Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Not all whites are farmers: privilege, the politics of representation, and the urban–rural divide in Zimbabwe

Abstract Whiteness has always been visible and marked in Africa. This is what makes whiteness in Africa distinct from whiteness in the West. This article explores the question of how the visibility of whiteness matters for its politics by focusing on the case of Zimbabwe. Much of the work on whiteness in this country, concentrating solely on the white farming community, presents the white population as a homogeneous group. This article uses the urban–rural divide to challenge such a portrayal and to explore the relationship in Zimbabwe between the politics of representation and the politics of whiteness in the postcolonial era. Based on four years of ethnographic research, it investigates urban and rural whiteness together because they are interrelated. We make two specific observations: first, that urban privilege has remained invisible because white Zimbabweans and white privilege are imagined to be connected to the land and to being a farmer. Urban whites have perpetuated this stereotype, which helped mask their own privileged lives. Second, we demonstrate that the defence of white privilege happens through means other than simple denial. Our interview data shows that, despite urban whites’ acknowledgement and understanding of white privilege, they still defend and try to legitimize it. Finally, we conclude that raising awareness and demanding acknowledgement of white privilege might be a necessary but insufficient condition to end it. Résumé La blanchité a toujours été visible et marquée en Afrique. C'est ce qui distingue la blanchité en Afrique de la blanchité en Occident. Cet article explore la question de savoir en quoi la visibilité de la blanchité importe pour sa politique en se concentrant sur le cas du Zimbabwe. L'essentiel de la recherche sur la blanchité dans ce pays, exclusivement axée sur le paysannat blanc, présente la population blanche comme un groupe homogène. Cet article utilise le clivage urbain–rural pour remettre en cause cette description et explorer la relation, au Zimbabwe, entre la politique de la représentation et la politique de la blanchité au cours de la période postcoloniale. Basé sur quatre années de recherche ethnographique, il examine la blanchité urbaine et la blanchité rurale ensemble parce qu'elles sont liées. Les auteurs font deux observations spécifiques : d'abord, que le privilège urbain est resté invisible parce que les Zimbabwéens blancs et le privilège blanc sont imaginés liés à la terre et au fait d’être agriculteur. Les blancs urbains ont perpétué ce stéréotype qui a contribué à masquer leur existence privilégiée. Ensuite, les auteurs démontrent que la défense du privilège blanc se fait par des moyens autres que le simple déni. Les données d'entretiens montrent qu'en dépit de leur reconnaissance et de leur compréhension du privilège blanc, les blancs urbains continuent de le défendre et de tenter de le légitimer. Enfin, les auteurs concluent que la sensibilisation et la demande de reconnaissance du privilège blanc peuvent être une condition nécessaire mais insuffisante pour y mettre fin.
Significance of serum 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D in the assessment of vitamin D status: a double-edged sword?

BACKGROUND 24,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D [24,25(OH)2D] in serum may be both a nuisance and nutritionally valuable. METHODS We investigated the impact of 24,25(OH)2D3 on the performance of commercially available immunoassays for serum total 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] using (a) serum from a nationally representative sample of adults, (b) serum from a spiking experiment, and (c) data from the UK Vitamin D External Quality Assurance Scheme (DEQAS). We also investigated the utility of the serum ratio of 24,25(OH)2D3 to 25(OH)D as an index of inactivation and of response to vitamin D supplementation using randomized controlled trial (RCT) data. Measurement of 24,25(OH)2D in sera by a LC-MS/MS method allowed for an investigation of its impact on immunoassay-derived serum 25(OH)D values as well as its clinical utility. We report data from a nationally representative sample of adults, a recent vitamin D RCT in older adults, and DEQAS. RESULTS 24,25(OH)2D3 contributed to the positive bias observed in some immunoassays relative to LC-MS/MS-derived estimates for total 25(OH)D. A spiking experiment showed that the degree of cross-reactivity with 24,25(OH)2D was high and may underpin this positive bias. Adjustment for 24,25(OH)2D3 concentration brought estimates closer to true values. Data from the vitamin D RCT showed that the ratio of 24,25(OH)2D3 to 25(OH)D was associated with serum 25(OH)D3 and with response of serum 25(OH)D to vitamin D supplementation. CONCLUSIONS Our findings highlight that the effect of 24,25(OH)2D3 in serum is a double-edged sword-an interferent for some immunoassays, yet potentially informative of nutritional status.
Dynamic Classification of Program Memory Behaviors in CMPs

