Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Why does egg size increase with maternal size? Effects of egg size and egg density on offspring phenotypes in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)

Question: Why does per-offspring investment (e.g. egg size) increase with maternal body size? Theory: Fecundity also increases with maternal body size, and when egg/larva/juvenile dispersal is limited, offspring developing at higher densities (e.g. in larger clutches of eggs) experience more stressful conditions during development. Hence, an increase in per-offspring investment with maternal body size may be a form of maternal compensation for the negative effect of fecundity on offspring performance. Hypothesis: In fishes with demersal eggs and larvae, offspring in larger clutches use more energy during development, resulting in a smaller subsequent juvenile size. This may occur because larvae in larger clutches are prone to mutual physical disturbance, and larvae may expend more energy seeking or creating oxygenated areas within the nest. Organisms: Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Location: Aquatron experimental research facility, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Methods: We buried 12 full-sib families in 24 gravel egg pockets at high density (200 eggs per egg pocket, or 1.27 eggs per cm, n = 12) and low density (25 eggs per egg pocket, or 0.318 eggs per cm, n = 12) and monitored subsequent juvenile size, survival, time of emergence, and developmental stage at emergence. Results: We found no evidence that density per se affects offspring phenotypes. However, offspring from larger eggs emerged later and at an earlier developmental stage than offspring from smaller eggs. We show that the fitness trade-off between size-at-emergence and emergence time can result in a lack of correlation between egg size and offspring fitness. Our results do not provide evidence that the positive correlation between egg size and maternal size is adaptive, but we do provide new evidence that bigger is not always better.
Trade Policy Coordination and Food Price Volatility

Many countries adjust their trade policies counter-cyclically with food prices, to the extent that the use of restrictions by food-exporting countries has occasionally threatened the food security of food-importing countries. These trade policies are inconsistent with the terms-of-trade motivation often retained to characterize the payoff frontier of self-enforcing trade agreements, as they can worsen the terms of trade of the countries that apply them. This article analyzes trade policy coordination when trade policies are driven by terms-of-trade effects and a desire to reduce domestic food price volatility. This framework implies that importing and exporting countries have incentives to deviate from cooperation at different periods: the latter when prices are high and the former when prices are low. Since staple food prices tend to have asymmetric distributions, with more prices below than above the mean but with occasional spikes, a self-enforcing agreement generates asymmetric outcomes. Without cooperation, an importing country uses its trade policy more frequently because of the concentration of prices below the mean, but an exporting country has a greater incentive to deviate from a cooperative trade policy because positive deviations from the mean price are larger than negative ones. Thus, the asymmetry of the distribution of commodity prices can make it more difficult to discipline export taxes than tariffs in trade agreements.
Towards An Enhanced Semantic Approach For Automatic Usability Evaluation

Today it is possible to judge the quality of user interfaces by using automatic testing agents, simulating user behavior for given tasks. Furthermore, such evaluations can be improved by giving these agents required knowledge to fulfill these tasks. Currently, such user task knowledge is more or less a string comparison between given knowledge that is represented as strings and the readable labels of the graphical user interface. Unfortunately, this approach leads to ambiguity problems, where real users cannot intuitively fulfill a task, even if the automatic testing found no obstacles. We propose to represent knowledge not in such a simple way, but using language resources and ontologies to represent user knowledge. We show that such representation helps detect and avoid ambiguous labels in graphical user interfaces.
Immigration and Government Spending in OECD Countries

This paper evaluates the fiscal effect of international migration. It first estimates a structural Vector Autoregressive model on a panel of 19 OECD countries over the period 1980-2015, in order to quantify the impact of a migration shock. Empirical results suggest that international migration had a positive impact on the economic and fiscal performance of OECD countries. It then proposes an original theoretical framework that highlights the importance of both the demographic structure and the intergenerational public transfers. Hence, OECD countries seems to have benefited from a \demographic dividend" of international migration since 1980.
A Feasibility Study of Using Google Street View and Computer Vision to Track the Evolution of Urban Accessibility

Previous work has explored scalable methods to collect data on the accessibility of the built environment by combining manual labeling, computer vision, and online map imagery. In this poster paper, we explore how to extend these methods to track the evolution of urban accessibility over time. Using Google Street View's "time machine" feature, we introduce a three-stage classification framework: (i) manually labeling accessibility problems in one time period; (ii) classifying the labeled image patch into one of five accessibility categories; (iii) localizing the patch in all previous snapshots. Our preliminary results analyzing 1633 Street View images across 376 locations demonstrate feasibility.
On embedding certain partial orders into the P-points under Rudin-Keisler and Tukey reducibility

