Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Conceptual Change and Distributional Semantic Models: an Exploratory Study on Pitfalls and Possibilities

Studying conceptual change using embedding models has become increasingly popular in the Digital Humanities community while critical observations about them have received less attention. This paper investigates what the impact of known pitfalls can be on the conclusions drawn in a digital humanities study through the use case of “Racism”. In addition, we suggest an approach for modeling a complex concept in terms of words and relations representative of the conceptual system. Our results show that different models created from the same data yield different results, but also indicate that using different model architectures, comparing different corpora and comparing to control words and relations can help to identify which results are solid and which may be due to artefact. We propose guidelines to conduct similar studies, but also note that more work is needed to fully understand how we can distinguish artefacts from actual conceptual changes.
An Investigation Into the Delays in Road Projects in Bahrain

This research investigated the delays in road projects in Bahrain. It studied frequency and severity of delay’s causes, as well as frequency of delay’s effects in such projects. Forty seven causes were identified and classified by responsibility into six groups. A field survey was conducted through a questionnaire including 36 contractors, 24 consultants and 84 engineers working at Ministry of Works (MOW). The researcher concluded that there are many causes of delay related to contractors such as the improper planning and scheduling. One of the major causes related to the owner, i.e. MOW is delay in decision making. The main problems related to consultants are due to lack of experience. Moreover, cost and time overruns were two of the most frequent effects of delay.
Social Exclusion and Labor Market Integration of People with Disabilities. A Case Study for Romania

This empirical study contributes towards identifying the effect of social exclusion on labor market integration of people with disabilities in Romania. Certain categories of individuals with disabilities have longer unemployment duration than others and this empirical study is focused on identifying which variables have a significant influence on exit to job hazard on Romanian labor market. The significant gap between employees without disabilities and employees with disabilities in the Romanian labor market can be explain based on certain influential factors such as: Lower productivity levels, higher training costs, differentiated work schedules, special demands, higher risk of work injuries and work-related accidents, etc. The findings reveal the lack of statistical significance for the differences between median survival time and hazard rates of disabled individuals, a function of their disability. Moreover, our results show that only an age and unemployment allowance has had a significant effect on unemployment duration and exit to a job hazard of educated individuals with disabilities.
The management of hiatal hernia: an update on diagnosis and treatment

Background and aim Hiatal hernia (HH) occurs quite frequently in the general population and is characterized by a wide range of non-specific symptoms, most of them related to gastroesophageal reflux disease. Treatment can be challenging at times, depending on the existence of complications. The most recent guideline regarding the management of hiatal hernia was released by the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) in the year 2013. This review aims to present the most recent updates on the diagnosis and management of hiatal hernia for clinical practitioners. Methods The PubMed database was screened for publications using the terms: “hiatal hernia”, “paraesophageal hernia”, “management”, “treatment”, “hiatal repair”. A literature review of contemporary and latest studies was completed. The studies that we looked into include prospective, randomized trials, systematic reviews, clinical reviews and original articles. The information was compiled in narrative review format. Results This narrative review presents new data on the diagnosis and management of hiatal hernia. While the diagnostic pathway has remained virtually unchanged, new data have come to light regarding the surgical treatment of hiatal hernia. We present the imaging methods used for its diagnosis, as well as the medical and surgical treatment currently available. Conclusion In the last five years, there has been vast research in the field of hiatal hernia management, especially regarding the surgical treatment. However, unanswered questions still remain and solid updates on the guidelines have yet to be formulated. To address this, more randomized studies need to be done on subsets of patients, stratified by age, gender, symptoms and comorbidities.
Blended Learning: Improvisasi dalam Pembelajaran Menulis Pengalaman (Blended Learning: Improvisation in Experience Writing Learning)

