Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Taxation Without Representation? Experimental Evidence from Ghana and Uganda on Citizen Action Toward Taxes, Oil, and Aid

Seminal arguments in political economy hold that citizens will more readily demand accountability from governments for taxes than for non-tax revenue from oil or aid. Two identical experiments on large, representative subject pools in Ghana and Uganda probe the effects of different revenue types on citizens' actions to monitor government spending. Roughly half of all subjects willingly sign petitions and donate money to scrutinize all three sources. However, neither Ghanaians nor Ugandans are more likely to take action for tax revenues than for oil or aid. The results also suggest no differences among taxes, oil, and aid in citizens' perceptions of transparency, misappropriation risk, or public goods provision. The results are robust to several alternative specifications and subgroup partitions, including the better educated, wealthier, and taxpaying population, suggesting a need for rethinking the axiom that taxation strengthens citizens' demands for accountability in developing countries.
Visual Odometry Parameters Optimization for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Pep

Visual odometry algorithms are used in a wide range of applications to provide reliable estimates of the movement of the camera frame. Combined with inertial measurement units and other low-cost sensors, they can be used as input of high-level algorithms like Kalman filters or SLAM to estimate the global vehicle pose. However, visual odometers are often complex algorithm pipelines with large parameter sets involved in every process stage. In this paper we focus on optimizing the parameters of a visual odometer that has proved to work in underwater environments. We present the results of an exhaustive optimization process to reduce the errors in rotation and translation comparing vision-based pose estimates with ground truth in real underwater environments. Keywords—Visual Odometry, Underwater Vehicles, Stereo Images, Motion Estimation
Declarative and Sequential learning in Spanish-speaking children with Language Impairment

Language Impairment (LI) is a developmental disorder that mainly manifests impaired language learning and processing. Evidence, largely from English-speaking population studies, has shown that children with LI compared to typically developing (TD) children have low scores in sequential learning tasks but similar performance in declarative learning tasks. According to the declarative/procedural model, LI children compensate for their deficiency in syntactic skills (i.e., deficits in the procedural memory system) by using the declarative memory system (indispensable for vocabulary acquisition). Although there are specific deficits in children with LI depending on the language they speak, it is assumed that this model can explain the shortcomings of such pathology regardless of the language spoken. In the current study, we compared the performance of fifteen schoolaged Mexican Spanish-speaking children with LI and twenty TD children during sequential and declarative learning tasks and then analyzed the relationship between their performance in these tasks and their abilities in syntax and semantics. Children with LI displayed lower scores than normal children in the sequential learning task, but no differences were found in declarative learning performance with verbal or visual stimuli. No significant correlations were observed in children with LI between their performance in sequential learning and their abilities in semantics and no significant correlations were observed in TD children between their performance in sequential learning and their abilities in syntax. In contrast, for children with LI, a significant correlation between their performance in declarative learning and their abilities in semantics was observed and for the group of TD children a significant correlation between their performance in declarative learning and their abilities in syntax was observed. This study shows that Spanishspeaking children with LI display a pattern of learning impairment that supports the declarative/procedural model hypothesis. However, they display poor verbal declarative learning skills, probably due to low verbal working memory capacity.
Comparative nesting success of the keyhole mud-dauber (Hymenoptera, Crabronidae, Trypoxylon nitidum) in different substrates

The solitary wasp Trypoxylon nitidum F. Smith nests in a variety of existing cavities. Nesting success – the fraction of completed, provisioned cells that produced adult offspring – can be estimated by examination of old cells. We estimated nesting success of T. nitidum in new and old (previously utilized by T. nitidum) bamboo traps nests, old nests of solitary wasps (Sceliphron fistularium (Dahlbom), Trypoxylon albitarse Fabr. and Zeta argillaceum (L.)) and social wasps (Polistes lanio (Fabr.) and P. versicolor (Olivier)) in Trinidad, West Indies. Success was markedly higher (61.4%) in new trap nests and significantly lower (5.6%) in old trap nests than in other substrates. Mean success in old nests of other wasps varied from 10.0% to 28.8%, with no general difference between those of solitary and social wasps. We infer that a) rented (reutilized) nests are more easily located by parasites than are new trap nests, and b) old trap nests have a higher load of parasites and disease organisms than substrates not previously utilized by T. nitidum.
Dynamics in the Eremenko-Lyubich class