The study of the global structure of ultrafilters on the natural numbers with respect to the quasi-orders of Rudin-Keisler and Rudin-Blass reducibility was initiated in the 1970s by Blass, Keisler, Kunen, and Rudin. In a 1973 paper Blass studied the special class of P-points under the quasiordering of Rudin-Keisler reducibility. He asked what partially ordered sets can be embedded into the P-points when the P-points are equipped with this ordering. This question is of most interest under some hypothesis that guarantees the existence of many P-points, such as Martin’s axiom for σ-centered posets. In his 1973 paper he showed under this assumption that both ω1 and the reals can be embedded. Analogous results were obtained later for the coarser notion of Tukey reducibility. We prove in this paper that Martin’s axiom for σ-centered posets implies that the Boolean algebra P(ω)/FIN equipped with its natural partial order can be embedded into the P-points both under Rudin-Keisler and Tukey reducibility. Consequently, the continuum hypothesis implies that every partial order of size at most continuum embeds into the P-points under both notions of reducibility.
Reconstruction of Full-Thickness Alar Defect by the Turnover Nasolabial Flap : Improving the Outcome by Primary Flap-Thinning and Unilateral Alar Base Suturing

The medially-based nasolabial turnover flap offers an important tool to reconstruct full-thickness alar defects. It is however accompanied by lateral shift and bulkiness of the reconstructed ala in certain cases. A modified technique was introduced in the current work which included primary thinning of the flap and stabilization of the lateral alar side wall by suturing it to the anterior nasal spine. A comparison was conducted between traditional turnover flaps (5 cases) and the modified technique (6 cases). The results demonstrated improvements in the lateral shift of the ala (from 25.2% to 10.9%) and in the increase thickness of the alar rim (from 53.4% to 20%).
The Role of the Purkinje System in Defibrillation

Only relatively recently have we begun to understand how defibrillation shocks work on the mechanistic level (Cheng et al., 1999; Trayanova & Skouibine, 1998). Virtual electrode polarization has offered a plausible mechanism for explaining far field effects of defibrillation shocks. However, this body of work has not considered the role of the specialized cardiac conduction system, the Purkinje System (PS), in the defibrillation process. Despite its crucial role in activation, relatively little is known about the role of the PS in defibrillation. This is due to several factors which make recording from it challenging: The PS is a fine structure lying on the endocardium which makes it difficult to see and impale with microelectrodes. While Langendorf preparations allow easy access to the epicardium for optical recordings, the PS lies on the endocardium and is, therefore, much harder to access while maintaining the integrity of the ventricles. Depending on species, the PS penetrates various depths into the myocardium, masking midmyocardial activation. Plunge electrodes are one option for recording from the midmyocardium, but amplifier saturation immediately following large shocks would lose important information. Since the PS fibres are fine, the signals produced by them are very small and get easily swamped by signals from the myocardium. This is true for both electrical and optical recordings. Computer modelling, therefore, offers an attractive platform for studying the role of the PS in defibrillation, since the electrical activity everywhere in the system is known and can be visualized.
Epidemiologic study of intestinal parasitic infections in Ahvaz, southwest Iran in 2010-2015

Infection by intestinal parasites is worldwide and affects the health of humans and especially growing children. This epidemiologic study aimed to investigate intestinal parasites in patients referred to the central laboratory of Golestan hospital in Ahwaz during 2010-2015. In this retrospective study, stool samples were collected from 12155 patients and tested by the direct method, using normal saline and Lugol's solution staining with the lens of 10x and 40x and Merthiolate-Iodine-Formaldehyde Concentration(MIFC), Formaldehyde-Ether sedimentation method and modified Acid-fast staining techniques. Of the 12155 patients, 9869 (81.2) were male and 2286 (18.8%) were female. 1455 (12%) cases were infected with intestinal parasites. From the positive cases, 1441 cases (99.03%) had a protozoan infection and 14 cases (0.97%) had a helminthic infection. In addition, the rate of infection by intestinal parasites in male and female was 1191 (81.9%) and 264 (18.1%) cases, respectively. The majority of pathogenic protozoa infections were Giardia lamblia and Entamoebahistolytica/dispar, and very rare cases of Hymenolepis nana and Strongyloidesstercoralis were detected. The results revealed that the worm infections in this area have been considerably reduced but infection with parasites, the transmission of which takes place directly, is still common.
Capturing Value from Knowledge Assets: The New Economy, Markets for Know-How, and Intangible Assets