Pembelajaran menulis dengan menggunakan blended learning secara umum meningkatkan partisipasi mahasiswa. Blended learning membuat mahasiswa memiliki kesempatan berlatih menulis lebih banyak karena mahasiswa bisa menulis tanpa dibatasi oleh ruang kelas. Selain itu, interaksi antarmahasiswa dan dosen dapat maksimal, serta transparansi penilaian terpenuhi. 75% mahasiswa pernah membaca novel sejumlah 3-4 judul. Kriteria dibaca adalah novel tersebut harus dibaca tuntas.Genre karya sastra yang dibaca oleh mahasiswa rata-rata adalah roman percintaan. Sangat sedikit yang membaca karya sastra bergenre misteri, dan tidak ada yang membaca karya sastra terjemahan. Dengan demikian, variasi karya sastra yang dibaca oleh mahasiswa kurang heterogen. Berdasarkan data tersebut, diperlukan pemetaan bacaan sastra bagi mahasiswa dan dimasukkan ke dalam kegiatan intrakurikuler sehingga lebih terpantau.Kata kunci: blended learning, menulis pengalaman, karya sastra, SchoologyABSTRACTWriting lesson using blendedlearning in general improves students’ participation. Blended learning makes the students have more opportunities to learn to write as they can practice outside the classroom. Besides, interactions between students and the lecturer can be optimal, and assessment transparency will be possible as well. 75% of the students had read 3-4 novels. The criterion of ‘read’ is that it had been completely read. The most common genre of the works read was romance/love story. There were only a few of them who read mystery, and none of them had read translated works. Thus, the works read were not really varied. Based on the data, mapping of literary readings for the students is required, and need to be included in the intra-curricular activities to make it easier to monitor.
Recognizing film aesthetics, spectators' affect and aesthetic emotions from multimodal signals

Even though aesthetic experiences area common in our lives, processes involved in aesthetic experience are not fully understood. Moreover, there is no comprehensive theory that explains and defines the concept of aesthetic experience in art. The challenge of studies on aesthetic experiences is to understand different stages of aesthetic information processing, such as perceptual analysis, cognitive processes, and evaluation resulting in aesthetic judgments and emotions. The main goal of this thesis is to analyze film aesthetic experience evoked in spectators. In particular, we aim to detect aesthetic highlights in movies, as well as recognize induced emotions and aesthetic emotions elicited in spectators. The outcomes of the research on induced emotions, aesthetic emotions, and aesthetic highlights allow researchers to better understand processes involved in film aesthetic experience and can be used for emotional and aesthetic scene detection, emotional and aesthetic scene design, video summarization, and prediction of affective and aesthetic content.
Lean Manufacturing, Human Resource Management and Worker Health: Are there Smart Bundles of Practices along the Adoption Process?

The effects of lean manufacturing on worker health remain poorly understood. Although recent studies show a moderating role of human resource management (HRM) practices on this relationship, they focus only on some specific HRM practices and do not grasp their effects on the different phases of the lean adoption process. By considering lean manufacturing as a managerial innovation, the objective of this paper is to explore the relationship between lean, HRM practices, and worker health according to the firm’s lean maturity (i.e. intensity of usage and stage of adoption). The results, based on three case studies of French industrial firms, show that the effects of lean practices on worker health should be assessed in light of the combination of lean and HRM practices that differ along the lean process.JEL Codes: M10, M11
Developing and validating a model of ISO 9001 effectiveness gap: empirical evidence from China

Based on reverse thinking, this research defines the concept of the ‘ISO 9001 effectiveness gap’ for the first time and establishes the ISO 9001 effectiveness gap model. A research study was carried out in 413 ISO 9001 certified companies in Beijing City, Shandong Province, Anhui Province and Guangxi Province, which are representative in China. Data were obtained through a structured questionnaire and have been analysed with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using Smart PLS 3. The present study findings show that motivation barriers, top management barriers, employee barriers, resource barriers, and certification organisation barriers all have positive impacts on the ISO 9001 effectiveness gap. In addition, the research also finds that top management barriers play a central role in the model of the ISO 9001 effectiveness gap and that employee barriers are affected by some other factors. It is also important to note that the role of certification organisation barriers cannot be ignored. The present study findings can provide some inspirations for different participants such as companies, certification organisations and government to design efficacious strategies to reduce the ISO 9001 effectiveness gap.
Evaluation of Methods for Data-Driven Tools that Empower Mental Health Professionals

