Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How Does Consumption Respond to News About Inflation? Field Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial

We implement a survey of Dutch households in which random subsets of respondents receive information about inflation. The resulting exogenously generated variation in inflation expectations is used to assess how expectations affect consumption decisions. The causal effects of reduced inflation expectations on nondurable spending are imprecisely estimated, but there is a sharp positive effect on durable spending. This is likely driven by the fact that Dutch households seem to become more optimistic about their real income and aggregate spending when they decrease their inflation expectations. We find little role for cognitive or financial constraints in explaining spending responses. (JEL C83, D12, D83, D84, E21, E31)
Virginity Testing as a Local Public Health Initiative

This paper focuses on virginity testing in Nkolokotho in northeastern rural KwaZulu Natal. I argue that testing is a strategy that involves the deployment of collective pressure and symbolic means both to increase the indivual's and the community's responsibility for sexual relations, and to strengthen girls' and women's positions at a time of chronic HIV/AIDS. In the absence of effective measures against AIDS, inhabitants try to find alternative ways to protect young people. An older tradition that emphasizies the status of virgin girls and the significance of the collective is used in a strategy that incorporates HIV blood tests. I show how virginity testing is a 'preventive ritual' more than a 'diagnostic measure', while emphasizing how both South African and Western projects aimed at improving the situation are grounded in perspectives that sometimes collide with how local people conceive of both relationships and sexuality.
Patterns of coping and psychological adjustment in women with early breast cancer.

This study explored the cognitive and behavioural coping responses to early breast cancer in the first post-operative year. The association between these coping responses, other psychosocial factors, physical variables and psychological outcome, was analysed. Literature review highlighted difficulties in the definition and measurement of coping. Consequently, this study included the methodological development of two existing coping measures, comprising a standardised questionnaire and an interview designed specifically for patients with cancer, which were based on Lazarus and Folkman's transactional model of stress and coping. The adapted measures were subsequently used in the main longitudinal study of 107 women with early breast cancer, who were interviewed preoperatively and at three and twelve months after operation. The study demonstrated the use of a wide repertoire of coping responses. Patterns of use of individual coping strategies varied over the course of the first post-operative year. Initial levels of mood disturbance were high, but these declined significantly after operation. An overall approach of 'selective ignoring' associated with lower levels of mood disturbance, involved attempts to continue life as normal, cognitive avoidance and positive appraisal of the disease. Use of humour and acceptance of the diagnosis were also related to better psychological outcome. Increased mood disturbance was associated with pre-occupation with the disease, a fatalistic attitude towards the prognosis, and denial of the threat of the disease. Positive support from a close confidante was not associated with mood. However, negative or critical relationships as well as the active seeking of support were associated with increased mood disturbance. Psychosocial variables related to a poorer psychological outcome included marital status, previous psychological treatment, family history of malignant disease, personal history of benign breast disease, age, menopausal status and the presence of young children at home. The effect of surgical procedure and adjuvant treatment were inconclusive.
THE TEST FIELD FOR UAV ACCURACY ASSESSMENTS

Abstract. Nowadays UAV photogrammetry becomes a common method for mapping and surveying. At the same time due to the increasing range of work carried out with UAV, the importance of final product accuracy increases. However to obtain survey-grade accuracy it is necessary to perform bundle adjustment processes that could be affected by multiple factors like unstable camera calibration, correlation between interior and exterior orientation and insufficient georeference information. One of the aims of the project was to prepare the terrestrial test field, which helps to obtain optimal decorrelation and allows to objectively assess the accuracy of the bundle adjustment in UAV application. During the project, two multi-variant flights over the test field were conducted. The flights were performed with a fixed-wing airframe equipped with PPK receiver on-board. Based on the conducted flights, many data sets have been prepared, which differ as follows: types of cameras, GSD, flight direction and georeferenced method.
Velo-Cardio-Facial Syndrome

