Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Political Selection

J ames Madison (1788 [1961]), the primary author of the U.S. Constitution, wrote in the Federalist Papers (#57): “The aim of every political Constitution, is or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust. ” The second issue that Madison identifies— that is, the need to get institutional incentives right so that politicians act in the public interest—has been studied at length. But the first issue—the need to form a political class that is competent and honest enough to discharge its duties—has received far less attention. Yet many of the problems of government, especially those in emerging democracies, arise because the political class uses the state for self-dealing. Any institutional improvements that try to rein in their proclivities can have only a limited impact as long as policymakers are intent on using public office for self-enrichment. Democratic theorists have long recognized that the state functions in the context of a nexus of values that restrain narrow self-interest. One of the key roles of elections is to uphold those values, both by disciplining politicians and providing a means of finding those who are fit to serve. As the great American political scientist V.O. Key (1956, p. 10) remarks: “The nature of the workings of government depends ultimately on the men who run it. The men we elect to office and the circumstances we create that affect their work determine the nature of popular government. Let there be emphasis on those we elect to office. ” The past 200 years of political history justify an emphasis on selection. Almost
1 GM crops not the reason for the bee colony collapse disorder ( CCD )

1.1. Alarmist press releases: The colony collapse disorder (CCD) is allegedly caused by GM crops . 2 1.2. Lobby reports of (organic) Bee Keeper Associations . 2 1.3. More propaganda of opponents of GM crops, without scientific evidence, but lots of assumptions and questionable principles . 3
Long-Term Behavior of Precast Concrete Bridges MPC 18-352

For this research, sensors were used to investigate the differences in prestress losses and temperature gradients in a concrete deck bulb tee girder bridge. The Millville Bridge was built as an access point to the Ridgeline High School in Millville, Utah. The bridge was built in 2016 and presently supports two lanes of traffic. Changes in prestress were measured with a total of 16 vibrating wire strain gauges located at four crosssections. Temperature gradients were measured with a total of 50 thermocouples located at five crosssection locations, four of which were shared locations with the vibrating wire strain gauges. These instruments were placed at the mid-span and end of an exterior and center girder to effectively measure the bridge response in one quarter of the bridge superstructure. The prestress loss recordings were initiated before the prestressing strands were released. The thermocouple data for Girder 1 began to be recorded before the initial casting of the girder concrete. The thermocouple data for Girder 5 was started before the curing blanket was removed in the casting yard. Prestress losses at the girder mid-span and temperature gradients were compared with code recommended values according to the AASHTO bridge design specifications.
Research & Exploration on Higher Mathematics for Students from Human Science

In this essay, based on the phenomenon that lower for extend to solicit student part of normal college student's qualitities of empresses, necessity as well as existing problems of the higher mathematics education for the student from Humane Science, some ideas and measures were put forward to reform from the four aspects of teaching objectives, teaching principles, teaching contents and teaching quality.
OF PLACENTAL PATHOLOGY IN MATERNAL DIABETES MELLITUS

During a pregnancy complicated by diabetes, the human placenta undergoes a number of functional and structural pathologic changes, such as increased placental weight and increased incidence of placental lesions including villous maturational defects and fibrinoid necrosis. The pathologic findings reported have differed among studies, potentially reflecting differences in type of diabetes, study methodology, or glycemic control of study participants. Alternatively, these discrepancies may represent different biologic adaptations to distinct metabolic diseases. In order to clarify these distinctions, we conducted a comprehensive review of English language citations in Pubmed and Embase using the keywords “diabetes”, “placenta”, AND “pathology”. Abstracts were reviewed for relevance then full-text articles were reviewed in order to extract a comprehensive summary of current pathological findings associated with pregestational and gestational diabetes mellitus, as well as an understanding of the impact of glycemic control on placental pathology. Placental abnormalities most consistently associated with maternal diabetes are an increased incidence of villous immaturity, increased measures of angiogenesis, and increased placental weight. The literature suggests that, despite similarities in placental abnormalities, differences in placental pathology may reflect differences in pathophysiology among different types of diabetes. Consequently, standardization of terminology used to define placental lesions is warranted. Moreover, further research is needed to investigate the impact of pathophysiology, glycemic control and clinical factors, such as infant sex, weight and race, on placental structure and function.
FTY 720 prevents ischemia / reperfusion injury-associated arrhythmias in an ex vivo rat heart model via activation of Pak 1 / Akt signaling