Author(s): Demasi, Orianna Amy | Advisor(s): Recht, Benjamin; Demmel, James | Abstract: It is estimated that nearly one in five adults in the United States live with mental illness, and for individuals who struggle with mental health, the experience can be excruciating. The rise of mobile devices presents a unique opportunity to improve mental health outcomes, in part through empowering mental health professionals. Because many individuals always have their smartphones with them, smartphones may be able to enable health professionals to identify when an individual is in need and provide immediate care, rather than the current model of delaying care until a scheduled appointment. To this end, I investigate the feasibility of two new data-driven tools: one to identify when care is needed and the second to help train counselors to intervene when care is needed. The first tool I consider seeks to use a smartphone to sense an individual's well-being. Such a tool could be used to inform health professionals of patients' states, evaluate the efficacy of therapies, and deliver just-in-time interventions. To evaluate the potential accuracy of such a tool, I collect students' passive smartphone data and self-reported well-being measures, and then consider predicting well-being on a daily basis and detecting significant changes over a period of time. As this approach seems unreliable for most individuals, I further explore for which individuals such an approach may be reliable and develop a framework for evaluating longitudinal sensing quality. I find that while correlations between smartphone-sensed measures and reported wellbeing scores exist, these relationships are often too weak to reliably predict wellbeing. The second tool I explore seeks to help suicide prevention counselors practice intervening over chat for individuals in crisis. For this, I collect and leverage synthetic conversation transcripts and show how to evaluate a baseline system for counselors to practice crisis de-escalation strategies in a no-risk environment. While text retrieval and generation methods can return responses that make sense in limited context most of the time, i.e., in greater that 50% of examples, generated responses are shorter than retrieving full messages, implying that generation may potentially be a less engaging approach. Overall, I find that significant consideration of context is needed to provide meaningful evaluation of methods for the tools envisioned. While popular algorithms and methods may hold potential to develop the tools discussed, rigorous evaluation and further work is needed to ensure reliability within the application context.
The Impact of Country-by-Country Reporting on Corporate Tax Avoidance

Within the framework of its BEPS initiative, the OECD introduced a requirement for non-public country-by-country reporting (CbCR) applying to multinational companies with revenues above EUR 750m. The reports provide data on the global activities and financial structure of multinationals at a country level to tax authorities. This paper investigates the effectiveness of this measure against corporate tax avoidance using a difference-in-difference approach. The analysis is based on financial data both at the group and the subsidiary level. By testing several hypotheses, this paper provides limited support for the effectiveness of CbCR. While the effective tax rates of multinational groups with a reporting requirement increase by about 0.8 percentage points as compared to companies in the control group, the growth rate of total tax payments is unaffected. This seems to be due to a reduction of the tax base which is also due to a rise in leverage and resulting tax-deductible interest payments. At the same time, shifting of profits out of high tax jurisdictions is reduced by CbCR, but not at the expense of low tax OECD countries. CbCR therefore seems to primarily reduce profits located in tax haven affiliates of multinational groups. Lastly, there is little evidence for a distribution of profits closer aligned with frequently suggested apportionment factors.
Teologi Kristen-Anonim Karl Rahner Dan Implikasinya Terhadap Tugas Misi Gereja