Abstract Velo-cardio-facial syndrome (VCFS) is the most common contiguous gene deletion syndrome in humans, caused by a microdeletion from chromosome 22 at the q11.2 locus. Moreover, it is one of the most common multiple anomaly syndromes associated with congenital heart disease and is certainly the most common syndrome causing conotruncal heart anomalies. The population prevalence of this syndrome is probably increasing because of the advances in the diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart malformations. Presenting symptoms are highly variable because VCFS is often the trigger for a number of developmental malformation sequences, including DiGeorge sequence, Robin sequence, and Potter sequence. Because of the variability of the phenotypic expression of VCFS, the disorder has been delineated in several sets of literature from different areas of specialization, and from publications in the U.S., Eastern Europe, and Japan. The result has been nosologic differences with various names for the same disorder caused by a 22q11.2 deletion, including VCFS, Shprintzen syndrome, DiGeorge syndrome, Sedlackova syndrome, Cayler syndrome, and conotruncal anomalies face syndrome. All of these labels represent exactly the same syndrome. Understanding the cause of the various phenotypes associated with VCFS is dependent on careful studies of genotype to phenoype matching. The deleted region in most cases of VCFS encompasses 3 million base pairs of DNA and 30 genes. The challenge is therefore to determine if the broad spectrum of anomalies are caused by one major gene, most or all of the deleted genes, or the interaction between the genes in the deleted region and other genes elsewhere in the genome. There is some evidence for each of these hypotheses. The ability to complete phenotype to genotype matching is enhanced by the recognition of more cases and the careful study of phenotypic expression. Towards this end, screening of cases with congenital heart disease is imperative and guidelines for screening are discussed.
Endowment effect and the gap between WTP and WTA

I used an auction experiment in China and confirmed that there is a WTP-WTA gap. I used the solemn oath commitment device and found that it reduces the gap in the long possession treatment. However, the gap still exists in the short possession treatment. The evidence suggests that taking an oath to tell the truth with an incentive-compatible mechanism could mitigate the WTP-WTA gap.
Traditional Authority and State Legitimacy: Evidence From Namibia

ABSTRACT Do African traditional leaders weaken state legitimacy at the local level? Past scholarship raises the possibility that unelected chiefs might undermine trust in national-level institutions. Relying on an original map of areas governed by chiefs and survey data from Namibia, this study examines whether respondents governed by traditional leaders are less likely to trust state institutions. The main finding is that compared to individuals not living under traditional authority, chiefdom residents are more likely to trust government institutions. Partially to alleviate the concern that chiefdom residence is endogenous to trust in national-level institutions, this article uses a genetic matching strategy to compare relatively similar individuals. A further finding is that the association between chiefdom residence and trust in state institutions is considerably weaker and less statistically significant for individuals who do not share ethnicity with their chief. This evidence suggests that traditional leaders’ ability to complement state institutions at the local level is compromised by ethnic diversity.
A Comparison of Satisfaction with Mail Versus Traditional Pharmacy Services

OBJECTIVE: To determine the level of satisfaction with pharmacy services among enrollees of a managed care organization and to compare the level of satisfaction between mail pharmacy and traditional pharmacy patrons. DESIGN: Data were collected via telephone interviews with 1,362 enrollees of a large managed care organization with recent prescription claims. Scores were calculated for various hypothesized multi-item dimensions of satisfaction of pharmacy services. With one exception, internal-consistency reliability coefficients for the scales exceeded 0.50. Health status was also measured, using the physical and mental health composite scores of the 12-ltem Short Form (SF-12) Health Survey. Satisfaction with pharmacy services was compared between patron groups using tests and analysis of covariance (AN COVA) models. RESULTS: Mail pharmacy patrons were more satisfied than traditional pharmacy patrons with their pharmacy services in general (77.6 vs. 72.8, P=0.002), and specifically with the financial aspe.
Exercise training and physical activity in patients with mild to moderate COPD in primary care

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Executives' Legal Records and the Deterrent Effect of Corporate Governance

* Accepted by Fabrizio Ferri. We are extremely grateful to Fabrizio Ferri for numerous constructive comments and suggestions which improved the quality and substance of the paper significantly. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. We acknowledge helpful comments from John Core, Christian Leuz, Rodrigo Verdi, Joshua White, Christine Zulehner, the workshop participants at University of Colorado, Duke University, Georgetown University, Indiana University, McGill University, MIT, and conference participants at the 2014 HBS Information, Markets, and Organizations Conference, 2013 Kellogg Accounting Research Conference, 2013 Virginia Accounting Research Conference, and the 2013 SAFE Conference on Transparency at Goethe University Frankfurt. We are grateful to Ryan Ball for providing a sample of bankrupt firms. We also appreciate the financial support of the Accounting Research Center, the Fama Miller Center, the IGM at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the James Ely III Fund for Research in Corporate Governance and the Center for Financial Markets and Policy at Georgetown University. All data used in this study are available from public sources and the sources are listed in the Appendix.
Transferability of Convolutional Autoencoder Model For Lossy Compression to Unknown Hyperspectral Prisma Data

