Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Generalized Full Matching

Abstract Matching is a conceptually straightforward method to make groups of units comparable on observed characteristics. The method is, however, limited to settings where the study design is simple and the sample is moderately sized. We illustrate these limitations by asking what the causal effects would have been if a large-scale voter mobilization experiment that took place in Michigan for the 2006 election were scaled up to the full population of registered voters. Matching could help us answer this question, but no existing matching method can accommodate the six treatment arms and the 6,762,701 observations involved in the study. To offer a solution for this and similar empirical problems, we introduce a generalization of the full matching method that can be used with any number of treatment conditions and complex compositional constraints. The associated algorithm produces near-optimal matchings; the worst-case maximum within-group dissimilarity is guaranteed to be no more than four times greater than the optimal solution, and simulation results indicate that it comes considerably closer to the optimal solution on average. The algorithm’s ability to balance the treatment groups does not sacrifice speed, and it uses little memory, terminating in linearithmic time using linear space. This enables investigators to construct well-performing matchings within minutes even in complex studies with samples of several million units.
Transparent user-specific 3D MIMO in FDD using beamspace methods

In typical macro-cell deployments for 3GPP LTE the base station employs an array of cross-polarized or co-polarized antennas that are linearly spaced in azimuth. In many panel array designs used in cellular deployments, each antenna port is actually formed by co-phasing some number of vertically-arranged physical sub-elements to achieve a desired elevation pattern and overall gain. If these vertically-arranged sub-elements could be individually and adaptively controlled then the antenna array could adapt its transmission in both the elevation and azimuth dimensions on a per-user basis (aka 3D MIMO) while maintaining the same form factor as the original array. In this paper we consider the problem of incorporating user-specific 3D-MIMO into the LTE FDD OFDMA downlink in a way that is transparent to the existing mobile devices. We propose using the beamspace concept along with uplink transmissions to control the elevation dimension while using the existing LTE codebook feedback methods to control the azimuth dimension. We show that the ability to adapt in both the elevation and azimuth dimensions on a per-user basis can provide significant gains in performance.
Allo‐restricted CTLs generated by coculturing of PBLs and autologous monocytes loaded with allogeneic peptide/HLA/IgG1‐Fc fusion protein

The graft‐versus‐leukemia effect of allogeneic marrow transplantation suggests the dramatic effect of the allogeneic T cell to eradicate malignant disease. Preparation and adoptive transfusion of tumor‐specific T cells from HLA‐mismatched donors might be expected to circumvent CTL tolerance to the tumor. In this study, a soluble, divalent HLA‐A2 molecule was constructed with the Fc part of human IgG1 and was pulsed with a peptide related to melanoma tyrosinase 368–376 [Tyr368–376 (Tyr)] to form the Tyr/HLA‐A2 dimer, which allowed loading onto monocytes via interaction of the Fc and FcR. The HLA‐A2‐negative (HLA‐A2‐ve) monocytes loaded with the Tyr/HLA‐A2 dimer acted as allo‐APC with copies of a single allogeneic epitope. After coculture of the HLA‐A2‐ve PBLs and autologous monocytes loaded with the dimer, CD8+ cells in the coculture show an obvious proliferation and increased frequency of Tyr/HLA‐A2 tetramer‐stained cells. The sorted Tyr/HLA‐A2 tetramer‐positive CD8+ cells display an elevated cytotoxic activity against HLA‐A2‐positive melanoma cells expressing tyrosinase endogenously (i.e., SK‐Mel‐5) but little against tyrosinase‐negative melanoma cells (i.e., A375). The coculture of PBLs and autologous monocytes loaded with allogeneic peptide/HLA complexes offers a novel approach to expand allo‐restricted, peptide‐specific CTLs, which might be a potential arsenal for treatment of patients with malignant disease, if the tumor‐related epitope were defined.
A Theory of Economic Obsolescence

A new generation of durable goods makes an old generation economically, even if not physically, obsolete. Economic obsolescence due to technological innovation requires the durable goods monopolist to implement price discrimination in two dimensions, both between consumers with different valuations and between consumers with different purchase histories. Equilibrium in the game between the durable goods monopolist and consumers depends on the extent of economic obsolescence and the relative sizes of the consumer groups. Underinvestment in innovation may take place. This contrasts with the standard literature on planned obsolescence where the durable goods monopolist overinvests in durability reducing technology. Copyright 1998 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
On Constraining Fiscal Policy Discretion in EMU

