Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gender and the Social Costs of Sentencing: An Analysis of Sentences Imposed on Male and Female Offenders in Three U.S. District Courts

Disparity in the treatment of offenders involved in the criminal justice system has been the topic of a substantial amount of research over the past thirty years. Perhaps the most compelling evidence of disparity is found in the demographics of the inmate population in state and federal prisons throughout the United States. Most of those incarcerated in our nation's prisons are men, and the incarceration rates for blacks and Hispanics are substantially higher than the rate for whites.2 These disparities in rates of imprisonment, which have persisted for more than three decades, have led researchers to focus on the sentencing stage of the criminal justice process. 3 They also have led
Impacts of Landscape Change on Wolf Restoration Success: Planning a Reintroduction Program Based on Static and Dynamic Spatial Models

Abstract: Mammalian carnivores are increasingly the focus of reintroduction attempts in areas from which they have been extirpated by historic persecution. We used static and dynamic spatial models to evaluate whether a proposed wolf reintroduction to the southern Rocky Mountain region ( U.S.A ) would advance recovery by increasing species distribution beyond what might be expected through natural range expansion. We used multiple logistic regression to develop a resource‐selection function relating wolf distribution in the Greater Yellowstone region with regional‐scale habitat variables. We also used a spatially explicit population model to predict wolf distribution and viability at several potential reintroduction sites within the region under current conditions and under two contrasting predictions of future landscape change. Areas of the southern Rocky Mountains with resource‐selection‐function values similar to those of currently inhabited areas in Yellowstone could potentially support>1000 wolves, 40% within protected areas and 47% on unprotected public lands. The dynamic model predicted similar distribution under current conditions but suggested that development trends over 25 years may result in the loss of one of four potential regional subpopulations and increased isolation of the remaining areas. The reduction in carrying capacity due to landscape change ranged from 49% to 66%, depending on assumptions about road development on public lands. Although much of the wolf population occurs outside core protected areas, these areas remain the key to the persistence of subpopulations. Although the dynamic model's sensitivity to dispersal parameters made it difficult to predict the probability of natural recolonization from distant sources, it suggested that an active reintroduction to two sites within the region may be necessary to ensure low extinction probability. Social carnivores such as the wolf, which often require larger territories than solitary species of similar size, may be more vulnerable to environmental stochasticity and landscape fragmentation than their vagility and fecundity would suggest.
A Framework for Determining the Impact of Value Chain Participation on Smallholder Farm Efficiency

We analyze the efficiency of wheat farmers toward the ever-increasing demand for wheat in Tanzania. Translog production and cost functions were utilized in the stochastic frontier analysis to examine technical, allocative, and economic efficiencies (TE, AE, and EE) of wheat farmers in Northern Tanzania. Propensity score matching through caliper radius and nearest neighbor methods were utilized to analyze the impact of value chain participation on smallholder farm efficiency levels. Analysis revealed that the average TE, AE, and EE scores for farmers’ value chain participation were 79%, 80%, and 64%, respectively, in the study area, implying that wheat farmers could still improve level of TE, AE, and EE by 21%, 20%, and 36%, respectively. Caliper radius matching revealed that the net effects of farmers’ participation in vertical coordination on TE, AE, and EE were 6.8%, 5.7%, and 8.7%, respectively, while the net effects of farmers’ horizontal coordination participation were 6.3%, 9.5%, and 11.6%, respectively. This indicates that farmer’s participation in value chain (vertical and horizontal coordination) would positively impact their level of wheat farm efficiencies. Based on the results, we recommend the expansion of wheat plots and use of modern farming technologies to increase wheat production in Tanzania. To further improve farm unit efficiency, we recommend additional formal education for future farmers, more on-farm extension training, and participation in the value chain through contracts and farmers’ associations.
A Bilevel Equalizer for Large Lithium Ion Batteries

Due to variations among the cells, large lithium ion batteries (LIB) such as those in battery energy storage stations (BESS) and electric vehicles (EVs) must have an equalizer (EQU) circuit to balance the cell voltages. In spite of their significant losses and other limitations, passive equalizers (PEQ) are used in most applications because they are relatively simple and low cost. Active equalizers (AEQ) reduce these PEQ problems, but are not as widely used due to their much higher cost and complexity. A new hybrid circuit called the Bilevel EQU (BEQ) combines the PEQ and AEQ to provide much higher performance than a pure PEQ but at a much lower cost than a pure AEQ.
Usage Effectiveness of Video and Mama Card In Biology Learning of Human Reproductive System