Recent studies demonstrated a role of sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) in the protection against the stress of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. In experiments reported here, we have investigated the signaling through the S1P cascade by FTY720, a sphingolipid drug candidate displaying structural similarity to S1P, underlying the S1P cardioprotective effect. In ex vivo rat heart and isolated sinoatrial node models, FTY720 significantly prevented arrhythmic events associated with I/R injury including premature ventricular beats, VT, and sinus bradycardia as well as A–V conduction block. Real-time PCR and Western blot analysis demonstrated the expression of the S1P receptor transcript pools and corresponding proteins including S1P1, S1P2, and S1P3 in tissues dissected from sinoatrial node, atrium and ventricle. FTY720 (25 nM) significantly blunted the depression of the levels of phospho-Pak1 and phospho-Akt with ischemia and with reperfusion. There was a significant increase in phospho-Pak1 levels by 35%, 199%, and 205% after 5, 10, and 15 min of treatment with 25 nM FTY720 compared with control nontreated myocytes. However, there was no significant difference in the levels of total Pak1 expression between nontreated and FTY720 treated. Phospho-Akt levels were increased by 44%, 63%, and 61% after 5, 10, and 15 min of treatment with 25 nM FTY720, respectively. Our data provide the first evidence that FTY720 prevents I/R injury-associated arrhythmias and indicate its potential significance as an important and new agent protecting against I/R injury. Our data also indicate, for the first time, that the cardioprotective effect of FTY720 is likely to involve activation of signaling through the Pak1.
Nanocrystalline Diamond Films Deformation Observed During Sliding Tests against Si 3 N 4 Balls as a Possible Cause for Ripple Formation on Wear Scars Surface

The study investigates wear performance of nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) films under reciprocating sliding conditions. The NCD films were grown by hot-filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) method on (100) oriented Si wafers. The surface morphology was characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and mechanical profilometry. The study focuses on the understanding of mechanisms resulting in NCD films deformation and formation of ripple patterns on the wear scars surface observed during reciprocal sliding tests. Plastic deformation of the Si wafer due to NCD film deposition and high local contact pressure and temperature during sliding lead to structural changes on the Si(100)/NCD film interface, thus causing the NCD film to deform and the characteristic ripple patterns to develop on the wear scars surface.
Toward a More Complete Picture of Student Learning: Assessing Students’ Motivational Beliefs

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the assessment of students’ motivational beliefs. The body of the article is focused on a particular type of motivational belief, namely, beliefs involving achievement goal orientations. I explain why these beliefs are an important aspect of academic learning, and suggest how teachers can incorporate assessments of them within existing classroom routines.
Risk of premature delivery and fetal loss in trichorionic triplet pregnancies : multicenter study on fetal reduction versus expectant management

Objective: to assess the impact of embryo-reduction (ER) in reducing the risk of miscarriage and premature birth in trichorionic triplet pregnancies. Short term outcome, incidence of cerebral palsy and periventricular leukomalacia were evaluated for each neonate of both groupes. Materials and methods: pregnancies enrolled for this study were recruited in the Unit of Prenatal Diagnosis of Piero Palagi Hospital, USL Centro Toscana, Florence and Unit of Fetal Medicine of Careggi Hospital, University of Florence. This was a multicentric retrospective study on trichorionic triamniotic triplet pregnancies with three live fetuses at 10–13 +6 weeks of gestation managed expectantly or by ER. The two groups were compared for the rates of miscarriage, defined as pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, early preterm birth before 32 weeks, birth weight and early neonatal outcome. Short term outcome, incidence of cerebral palsy and periventricular leukomalacia were evaluated for each neonate of both groupes. Results: 86 trichorionic triamniotic pregnancies met our inclusion criteria. 60 (69,8 %) opted for expectant management (group 1); 26 (30,2%) had ER in the first trimester (10–13 +6 weeks) (group 2). The percentage of miscarriage were not significantly different between the two groups (p=0,688), otherwise the percentage of early preterm delivery before 32 weeks was higher in those managed expectantly (20/60 , 33.3%) group 1, 1/26 (3,8%) group 2 (p <0.006 ). The incidence of cerebral palsy and periventricular leukomalacia were not significantly different between the two groups . Discussion: results of our study are consistent with international literature confirming that ER is associated with an increased gestational age at birth and mean birth weight, without any difference in terms of early neonatal outcome; however the ER procedure does not seem to increase the rate of miscarriage. Our data are not sufficient to recommend a policy of pregnancy reduction to women with trichorionic triplet pregnancies.
Why Do Poorly Performing Firms Pay Cash Dividends in Mainland China?