Karl Rahner (1904-1984) adalah seorang teolog Katolik asal Jerman, yang selama beberapa tahun sebagai profesor di Universitas Innsbruck (1937-1964) Austria. Rahner mengarang buku Foundations of Christian Faith, dan sejumlah essai dalam Theological Investigations. Ia dianggap sebagai teolog Katolik kontemporer yang paling berpengaruh dan ahli teologi (peritus) yang diperhitungkan dalam konsili Vatikan II. Konsepnya tentang Kristen-Anonim telah memberi pengaruh luas dan merupakan konsep inklusivisme Katolik. Keselamatan melampaui batas-batas gereja yang kelihatan dan bukan saja individu-individu non-Kristen dapat diselamatkan, tetapi juga bahwa agama-agama bukan Kristen mempunyai peran menyelamatkan.
Elevated Nerve Growth Factor and its Receptor Levels in Endometriotic Tissues are Associated with Deep Dyspareunia

21 CONTEXT; Deep dyspareunia (pelvic pain with sexual intercourse) affects half of women with 22 endometriosis, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. 23 OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether nerve growth factor (NGF) and its receptor 24 (TrkA/p75NTR) levels in endometriotic tissues are elevated in women with deep dyspareunia. 25 DESIGN: In vitro study. 26 SETTING: University hospital affiliated research laboratories. 27 PATIENTS: 34 women with endometriosis in the posterior pelvic compartment (cul-de28 sac/uterosacrals) were included, either with (n=18) or without (n=16) deep dyspareunia 29 symptoms which was confirmed by endovaginal ultrasound-assisted palpation on examination. 30 INTERVENTIONS: None. 31 MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Utilizing surgically excised cul-de-sac/uterosacral 32 endometriosis, expression of NGF/TrkA/p75NTR was examined by immunohistochemistry and 33 Histoscore. Cultured endometriotic stromal cells (ESCs, n=3) were incubated with/without NGF 34 and/or Trk inhibitor K252a. Prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase-2 (PGST-2/COX-2) mRNA 35 and protein levels were examined by RT-qPCR and Western blot, respectively. Prostaglandin E2 36 (PGE2) secretion were examined by ELISA. 37 RESULTS: NGF/TrkA/p75NTR were expressed in the epithelium and stroma of the cul-de38 sac/uterosacral endometriosis, and were significantly elevated in women with deep dyspareunia 39 compared to women without deep dyspareunia. NGF immunoreactivity in the stroma was also 40 significantly associated with deep dyspareunia severity and with nerve bundle density. In 41 cultured ESCs, NGF significantly increased PTGS-2/COX-2 mRNA and protein levels as well as 42 PGE2 secretion, and these effects could be abolished by pretreatment of K252a. 43 CONCLUSIONS: Elevated NGF/TrkA/p75NTR levels may be associated with sexual pain (deep 44 dyspareunia) in women with cul-de-sac/uterosacral endometriosis. This association may be 45 mediated by an increase in nerve bundle density and by COX-2 and PGE2 stimulation via Trk 46 receptor. 47
Development and comparison of Extreme Learning machine and multi-layer perceptron neural network models for predicting optimum coagulant dosage for water treatment

Artificial neural networks have been extensively used in modelling the coagulation process in water treatment. Multi-layer Perceptron neural networks (MLP) are commonly used for coagulation modelling. However, a major drawback of MLPs is the high computational effort required due to its iterative nature. The Extreme learning machine neural network has a prediction accuracy comparable to MLPs and consumes far less computational effort. In this study an ELM-single layer feedforward neural network (ELM-SLFN), ELM-radial basis neural network (ELM-RBF) and a MLP was developed to predict the optimum coagulant dosage. All neural networks performed well with correlation coefficients exceeding 0.97. However, the ELM-RBF network performed better than the MLP model with higher prediction accuracy. Thus ELM-RBF neural network is a more efficient model for prediction of coagulant dosage for water treatment.
Gravimetrically prepared carbon dioxide standards in support of atmospheric research