Student learning outcomes of human reproductive system material under passing grade become an obstacle for students to achieve the learning objectives. Some students are not enthusiastic about human reproductive system material because it is considered difficult. Students still do not understand related to the structure and function of reproductive organ systems, abnormalities and hormones. Based on the problems above then it takes a learning to attract attention or enthusiasm of students. Media is one of the important factors of teaching and learning process. Use of media aims to facilitate teachers in convey learning so students become more easily understand the material. The purpose of this research is to analyze the usage effectiveness of video and mama card in Biology lesson of human reproductive system material. This research used True Experimental Design with Pretest-Posttest Control Group Design. The analysis of data includes quantitative data to student activities and learning outcomes, then descriptive analysis to teacher’s opinion and students’ opinion. The result of this research showed that student activities and student learning outcomes in the experimental class is higher than the control class. Teacher and students gave positive reviews to the learning process. Based on the result of research, it was concluded that use of video and mama card was effective in increasing student activities and student learning outcomes in human reproductive system material.
Geography, Income, and Trade in the 21st Century

We investigate the relationship between GDP per capita, trade costs, demand, and income inequality between 1996 and 2011. Specifically we apply the aggregate AIDS-based gravity model as developed in Fajgelbaum and Khandelwal (2016) to a panel of 40 countries to generate a new measure of market potential. We then relate this measure of market potential to country level GDP per capita finding a significant positive relationship which performs better than CES-based measures of market potential. The AIDS model allows for non-homotheticities in demand and the possibility that nations produce goods with higher or lower income elasticities so that income inequality and GDP per capita matter for the direction of trade. CES-based market potential measures are typically only a function of overall income and trade costs, but in AIDS relative incomes and average incomes matter. We also go beyond this partial equilibrium relationship and explore the welfare effects of a unilateral decline in international trade costs. A 10% decline in import prices induces an average rise in welfare of 2% for importing countries. This effect is larger for smaller countries and depends in an interesting way on the income elasticity of demand for source and destination products.
How Emotions Shape Organized Sub-State Conflict

This dissertation consists of three studies of sub-state conflict. The first two explore particular emotional influences on the judgments and behaviors of combatants and civilians during organized conflict. The third examines information dynamics during insurgency. Chapter 1 explores the combined role of a war-fighting institution’s strategic calculations and its combatants’ individual emotional reactions in producing violence. Using newly declassified micro-conflict data and leveraging the firmly established phenomenon of ambient temperature’s effect on aggression, this chapter shows that during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars temperature exercised substantively large and non-strategic effects on the attitudes and behaviors of conflict participants. Temperature influenced the type and intensity of insurgent attacks, the odds of insurgent fatalities during skirmishes, and the willingness of military-age men to endorse the use of violence against international forces. Chapter 2 considers the effect of civilians’ employment status during conflict on their support for political violence. Although the unemployed are often inculpated in violence production during sub-state conflict, the results of prior work on the relationship between unemployment and wartime violence are ambiguous. This chapter contends that loss of employment during conflict increases feelings of depression, anxiety and helplessness, affecting perceptions of efficacy and the desire for retribution. Using data from a large Iraq War survey, the chapter shows that underemployed Iraqis were consistently less optimistic than other citizens; displayed diminished perceptions of efficacy; and were much less likely to support the use of violence against international forces. Chapter 3 explores the relationship between wartime informing by civilians and the production of violence by insurgents. Using newly available data on calls placed to a “tips” telephone hotline operated during the Iraq War, the chapter reveals that insurgents’ efforts to overwhelm the platform were extensive and that intelligence received through the hotline was associated with reductions in the most organized forms of violence and increases iii in the least organized forms. These patterns are consistent with informing enabling operations against insurgents’ weapons supplies and managers, leading to the substitution of highly planned attacks with attacks requiring the least coordination.
Rapeseed proteins – Production methods and possible application ranges

The worldwide increasing demand in proteins for human nutrition and animal feeding leads to a growing interest in novel protein sources. Therefore, rapeseed as an established raw material for the production of edible oils could be a promising alternative, as large amounts of press cakes and residues of oil extraction are available. Integrated fractionizing processes for simultaneous oil and protein isolation using aqueous-alcoholic extraction or adsorption techniques open many opportunities for new protein ingredients from rapeseed. The present manuscript compares two strategies to identify a suitable process for achieving highly functional ingredients for the use in food applications such as sausages, bakery products or mayonnaise. One process was based on hulling of the rapeseed kernels followed by an aqueous-alcoholic-extraction of the de-oiled flour. Based on this process, protein ingredients with about 60% protein content, but only poor functional properties could be produced. The application concentration of this ingredient was limited to 2%, because of oily and strawy off-flavors. Isolates with protein contents higher than 90% and improved sensory and functional properties could be achieved with an aqueous extraction followed by adsorption of secondary plant metabolites on specific resins and an ultrafiltration of the aqueous extract. This process enables the production of protein isolates with reduced off-flavors and optimized functional profiles. In several food applications a very promising utilization potential of these ingredients could be confirmed.
The effect of an asymmetric core on convection in Enceladus' ice shell: Implications for south polar tectonics and heat flux

