptors are preferentially expressed in striatonigral neurons, and increase the neuronal excitability, leading to the increase in GABAergic inhibitory output to substantia nigra pars reticulata. Such roles of D1 receptors are important for the control of motor functions. In addition, the roles of D1 receptors are implicated in reward, cognition, and drug addiction. Therefore, elucidation of mechanisms for the regulation of dopamine D1 receptor signaling is required to identify therapeutic targets for Parkinson’s disease and drug addiction. D1 receptors are coupled to Gs/olf/adenylyl cyclase/PKA signaling, leading to the phosphorylation of PKA substrates including DARPP-32. Phosphorylated form of DARPP-32 at Thr34 has been shown to inhibit protein phosphatase-1, and thereby controls the phosphorylation states and activity of many downstream physiological effectors. Roles of DARPP-32 and its phosphorylation at Thr34 and other sites in D1 receptor signaling are extensively studied. In addition, functional roles of the non-canonical D1 receptor signaling cascades that coupled to Gq/phospholipase C or Src family kinase become evident. We have recently shown that phosphodiesterases (PDEs), especially PDE10A, play a pivotal role in regulating the tone of D1 receptor signaling relatively to that of D2 receptor signaling. We review the current understanding of molecular mechanisms for the modulation of D1 receptor signaling in the striatum.
Expected Versus Realized Income Changes: A Test of the Rational Expectation Hypothesis

We analyze answers to household survey questions on whether the respondents' household income has changed in the past twelve months, and on whether the respondents expect their household income to change in the next twelve months. Both questions are answered on a discrete five points scale.The data are an unbalanced panel of eleven consecutive annual waves.Using cross-tabulations of expected and realized changes, we first test the "best-case" hypothesis.This hypothesis implies, under two different nonparametric assumptions on how respondents form their predictions, that respondents have rational expectations, that there are no common unexpected shocks, and that reported expectations are best predictions of future outcomes.We find that the best case hypothesis is rejected: for all years, too many respondents who predict an income fall, ex post report that their household income has not changed.We then construct a bivariate ordered probit random effects panel data model, in which we explain both expectations and realizations from background variables such as age, education level, and labour market status, and from the one year lagged expectation and realization.We show that the hypothesis of rational expectations implies certain restrictions on the parameters in the two equations of this model.The model is estimated by simulated maximum likelihood using the Geweke-Hajivassilou-Keane (GHK) method.The hypothesis of rational expectations is rejected.The hypotheses that expectations are adaptive or naive can be tested in a similar way, and are also rejected.
Voting for Corruption: How Poverty and Inequality Undermine Democratic Accountability in Latin America

OF THE DISSERTATION Voting for Corruption: How Poverty and Inequality Undermine Democratic Accountability in Latin America by Peter C. Casey Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science Washington University in St. Louis, May 2014 Professor Guillermo Rosas, Chair Why do citizens fail to hold their elected officials democratically accountable for corruption? In this dissertation, I argue that poverty and inequality undermine democratic accountability for corruption by creating opportunities for elected officials to mobilize political support through targeted, personal exchange. I focus on two such types of exchange, clientelism and crony capitalism, and explain how corruption reinforces these two strategies of political mobilization. I argue that the costs of corruption are very high for the poor, who often lose access to government resources they rely on to meet their basic needs. Because the cost of failing to meet their basic needs is so high, poor citizens are likely to rely on political patrons for access to resources in corrupt countries, making them especially susceptible to clientelism; the exchange of material benefits for political support. Clientelism thereby undermines democratic accountability for corruption, especially in countries with poor populations.
JUVENILE AND ADULT SURVIVAL OF SWAINSON'S THRUSH (CATHARUS USTULATUS) IN COASTAL CALIFORNIA: ANNUAL ESTIMATES USING CAPTURE-RECAPTURE ANALYSES

Abstract We estimated annual rates of survival for juvenile and adult Swainson's Thrushes (Catharus ustulatus) using capture-recapture analyses from 22 years of mist-neting data in coastal California (n= 2,651 individual captures). Our apparent survival estimate was 56% for adults and 25% for juveniles. We are the first to estimate an annual juvenile survival rate for a Neotropical migrant using capture-recapture probability estimates. Like most estimates of annual survival, we could not distinguish between dispersal away from our study area (which is likely high for juveniles) and mortality. Hence, survival is underestimated. However, our juvenile survival estimate did not include the period from fledging to independence, a time when mortality can be high. Many researchers have assumed juvenile survival to be half that of adult survival in population models (e.g. source-sink). Our juvenile to adult survival ratio was 45% (95% CI = 27 to 65%). We caution researchers from simply assuming that juvenile survival approximates half of adult survival when modeling populations and suggest using a range of values. Using a range of values is prudent because of the potential for annual variation, site-specific variation, and especially because estimates are imprecise or completely lacking.
Survey of annuity pricing

'. but if you observe, people always live for ever when there is an annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy, and hardly forty' 'An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. ' Views expressed in this report are not necessarily those of the Department for Work and Pensions or any other Government Department.
Unsupervised curvature-based retinal vessel segmentation

Unsupervised methods for automatic vessel segmentation from retinal images are attractive when only small datasets, with associated ground truth markings, are available. We present an unsupervised, curvature-based method for segmenting the complete vessel tree from colour retinal images. The vessels are modeled as trenches and the medial lines of the trenches are extracted using the curvature information derived from a novel curvature estimate. The complete vessel structure is then extracted using a modified region growing method. Test-results of the algorithm using the DRIVE dataset are superior to previously reported unsupervised methods and comparable to those obtained with the supervised methods in Staal, J. et al. (2004) and Soares, J.V. B. et al. (2006).
Toll-like receptor 4 and NOD2/CARD15 mutations in Hungarian patients with Crohn's disease: phenotype-genotype correlations.