AbstractThe following sections are included:Knowledge and Competitive AdvantageLiberalization of MarketsExpansion of What's TradableStrengthening of Intellectual Property RegimesThe Growing Importance of Increasing ReturnsDecoupling of Information Flows from the Flow of Goods and ServicesRamifications of New Information and Communications TechnologiesProduct Architecture and Technology "Fusion"ImplicationsCapturing Value from Knowledge and CompetenceThe Nature of KnowledgeCodified/TacitObservable/Non-observable in usePositive/Negative knowledgeAutonomous/Systematic knowledgeIntellectual property regimeReplicability, Imitability, and AppropriabilityAppropriability and Markets for Know-How and CompetenceSome Sectoral Differences in the Market for Know-HowComplementary AssetsDynamic CapabilitiesExternal sensingOrganizational actionImplications for the Theory of the FirmConclusionNotes
Investigating consumer food choice behavior: an application combining sensory evaluation and experimental auctions

We investigate what piece of information collected utilizing sensory evaluation tools exhibits better predictive capacity on the willingness to pay, is it information from preferences for a sensory quality attribute using hedonic scales or information on perceived intensity for the same attribute using intensity scales? We also estimated if extrinsic or intrinsic quality exerts a similar impact on consumer’s willingness to pay. We conducted a sensory evaluation along with experimental auctions using three different apple varieties with college students in Metropolitan Lima, Peru. Findings from this study show that information collected on preference liking for apple quality attributes has a better explanatory capability for willingness to pay, compared to information on consumers’ perceived intensity for the same attribute. The explanatory capability was measured using measures of goodness-of-fit. We also prove that willingness to pay was driven both by the apple variety induced intrinsic quality attributes and the extrinsic cues of the variety. Results add to the existing body of literature aiming to improve the understanding of consumer food choice behavior.
Higher genus knot contact homology and recursion for colored HOMFLY-PT polynomials

We sketch a construction of Legendrian Symplectic Field Theory (SFT) for conormal tori of knots and links. Using large $N$ duality and Witten's connection between open Gromov-Witten invariants and Chern-Simons gauge theory, we relate the SFT of a link conormal to the colored HOMFLY-PT polynomials of the link. We present an argument that the HOMFLY-PT wave function is determined from SFT by induction on Euler characteristic, and also show how to, more directly, extract its recursion relation by elimination theory applied to finitely many noncommutative equations. The latter can be viewed as the higher genus counterpart of the relation between the augmentation variety and Gromov-Witten disk potentials established by Aganagic, Vafa, and the authors, and, from this perspective, our results can be seen as an SFT approach to quantizing the augmentation variety.
Numerical Solution of Higher Order Ordinary Differential Equations by Direct Block Code

Problem statement: This study is concerned with the development of a code based on 2-point block method for solving higher order Initial Value Problems (IVPs) of Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) directly. Approach: The block method was developed based on numerical integration and using interpolation approach which is similarly as Adams Moulton type. Furthermore, the proposed method is derived in order to solve higher order ODEs in a single code using variable step size and implemented in a predictor corrector mode. This block method will act as simultaneous numerical integrator by computing the numerical solution at two steps simultaneously. Results: The numerical results for the direct block method were superior compared to the existing block method. Conclusion: It is clearly proved that the code is able to produce good results for solving higher order ODEs.
The Impact of Wikis and Discussion Boards on Learning English as a Second Language. A Mixed Methods Research

In the field of teaching a second language (L2), technology has always occupied a relevant position. The development of new technological tools has allowed the convergence of two learning environments, traditional face-to-face learning and virtual learning. This convergence has fostered the advantages of both types of instructions and the possibilities to learn a L2. In this study, researchers tried to explore pre-service teachers’ perspectives towards the use of wikis and discussion boards to improve writing skills in English and promote autonomous and collaborative learning in a B-learning environment. 358 pre-service teachers participated in the study in which a mixed methods research approach was adopted to integrate results and have a broader vision of the phenomenon. The results suggested pre-service teachers’ positive perception of the e-activities developed to improve the quality of their English, feeling more confidence in that language. They highlighted the opportunities afforded by wikis to create collective texts based on their agreements and individual contributions that promoted individual and cooperative learning, and by discussion boards to communicate, solve problems, get consensus or support a dynamic process. The fact of using a mixed methods research approach enhanced the validity and reliability of data, and added rigor to the study.
Bayesian Analysis of DSGE Models with Regime Switching

﻿I estimate DSGE models with recurring regime changes in monetary policy (inflation target and reaction coefficients), technology (growth rate and volatility), and/or nominal price rigidities. In the models, agents are assumed to know deep parameter values but make probabilistic inference about prevailing and future regimes based on Bayes’ rule. I develop an estimation method that takes these probabilistic inferences into account when relating state variables to observed data. In an application to postwar U.S. data, I find stronger support for regime switching in monetary policy than in technology or nominal rigidities. In addition, a model with regime switching policy that conforms to the long-run Taylor principle given in Davig and Leeper (2007) is preferred to a determinacy-indeterminacy model motivated by Lubik and Schorfheide (2004). These empirical results indicate that, even though a passive policy regime produced more volatility in the economy from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s, the economy can be explained by determinacy over the entire postwar period, implying no role for sunspot shocks in explaining the changes in volatility.
Work environments, stress and productivity: An examination using ASSET