Abstract. We have explored a one-step method for gravimetric preparation of CO2-in-air standards in aluminum cylinders. We consider both adsorption to stainless steel surfaces used in the transfer of highly pure CO2 and adsorption of CO2 to cylinder walls. We demonstrate that CO2-in-air standards can be prepared with relatively low uncertainty (∼ 0.04 %, ∼95 % confidence level) by introducing aliquots whose masses are known to high precision and by using well-characterized cylinders. Five gravimetric standards, prepared over the nominal range of 350 to 490 µmol mol−1 (parts per million, ppm), showed excellent internal consistency, with residuals from a linear fit equal to 0.05 ppm. This work compliments efforts to maintain the World Meteorological Organization, Global Atmosphere Watch, mole fraction scale for carbon dioxide in air, widely used for atmospheric monitoring. This gravimetric technique could be extended to other atmospheric trace gases, depending on the vapor pressure of the gas.
Making it work as a working mother: The role of paradox mindset in positive appraisal of working motherhood tensions

A prolific body of research on work-family interface documents the simultaneous, yet conflictual demands women face in fulfilling their roles as a career woman and a mother. However, little is known about how women cope with these contradictory tensions associated with working motherhood. This is important as many working women may decide to postpone motherhood to avoid the accompanying tensions. In this light, the current research leverages on the burgeoning literature on paradox management to investigate the role of a paradox mindset in positively appraising tensions to motivate dual career-motherhood endeavors. In positively appraising career-motherhood tensions, a paradox mindset is argued to encourage dual goal pursuits via two possible paths – acceptance and appreciation of these tensions. Findings underscore appreciation of tensions as an important aspect of positive appraisal that explains how a paradox mindset can be harnessed to encourage the simultaneous pursuit of career aspirations and motherhood. Specifically, findings of a correlational study on working females provide evidence that a paradox mindset promoted intention for dual career-motherhood pursuits via appreciation of tensions, albeit not via acceptance of tensions.
Long-Term Care Insurance: Information Frictions and Selection

This paper conducts a stated-choice experiment where respondents are asked to rate various insurance products aimed to protect against financial risks associated with long-term care needs. Using exogenous variation in prices from the survey design and individual cost estimates, these stated-choice probabilities are used to predict market equilibrium for long-term care insurance. Our results are twofold. First, information frictions are pervasive. Second, measuring the welfare losses associated with frictions in a framework that also allows for selection, it is found that information frictions reduce equilibrium take-up and lead to large welfare losses, while selection plays little role. (JEL D82, D83, G22, I13)
Partisan Media in a Politically Charged Zimbabwe: Public and Private Media Framing of 2018 Elections

ABSTRACT The 2018 presidential and parliamentary election in Zimbabwe was unique in that it was the first post-Mugabe election and the government had pledged to deliver a credible election free from the previous trappings of violence. This study uses framing theory to understand the actors, topics or issues and the media frames used in The Herald and NewsDay newspapers. This research adds knowledge to the vast literature on media coverage of politics in Zimbabwe by interrogating how the media framed the 2018 elections in a new political environment. Results show that despite the new political environment and legal provisions on how the media should cover elections, polarisation in the media along political lines has remained, and this is noted as a stumbling block to democracy in Zimbabwe. On the issues covered, it has been shown that NewsDay prioritised strategy issues at the expense of substantive issues while The Herald presented substantive issues from the perspective of political leaders. The conflict frame is the most dominant frame used by both media. In view of this, the article argues that such approaches in politically charged situations have the potential to entrench divisions, which may escalate to political hatred and violence.
Fiscal Policy Under Uncertainty

Fiscal policy is interesting again. As interest rates hit rock bottom during the global financial crisis, the burden of lifting demand fell upon governments. This thesis explores three related issues that have surfaced in the aftermath. Once the storm passed, decisions had to be made about how fast and when to withdraw stimulus — chapter two shows that implementing austerity may not always be plain sailing. How much belt tightening is needed after a crisis? That depends crucially on the amount of slack in the economy – revenue will grow and spending will fall naturally as the economy recovers. The third chapter quantifies the challenge of measuring the output gap in real time and shows how this carries over to estimates of structural borrowing. Finally, the next crisis cannot be too far away. But when should a government junk its budget plans and loosen the purse strings? The trigger for that is the topic of chapter four.