We review the theoretical and empirical literature on the benefits and costs of imposing restrictions on fiscal policy. We emphasize that the arguments in favour of restricting discretion of fiscal policy go beyond the notion of avoiding unsustainable budgetary plans that can lead to pressure on the central bank. Restrictions on fiscal policy can also be justified on the grounds that discretionary changes in spending or taxes can lead to unnecessary volatility in output and lower economic growth. Empirically, there is evidence that implicit constraints on governments can be as effective as explicit constraints (i.e. rules). From the analysis in EMU countries in the last 10 years we conclude that there has been a significant change in the conduct of fiscal policy in terms of increased discipline and less use of discretion. However, since 1999 there are clear signs of fatigue in this process as previous trends have either stopped or even reversed. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.
Compact City Development and the Challenge of Environmental Policy Integration : A Multi-Level Governance Perspective

Sustainable urban development entails integration of environmental interests into decision-making at the local level. To achieve this, higher tiers of government may compel municipalities to explicitly consider environmental objectives or even prioritize them by demanding compliance with national standards, thus, at least theoretically, restricting local government's room to manoeuvre in balancing all relevant interests. This paper explores the extent to which national standards narrow the range of local options and what this means for sustainable urban development. Adopting a multi-level governance perspective on three cases of inner-city redevelopment, we find that environmental standards are either not problematically restrictive or, if they are, sectoral policy offers ways to circumvent them. From a sustainability perspective, this may lead to undesirable outcomes. A combination of approaches may solve this predicament.
Ac ce pt ed m an us cr ip t Learning Probabilistic Models of Tree Edit Distance ⋆

Nowadays, there is a growing interest in machine learning and pattern recognition for tree-structured data. Trees actually provide a suitable structural representation to deal with complex tasks such as web information extraction, RNA secondary structure prediction, computer music, or conversion of semi-structured data (e.g. XML documents). Many applications in these domains require the calculation of similarities over pairs of trees. In this context, the tree edit distance (ED) has been subject of investigations for many years in order to improve its computational efficiency. However, used in its classical form, the tree ED needs a priori fixed edit costs which are often difficult to tune, that leaves little room for tackling complex problems. In this paper, to overcome this drawback, we focus on the automatic learning of a non parametric stochastic tree ED. More precisely, we are interested in two kinds of probabilistic approaches. The first one builds a generative model of the tree ED from a joint distribution over the edit operations, while the second works from a conditional distribution providing then a discriminative model. To tackle these tasks, we present an adaptation of the Expectation-Maximization algorithm for learning these distributions over the primitive edit costs. Two experiments are conducted. The first is achieved on artificial data and confirms the interest to learn a tree ED rather than a priori imposing edit costs; The second is applied to a pattern recognition task aiming to classify handwritten digits. ⋆ This work is part of the ongoing ARA Marmota research project. Email addresses: marc.bernard@univ-st-etienne.fr (Marc Bernard), laurent.boyer@univ-st-etienne.fr (Laurent Boyer), amaury.habrard@lif.univ-mrs.fr (Amaury Habrard), marc.sebban@univ-st-etienne.fr (Marc Sebban). Preprint submitted to Elsevier 30 October 2007 Ac ce pt ed m an us cr ip t
Determinants of Regional Migration by Manufacturing Firms

Economists have extensively examined the role of labor migration in restoring wage and price equilibria among dispersed markets. A muc h smaller literature addresses another dimension of mobility-regional migration of entrepreneurs and firms. Here the authors examine a mod el of the firm's decision to migrate, utilizing the Duns Market Ident ifiers data file. The model includes an equation describing the migra tion decision to determine whether measured characteristics of the fi rm's environment explain firm migration. Additional equations explain particular outcomes of migration: the growth in sales during a fixed interval after a move and the corresponding growth of employment. Copyright 1987 by Oxford University Press.
Living Environment and Mobility of Older Adults