We use financial data on poorly performing firms in Mainland China from 1993 through 2003 to examine the motives behind paying out cash dividends. The results indicate that cash dividend payout behaviors of Mainland Chinese firms are closely related to the preferences of the controlling shareholders of nontradable shares, and are subject to the firms’earnings capacity and cash constraints. The findings support our cash-channeling hypothesis in Mainland China and are consistent with the theories of Stulz (2005) and Pinkowitz, Stulz, and Williamson (2006) on the agency problems of corporate insider and state-ruler discretion in a liberalized emerging financial market.
Stacked Autoencoder-based deep learning for remote-sensing image classification: a case study of African land-cover mapping

ABSTRACT Land-cover mapping is an important research topic with broad applicability in the remote-sensing domain. Machine learning algorithms such as Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Random Forest (RF) have been playing an important role in this field for many years, although deep neural networks are experiencing a resurgence of interest. In this article, we demonstrate early efforts to apply deep learning-based classification methods to large-scale land-cover mapping. Based on the Stacked Autoencoder (SAE), one of the deep learning models, we built a classification framework for large-scale remote-sensing image processing. We adjusted and optimized the model parameters based on our test samples. We compared the performance of the SAE-based approach with traditional classification algorithms including RF, SVM, and ANN with multiple performance analytics. Results show that the SAE classifier trained with an entire set of African training samples achieves an overall classification accuracy of 78.99% when assessed by test samples collected independently of training samples, which is higher than the accuracies achieved by the other three classifiers (76.03%, 77.74%, and 77.86% of RF, SVM, and ANN, respectively) based on the same set of test samples. We also demonstrated the advantages of SAE in prediction time and land-cover mapping results in this study.
Guidelines for the treatment of sleep disordered breathing in the elderly A consensus by the International Geriatric Sleep Medicine Task Force

241 Words Text 8686 words 151 References Corresponding author: Nikolaus C. Netzer MD PhD, Hermann Buhl Institute for Hypoxia and Sleep Medicine Research, University Innsbruck, Chair Geriatric Assembly, German Sleep Society Adress: Ghersburgstr. 9, 83043 Bad Aibling, Germany Ph: +49 8061 494 632, Fax: +49 8061 494 667, Email: nikinetzer@yahoo.com Disclosures and conflict of interest: Both chairs: Dr. Netzer and Dr. Ancoli have nothing to disclose in regard of the preparation and the content of this manuscript and have no conflict of interest. All other authors declare that they have nothing to disclose regarding the preparation and content of this expert consensus paper and have no conflict of interest.
Efficient routing method on the mobile communication networks

The routing control of the packet is one of the important tasks to reduce the congestion of packets in the mobile communication networks. For this reason, various routing methods are widely proposed to exchange the data packets reliably while avoiding the congestion of the packets. As one of the efficient routing methods for the mobile communication networks, a routing method considering the memory information or the packet routing history is proposed in this paper. The obtained results show that the proposed routing method achieves to remove the congestion of the packets using the routing history effectively, realizing that the large number of the packets are transmitted to their destinations even if the number of packets increases in the communication networks.
Home Biased Credit Allocations

Banks make more lending and open more branches near their CEO’s birthplace. This reflects favoritism rather than information advantages: the effect is stronger during economic downturns, among altruistic CEOs, in struggling counties, and among marginal mortgage applicants. Furthermore, while home favoritism does not affect the bank’s profitability, it leads to positive economic outcomes in counties exposed to greater favoritism. Together, our results suggest home favoritism as one channel that deepens credit inequality. JEL Classification: D91, G3, G21, G41
Report No . Health and Water Quality Impacts Arising from Land Spreading of Biosolids

EPA-ReportCover-200-Jan17-v3.indd 1 17/01/2017 17:22 www.epa. ie The aims of this study were to: (1) undertake a thorough literature review of the spreading of treated sewage sludge (biosolids) on land to include analysis of potential impacts on environmental and human health; (2) examine, under controlled conditions in the laboratory and field, the impact of the landspreading of biosolids (on grassland) on surface runoff/subsurface drainage/shallow groundwater of nutrients, solids, metals, pathogens and some specified emerging contaminants identified in the literature review, when spread based on N and P application rates; and (3) to model and conduct a risk assessment of potential hazards of human health concern.
International Launch Window and Performance: Analysis of Movies