In this study (N = 16,001), the predictors of productivity (i.e., work performance)were investigated with A Shortened Stress Evaluation Tool (E. B. Faragher, C. L. Cooper, & S. Cartwright, 2004), which incorporates individual work stressors, stress outcomes (physical and psychological well-being), and commitment (both to and from an organization). Psychological well-being, commitment from the organization to the employee, and resources were found to be predictive. Physical health, individual work stressors (with the exception of resources), and commitment from the employee to the organization were not identified as important. The indings are discussed with reference to both previous and future research. The large sample size and broad range of occupations included suggest the findings are generalizable to other employee groupings. Implications for both stress and management theory are discussed.
Septic Abortions, A Preventable Malady: A Study In A Tertiary Hospital Of Semi-Urban India

Background: Though abortion has been legalized in India for over three decades (Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1972), unsafe abortion continues to be a significant contributor of maternal mortality and morbidity due to lack of knowledge of contraception, social pressures and untrained traditional birth attendants and health care providers. Objective: To study the profile of septic abortions, complications faced, and its management Methods: All women with features of septic abortions (n=32) were included. Observations: nearly 72% of our patients were between 26 to 35 years of age, which is the prime reproductive age group, with the majority belonging to lower socioeconomic strata. 81.2% patients underwent MTP mainly due the pregnancy being unwanted and economic issues. These were mainly conducted at home (62.5%) by untrained personnel, but surprisingly MTPs conducted at primary health centers/nursing homes also contributed to unsafe abortions (37.5%). 53% of women had the abortion in the late first trimester. All the patients had leukocytosis (100%), 19 patients presented with deranged coagulation profiles probably due to late referrals, and 53.1% had anemia of varying degrees. Only 12.4% of the cases could be managed successfully by medical treatment without any surgical intervention; the rest of them required some sort of surgical intervention. Conclusion: To reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with septic abortion, intensive dissemination of information and commitment at all levels is required, as is the use of various contraceptive methods to be promoted. Regular training courses for traditional birth attendants (dai), nurses and doctors under the supervision of expert obstetricians is recommended.
The crystal chemistry of apatite: structure fields of fluor- and chlorapatite

tions were deduced. The size limits for substitutions in fluorapatite were 0.29 A<Re<0.60 A and 0.95 A<n"< t.Ss A where Ro and R" represent the radi'i of ions occupying the phosphorus and calcium positions respectively. The size limits for substitutions in chlorapatite were 0.29 A(Ro(0.60 A and 0.80 A<&< 1.35 A Gased on Ahrens'radii). The compounds, Cdro(POr)oFz, Caro(AsOr)oFz, and Caro(VOr)eFr did not have hexagonal sJ,,rnmetry, but may be regarded as distorted apatites. The solid solubility of divalent Mg and Ni and of pentavalent v in caro(Por)oFz was investigated. The lattice parameters of about thirty-five apatites were determined, some lor the first time.
Fractional ablative CO2 laser treatment versus scar subcision and autologous fat transfer in the treatment of atrophic acne scars: New technique

There are different modalities for management of atrophic acne scars which include lasers. Ablative fractional CO 2 laser was developed to address the shortcomings of traditional ablative lasers, with superior results to non-ablative fractional lasers. Autologous fat transfer has been utilized for nearly a decade in tissue augmentation and reconstruction. Present studies were designed to compare ablative fractional CO 2 laser treatment with scar subcision and autologous fat transfer in the treatment of atrophic acne scars. 20 patients with atrophic acne scars were recruited: 10 patients were treated by three sessions of ablative fractional CO 2 laser therapy, and 10 patients treated by subcision and autologous fat transfer. All patients were followed up for three months, and were assessed by digital photograph before and after treatment through the application of Goodman and Baron quantitative and qualitative grading systems, in addition to reports by three physicians committees and reports of patients’ satisfaction. Analysis of both groups showed significant improvements in all types of atrophic acne scars. The mean percentage of total quantitative improvement was more significant in the case of autologous fat transfer with regard to ice-pick and total number of scars. Therefore, scar subcision with autologous fat transfer proved to be as effective as, or even more effective than, ablative fractional CO 2 laser in the treatment of atrophic acne scars with regard to the total number of scars as well as ice-pick type.