The study of the dynamics of polynomials is now a major field of research, with many important and elegant results. The study of entire functions that are not polynomials – in other words transcendental entire functions – is somewhat less advanced, in part due to certain technical differences compared to polynomial or rational dynamics. In this paper we survey the dynamics of functions in the Eremenko-Lyubich class, B \mathcal {B} . Among transcendental entire functions, those in this class have properties that make their dynamics most “similar” to the dynamics of a polynomial, and so particularly accessible to detailed study. Many authors have worked in this field, and the dynamics of class B \mathcal {B} functions is now particularly well-understood and well-developed. There are many striking and unexpected results. Several powerful tools and techniques have been developed to help progress this work. There is also an increasing expectation that learning new results in transcendental dynamics will lead to a better understanding of the polynomial and rational cases. We consider the fundamentals of this field, review some of the most important results, techniques and ideas, and give stepping-stones to deeper inquiry.
Observed Frequency Variations of Solar p-Mode Travel Times as Evidence for Surface Effects in Sunspot Seismology

Using helioseismic holography, we measure acoustic (p-mode) travel-time perturbations, observed within solar active regions, as functions of frequency and phase speed. We find evidence for a frequency variation, at fixed phase speed, of the travel times that has not previously been reported. This variation is not expected from typical sound-speed models of sunspots, which result from the inversion of travel times and may indicate a significant contribution to the travel times from structures with vertical scales smaller than about 1 Mm near the solar surface.
Revisiting Classifier Two-Sample Tests

The goal of two-sample tests is to assess whether two samples, $S_P \sim P^n$ and $S_Q \sim Q^m$, are drawn from the same distribution. Perhaps intriguingly, one relatively unexplored method to build two-sample tests is the use of binary classifiers. In particular, construct a dataset by pairing the $n$ examples in $S_P$ with a positive label, and by pairing the $m$ examples in $S_Q$ with a negative label. If the null hypothesis "$P = Q$" is true, then the classification accuracy of a binary classifier on a held-out subset of this dataset should remain near chance-level. As we will show, such Classifier Two-Sample Tests (C2ST) learn a suitable representation of the data on the fly, return test statistics in interpretable units, have a simple null distribution, and their predictive uncertainty allow to interpret where $P$ and $Q$ differ. The goal of this paper is to establish the properties, performance, and uses of C2ST. First, we analyze their main theoretical properties. Second, we compare their performance against a variety of state-of-the-art alternatives. Third, we propose their use to evaluate the sample quality of generative models with intractable likelihoods, such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). Fourth, we showcase the novel application of GANs together with C2ST for causal discovery.
Dyadic-like maximal operators on integrable functions and Bellman functions related to Kolmogorov’s inequality

For each q < 1 we precisely evaluate the main Bellman functions associated with the behavior of dyadic maximal operators on ℝ n on integrable functions. Actually we do that in the more general setting of tree-like maximal operators. These are related to and refine the corresponding Kolmogorov inequality, which we show is actually sharp. For this we use the effective linearization introduced by the first author in 2005 for such maximal operators on an adequate set of functions.
Consequences and Predictors of New Health Events

Smith uses the HRS and AHEAD panels to examine the consequences of new health on a series of SES related outcomes- out-of-pocket labor supply, labor force activity, household income and wealth. For each of these outcomes, new severe health events have a significant effect although most of the impact on income and wealth takes place through labor supply and not not medical expenses. The paper also examines the ability of different measures of SES to predict the future onset of disease. The author finds no predictive effect of income or wealth but education does predict future onset even after controlling for current health status. The reasons for this continuing predictive effect of education are explored in the paper.
High Spatial Resolution Imaging of Arp 220 from 3 to 25 Microns

Images of Arp 220 from 3.45 to 24.5 μm with 0. ″5 resolution are presented that clearly separate the nucleus into at least two components. The western component is about 3 times more luminous than the eastern component, but the silicate absorption in the fainter, eastern component is roughly 50% greater than the absorption in the western component. Each component is marginally resolved. The two components seen at 24.5 μm are identified with the two radio components. The western source most likely coincides with the high-extinction disk previously suggested to exist in Arp 220, while the eastern nucleus is identified with a faint, highly reddened source seen in HST 2.2 μm NICMOS images. The two nuclei together account for essentially all of the measured 24.5 μm flux density. Two models are presented, both of which fit the observations. In one the majority of the total luminosity is produced in an extended star formation region, and in the other most of the luminosity is produced in the compact but extincted regions associated with the two nuclei seen at 24.5 μm. In both pictures, substantial luminosity at 100 μm emerges from a component having a diameter of 2''-3'' (~1 kpc).
Profiling the Victims: public awareness of pollution-related harm in China