Multi-core processors with shared L2 caches can suffer from performance degradations when co-scheduled programs contend for cache resources in a destructive manner. In this work, we propose a new classification algorithm for determining the “personalities” of the programs with respect to their cache sharing behaviors. We first demonstrate that our scheme can more accurately predict when cache sharing problems may arise (and therefore when dynamic cache partitioning techniques are needed) than compared to other previously proposed approaches. This may be useful in the creation of better workloads for future multi-core shared-cache simulation studies. Furthermore, our proposed scheme can be implemented directly in hardware to provide dynamic, on-the-fly classification of program behaviors (other classification techniques require, for example, performance comparisons against solo-executions where a program uses the entire L2 cache which cannot be trivially derived in an online fashion). Using this dynamic classification ability, we propose a very simple dynamic cache partitioning scheme that performs slightly better than the Utility-based Cache Partitioning scheme while incurring a lower implementation cost.
Age differences in coping with chronic illness.

We examined the correlation between age and six coping strategies in a sample of 151 middle-aged and older chronically ill adults. Coping strategies included cognitive restructuring, emotional expression, wish fulfilling fantasy, self-blame, information seeking, and threat minimization. Older adults were less likely to use emotional expression or information seeking than were middle-aged adults in their efforts to cope with the illness. These strategies were related to age even when numerous illness characteristics (e.g., physical limitations) were used as control variables. Interaction effects showed that older adults who perceived their illnesses as highly serious were less likely than were others to cope by seeking information, reconstruing their illness as having positive aspects, or engaging in wishfulfilling fantasies, and more likely to cope by simply minimizing the illness's threat. Consideration of related research studies suggests that the age differences in emotional expression may be due to age-related shifts in the types of stresses experienced, whereas the age differences in information seeking may be more strongly linked to cohort phenomena.
Small-cell planning based on uplink interference and traffic in two-tier cellular system

Dense small cell deployment is promising to accommodate the explosive growth of cellular traffic, anticipated to have a 1000-fold increase in the following decade, driven by the Internet-of-Things (IoT). Different from traditional cellular traffic, emerging IoT applications will generate a large amount of uplink traffic. Considering uplink, how many small cells should be deployed and where they should be located to maximize the spectrum efficiency are critical, open issues. In this paper, we propose an analytical framework to quantify the uplink interferences between small cell users and macro users considering random node distance distribution, and obtain the overall uplink spectrum efficiency of the two-tier cellular system. Using the analytical framework, a greedy algorithm is proposed to obtain the best locations for deploying a given number of small cells and the optimal small cell number to maximize the spectrum efficiency. The approach is extended to consider arbitrary-shaped and heterogeneous small cells. Simulation results showed that the proposed framework and algorithm can achieve near-optimal performance with low computational cost and substantial performance gain comparing with other methods. The analytical framework and the performance evaluation results provide important guidelines for future small-cell planning.
Healing from Racism with Compassion Meditation: Effects of Coping on Mental Health