This work addresses the challenge of the portability of Autoencoder models for the lossy compression of different spatially independent and unknown hyperspectral satellite data. We propose an advanced 1D-Convolutional Autoencoder architecture for lossy hyperspectral data compression with high transferability to unknown spectral signatures. In the first experiment, the model is trained on a single PRISMA data set, and in the second experiment it is trained on five PRISMA data sets from all over the world. The abstraction ability of the two models is verified by processing six spatially independent hyperspectral PRISMA satellite data sets. The evaluation is based on the reconstruction accuracy using the SNR and SA metrics and compares it to other learning-based lossy compression techniques. We demonstrate the high transferability and generalization of our 1D-Convolutional Autoencoder for a fixed compression ratio on each PRISMA satellite data set, which results in superior reconstruction accuracy compared to state-of-the-art methods.
Wavelet-Guided Deep Neural Network For Robust One-Class Classification

This paper aims to provide a deep neural network (DNN) considering the statistical properties of data for robust oneclass classification. To achieve that, we take advantage of the properties of Wavelet Scattering Transform (WST) to guide the DNN. WST is a translation-invariant image representation that retains high-frequency information for classification while being stable to rotation. The resulting stable and low-variance features make the clustering of data easier for DNN. The importance of WST in guiding the DNN for the classification of highly textured images is evaluated in terms of accuracy gain and robustness to outlier pollution. Superior robustness to both translation and rotation is also demonstrated. The method is not only evaluated in a standard computer vision dataset (CfAR10), but the use of largely invariant features allows for coping with the more challenging case of satellite imagery (EuroSAT).
The value of focusing : a psychological self-help strategy when living with chronic low back pain : a mixed methods study

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a widespread and disabling condition affecting many thousands of people in the UK, causing distress in many areas of their lives. Most people with CLBP do not have access to specialist advice and resort to managing it themselves. The government drive to encourage people to manage their own long-term conditions has led to some work on the use of self-help techniques with CLBP. However little research has been done with CLBP populations who are not seeking specialist advice. This study actively sought people from this population group. Focusing - a self-help technique based on the client-centred psychological approach - was introduced to two people who had long-term CLBP. In addition two people who had been using Focusing in their lives for some time and have long-term CLBP (but have not applied Focusing to that problem) were also recruited. Focusing was taught either face-to-face or by telephone for six weekly hour-long sessions; the experienced Focusers spent an hour each week for six weeks Focusing with their pain. Using a mixed methods approach the four participants were interviewed a number of times, namely before, immediately after and three to six months following the Focusing sessions. They also completed the WHOQOL-PainUK questionnaire, the short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire and a global QOL measure at these three times. During the Focusing sessions they completed the SF-MPQ and the global QOL weekly. Within the concurrent nested design the qualitative aspect formed the theoretical driver for the study; the quantitative element providing a smaller amount of data. This enabled the findings to be framed in a way which makes them accessible to the wide range of healthcare professionals involved in the management of CLBP; an approach described as one of 'utility'. The management of potential incongruencies in using a mixed method approach was a continuous theme throughout the study and a model - the context of stability model - was devised to enable a harmonisation of these in the study design.During the study three of the four participants reported a change in the meaning of their pain, and improvement in the perception of their pain and its impact. After using Focusing with their CLBP participants reported that the pain no longer controlled what they did, they were able to feel more 'themselves' and value themselves and Focusing had given them a supported place to talk about their pain. Focusing appears to have an impact for these people in enabling the acceptance of CLBP and an improvement in overall quality of life was found. The physical, psychological and independence quality of life domains in particular showed sustained improvement. No negative side effects were noted by any of the participants. Further study is needed to demonstrate whether the use of Focusing with CLBP confers longer term benefits and is suitable for a wider range of people.
Validation of videodensitometric myocardial perfusion assessment