Enceladus exhibits a strong tectonic contrast between its south polar terrain (SPT), which is young and geologically active, and its northern hemisphere, which is relatively ancient and stable. Previous global three‒dimensional (3‒D) spherical models of convection exhibit patterns that are symmetrical around the equator and fail to explain the formation of a hemispheric dichotomy. Here we present global 3‒D spherical models of convection in Enceladus' ice shell to show that convection in Enceladus' ice shell with plasticity and irregular core geometry can self‒consistently generate a hemispheric dichotomy in tectonics and heat flux. With a spherical core, convection produces global overturning, which cannot explain the regional confinement of Enceladus' current tectonic activity to the SPT. Models with appropriate nonspherical core geometry and plasticity tend to produce overturning confined to the SPT or regional overturning in different regions at different times, which can explain the tectonic dichotomy and local age differences on Enceladus. Our models predict heat flows up to 5–10 gigawattts (GW) during active episodes, consistent with Cassini observations.
An Experimental Study on the Role of Password Strength and Cognitive Load on Employee Productivity

Experimental Design Figure Key References Research Goals The research problem that this study seeks to address is the obstacle of password memorability, which is further complicated by the fact that users have many passwords to recall for computers, networks, and Websites among other systems (Wiedenbeck, Waters, Birget, Brodskiy, & Memon, 2005). Wiedenbeck et al. (2005) further noted that passwords have to be constantly changed in order to improve security, which increases the burden on the human mind and makes it difficult for users to remember their passwords.
Recent Studies Towards Updating the BS7910 Flaw Interaction Rule

Fitness for service assessment procedures rely on flaw interaction rules for assessment of multiple flaws in close proximity. Such rules are aimed at avoiding excessive amplification of the crack driving force that may result in a non-conservative fracture assessment. In BS7910, the 2013 edition [1] introduced a new flaw interaction rule for the co-planar flaws where the proximity of adjacent flaws is judged based on flaw height (i.e. s = 0.5*max(a1,a2) for surface flaws). The rule was introduced for flaws with aspect ratio of a/c < 1 for both flaws, while for other flaw shapes and combinations the earlier rule from the predecessor document PD6493:1993 [2] was retained. This paper summarises the recent work done by the authors and work from literature to examine the applicability of the s = 0.5*max(a1,a2) rule to flaws with aspect ratio a/c ≥ 1 and dissimilar flaw combinations. It is shown that the current BS7910 rule based on s = 0.5*max(a1,a2) produces a conservative flaw assessment with the use of BS7910 solutions for stress intensity factor and reference stress. An exception are cases of two deep surface flaws where the rule is proposed to change to: s ≤ max(a1, a2) for two surface flaws with a1/t & a2/t > 0.5
Universal limits of substitution-closed permutation classes

We consider uniform random permutations in proper substitution-closed classes and study their limiting behavior in the sense of permutons. The limit depends on the generating series of the simple permutations in the class. Under a mild sufficient condition, the limit is an elementary one-parameter deformation of the limit of uniform separable permutations, previously identified as the Brownian separable permuton. This limiting object is therefore in some sense universal. We identify two other regimes with different limiting objects. The first one is degenerate; the second one is nontrivial and related to stable trees. These results are obtained thanks to a characterization of the convergence of random permutons through the convergence of their expected pattern densities. The limit of expected pattern densities is then computed by using the substitution tree encoding of permutations and performing singularity analysis on the tree series.
Ambient language effects on babbling : pitch contours patterns in Swedish and American 12-and 18-month-olds