This study examines whether Compassion Meditation (CM) can help ethnic minority college students heal from race-related stress. The present study hypothesized that through participation in a CM intervention, the augmentation of adaptive coping strategies (i.e., self-compassion) and the reduction of maladaptive coping strategies (i.e., internalization, defined as self-blame, and detachment, defined as social isolation) would reduce depression and PTSD. Participants (N = 9) participated in an 8-session weekly CM intervention and completed three questionnaires at the beginning, middle, and end of the intervention. Results demonstrated that increasing self-compassion predicted decreases in depression, and that reducing coping via detachment predicted decreases in PTSD. In addition, all nine participants met the clinical cutoff for major depression at pre-intervention, but only five remained above the cutoff point by post-intervention. Implications for future CM interventions, research, and prevention strategies are discussed.
Interfering with the interaction between ErbB1, nucleolin and Ras as a potential treatment for glioblastoma

The three oncogenes, ErbB receptors, Ras proteins and nucleolin may contribute to malignant transformation. Previously, we demonstrated that nucleolin could bind both Ras protein and ErbB receptors. We also showed that the crosstalk between the three proteins facilitates anchorage independent growth and tumor growth in nude mice, and that inhibition of this interaction in prostate and colon cancer cells reduces tumorigenicity. In the present study, we show that treatment with Ras and nucleolin inhibitors reduces the oncogenic effect induced by ErbB1 receptor in U87-MG cells. This combined treatment enhances cell death, reduces cell proliferation and cell migration. Moreover, we demonstrate a pivotal role of nucleolin in ErbB1 activation by its ligand. Nucleolin inhibitor prevents EGF-induced receptor activation and its downstream signaling followed by reduced proliferation. Furthermore, inhibition of Ras by Salirasib (FTS), mainly reduces cell viability and motility. The combined treatment, which targets both Ras and nucleolin, additively reduces tumorigenicity both in vitro and in vivo. These results suggest that targeting both nucleolin and Ras may represent an additional opportunity for inhibiting cancers, including glioblastoma, that are driven by these oncogenes.
Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering

Although mind wandering occupies a large proportion of our waking life, its neural basis and relation to ongoing behavior remain controversial. We report an fMRI study that used experience sampling to provide an online measure of mind wandering during a concurrent task. Analyses focused on the interval of time immediately preceding experience sampling probes demonstrate activation of default network regions during mind wandering, a finding consistent with theoretical accounts of default network functions. Activation in medial prefrontal default network regions was observed both in association with subjective self-reports of mind wandering and an independent behavioral measure (performance errors on the concurrent task). In addition to default network activation, mind wandering was associated with executive network recruitment, a finding predicted by behavioral theories of off-task thought and its relation to executive resources. Finally, neural recruitment in both default and executive network regions was strongest when subjects were unaware of their own mind wandering, suggesting that mind wandering is most pronounced when it lacks meta-awareness. The observed parallel recruitment of executive and default network regions—two brain systems that so far have been assumed to work in opposition—suggests that mind wandering may evoke a unique mental state that may allow otherwise opposing networks to work in cooperation. The ability of this study to reveal a number of crucial aspects of the neural recruitment associated with mind wandering underscores the value of combining subjective self-reports with online measures of brain function for advancing our understanding of the neurophenomenology of subjective experience.
Efficiency in Matching Markets with Regional Caps: The Case of the Japan Residency Matching Program

In an attempt to increase the placement of medical residents to rural hospitals, the Japanese government recently introduced "regional caps" which restrict the total number of residents matched within each region of the country. The government modifi ed the deferred acceptance mechanism incorporating the regional caps. This paper shows that the current mechanism may result in avoidable ineffciency and instability and proposes a better mechanism that improves upon it in terms of effciency and stability while meeting the regional caps. More broadly, the paper contributes to the general research agenda of matching and market design to address practical problems.
Resolving the pulsations of the subdwarf B star KPD 2109 + 4401

We present the results of extensive time-series photometry of the pulsating subdwarf B star KPD 2109 + 4401. Our data set consists of 29 data runs with a total length of 182.6 h over 31 d, collected at five observatories in 2004. These data comprised high signal-to-noise ratio observations acquired with larger telescopes and wider time-coverage observations obtained with smaller telescopes. They are sufficient to resolve the pulsation structure to 0.4 μHz and are the most extensive data set for this star to date. With these data, we identify eight pulsation frequencies extending from 4701 to 5481 μHz, corresponding to periods of 182‐213 s. The pulsation frequencies and their amplitudes are examined over several time-scales with some frequencies showing amplitude variability.
Sensitivity to Auditory Object Features in Human Temporal Neocortex

