Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Demographic change and the supply of potential family supporters in Britain, Finland and France in the period 1911-2050

We consider the contribution of changes in mortality and fertility to availability of living mothers and living children among older people in Britain, Finland and France. The proportion of people aged around 60 with a mother alive will more than double between those born in 1911 and 1970 before starting to decline slightly. Conversely, a higher proportion of elderly people are likely to have a surviving child than for any generation ever born in all three countries in the next quarter century or so, with about 85% of 80-year-old women having at least one surviving child, and about two-thirds having two or more.
Quantum criticality at the origin of life

Why life persists at the edge of chaos is a question at the very heart of evolution. Here we show that molecules taking part in biochemical processes from small molecules to proteins are critical quantum mechanically. Electronic Hamiltonians of biomolecules are tuned exactly to the critical point of the metal-insulator transition separating the Anderson localized insulator phase from the conducting disordered metal phase. Using tools from Random Matrix Theory we confirm that the energy level statistics of these biomolecules show the universal transitional distribution of the metal-insulator critical point and the wave functions are multifractals in accordance with the theory of Anderson transitions. The findings point to the existence of a universal mechanism of charge transport in living matter. The revealed bio-conductor material is neither a metal nor an insulator but a new quantum critical material which can exist only in highly evolved systems and has unique material properties.
A “Multitude” of Solitude: A Closer Look at Social Withdrawal and Nonsocial Play in Early Childhood

ABSTRACT—It has long been argued that social withdrawal in early childhood is a risk factor for later socioemotional difficulties. However, in recent years, researchers have begun to make distinctions between types of social withdrawal in young children, including shyness, social disinterest, and social avoidance. In this article, we review the literature on multiple forms of social withdrawal in early childhood. In particular, we focus on (a) theoretical and empirical distinctions between shyness, social disinterest, and social avoidance; (b) links between these constructs and children’s social and nonsocial play behaviors with peers; and (c) implications for children’s psychosocial adjustment. As well, we provide suggestions for future research, particularly on the relatively understudied construct of social disinterest and the virtually unexplored phenomenon of social avoidance.
Should government spending on capital goods be raised

I A GROWING BODY of public opinion and analysis argues that government spending for capital formation is deficient and should be increased. Such spending is largely for goods called infrastructure. Adam Smith (1937) referred to spending on infrastructure as the third rationale for the state (behind the provision of defense and justice). ’ Today, these capital goods include highways, mass transit systems, airports, electric and gas facilities, wastewater treatment facilities, water supply and distribution, in addition to the facilities and equipment used in
Critical Role of TLR7 Signaling in the Priming of Cross-Protective Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Responses by a Whole Inactivated Influenza Virus Vaccine

Current influenza vaccines fail to induce protection against antigenically distinct virus strains. Accordingly, there is a need for the development of cross-protective vaccines. Previously, we and others have shown that vaccination with whole inactivated virus (WIV) induces cross-protective cellular immunity in mice. To probe the mechanistic basis for this finding, we investigated the role of TLR7, a receptor for single-stranded RNA, in induction of cross-protection. Vaccination of TLR7−/− mice with influenza WIV failed to protect against a lethal heterosubtypic challenge; in contrast, wild-type mice were fully protected. The lack of protection in TLR7−/− mice was associated with high viral load and a relative paucity of influenza-specific CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses. Dendritic cells (DCs) from TLR7−/− mice were unable to cross-present WIV-derived antigen to influenza-specific CTLs in vitro. Similarly, TLR7−/− DCs failed to mature and become activated in response to WIV, as determined by the assessment of surface marker expression and cytokine production. Plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) derived from wild-type mice responded directly to WIV while purified conventional DCs (cDCs) did not respond to WIV in isolation, but were responsive in mixed pDC/cDC cultures. Depletion of pDCs prior to and during WIV immunization resulted in reduced numbers of influenza-specific CTLs and impaired protection from heterosubtypic challenge. Thus, TLR7 plays a critical role in the induction of cross-protective immunity upon vaccination with WIV. The initial target cells for WIV appear to be pDCs which by direct or indirect mechanisms promote activation of robust CTL responses against conserved influenza epitopes.
International Macroeconomics: Theory and Policy

International Macroeconomics: Theory and Policy offers phenomenal coverage across the entire subject of international macroeconoimics in an open economy context. The book has four objectives: * to describe the evolution of and experiences with global exchange rate regimes * to introduce the reader to a rigorous analysis of open economy models * to apply the model framework to address key policy issues * to review individual country experiences of macro policy
Optimization in Knowledge-Intensive Crowdsourcing