This article aims to identify factors which influence public awareness of health or economic harm from pollution in China. Based on an analysis of the China General Social Survey (CGSS) carried out nationwide by Renmin University and HKUST in 2006, it focuses on self-identification as a pollution victim. The analysis tests three groups of hypotheses about how self-identified victims differ from others: first, in terms of the environmental conditions they experience, such as the actual level of pollution and types of neighbourhoods they inhabit; second, in terms of resources, including material and information resources, time, social capital and political experience; and third, in terms of political attitudes. The conclusion discusses implications for the politics of public participation in environmental governance in China.
Mechanisms of Cell Regeneration — From Differentiation to Maintenance of Cell Phenotype

Regeneration involves the capacity for renewal or recomposition of tissues, organs or even organisms, after considerable physical injury or damage, resulting from pathologies, tumors, congenital diseases or traumas, for example. As a consequence of tissue regeneration, both the composition and the tissue properties are restored, and the newly formed tissue is highly similar to the original tissue. The regenerative capacity is directly related to the presence of stem cells or progenitor cells, which are capable of proliferation and differentiation [4,5]. Tissues that maintain a high proliferative capacity, such as the hematopoietic system, have regenerative capacity even in adult organisms [6].
Evidence for a supermassive object in the nucleus of the galaxy M87 from SIT and CCD area photometry.

Two-dimensional SIT and CCD detectors have been used to measure the surface brightness of the peculiar elliptical radio galaxy M87. Measurements were made in three broad-band colors (B, V, and R) to a distance of 80" from the nucleus, with 1" spatial resolution and photometric accuracy of the order of 1%. The data are given in some detail and are compared with earlier photographic results. The most obvious feature of the data is a bright, barely resolved central luminosity spike, which is not seen in similar data on other nearby normal ellipticals. Also, attempts to fit isothermal or King models away from the nuclear spike show additional excess luminosity in the central regions of the galaxy (r 60. All of the existing data is well fitted by a King model containing a central black hole of mass M = 3 x 10^9 M_⊙ and a point luminosity source. While such a model is not uniquely required by the data, it is perhaps the most plausible of several possible models considered. At present, M87 is probably the best case for a hypothetical massive black hole in a galaxy nucleus.
A Review of Spatial Microsimulation Methods

This paper outlines a framework for spatial microsimulation models, gives some reasons why someone may want to use a spatial microsimulation model, describes the development of spatial microsimulation over the last 30 years, summarises the different methods currently used for spatial microsimulation, and outlines how the models can be validated. In reviewing the reasons and methods for spatial microsimulation, we conclude that spatial microsimulation provides an alternative to other small area estimation methods, providing flexibility by allowing cross-tabulations to be built, and an ability to link to other models, and derive projections. Spatial microsimulation models also allow demographic changes, like births and deaths, to be included in a dynamic microsimulation model. This also allows Â‘what ifÂ’ scenarios to be modelled, for example, what would happen if the birth rate increased over time. Validation of the spatial microsimulation models shows that they are now at the stage where they can provide reliable result
Formation Mechanisms for North Pacific Central and Eastern Subtropical Mode Waters

Abstract The effects of one-dimensional processes on the formation of deep mixed layers in the central mode water (CMW) and eastern subtropical mode water (ESMW) formation regions of the North Pacific have been analyzed using a mixed layer model. By running the model with various combinations of initial (August) background stratification and forcing fields (heat flux, E − P, and wind stress), and comparing the resultant March mixed layer depths, the relative importance of these effects on creating deep mixed layers was diagnosed. Model results suggest that the contributions of evaporation minus precipitation and wind mixing to mixed layer depth in both the CMW and the ESMW formation regions are negligible. In the ESMW formation region (centered at approximately 30°N, 140°W), the initial stratification is very important in determining where deep mixed layers form. Summer heating is quite weak in this region, resulting in a weak (or even nonexistent) seasonal pycnocline at the end of the summer at about 30°.
CONTROLLABILITY OF PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS AND ITS SEMI-DISCRETE APPROXIMATIONS

In these notes we analyze some problems related to the control- lability and observability of partial dierential equations and its space semi- discretizations. First we present the problems under consideration in the clas- sical examples of the wave and heat equations and recall some well known results. Then we analyze the 1 d wave equation with rapidly oscillating coef- ficients, a classical problem in the theory of homogenization. Then we discuss in detail the null and approximate controllability of the constant coecient heat equation using Carleman inequalities. We also show how a fixed point technique may be employed to obtain approximate controllability results for heat equations with globally Lipschitz nonlinearities. Finally we analyze the controllability of the space semi-discretizations of some classical PDE models: the Navier-Stokes equations and the 1 d wave and heat equations. We also present some open problems.
Medical Thoracoscopy at 105. Anniversary