This positron emission tomography study examined the hemodynamic response of the human brain to auditory object feature processing. A continuum of object feature variation was created by combining different numbers of stimuli drawn from a diverse sample of 45 environmental sounds. In each 60 sec scan condition, subjects heard either a distinct individual sound on each trial or simultaneous combinations of sounds that varied systematically in their similarity or distinctiveness across conditions. As more stimuli are combined they become more similar and less distinct from one another; the limiting case is when all 45 are added together to form a noise that is repeated on each trial. Analysis of covariation of cerebral blood flow elicited by this parametric manipulation revealed a response in the upper bank of the right anterior superior temporal sulcus (STS): when sounds were identical across trials (i.e., a noise made up of 45 sounds), activity was at a minimum; when stimuli were different from one another, activity was maximal. A right inferior frontal area was also revealed. The results are interpreted as reflecting sensitivity of this region of temporal neocortex to auditory object features, as predicted by neurophysiological and anatomical models implicating an anteroventral functional stream in object processing. The findings also fit with evidence that voice processing may involve regions within the anterior STS. The data are discussed in light of these models and are related to the concept that this functional stream is sensitive to invariant sound features that characterize individual auditory objects.
Troponin I levels in asymptomatic patients on haemodialysis using a high-sensitivity assay.

BACKGROUND Troponin I (TnI) is an effective marker for detecting myocardial injury, but the interpretation of levels in the setting of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is still unclear. TnI levels have been noted to be increased in 5-18% of asymptomatic haemodialysis (HD) patients with standard assays, but newer-generation, high-sensitivity assays have not been examined. In addition, there is limited data on the variability of TnI levels in patients over time as well as the effect of HD on TnI levels. The aim of this study was to prospectively explore the incidence of TnI with a high-sensitivity assay, the variability of TnI levels over time and the effect of HD on levels. METHODS We enrolled 51 asymptomatic HD patients and checked TnI levels using a high-sensitivity assay. Levels were drawn pre-HD monthly for three consecutive months. As per manufacturer guidelines, levels were considered normal up to 0.034 ng/mL, indeterminate elevation (IE) if between 0.035 and 0.120 ng/mL and consistent with myocardial infarction (MI) if >0.120 ng/mL. In the third month, post-HD TnI was also drawn to determine change with dialysis. RESULTS At baseline, median TnI level was 0.025 ng/mL (range, 0-0.461 ng/mL). Baseline TnI levels were normal in 63% and elevated (≥0.035 ng/mL) in 37%. Of those with elevations, 79% were in the IE range and 21% in the acute myocardial infarction range. Higher TnI levels at baseline were associated with a history of coronary artery disease, left ventricular hypertrophy, lower cardiac ejection fraction and higher serum phosphate levels. Average incidence of elevated TnI was 41% over the 3 months. Thirty-six patients had stable levels without a change in classification over 3 months. Twelve varied over time. Forty-five (94%) had no change in classification pre- and post-HD. CONCLUSION Using a new-generation, high-sensitivity assay, over a third of asymptomatic ESRD patients have an elevated TnI. The significance of these low-level elevations is unclear at this time. TnI levels remain stable over a 3-month period in most patients. HD treatment does not appear to affect the TnI level.
Spectropolarimetric signatures of Earth-like extrasolar planets