We present SmartCrowd, a framework for optimizing collaborative knowledge-intensive crowdsourcing. SmartCrowd distinguishes itself by accounting for human factors in the process of assigning tasks to workers. Human factors designate workers' expertise in different skills, their expected minimum wage, and their availability. In SmartCrowd, we formulate task assignment as an optimization problem, and rely on pre-indexing workers and maintaining the indexes adaptively, in such a way that the task assignment process gets optimized both qualitatively, and computation time-wise. We present rigorous theoretical analyses of the optimization problem and propose optimal and approximation algorithms. We finally perform extensive performance and quality experiments using real and synthetic data to demonstrate that adaptive indexing in SmartCrowd is necessary to achieve efficient high quality task assignment.
Tax Deductibility of Commuting Expenses and Residential Land Use with More than One Center

This paper analyzes the treatment of commuting expenses by the income tax code from a normative and a positive point of view within a continuous space framework with endogenous residence choices and perfect labor mobility. As commuting expenses should never be deductible from the income tax base in a first-best world, deductibility might well be the outcome of a second-best-optimum-tax approach provided that not all factors of production were mobile. Non-deductibility might be justified by a lack of instruments to internalize environmental and congestion externalities or by perfect mobility of all production factors. However, the existence of deductions in many coun-tries can be easily explained within a public choice framework by redistribution from non-commuters to commuters.
Technical and scale efficiency of crop and livestock farms in Poland : Does specialisation matter ?

Acknowledgements The paper was written while Laure Latruffe was a visitor in Imperial College at Wye. Gocht for their help, as well as Rob Fraser and Chantal Le Mouël for their comments. Abstract The paper analyses technical and scale efficiency of Polish farms using Data Envelopment Analysis. The focus is on efficiency differences according to farm specialisation, in crop or livestock, at two points in time during transition, 1996 and 2000. The statistical variability of efficiency estimates is investigated. The efficiency results are reviewed in the light of confidence intervals provided by bootstrapping and of a summary measure introduced in this study, 'the coefficient of separation'. The inference analysis suggests that farms might be less efficient than revealed by the point estimates alone, and that they might not be clearly different from each other. On average, livestock farms are more technically and scale efficient than crop farms. Scale efficiency is high for both specialisations. Technical inefficiency appears mostly to be due to pure technical inefficiency rather than to scale inefficiency, thus to inefficient management practices. The low educational level of people engaged in agriculture is one important reason for these inefficient practices. In 2000, 64 per cent of livestock farms and 86 per cent of crop farms were operating under increasing returns to scale. Improvements in the land lease legislation and changes to the policy support to farmers' pensions could stimulate the land market and remove the incentives to keep fragmented operational structure. Résumé L'efficacité technique et d'échelle des exploitations agricoles polonaises est estimée par la méthode Data Envelopment Analysis. L'étude porte sur les différences selon la spécialisation agricole, en élevage ou grandes cultures, à deux périodes pendant la transition, 1996 et 2000. Le papier examine de plus la variabilité statistique des estimations. Les résultats d'efficacité sont revus à la lumière des intervalles de confiance construits grâce au bootstrapping et d'une mesure introduite dans cette étude, 3 le « coefficient de séparation ». Cette analyse d'inférence montre que les exploitations pourraient être moins efficaces que ce que les estimations seules révèlent, et qu'elles ne sont pas nettement différentiables de l'une de l'autre. En moyenne, les exploitations d'élevage ont une efficacité technique et d'échelle supérieure aux exploitations de grandes cultures. L'efficacité d'échelle est toutefois très élevée pour les deux spécialisations. L'inefficacité technique semble donc due principalement à une inefficacité technique pure, c'est-à-dire à une gestion inefficace. La faible éducation des agriculteurs …
Are Different Rules of Origin Equally Costly? Estimates from NAFTA

Preferential market access, either in the recent OECD initiatives or in the North-South FTAs require the use of rules of origin (RoO). Recent studies have questioned the extent of market access provided by these preferences. Using data on Mexican exports to the US in 2001, this paper estimates the likely costs of different RoO for final and intermediate goods, and compares these results with those obtained from a synthetic index. Econometric results are plausible (they satisfy the revealed preference criterion that estimated costs of RoO should be less than preference rates when utilization rates of NAFTA preference are significantly positive), and they indicate that changes in tariff classification are more costly for final goods than for intermediate goods. For activities subject to regional value content minima, we carry out illustrative simulations indicating what tariff preference margin would be necessary to compensate for the import content minima. Overall, our cost estimates suggest, that at least in the case of NAFTA, preferential market access was quite small, leading us to speculate that these conclusions may carry over to other North-South preferential schemes.
The Social Integration of Supported Employees: A Qualitative Study.