AIM To determine common NOD2/CARD15 mutations and TLR4 D299G polymorphism in Hungarian patients with CD. METHODS A total of 527 unrelated patients with CD (male/female: 265/262, age: 37.1 (SD 7.6) years) and 200 healthy subjects were included. DNA was screened for possible NOD2/CARD15 mutations by denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography (confirmed by direct sequencing). TLR4 D299G was tested by PCR-RFLP. RESULTS NOD2/CARD15 mutations were found in 185 patients (35.1%) and in 33 controls (16.5%, P<0.0001). SNP8/R702W (10.8% vs 6%, P = 0.02), SNP13/3020insC (19.4% vs 5%, P<0.0001) and exon4 R703C (2.1% vs 0%, P = 0.02) mutations were more frequent in CD, while the frequency of SNP12/G908R was not increased. The frequency of TLR4 D299G was not different (CD: 9.9% vs controls: 12.0%). Variant NOD2/CARD15 allele was associated with an increased risk for CD (OR(het) = 1.71, 95%CI = 1.12-2.6, P = 0.0001, OR(two-risk alleles) = 25.2, 95%CI = 4.37-8, P<0.0001), early disease onset (carrier: 26.4 years vs non-carrier: 29.8 years, P = 0.0006), ileal disease (81.9% vs 69.5%, OR = 1.99, 95%CI = 1.29-3.08, P = 0.02, presence of NOD2/CARD15 and TLR4: 86.7% vs 64.8%), stricturing behavior (OR = 1.69, 95%CI = 1.13-2.55, P = 0.026) and increased need for resection (OR=1.71, 95%CI: 1.13-2.62, P = 0.01), but not with duration, extra-intestinal manifestations, familial disease or smoking. TLR4 exhibited a modifier effect: age of onset in wt/TLR4 D299G carriers: 27.4 years vs NOD2mut/TLR D299G: 23 years (P = 0.06), in NOD2mut/wt: 26.7 years. CONCLUSION These results confirm that variant NOD2/CARD15 (R702W, R703C and 3020insC) alleles are associated with earlier disease onset, ileal disease, stricturing disease behavior in Hungarian CD patients. In contrast, although the frequency of TLR4 D299G polymorphism was not different from controls, NOD2/TLR4 mutation carriers tended to present at earlier age.
Cross-Lingual Image Caption Generation

Automatically generating a natural language description of an image is a fundamental problem in artiﬁcial intelligence. This task involves both computer vision and natural language processing and is called “image caption generation. ” Research on image caption generation has typically focused on taking in an image and generating a caption in English as existing image caption corpora are mostly in English. The lack of corpora in languages other than English is an issue, especially for morphologically rich languages such as Japanese. There is thus a need for corpora sufﬁciently large for image captioning in other languages. We have developed a Japanese version of the MS COCO caption dataset and a generative model based on a deep recurrent architecture that takes in an image and uses this Japanese version of the dataset to generate a caption in Japanese. As the Japanese portion of the corpus is small, our model was designed to transfer the knowledge representation obtained from the English portion into the Japanese portion. Experiments showed that the resulting bilingual comparable corpus has better performance than a monolingual corpus, indicating that image understanding using a resource-rich language beneﬁts a resource-poor language.
Low Levels of Antibody-Dependent Enhancement in Vitro Using Viruses and Plasma from Dengue Patients

Background The majority of dengue patients infected with any serotype of dengue virus (DENV) are asymptomatic, but the remainder may develop a wide spectrum of clinical symptoms, ranging from mild dengue fever (DF) to severe dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF). Severe cases occur more often in patients who experience a secondary infection with a different virus serotype. A phenomenon called antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) has been proposed to explain the onset of these severe cases, but the exact mechanism of ADE remains unclear. Methodology/Principal Finding Virus neutralization and ADE assays were performed using ultracentrifugation supernatants of acute-phase sera from patients with secondary infections or human monoclonal antibodies (HuMAbs) as anti-DENV antibodies. Virus sources included infectious serum-derived viruses from the ultracentrifugation precipitates, laboratory-culture adapted DENV, or recombinant DENVs derived from patient sera. In contrast to the high levels of ADE observed with laboratory virus strains, low ADE was observed with autologous patient-derived viruses, when patient sera were used to provide the antibody component in the ADE assays. Similar results were obtained using samples from DF and DHF patients. Recombinant-viruses derived from DHF patients showed only minor differences in neutralization and ADE activity in the presence of HuMAbs or plasma derived from the same DHF patient. Conclusion/Significance Serum or plasma taken from patients during the acute phase of a secondary infection showed high levels of ADE, but no neutralization activity, when assayed in the presence of laboratory-adapted virus strains. By contrast, serum or plasma from the same patient showed high levels of neutralization activity but failed to induce significant ADE when the assays were performed with autologous virus. These results demonstrate the significance of the virus source when measuring ADE. They also suggest that repeated passage of DENV in cell culture has endowed it with the capacity to induce high levels of ADE.
Effects of Organizational Design Dimensions on Inter-unit Knowledge Sharing