We present results of numerical simulations of flux F and degree of polarization P of light that is reflected by Earth–like extrasolar planets orbiting solar type stars. Our results are presented as functions of the wavelength (from 0.3 to 1.0 ? m, with 0.001 ? m spectral resolution) and as functions of the planetary phase angle. We use different surface coverages for our model planets, including vegetation and a Fresnel reflecting ocean, and clear and cloudy atmospheres. Our adding-doubling radiative transfer algorithm, which fully includes multiple scattering and polarization, only handles horizontally homogeneous planets, so we simulate fluxes and polarization of horizontally inhomogeneous planets by weighting results obtained for homogeneous planets. Like F, P of the reflected starlight is shown to depend strongly on the phase angle, on the composition and structure of the planetary atmosphere, on the reflective properties of the underlying surface, and on the wavelength, in particular in wavelength regions with gaseous absorption bands. The sensitivity of P to a planet’s physical properties appears to be different than that of F. Combining flux with polarization observations thus makes for a strong tool for characterizing extrasolar planets. The calculated total and polarized fluxes are made available through the CDS.
Human Capital, Social Mobility and the Skill Premium

This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model to highlight the role of human capital accumulation of agents differentiated by skill type in the joint determination of social mobility and the skill premium. We first show that our model captures the empirical co-movement of the skill premium, the relative supply of skilled to unskilled workers and aggregate output in the U.S. data from 1970-2000. We next show that endogenous social mobility and human capital accumulation are key channels through which the effects of capital tax cuts and increases in public spending on both pre- and post-college education are transmitted. In particular, social mobility creates additional incentives for the agents which enhance the beneficial effects of policy reforms. Moreover, the dynamics of human capital accumulation imply that, post reform, the skill premium is higher in the short-to medium-run than in the long-run.
Title of Document : THE CULTURALLY INTELLIGENT NEGOTIATOR : THE IMPACT OF CQ ON INTERCULTURAL NEGOTIATION EFFECTIVENESS

Although scholars have repeatedly touted the practical importance of being able to negotiate effectively across cultures, paradoxically, no study has directly addressed what predicts intercultural negotiation effectiveness. In this thesis, we examined the role of cultural intelligence (CQ) as a potential predictor of intercultural negotiation effectiveness. The negotiation transcripts of 124 American and East Asian negotiators (62 dyads) were coded for joint sequencing of integrative behaviors as well as sequencing of cooperative relationship management behaviors. CQ measured a week prior to negotiations, and aggregated to the dyad level, predicted the extent to which negotiators sequenced integrative behaviors, which in turn predicted joint profit. CQ predicted integrative sequences over and beyond international experience, openness, extraversion, empathy, cognitive ability and emotional intelligence. Exploratory analyses revealed that the motivational facet of CQ had particularly strong predictive power, and that the minimum CQ score within the dyad was enough to predict integrative sequences. In this era of globalization, it is critical that organizational researchers understand how culture influences negotiation behavior for both practice and theory. Negotiating effectively across cultures is a critical skill for businesspeople, as it is a crucial aspect of many inter-organizational relationships, including strategic alliances, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, licensing and distribution agreements, and sales of products and services (Adler, 2002; Cai & Drake, 1998). It is those people that understand how culture influences negotiation that will have a competitive advantage in today's global marketplace (Gelfand & Christakopoulou, 1999). In addition to this practical concern, there is a theoretical impetus for culture and negotiation research. Historically, research in negotiation has tended to be largely culture-blind; it generally did not pay attention to the cultural context in which it was rooted. Furthermore, negotiation research has tended to be culture-bound, with many theories tested and developed only in Western cultural increasingly recognizing that it is problematic to assume that negotiation theories and findings are universal when Western cultures only encompass approximately 30% of humankind (Triandis, 1994). Despite the importance of such pursuits, however, there is a fundamental paradox in the culture and negotiation literature. Even though the practicality of being able to negotiate effectively with people from different cultures is used to justify the need to develop cross-cultural theory, the vast majority of research remains comparative (Adler research focuses on comparing different negotiation behaviors across cultures, but of behaviors as they occur in mono-cultural settings, instead of directly examining intercultural settings where …