Results of a previous listening test have indicated that tonal word accent contours present in 12and 18-monthers’ babbling may provide listeners with perceptually reliable cues to ambient language. In particular, Swedish 18and, to some extent, 12-monthers were judged to produce more grave accent-like vocalizations than were American English children in the same age-groups. The present experiment was carried out to evaluate the phonetic substance underlying these listener judgments. It was expected that utterances that had been judged as grave in the listening test would display F0 characteristics typical of Swedish grave accent words, i.e., two-peaked contours with a marked second tonepeak. F0 measurements were made of the same disyllabic babbles that had been used in the listening test. Results indicated that vocalizations that had been judged as having the grave accent in the listening test differed from those that had not been judged as having the grave accent. Specifically, vocalizations judged as grave displayed higher F0 in the second vowel of the disyllabic vocalizations. Essentially, then, the result supported the view that Swedish 18-monthers (and, to a lesser extent, 12-monthers) may just be beginning to gain command of the tonal aspect of the word accent contrast, and that the relevant tonal contour can be reliably detected in listening.
A literature review : female genital mutilation and its implication on eliciting comprehensive health histories and performing physical exam assessments

Objective: To determine the current state of the literature with regard to eliciting a culturally sensitive health history and performing a pelvic exam on a female who has had female genital mutilation. Methods: Databases searched include: OhioLINK, MEDLINE, Social Work Abstracts, Health Source: Nursing/Academic, Women’s Studies International, Pub Med, CINAHL and Social Science Citation Index. Terms utilized include: FGM, female circumcision, culture competence/sensitivity and infibulation. Results: Since the Somalian civil war in the late 80s, many women have been displaced to the US. Culturally rooted, FGM among female Somalians is becoming a phenomenon in Western medicine. Literature guides the inexperienced practitioner in eliciting the FGM experience, but falls short in giving explicit instructions for assessment and performing pelvic exams; however, general practice considerations are given. Conclusion: FGM will increasingly be seen in Western medicine and continued research by the practitioner is paramount in rendering culturally compete care.
Connecting Subspace Learning and Extreme Learning Machine in Speech Emotion Recognition

Speech emotion recognition (SER) is a powerful tool for endowing computers with the capacity to process information about the affective states of users in human–machine interactions. Recent research has shown the effectiveness of graph embedding-based subspace learning and extreme learning machine applied to SER, but there are still various drawbacks in these two techniques that limit their application. Regarding subspace learning, the change from linearity to nonlinearity is usually achieved through kernelization, whereas extreme learning machines only take label information into consideration at the output layer. In order to overcome these drawbacks, this paper leverages extreme learning machines for dimensionality reduction and proposes a novel framework to combine spectral regression-based subspace learning and extreme learning machines. The proposed framework contains three stages—data mapping, graph decomposition, and regression. At the data mapping stage, various mapping strategies provide different views of the samples. At the graph decomposition stage, specifically designed embedding graphs provide a possibility to better represent the structure of data through generating virtual coordinates. Finally, at the regression stage, dimension-reduced mappings are achieved by connecting the virtual coordinates and data mapping. Using this framework, we propose several novel dimensionality reduction algorithms, apply them to SER tasks, and compare their performance to relevant state-of-the-art methods. Our results on several paralinguistic corpora show that our proposed techniques lead to significant improvements.
Performance analysis of a low cost wireless indoor positioning system with distributed antennas

In this paper an approach for indoor localization based on already installed communication transceiver infrastructure is presented. Only marginal additional hardware is required to implement the localization functionality. The idea is to use a power level detection evaluation of the received signals in communication receivers to localize participants. In the planned configuration the power transmitted from mobile terminals is received by a leaky wave cable. Its length and coupling properties are dimensioned according to the dynamic range of two access points connected to the two cable heads. In order to adapt the problem to circuit-based analysis techniques the leaky wave cable is represented by a distributed antenna system. Thereby the considered design consists of a cascade of coupling structures with broadband Vivaldi antennas connected to the coupling ports. An experimental system has been built and also tested using an automated frequency domain measurement setup. Measurement results relating the system bandwidth to positioning accuracy show good agreement with theoretical investigations.
Immunization Information Systems: A Clinical Review

Objective: This study evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of Immunization Information Systems (IISs) and the perceptions and challenges that prevent providers from participating in an IIS. Methods: Sources were located by searching PubMed and the Centers for Disease Control for Immunization Information Systems, Immunization Registries and current immunization recommendations. Results: There were 69 references obtained and reviewed including original research, IIS progress reports and immunization provider information. Conclusions: IISs give immunization providers the ability to quickly access immunization information. IISs increase immunization levels and up-to-date records by consolidating records, generating reminder and recall systems, and providing vaccination coverage assessments. IISs provide an immunization record maintenance solution by providing rapid assessments of immunization levels and helping to identify population pockets of low immunization levels, all while reducing provider costs and saving time. IISs provide a viable solution to immunization documentation and should be adopted into practice by providers administering immunizations.