Background: Older adults often elect to move into smaller living environments. Smaller living space and the addition of services provided by a retirement community (RC) may make living easier for the individual, but it may also reduce the amount of daily physical activity and ultimately reduce functional ability. Objective: With home size as an independent variable, the primary purpose of this study was to evaluate daily physical activity and physical function of community dwellers (CD; n = 31) as compared to residents of an RC (n = 30). Methods: In this cross-sectional study design, assessments included: the Continuous Scale Physical Functional Performance – 10 test, with a possible range of 0–100, higher scores reflecting better function; Step Activity Monitor (StepWatch 3.1); a physical activity questionnaire, the area of the home (in square meters). Groups were compared by one-way ANOVA. A general linear regression model was used to predict the number of steps per day at home. The level of significance was p < 0.05. Results: Of the 61 volunteers (mean age: 79 ± 6.3 years; range: 65–94 years), the RC living space (68 ± 37.7 m2) was 62% smaller than the CD living space (182.8 ± 77.9 m2; p = 0.001). After correcting for age, the RC took fewer total steps per day excluding exercise (p = 0.03) and had lower function (p = 0.005) than the CD. Conclusion: On average, RC residents take 3,000 steps less per day and have approximately 60% of the living space of a CD. Home size and physical function were primary predictors of the number of steps taken at home, as found using a general linear regression analysis.
Development of soybean aphid genomic SSR markers using next generation sequencing.

Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) or microsatellites are very useful molecular markers, owing to their locus-specific codominant and multiallelic nature, high abundance in the genome, and high rates of transferability across species. The soybean aphid (Aphis glycines Matsumura) has become the most damaging insect pest of soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr. ) in North America, since it was first found in the Midwest of the United States in 2000. Biotypes of the soybean aphid capable of colonizing newly developed aphid-resistant soybean cultivars have been recently discovered. Genetic resources, including molecular markers, to study soybean aphids are severely lacking. Recently developed next generation sequencing platforms offer opportunities for high-throughput and inexpensive genome sequencing and rapid marker development. The objectives of this study were (i) to develop and characterize genomic SSR markers from soybean aphid genomic sequences generated by next generation sequencing technology and (ii) to evaluate the utility of the SSRs for genetic diversity or relationship analyses. In total 128 SSR primer pairs were designed from sequences generated by Illumina GAII from a reduced representation library of A. glycines. Nearly 94% (120) of the primer pairs amplified SSR alleles of expected size and 24 SSR loci were polymorphic among three aphid samples from three populations. The polymorphic SSRs were successfully used to differentiate among 24 soybean aphids from Ohio and South Dakota. Sequencing of PCR products of two SSR markers from four aphid samples revealed that the allelic polymorphism was due to variation in the SSR repeats among the aphids. These markers should be particularly useful for genetic differentiation among aphids collected from soybean fields at different localities and regions. These SSR markers provide the soybean aphid research community with the first set of PCR-based codominant markers developed from the genomic sequences of A. glycines.
Free Software for PET Imaging

In recent years, there has been a large influx of image analysis software made freely available to the public. Free software or libre software is any software that can be used, studied, modified, copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without or with minimal restrictions (see Stallman (2002) and Free Software Foundation (2011) for licenses, copylefts and further details). In practice, and in particular for the software reviewed here, straightforward availability at no cost as well as open code source are also granted. Multiplatform availability is also very common, i.e. the product is available for different operating systems and architectures. Additionally, free software users –be them clinicians or software engineers– can take advantage of other nice features such as on-line documentation, user forums and email lists that are also provided with some applications.
Reputation in a dark network of online criminals

This paper focuses on criminals who could easily be labelled as entrepreneurs and who deal in compromised computer systems. Known as botmasters, these individuals use their technical skills to take over and control personal, business and governmental computers. These networks of hijacked computers are known as botnets in the security industry. With this massive computing power, these criminals can send large amounts of spam, attack web servers or steal financial data – all for a fee. As entrepreneurs, the botmasters' main goal is to achieve the highest level of success possible. In their case, this achievement can be measured in the illegitimate revenues they earn from the leasing of their botnet. Based on the evidence gathered in literature on legitimate and illegitimate markets, this paper sets to understand how reputation could relate to criminal achievement as well as what factors impact a heightened level of reputation in a criminal market.
Efficient machine translation decoding with slow language models