IntroductionInvasive methods for assessment of coronary microcirculatory function are time- and instrumentation-consuming tools. Recently, novel computer-assisted videodensitometric methods have been demonstrated to provide quantitative information on myocardial (re)perfusion. The aim of the present prospective study was to evaluate the accuracy of videodensitometry-derived perfusion parameters in patients with stable angina undergoing elective coronary angiography.MethodsThe study comprised 13 patients with borderline epicardial coronary artery stenosis (40–70%). Coronary flow reserve and index of microcirculatory resistance were measured by using an intracoronary pressure and temperature sensor-tipped guidewire. A videodensitometric quantitative parameter of myocardial perfusion was calculated by the ratio of maximal density (Gmax) and the time to reach maximum density (Tmax) of the time-density curves in regions of interest on conventional coronary angiograms. Myocardium perfusion reserve was calculated as a ratio of hyperemic and baseline Gmax/Tmax.ResultsAt hyperemia a significant increase in Gmax/Tmax could be observed (p <0.0001). Significant correlations were found between myocardium perfusion reserve and coronary flow reserve (r =0.82, p =0.0008) and between hyperemic Gmax/Tmax and hyperemic index of microcirculatory resistance (r =−0.72, p =0.0058). ConclusionsVideodensitometric Gmax/Tmax assessment seems to be a promising method to assess the myocardial microcirculatory state.
Statistical modelling of neuronal population activity: from data analysis to network function

The term statistical modelling refers to a number of abstract models designed to reproduce and understand the statistical properties of the activity of neuronal networks at the population level. Large-scale recordings by multielectrode arrays (MEAs) have now made possible to scale their use to larger groups of neurons. The initial step in this work focused on improving the data analysis pipeline that leads from the experimental protocol used in dense MEA recordings to a clean dataset of sorted spike times, to be used in model training. In collaboration with experimentalists, I contributed to developing a fast and scalable algorithm for spike sorting, which is based on action potential shapes and on the estimated location for the spike. Using the resulting datasets, I investigated the use of restricted Boltzmann machines in the analysis of neural data, finding that they can be used as a tool in the detection of neural ensembles or low-dimensional activity subspaces. I further studied the physical properties of RBMs fitted to neural activity, finding they exhibit signatures of criticality, as observed before in similar models. I discussed possible connections between this phenomenon and the “dynamical” criticality often observed in neuronal networks that exhibit emergent behaviour. Finally, I applied what I found about the structure of the parameter space in statistical models to the discovery of a learning rule that helps long-term storage of previously learned memories in Hopfield networks during sequential learning tasks. Overall, this work aimed to contribute to the computational tools used for analysing and modelling large neuronal populations, on different levels: starting from raw experimental recordings and gradually proceeding towards theoretical aspects.
Perceived Stress and Sources of Stress Among Physiotherapy Students From 3 Countries

Background and Purpose. The aim of this study was to compare the perceptions and sources of stress among physiotherapy (PT) students from 3 education programs across 3 countries and across year of study in the program. Subjects. All enrolled PT students from Ariel University Center of Samaria, Israel (154); The University of Melbourne, Australia (295); and Lund University, Sweden (177) were invited to participate in the study. Methods. A cross‐sectional survey was administered. Data were collected using a questionnaire, which was comprised of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Undergraduate Sources of Stress Questionnaire (USOS), and 1 item to evaluate “perceived difficulty of studies. ” ANOVA was used to evaluate the differences between programs. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the effect of sociodemographic characteristics on the dependent variables. Results. The lowest mean perceived stress (PS) score of 13.5 (95% CI: 12.4‐14.6) was reported by students from Ariel and the highest of 19.0 (95% CI: 17.7‐20.3) by students from Lund. Perceived difficulty of studies was the most significant contributor to the level of PS. The USOS academic factor was the main source of stress for participants from all 3 programs. Both personal and academic sources of stress contributed to high levels of PS among the students at all 3 universities. Students' demographic profiles differed between universities. Discussion and Conclusions. The perceived stress and sources of stress for PT students across all 3 universities were mainly derived from academic sources. Differences between groups may be attributed to demographic profile differences and to education program differences. Faculty members in PT departments should be aware of stress among students. Academic stress during university studies needs to be further investigated in order to optimize student performance and address curriculum design and development.