The literature on knowledge sharing is extensive but organization design received little attention in this literature. A few useful exceptions are Birkinshaw e.a. (2002), Hansen (2002) and Tsai (2002). However, these attempts are yet too limited to fully understand the relationship between organization design choices and knowledge sharing. To contribute in filling this gap, we look at the fundamental organization design dimensions, specialization centralization, formalization, and coordination, in their relationship to the concepts of knowledge and knowledge sharing. While specialization creates firm-specific boundaries to knowledge sharing, coordination is the firm-specific mechanism to overcome these boundaries (Grant, 1996). A multiple case study approach was followed to collect our data, using a questionnaire in the Belgian divisions of two European companies active in the energy and finance sector. Based on a reassessment of the classic organization design literature, we assumed more inter-unit knowledge sharing when: decentralized and informal coordination is used, interdependency between units is low and specialization, reflected in knowledge complexity and unit differences, is low. Our findings indicated that interdependency and knowledge complexity, apart from having a strong direct effect on knowledge sharing, also had an important interacting effect in the relationship between coordination and knowledge sharing; suggesting a contingency view on organization design and knowledge transferability. Other expected relationships were not found, such as the negative effect of hierarchy or the positive effect of lower formalization. We made a comparison between the two cases and put the findings in their context. Apparently, the organization-specific context in which the 3 coordination is applied affects the potential of this coordination for knowledge sharing. Especially the role of formalization differed. Hence, organization-specificity questions again the contingency view.
Can an Accelerometer-Based Monitor be used to Accurately Assess Physical Activity in a Population of Survivors of Critical Illness?

Purpose: To investigate the validity and reliability of the Activity Monitoring Pod (AMP331) to record gait parameters in healthy young adults (YA) and intensive care unit inpatients (ICU). Methods: YA (N=15) completed a series of over-ground walks. Another 15 YA completed a series of treadmill walks. The ICU group (N=20) completed a series of over-ground walks with repeat trials. Gait parameters were recorded simultaneously by the AMP 331 and the Vicon (YA) and the AMP 331, direct observation and a stopwatch (ICU). Results: For the YA over-ground, no significant differences were found between the measures recorded by the systems. For the YA treadmill, 43% of the measures differed (P < .05). For the ICU group, the AMP331 underestimated distance and speed by 3m and 25cm/s respectively. Reliability measures (ICU group) for distance (ICC 0.99, 95%CI 0.98 – 0.99) and step count (ICC 0.99, 95%CI 0.99 – 1.00) were excellent. Conclusions: The AMP 331 is a valid instrument for recording basic gait parameters for over-ground walking in healthy YA and ICU survivors.
Inference for the dark energy equation of state using Type IA supernova data

The surprising discovery of an accelerating universe led cosmologists to posit the existence of “dark energy”—a mysterious energy field that permeates the universe. Understanding dark energy has become the central problem of modern cosmology. After describing the scientific background in depth, we formulate the task as a nonlinear inverse problem that expresses the comoving distance function in terms of the dark-energy equation of state. We present two classes of methods for making sharp statistical inferences about the equation of state from observations of Type Ia Supernovae (SNe). First, we derive a technique for testing hypotheses about the equation of state that requires no assumptions about its form and can distinguish among competing theories. Second, we present a framework for computing parametric and nonparametric estimators of the equation of state, with an associated assessment of uncertainty. Using our approach, we evaluate the strength of statistical evidence for various competing models of dark energy. Consistent with current studies, we find that with the available Type Ia SNe data, it is not possible to distinguish statistically among popular dark-energy models, and that, in particular, there is no support in the data for rejecting a cosmological constant. With much more supernova data likely to be available in coming years (e.g., from the DOE/NASA Joint Dark Energy Mission), we address the more interesting question of whether future data sets will have sufficient resolution to distinguish among competing theories.
Cell Cycle-Dependent Phosphorylation of C/EBP Mediates Oncogenic Cooperativity between C/EBP and H-Ras

Cell Cycle-Dependent Phosphorylation of C/EBP Mediates Oncogenic Cooperativity between C/EBP and H-Ras Jon D. Shuman,† Thomas Sebastian, Philipp Kaldis, Terry D. Copeland, Songyun Zhu, Robert C. Smart, and Peter F. Johnson* Laboratory of Protein Dynamics and Signaling and Mouse Cancer Genetics Program, National Cancer Institute— Frederick, Frederick, Maryland, and Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina