Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How Do Homeowners Associations Regulate Residential Landscapes?

Abstract Problem, research strategy, and findings: Residential landscapes are homogenizing the ecology of cities, and decisions about yard structure and management practices are the result of a complex mix of actors and institutions operating at multiple scales. In this study we examine how one such institution, the homeowners association (HOA), homogenizes yard ecology at the neighborhood scale through formal institutional rules. We examine a random sample of publicly recorded covenants, codes, and restrictions (CCRs) documents and a nonrandom sample of private architecture and landscaping guidelines for HOAs in Maricopa County (AZ). We find landscaping rules in CCRs have increased over time but are relatively small in number and generic in content, sometimes repeated municipal rules, and increasingly outsourced rules to architectural and landscaping guidelines. Rules about yard aesthetics or maintenance were required, whereas rules relating to environmentally sensitive landscaping were encouraged. We propose HOAs facilitate ecological homogenization by aggregating heterogeneous rule types to formulate a club good. Takeaway for practice: Our findings suggest planners can enact ordinances that influence residential landscape ecology in HOAs via statutory mandates because CCRs reinforce existing rules at the neighborhood scale. However, HOAs potentially inhibit adoption of voluntary programs directly or indirectly via approvals and restrictions. Moreover, the finding that HOAs are increasingly shifting regulations from publicly recorded CCRs to private documents reveals a challenge for planners because private contract law allows land use provisions in HOAs to remain “hidden” from the public domain.
Legislative functions in newly democratised countries: the use of parliamentary questions in Kenya and Zambia

ABSTRACT A large literature exists examining the functions of legislatures and the behaviour of MPs in established democracies. But little efforts have been made to observe how MPs behave in new democratic assemblies. This article seeks to address this shortcoming through an exploration of the use of parliamentary questions in two new democracies: Kenya and Zambia. Analysing an innovative dataset we offer one of the few attempts to directly measure legislative behaviour in new democracies. We examine how the factors found in the literature on parliamentary questions in liberal democracies react to this shift of context and to what degree legislatures in these countries fulfil their core functions. Results show that opposition MPs are not necessarily among the most active but that electoral incentives such as the margin by which MPs have won their seats or the number of voters they represent explain the use and content of parliamentary questions.
Does psychological contract breach have an influence on organization citizenship behavior? A mediating and moderating role of cynicism and abusive supervision

Article history: Received 21 October 2019 Received in revised form 15 January 2020 Accepted 21 January 2020 The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of perceived contract breach (PCB) on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and to analyze the mediating role of employee cynicism (EC). We also analyzed the moderating role of abusive supervision on the relationship between PCB and OCB, PCB, and EC as well as EC and OCB. Data was collected from 349 respondents from different industries of service and manufacturing sectors of Pakistan. We analyze the direct effects using regression and Hayes PROCESS macro was used to measure indirect moderation, mediation effects. The results of our analysis supported our hypothesis. We investigated the significant positive influence of PCB on EC and the negative effect of EC on OCB and PCB on OCB. EC partially mediates the relationship between PCB and OCB. The study investigated partial moderation of abusive supervision in the relationship between PCB and EC. Interesting results of partial moderation revealed that AS reduces the negative effects of PCB and cynicism on OCB, which shows that employees were forced to take part in supporting activities other than their job duties. In future researches, this model can be investigated under a longitudinal method of data collected for the robustness of data and other positive leadership dimensions can be used as a moderator to see the influence of negative work experience on citizenship behavior.
A Multiresolution Ensemble Hybrid 4DEnVar for Global Numerical Prediction

A multiresolution ensemble (MR-ENS) method is developed to resolve a wider range of scales of the background error covariance (BEC) in the hybrid four-dimensional ensemble–variational (4DEnVar) while saving computational costs. MR-ENS is implemented in the NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS) gridpoint statistical interpolation (GSI) hybrid 4DEnVar. MR-ENS generates analysis increment by incorporating high-resolution static BEC and flow-dependent ensemble BECs from both high and low resolutions. MR-ENS is compared with three 4DEnVar update approaches: 1) the single-resolution (SR)-Low approach where the analysis increments are generated from the ensemble BEC and the static BEC at the same low resolution; 2) the dual-resolution (DR) approach where the analysis increment is generated using the high-resolution static BEC and low-resolution ensemble BEC; and 3) the SR-High approach, which is the same as 1) except that all covariances are at high-resolution. Experiments show that MR-ENS improves global and tropical cyclone track forecasts compared to SR-Low and DR. Inclusion of the high-resolution ensemble leads to increased background ensemble spread, better fitting of the background to observations, increased effective ranks, more accurate ensemble error correlation, and increased power of analysis increment at small scales. The majority of the improvement of MR-ENS relative to SR-Low is due to the partial use of high-resolution background ensemble. Compared to SR-High, MR-ENS decreases the overall cost by about 40% and shows comparable global and tropical cyclone track forecast performances. Diagnostics show that particularly in the tropics, MR-ENS improves the analysis increment over a wide range of scales and increases the effective rank of the ensemble BEC to the degree comparable to SR-High.
Different worlds of contention? Protest in Northwestern, Southern and Eastern Europe

Despite the voluminous literature on the ‘normalisation of protest’, the protest arena is seen as a bastion of left-wing mobilisation. While citizens on the left readily turn to the streets, citizens on the right only settle for it as a ‘second best option’. However, most studies are based on aggregated cross-national comparisons or only include Northwestern Europe. We contend the aggregate-level perspective hides different dynamics of protest across Europe. Based on individual-level data from the European Social Survey (2002–2016), we investigate the relationship between ideology and protest as a key component of the normalisation of protest. Using hierarchical logistic regression models, we show that while protest is becoming more common, citizens with different ideological views are not equal in their protest participation across the three European regions. Instead of a general left predominance, we find that in Eastern European countries, right-wing citizens are more likely to protest than those on the left. In Northwestern and Southern European countries, we find the reverse relationship, left-wing citizens are more likely to protest than their right-wing counterparts. Lessons drawn from the protest experience in Northwestern Europe characterised by historical mobilisation by the New Left are of limited use for explaining the ideological composition of protest in the Southern and Eastern European countries. We identify historical and contemporary regime access as the mechanism underlying regional patterns: citizens with ideological views that were historically in opposition are more likely to protest. In terms of contemporary regime access, we find that partisanship enhances the effect of ideology, while ideological distance from the government has a different effect in the three regions. As protest gains in importance as a form of participation, the paper contributes to our understanding of regional divergence in the extent to which citizens with varying ideological views use this tool.
Comparison of Endoscopic Findings with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease Questionnaires (GerdQ) and Reflux Disease Questionnaire (RDQ) for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease in Medan

Background: There are many questionnaires that have been developed to diagnose gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), i.e. reflux disease questionnaire (RDQ), and the recently developed, gastroesophageal reflux disease questionnaires (GerdQ). In this study, we tried to compare GerdQ and RDQ in terms of sensitivity and specificity to diagnose GERD and its relationship with endoscopic findings. Method: This study was a cross sectional analytical study. Subsequently, all the subjects were evaluated using the GerdQ and RDQ, then underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy examination. The severity of endoscopically observed reflux esophagitis was graded with the Los Angeles classiﬁcation. All endoscopy was performed by well-trained doctor. Results: A total of 85 patients were examined, 34 (40%) patients had reflux esophagitis at endoscopy examination, including 15 (44.1%) cases of grade A, 11 (32.3%) cases of grade B, 4 (11.8%) cases of grade C, and 4 (11.8%) cases of grade D . Analysis study using sensitivity, specificity, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) test showed that GerdQ had sensitivity (49%), specificity (91%), and an area under the ROC of 0.701 (p value = 0.002). RDQ had sensitivity (24%), specificity (91%), and an area under the ROC of 0.574 (p value = 0.253). Taking 11 as the cut off point for GerdQ, a maximal sensitivity of 73.5%, specificity of 82.4%, and an area under the ROC of 0.779 was achieved. Conclusion: GerdQ and RDQ can be used to help diagnose GERD, but GerdQ is more superior than RDQ in diagnosing GERD. A multi-center study with larger samples is needed to determine the best GerdQ’s cut off point in Indonesia.
The effect of frequency of antenatal visits on pregnancy outcome in Kaduna, Northern Nigeria

Context: The benefit of antenatal care is no longer in doubt, but the ideal number of encounters to achieve those benefits has been the subject of discussion among maternity care stakeholders. Objective: To study the effect of frequency of antenatal visits on pregnancy outcome. Materials and Methods: This is a prospective study of 228 pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic of the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, Nigeria, over a 3-month period. Maternal and fetal outcome were compared against the frequency of antenatal visits. Results: The mean frequency of visits was 6.77. Majority of the women 124 (54.4%) attended less than seven times. Compliance with antenatal drugs and mean hemoglobin level at delivery increased with increasing frequency of visits reaching 93.7% and 11.44 g/dl, respectively, in the moderate attendees (4–6 visits). Prevalence of anemia was high (56.7%) among the unbooked but lowest (9.5%) with moderate attendees. Thereafter, there was no significant improvement. Delivery mode, malaria parasitemia, and gestational age at delivery were fairly uniform in all the groups. The prevalence of low birth weight was 20% in the unregistered and decreased from 22% in the low frequency (1–3 visits) group, to 4.8% in the moderate attendees, and to 0% in the very high-frequency (ten and above visits) group. Mean Apgar scores at 1 and 5 min were also best (7.1/8.1) in the moderate attendees and worst in the unregistered. Conclusion: More than six visits conferred no significant advantage on fetomaternal outcome. Therefore, the new WHO recommendation on reduced antenatal visits can be satisfactorily implemented in Kaduna.
Revisiting Azimuthally Asymmetric Moist Instability in the Outer Core of Sheared Tropical Cyclones

This study revisits the characteristics and physical processes of the azimuthally asymmetric distribution of moist instability in the outer core of vertically sheared tropical cyclones (TCs) using a numerical model. The results indicate that a downshear–upshear contrast in outer-core conditional instability occurs in the weakly sheared TCs, while an enhanced downshear-left–downshear-right difference is found in strongly sheared storms. Specifically, lower (higher) conditional instability arises downshear left (right) in the strongly sheared TCs. Downward transports of low-entropy air by convective and mesoscale downdrafts in principal rainbands reduce the equivalent potential temperature (θe) in the downshear-left boundary layer, contributing to lower convective available potential energy. Positive horizontal advection of both potential temperature and water vapor by the asymmetric outflow leads to a midlevel maximum of θe in the same quadrant. Hence, a positive θe vertical gradient (thus potential stability) is present in the downshear-left outer core. In the downshear-right quadrant, a lack of convective downdrafts, together with surface fluxes, leads to higher θe in the boundary layer. A dry intrusion is found at the middle to upper levels in the downshear-right outer core, and significant negative horizontal advection of water vapor produces low θe near the midtroposphere. A negative vertical gradient of θe (thus potential instability) in the outer core arises below the downshear-right midtroposphere. The presence of azimuthally asymmetric moist instability is expected to play an important role in fostering and maintaining azimuthally asymmetric convective activity in the outer core of TCs.
Phase I/II study of cetuximab plus temozolomide as radiochemotherapy for primary glioblastoma (GERT)—Eudract number 2005–003911–63; NCT00311857

2077 Background: Glioblastomas (GB) are known to express high levels of EGFR; targeting of EGFR using cetuximab has proven to be a successful treatment. This phase I/II trial of radiochemotherapy (RCHT) with TMZ and cetuximab in patients with primary GB evaluates feasibility and toxicity. Methods: Seventeen patients with pathologically confirmed GB were included into this analysis. Radiotherapy (RT) is delivered with a median dose of 60 Gy, 5*2Gy/week. TMZ is prescribed concomitantly at a dose of 75mg/m2, followed by 6 cycles of adjuvant TMZ. Cetuximab is applied as weekly infusions (loading dose 400 mg/m2 on day 1, and concomitant with RT on days 8, 15, 22, 29, 36, 43 at 250 mg/m2). Fourteen patients were male and 3 patients were female. Median age at diagnosis was 48 years. Neurosurgical resections had been complete in 7, subtotal in 7, and a biopsy in 3 patients. O(6)-methylguanine DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) gene promoter methylation was investigated in the tumor tissue: 33% of the patients were MGMT.
Purification and characterisation of a steroid-induced modulator of neutrophil function

A monocyte-derived factor that stimulates the locomotion of human neutrophils on an albumin-coated glass surface has been prepared from the culture supernatant of dexamethasone-treated human monocytes and called STMS (steroid-treated monocyte supernatant). A modified cell tracking program has been developed and the parameters of locomotion determined by the analysis of Gail and Boone (1970, 1972) for cells moving in a persistent random walk. Cells moving in uniform concentrations of STMS, interleukin-8 (IL-8) and n-formyl-methionyl- leucyl-phenylalanine (fMLP) chosen to give a sub-maximal speed of locomotion show persistent, random and constrained random diffusion respectively with augmented diffusion coefficients of 0.8 ± 0.1, 0.14 ± 0.02 and 0.12 ± 0.03 μm2 per second for STMS, IL-8 and fMLP respectively. The augmented diffusion coefficient and the underlying persistence are therefore sensitive quantitative assay parameters for STMS activity and the qualitative characteristics of locomotion allow STMS activity to be distinguished from that of all other factors tested. The contribution of lowered adhesion to locomotion was examined in a novel tilt- assay which demonstrated that cells in the presence of STMS, but not other factors, moved down slope with significantly increased speed while maintaining contact with the substratum. The results were interpreted in terms of the bipolar form of STMS-treated cells, contrasting with multipolar forms in response to other agents. This together with low adhesiveness plus an inherent tendency of a single locomotor focus to continue motion in its original direction has been used to explain the difference between response to STMS and other factors. STMS has been proposed to prevent directed locomotion of neutrophils to an inflammatory site or to promote dispersive locomotion away from such a site, and perhaps to inhibit neutrophil transmigration between endothelial cells. STMS also inhibits adhesion of neutrophils to bovine aorta and human endothelial cells by a yet undetermined mechanism. It induces unique changes in neutrophil shape with a characteristic monopole of F-actin distribution, which may correlate with the dispersive locomotion observed in the absence of a concentration gradient. This factor also inhibits n-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine-induced chemotaxis of neutrophils in a modified Boyden chamber assay. The reduction of adhesion and the inhibition of chemotaxis by the factor in vitro indicate a possible in vivo anti-inflammatory role.
The Secular Stagnation of Productivity Growth

The concern that an economy could experience persistent stagnation, caused by a structural weakness of aggregate demand, goes back to Alvin HansenOs (1939) thesis of `secular stagnation`. HansenOs thesis has been revived in recent times, when it became clear that productivity and potential growth in the OECD countries have been declining for decades. However, in line with deep-rooted theoretical beliefs, that inadequate demand can only affect growth in the short run, secular stagnation (of potential growth) is treated as an exclusively supply-side problem, the root of which is a worrying steady decline in productivity growth. This paper argues that it is a mistake to dismiss secular demand stagnation as main cause of declining potential growth in the OECD. We argue that the theoretical case for demand-caused secular stagnation is strong and empirical evidence that it has affected the U.S. economy after the mid-1970s is entirely convincing. Demand is leading supply, also in the long run. Hansen had it right, after all.
Characterization of the air–sea exchange mechanisms during a Mediterranean heavy precipitation event using realistic sea state modelling