INTRODUCTION Medical thoracoscopy (MT) is a medical technique that can be used for diagnosing pleural pathologies accompanied by pleural fluids requiring tissue sampling-histopathological examination, but not diagnosed with clinical, radiological, and laboratory evaluations. It can also be used for palliative treatment in special cases. MT is performed under local anesthesia and mild/conscious sedation in an endoscopy room. It is a safe, highly efficient, and low-cost procedure (1-3). The use of MT in the department of chest diseases has rapidly become widespread because it allows outpatient care, it can also be used in patients without pleural fluid under the guidance of ultrasonography, and it can be implemented with developing imaging techniques such as semirigid thoracoscopy, autofluorescence thoracoscopy, and narrow-band imaging.
Computing the number of certain Galois representations mod $p$

Using the link between mod $p$ Galois representations of $\qu$ and mod $p$ modular forms established by Serre's Conjecture, we compute, for every prime $p\leq 1999$, a lower bound for the number of isomorphism classes of continuous Galois representation of $\qu$ on a two--dimensional vector space over $\fbar$ which are irreducible, odd, and unramified outside $p$.
EVIDENCE FOR ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS DRIVEN OUTFLOWS IN YOUNG RADIO QUASARS

We present near-infrared spectra of young radio quasars (P1.4 GHz ≈ 26–27 W Hz−1) selected from the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. The detected objects have typical redshifts of z ≈ 1.6–2.5 and bolometric luminosities ∼1047 erg s−1. Based on the intensity ratios of narrow emission lines, we find that these objects are mainly powered by active galactic nuclei (AGNs), although star formation contribution cannot be completely ruled out. The host galaxies experience moderate levels of extinction, AV ≈ 0–1.3 mag. The observed [O iii] λ5007 luminosities and rest-frame J-band magnitudes constrain the black hole masses to lie in the range ∼108.9–109.7M☉. From the empirical correlation between black hole mass and host galaxy mass, we infer stellar masses of ∼1011.3–1012.2 M☉. The [O iii] line is exceptionally broad, with FWHM ∼1300–2100 km s−1, significantly larger than that of ordinary distant quasars. We argue that these large line widths can be explained by jet-induced outflows, as predicted by theoretical models of AGN feedback.
Girls’ and boys’ choices of peer behavioral characteristics at age five

We analyzed age differences in the behavioral profiles of the girls and boys chosen as play partners by same- and cross-sex peers at age 5 and the influence of these choices on subsequent behavior at 9 in a sample of 107 Spanish children. Girls chose girls who had an interest in resources and affective leadership, whereas boys chose boys interested in sport and rejected those preferring role-taking play. Both girls and boys who were preferred by boys at 5 showed low levels of maladaptive behaviors. We suggest that children’s selection of the type of play and behavior of their same-sex peers could be considered a relevant mechanism for explaining the adaptive role of sex segregation during childhood.
Entropy production in nonlinear recombination models

We study the convergence to equilibrium of a class of nonlinear recombination models. In analogy with Boltzmann's H theorem from kinetic theory, and in contrast with previous analysis of these models, convergence is measured in terms of relative entropy. The problem is formulated within a general framework that we refer to as Reversible Quadratic Systems. Our main result is a tight quantitative estimate for the entropy production functional. Along the way we establish some new entropy inequalities generalizing Shearer's and related inequalities.
POCKETS OF OPEN CELLS AND DRIZZLE IN MARINE STRATOCUMULUS

Data from recent field studies in the northeast and southeast Pacific are used to investigate pockets of open cells (POCs) that are embedded in otherwise uniform stratocumulus. The cellular structure within a POC resembles broader regions of open cellular convection typically found further offshore. In both regions, cells are composed of precipitating cell walls and cell interiors with depleted cloud water and even clearing. POCs are long lived and embedded in broader regions of stratocumulus where average droplet sizes are relatively large. In contrast, stratiform, or unbroken, cloud formations tend to be accompanied by less, or no, drizzle, suggesting that precipitation is necessary for the sustenance of the open cellular structure. Because, by definition, open cells are associated with a reduction in cloud cover these observations provide direct evidence of a connection between cloudiness and precipitation—a linchpin of hypotheses that posit a connection between changes in the atmospheric aerosol and c.
Temporal characteristics of Greek fricatives

The present study examines the temporal characteristics of Greek fricatives as distinctive cues for their place of articulation. The effects of voicing (voiced, voiceless), speaker‟s gender (fe-male, male) and post-fricative vowel ([a], [e], [i], [o], [u]) on fricative duration are also inve-stigated. The results show that fricative duration does not distinguish fricatives in terms of pla-ce of articulation. However, it clearly differentiates voiced from voiceless fricatives, with voi-celess fricatives having significantly longer durations than voiced ones. It is also demonstrated that females produce significantly longer fricatives than males. Finally, this study reveals that the higher the vowel the longer the preceding fricative (i>u>o>e>a).