With the growing globalization of business, international launch time window (the elapsed time between product launch in the home country and launch in the focal country) is becoming increasingly critical for the success of new products, in particular, short life cycle products, such as movies, books, music, and video games. We address important research questions related to this launch time window. What are the determinants of launch time window? What are the relative effects of prelaunch advertising and word of mouth on launch time window? What is the effect of launch time window on performance in foreign countries? We formulate an analytic model and develop predictions related to these questions. We empirically test these predictions and the influences of other variables using a unique dataset comprising 228 movies covering 62 countries during 2007-08. We develop and estimate a simultaneous system of equations, in which country revenues, launch time window, and prelaunch advertising are the dependent variables. Our results show that launch time window is positively associated with word of mouth but negatively related to prelaunch advertising spending and foreign demand potential. We also find that firms release new products faster into countries that are culturally closer to the home country, Our findings offer new insights into the tradeoff between leveraging the word of mouth effect and investing in prelaunch advertising for the international launch window decision.
Calci fi ed microbial reefs in Cambrian Series 2 , North China Platform : Implications for the evolution of Cambrian calci fi ed microbes

a School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-747, Republic of Korea b Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Daejeon 305-350, Republic of Korea c Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China d Division of Polar Earth-System Sciences, Korea Polar Research Institute, Incheon 406-840, Republic of Korea
Correlation between hemoglobin A 1 c and lipid profile in Bosnian diabetic patients-gender differences

Diabetes mellitus (DM) represent a chronic metabolic disease which was accompanied by hyperglycemia, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or cells do not respond to the insulin. As a disease, it is characterized with acute and chronic complications, which contributed to diabetes morbidity and mortality rates. Chronically elevated glucose is an important etiologic factor for macro and microvascular complications and the diagnostic feature of DM. For a long time, HbA1c was used as a reliable marker in glycaemia control which correlated well with the risk of long-term diabetes complications (Kautzky-Willer A., 2015; IDF Recommendations, 2017). In 2010, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommended the use of HbA1c as a diagnostic marker for diabetes and categories for increased risk of diabetes (formerly known as prediabetes) (Reynolds et al., 2006; Lyons et al., 2012; Bulletin of the Chemists and Technologists of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Do Health Care Systems shape household portfolio choice ?

Previous literature identified that health status plays an important role in shaping both the extensive margin (decision of holding a particular type of asset) and the intensive margin of portfolio choice (allocation of financial wealth between asset categories). However, most research focused on US data, while European countries were rarely analyzed and focusing on the extensive margin. In this paper, the data from Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) are used to investigate whether the association of health status with portfolio choice varies across 11 European countries, each shielding households from out-of-pocket medical expenditures to a different extent. The hypothesis is that health risk shapes the portfolio choice at both margins, but, as background risk theory suggests, the strength of these effects varies with the generosity of health care system, being weaker (even negligible) in countries with full-coverage National Health System. Using multiple imputation (MI) approach to account for high non-response rate, this paper finds empirical confirmation of this hypothesis. The results also provide some evidence that in countries with less protective health systems, informal care arrangements in form of bequests might be particularly important, thus indicating potential spillover effects of health related financial risks of the elderly to younger individuals, who are not included in SHARE sample.
Dynamic or constant approach for capital structure ( Case study in Tehran Stock Exchange )

Our findings indicate that the estimations from the OLS, fixed effect and random effect for dynamic adjustment models. In all three models, the significant variable is shown the size, and profitability, a negative relationship with the leverage ratio. The variables of PROF and TANG are also not statistically significant. We can conclude that the estimations of the OLS model are a little bit different from those of the fixed and random ones. The variable of size is negatively related to the leverage ratio for all models and displayed statistically significant in the fixed effect model. The relationship between variable of growth and debt ratio is positive in all estimated models, but statistically insignificant. Tangible assets are associated positively with the leverage ratio. That offered as collateral to credit institutions, reducing the cost of asymmetric information and bankruptcy costs. Also the variable of profitability is positively related to the debt ratio. Finally, we indicate the interaction between financial costs and ability to dynamically adjust the debt ratio affects the deviation of actual debt ratios from their targets. Our analysis reveal that the average distances of the debt ratio from the target ratio is gradually small for both companies with an above-target (belowtarget) debt ratio. And the rejection of null hypotheses suggests that firms don’t have target leverage ratio.
‘ Poverty , Equity and Growth in Developing and Transition Countries : Statistical Methods and Empirical Analysis

Over the last four decades, several methods for selecting the smoothing parameter, generally called the bandwidth, have been introduced in kernel regression. They differ quite a bit, and although there already exist more selection methods than for any other regression smoother we can still see coming up new ones. Given the need of automatic data-driven bandwidth selectors for applied statistics, this review is intended to explain and compare these methods.1 AMS classification: 62G07, 62G05