Abstract. This study investigates the mechanisms acting at the air–sea interface during a heavy precipitation event that occurred between 12 and 14 October 2016 over the north-western Mediterranean area and led to large amounts of rainfall (up to 300 mm in 24 h) over the Hérault region (southern France). The study case was characterized by a very strong (>20 m s−1) easterly to south-easterly wind at low level that generated very rough seas (significant wave height of up to 6 m) along the French Riviera and the Gulf of Lion. In order to investigate the role of the waves on air–sea exchanges during such extreme events, a set of numerical experiments was designed using the Météo-France kilometre-scale AROME-France numerical weather prediction model – including the WASP (Wave-Age-dependant Stress Parametrization) sea surface turbulent flux parametrization – and the WaveWatch III wave model. Results from these sensitivity experiments in the forced or coupled modes showed that taking the waves generated by the model into account increases the surface roughness. Thus, the increase in the momentum flux induces a slowdown of the easterly low-level atmospheric flow and a displacement of the convergence line at sea. Despite strong winds and a young sea below the easterly flow, the turbulent heat fluxes upstream of the precipitating system are not significantly modified. The forecast of the heaviest precipitation is finally modified when the sea state is taken into account; notably, in terms of location, this modification is slightly larger in the forced mode than in the coupled mode, as the coupling interactively balances the wind sea, the stress and the wind.
Caudal Lumbar Disc Herniations Are More Likely to Require Surgery for Symptom Resolution

Study Design: Retrospective study. Objectives: We examined the impact that location of a lumbar disc herniation has on the likelihood that a patient will require surgery after at least 6 weeks of nonoperative management. Methods: Using ICD-10 codes M51.26 and M51.27, we identified patients at a single academic institution from 2015 to 2016 who received a diagnosis of primary lumbar radicular pain, had magnetic resonance imaging confirming a lumbar disc herniation, and underwent at least 6 weeks of nonoperative management. Patients experiencing symptoms suggesting cauda equina syndrome or progressive motor deficits were excluded. Results: Five hundred patients met inclusion/exclusion criteria. Twenty-nine (5.8%) had L3-L4 herniations, 245 (49.0%) had L4-L5 herniations, and 226 (45.2%) had L5-S1 herniations. Overall, 451 (90.2%) patients did not undergo surgery within 1 year of diagnosis. Nonsurgical patients had an average herniation size occupying 31.2% of the canal, compared with 31.5% in patients who underwent surgery. While herniation size, age, sex, and race failed to demonstrate a statistical association with the likelihood for surgery, location of disc herniation demonstrated a strong association. L3-L4 and L4-L5 herniations had odds ratios of 0.19 and 0.45, respectively, relative to L5-S1 herniations (P = .0047). Patients were more than twice as likely to require a surgery on an L5-S1 herniation in comparison with an L4-L5 herniation (P < .05). L3-L4 herniations rarely required surgery. Conclusions: Patients with caudal lumbar disc herniations were more likely to require surgery after at least 6 weeks of conservative management than those with disc herniations in the mid-lumbar spine.
Personalizing the war: Perspectives for the adoption of news recommendation algorithms in the media coverage of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine

The use of algorithmically tailored individual news feeds is increasingly viewed as an important strategy for accommodating consumers’ information needs by legacy media. However, growing personalization of news distribution also raises normative concerns about the societal function of legacy media, in particular when dealing with personalization of traumatic and polarizing content. To extend the discussion of these concerns beyond the current focus on the role of news personalization in Western democracies, this article offers a conceptual assessment of perspectives for adopting personalization for conflict coverage in Ukraine and Russia, where media systems enjoy a lesser degree of press freedom. Using the coverage of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine as a case study, the article offers a conceptual framework for assessing the impact of personalization on the distribution of conflict-related news in a non-Western context.