Efﬁcient decoding has been a fundamental problem in machine translation research. Usually a signiﬁcant part of the computational complexity is found in the language model cost computations. If slow language models, such as neural network or maximum-entropy models are used, the computational complexity can be so high as to render decoding impractical. In this paper we propose a method to efﬁciently integrate slow language models in machine translation decoding. We specif-ically employ neural network language models in a hierarchical phrase-based translation decoder and achieve more than 15 times speed-up versus directly integrating the neural network models. The speed-up is achieved without any noticeable drop in machine translation output quality, as measured by automatic evaluation metrics. Our proposed method is general enough to be applied to a wide variety of models and decoders.
Information Management graduates' accounts of their employability: A case study from the University of Sheffield

Ensuring that graduates are employable is an important priority for universities. It is challenging for fields such as Information Management (IM), that are not fully understood by employers and where there is no very clearly defined entry level job market. This paper takes a graduate identity perspective to explore how IM graduates from the iSchool at the University of Sheffield themselves constructed their own employability. 13 in-depth interviews were analysed thematically and discursively. Graduates often saw IM as a broad introduction to a range of career paths, without fully preparing them for any single one. The most powerful articulations of IM were as a set of personal information management practices that could have significant organisational impact. IM was also seen to produce effective habits of communication that those from alternative graduate backgrounds lacked. In contrast there was little evidence of use of use of discourses around being digital natives to explain their employability. Exploring how graduates themselves go on to explain the value of their studies is key to understanding how to support the transition into work more effectively, e.g. by encouraging students to articulate their skills more effectively. © 2013-IOS Press and the authors.
Virtual teams: cultural adaptation, communication quality, and interpersonal trust

Virtual teams are commonly formed in all industries and in a variety of areas. How the members adapt to the team culture when participating in a virtual team and how the adaptation affects communication quality and facilitates interpersonal trust within the team are important issues of coordination among the diverse members of a team. Thus, this study proposed a model using human- and technology-related factors to explain the phenomenon. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed. After the case study approach, academic and practical perspectives were both taken into consideration. The results of quantitative analysis revealed that both cultural adaptation and interpersonal trust have positive effects on the performance of virtual teams. A significantly negative effect was found between communication quality and performance of virtual teams, which is inconsistent with the viewpoint of traditional teams. Finally, academic and practical implications were also provided.
A concept of continuous user authentication based on behavioral biometrics

This paper focuses on continuous user authentication based on its interaction with the device. Behavioral authentication provides the ability to partially abandon passwords. Furthermore, the use of human behavior, for example, how he holds the device in hand, interacts with a screen, as a means of authentication is sufficiently protected from compromise, since an attacker cannot make an exact copy your gait or motion. Use of auxiliary factors such as the proximity of the trusted peripheral device, Wi-Fi network, location, helps simplify authentication.
The economic unsustainability of the Spanish national hydrological plan

This paper analyses the economic aspects of the Ebro water transfer, which have been overlooked in the Spanish National Hydrological Plan. The questions exam ined are the cost of transferred water, and irrigated agriculture in the Levante and south-eastern regions, which are the main water transfer destinations. Results show that the water transfer is not economically sustainable, because the costs of the diverted water are higher than the current marginal value of water in agriculture, and crop profitability is insufficient to pay for the whole volume of transferred water. A compromise solution between increasing water supply and demand management measures will combine a reasonable water price increase with water desalination in coastal counties. This solution would reduce water demand with a moderate effect on farmers' revenue and net income. Spain could find alternative investment projects to the water transfer, able to improve social welfare.
Stepping from single to mixed sex education : boys' progress and perceptions during the restructuring.

In 1999 an independent school in South Australia took the courageous step of introducing coeducation into their single sex boys’ school. Mixed sex education was phased in over two years, with girls admitted to Years 7 to 12 in 1999 and Years 3 to 6 in 2000. Progress and perceptions of school climate were measured in all primary and secondary level boys in the school in the inaugural year of coeducation and then annually over the next two years. Hierarchical Linear Modelling analyses revealed an interesting pattern of interrelationships between boys’ progress and cohort and grade level group perceptions of satisfaction, cohesiveness and competition within the school. Perceptions of the difficulty of schoolwork were also significantly related to boys’ progress during the restructuring period. Boys, single-sex education, coeducation, progress, perceptions