This study utilized qualitative methods to examine the social interactions that occur within supported employment settings between workers with disabilities and nondisabled co-workers. The study also examined the job supports at work settings, to understand the relationship between formal, job coach support services and natural job supports. Seven employees were studied in supported employment settings, using participant observation and interviews. Settings included a nursing home, a department store, a transportation company, two restaurants, a hospital, and a school. Findings are organized around seven common themes, including the low-status context of supported employment, the atypical design of supported job positions which were structured into an unvarying sequence of tasks, the importance of social interaction, the restricted social participation of supported employees, the importance of natural supports, the hidden messages of job coaches, and discrepant perceptions of supported employees. It was found that job coacrting interfered with mentoring for supported employees, and job coaches did not teach participation in social customs. As a result, supported employees received less natural support than their co-workers. Despite these problems, supported employees had become accepted membrsrs of the work setting. Includes approximately 75 references. (JDD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Fault Diagnosis of Single Phase Z-Source Inverter

This paper presents FFT spectrum analysis of single-phase ZSI under various fault conditions for boost as well as buck operation. The faults under consideration are fault at one of the IGBTs gate terminals, blowing off one IGBT. The comparisons of effects of faults are presented in paper for both boost and buck operation. Simulation results and FFT spectrum are simulated.
Cardiovascular disease delay in centenarian offspring.

BACKGROUND Previously, the authors have shown that an important component of the ability to survive to exceptionally old age is family health history. This study assessed the age at onset of age-related diseases in centenarian offspring. METHODS The health histories of 177 offspring of centenarians enrolled in the nationwide New England Centenarian Study, and 166 controls were assessed from 1997 to 2000. Controls were the offspring of parents born in the same years as the centenarians but at least one of whom died at average life expectancy. Ages at onset of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, depression, thyroid disease, and stroke were compared in the two groups. RESULTS The median ages of onset for coronary heart disease (p <.001), hypertension (p <.001), diabetes (p =.002), and stroke (p =.017) were significantly delayed in the centenarian offspring by 5.0, 2.0, 8.5, and 8.5 years, respectively, compared with the age-matched controls. Adjusted hazard ratios were 0.388 (p =.0004), 0.39 (p <.0001), 0.302 (p =.008), and 0.328 (p =.06). No differences were found in the ages of onset for the other diseases investigated. CONCLUSIONS The offspring of centenarians show a marked delay in the age of onset for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, and stroke but not for other age-related diseases such as cancer, osteoporosis, and thyroid disease. These results suggest that the children of centenarians may be following in their parents' footsteps, markedly delaying the onset of lethal diseases that commonly affect older persons.
Fluvial and slope‐wash erosion of soil‐mantled landscapes: detachment‐ or transport‐limited?

Many numerical landform evolution models assume that soil erosion by flowing water is either purely detachment‐limited (i.e. erosion rate is related to the shear stress, power, or velocity of the flow) or purely transport‐limited (i.e. erosion/deposition rate is related to the divergence of shear stress, power, or velocity). This paper reviews available data on the relative importance of detachment‐limited versus transport‐limited erosion by flowing water on soil‐mantled hillslopes and low‐order valleys. Field measurements indicate that fluvial and slope‐wash modification of soil‐mantled landscapes is best represented by a combination of transport‐limited and detachment‐limited conditions with the relative importance of each approximately equal to the ratio of sand and rock fragments to silt and clay in the eroding soil. Available data also indicate that detachment/entrainment thresholds are highly variable in space and time in many landscapes, with local threshold values dependent on vegetation cover, rock‐fragment armoring, surface roughness, soil texture and cohesion. This heterogeneity is significant for determining the form of the fluvial/slope‐wash erosion or transport law because spatial and/or temporal variations in detachment/entrainment thresholds can effectively increase the nonlinearity of the relationship between sediment transport and stream power. Results from landform evolution modeling also suggest that, aside from the presence of distributary channel networks and autogenic cut‐and‐fill cycles in non‐steady‐state transport‐limited landscapes, it is difficult to infer the relative importance of transport‐limited versus detachment‐limited conditions using topography alone. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Indirect Comparison Showed Survival Benefit from Adjuvant Chemoradiotherapy in Completely Resected Gastric Cancer with D2 Lymphadenectomy

Background. Little data on directly comparing chemoradiotherapy with observation has yet been published in the setting of adjuvant therapy for resected gastric cancer who underwent D2 lymphadenectomy. The present indirect comparison aims to provide more evidence on comparing the two approaches. Methods. We conducted a systematic review of randomized controlled trials, extracted time-to-event data using Tierney methods (when not reported), and performed indirect comparison to obtain the relative hazards of adjuvant chemoradiotherapy to observation on overall and disease-free survival. Results. seven randomized controlled trials were identified. Three trials compared adjuvant chemoradiotherapy with adjuvant chemotherapy, and 4 trials compared adjuvant chemotherapy with observation. Using indirect comparison, the relative hazards of adjuvant chemoradiotherapy to observation were 0.43 (95% CI: 0.33–0.55) in disease-free survival and 0.52 (95% CI: 0.38–0.71) in overall survival for completely resected gastric cancer with D2 lymphadenectomy. Conclusions. Postoperative chemoradiotherapy can prolong survival and decrease recurrence in patients with resected gastric cancer who underwent D2 gastrectomy. Molecular biomarker might be a promising direction in the prediction of clinical outcome to postoperative chemoradiotherapy, which warranted further study.
On the Continuing Formation of the Andromeda Galaxy: Detection of H I Clouds in the M31 Halo

Green Bank Telescope 21 cm observations have revealed a faint, yet extensive H I cloud population surrounding the Andromeda galaxy (M31). The newfound objects are likely analogs to the high-velocity H I clouds seen around the Milky Way. At least 20 discrete features are detected within 50 kpc of the M31 disk, with radial velocities that are comparable to those of outer disk rotation. In addition, a filamentary "halo" component of at least 30 kpc extent is concentrated at the M31 systemic velocity. Some of the discrete features are organized into elongated systems with velocity continuity, suggestive of tidal streams. The discrete population can be characterized by a steep power-law distribution of number versus H I mass in the range between 105 and 107 M☉. The velocity line width of discrete clouds is correlated with the cloud H I mass such that if the clouds are gravitationally bound this implies a dark matter to H I mass ratio of ~100 : 1. Possible origins for the discrete and halo M31 features include a Local Group "cooling flow," tidal debris from recent mergers or interactions, and the gaseous counterparts of low-mass dark matter halos.
A Simple Yeast-Based Strategy to Identify Host Cellular Processes Targeted by Bacterial Effector Proteins

Bacterial effector proteins, which are delivered into the host cell via the type III secretion system, play a key role in the pathogenicity of Gram-negative bacteria by modulating various host cellular processes to the benefit of the pathogen. To identify cellular processes targeted by bacterial effectors, we developed a simple strategy that uses an array of yeast deletion strains fitted into a single 96-well plate. The array is unique in that it was optimized computationally such that despite the small number of deletion strains, it covers the majority of genes in the yeast synthetic lethal interaction network. The deletion strains in the array are screened for hypersensitivity to the expression of a bacterial effector of interest. The hypersensitive deletion strains are then analyzed for their synthetic lethal interactions to identify potential targets of the bacterial effector. We describe the identification, using this approach, of a cellular process targeted by the Xanthomonas campestris type III effector XopE2. Interestingly, we discover that XopE2 affects the yeast cell wall and the endoplasmic reticulum stress response. More generally, the use of a single 96-well plate makes the screening process accessible to any laboratory and facilitates the analysis of a large number of bacterial effectors in a short period of time. It therefore provides a promising platform for studying the functions and cellular targets of bacterial effectors and other virulence proteins.
Therapeutic Application of Cardiac Stem Cells and Other Cell Types

Various researches on regenerative medicine were carried out experimentally, and selected modalities have been introduced to the clinical arena. Meanwhile, the presence of resident stem cells in the heart and their role in physiological cell turnover were demonstrated. So far skeletal myoblasts, bone marrow-derived cells, mesenchymal stromal cells, and resident cardiac cells have been applied for therapeutic myocardial regeneration. Among them, autologous transplantation of c-kit-positive cardiac stem cells in congestive heart failure patients resulted in an outstanding outcome, with long-lasting beneficial effects without major adverse events. By reviewing these clinical trials, an endeavor was made to seek for an ideal cellular therapy for cardiovascular diseases.
Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement

Considerable controversy surrounds the impact of schools and teachers on the achievement of students. This paper disentangles the separate factors influencing achievement with special attention given to the role of teacher differences and other aspects of schools. Unique matched panel data from the Harvard/UTD Texas Schools Project permit distinguishing between total effects and the impact of specific, measured components of teachers and schools. While schools are seen to have powerful effects on achievement differences, these effects appear to derive most importantly from variations in teacher quality. A lower bound suggests that variations in teacher quality account for at least 7« percent of the total variation in student achievement, and there are reasons to believe that the true percentage is considerably larger. The subsequent analysis estimates educational production functions based on models of achievement growth with individual fixed effects. It identifies a few systematic factors a negative impact of initial years of teaching and a positive effect of smaller class sizes for low income children in earlier grades but these effects are very small relative to the effects of overall teacher quality differences.