Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Education and the Vulnerability to Food Inadequacy in Timor-Leste

This paper adopts a simple empirical approach to estimate vulnerability to food inadequacy using cross-section data from the 2001 Timor-Leste Living Standard Measurement Survey. This measurement is based on the assumption that households are exposed to the same kind of shock. It is found that the distribution of vulnerability to food inadequacy to the education of household head is more significant than that to observed food poverty. The results support the argument that senior primary and tertiary education can help reduce the food risk that households face, in particular the risk that a household is undernourished. Thus, in Timor-Leste public spending on these forms of education can provide a form of support that favours the poor.
On computing the nearest neighbor interchange distance

In the practice of molecular evolution, different phylogenetic trees for the same group of species are often produced either by procedures that use diverse optimality criteria [24] or from different genes [15, 16, 17, 18, 14]. Comparing these trees to find their similarities (e.g. agreement or consensus) and dissimilarities, i.e. distance, is thus an important issue in computational molecular biology. The nearest neighbor interchange (nni) distance [29, 28, 34, 3, 6, 2, 19, 20, 23, 33, 22, 21, 26] is a natural distance metric that has been extensively studied. Despite its many appealing aspects such as simplicity and sensitivity to tree topologies, computing this distance has remained very challenging, and many algorithmic and complexity issues about computing this distance have remained unresolved. This paper studies the complexity and efficient approximation algorithms for computing the nni distance and a natural extension of this distance on weighted phylogenies. The following results answer many open questions about the nni distance posed in the literature. 1. Computing the nni distance between two labeled trees is NP-complete. This solves a 25 year old open question appearing again and again in, for example, [29, 34, 3, 6, 2, 19, 20, 23, 22, 21, 26]. 2. Computing the nni distance between two unlabeled trees is also NPcomplete. This answers an open question in [3] for which an erroneous proof appeared in [23]. 3. Biological applications motivate us to extend the nni distance to weighted phylogenies, where edge weights indicate the time-span of evolution along each edge. We present an O(n2) time approximation algorithm for computing the nni distance on weighted phylogenies with a performance ratio of 4 logn+ 4, where n is the number of leaves in the phylogenies. We also observe that the nni distance is in fact identical to the linear-cost subtree-transfer distance on unweighted phylogenies discussed in [4, 5]. Some consequences of this observation are also discussed. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 68Q17, 68W40; Secondary 68Q25. The results reported here also form a subset of the results that appeared in Proc. 8th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, 1997, pp. 427-436 [4]. The remaining results of the conference paper which do not appear in this paper appeared separately in Algorithmica, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 176-195, 1999. The first author was supported by an CGAT (Canadian Genome Analysis and Technology) grant. The second author was supported in part by CGAT and NSF grant 9205982. The third author was supported in part by NSERC Operating Grant OGP0046613 and CGAT. The fourth author was supported by NSERC Operating Grant OGP0046506 and CGAT. The fifth author was supported by an NSERC International Fellowship and CGAT. Work done while the first author was at University of Waterloo and McMaster University, the second author was visiting at University of Waterloo, the third author was visiting University of Washington, and the fifth and the sixth authors were at University of Waterloo.
On the conformal field theory duals of type IIA AdS 4 flux compactifications

We study the conformal field theory dual of the type IIA flux compactification model of DeWolfe, Giryavets, Kachru and Taylor, with all moduli stabilized. We find its central charge and properties of its operator spectrum. We concentrate on the moduli space of the conformal field theory, which we investigate through domain walls in the type IIA string theory. The moduli space turns out to consist of many different branches. We use Bezout's theorem and Bernstein's theorem to enumerate the different branches of the moduli space and estimate their dimension.
Long-term treatment with imatinib results in profound mast cell deficiency in Ph+ chronic myeloid leukemia

Although mast cells (MC) play an important role in allergic reactions, their physiologic role remains unknown. In mice, several models of MC-deficiency have been developed. However, no comparable human model is available. We examined the in vitro- and in vivo effects of the KIT-targeting drug imatinib on growth and development of human MC. Imatinib was found to inhibit stem cell factor (SCF)-induced differentiation of MC in long-term suspension cultures (IC50: 0.01 μM). Correspondingly, long-term treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients with imatinib (400 mg/day) resulted in a marked decrease in MC. In patients with continuous complete molecular response during therapy, bone marrow MC decreased to less than 5% of pre-treatment values, and also serum tryptase concentrations decreased significantly (pre-treatment: 32.0±11.1 ng/ml; post-therapy: 3.4±1.8, p<0.01). Other myeloid lineages, known to develop independently of KIT, were not affected by imatinib-therapy. Imatinib also produced a substantial decrease in MCdevelopment in mice. However, no clinical syndrome attributable to drug-induced MC-deficiency was recorded in our CML patients. Together, imatinib suppresses MC production in vitro and in vivo. However, drug-induced MC depletion is not accompanied by adverse clinical events, suggesting that MC are less relevant to homeostasis in healthy tissues than we assumed so far.
Mental health, burnout and job satisfaction among mental health social workers in England and Wales

Background Previous research suggests that social workers experience high levels of stress and burnout but most remain committed to their work. Aims To examine the prevalence of stress and burnout, and job satisfaction among mental health social workers (MHSWs) and the factors responsible for this. Method A postal survey incorporating the General Health Questionnaire, Maslach Burnout Inventory, Karasek Job Content Questionnaire and a job satisfaction measure was sent to 610 MHSWs in England and Wales. Results Eligible respondents (n=237) reported high levels of stress and emotional exhaustion and low levels of job satisfaction; 111 (47%) showed significant symptomatology and distress, which is twice the level reported by similar surveys of psychiatrists. Feeling undervalued at work, excessive job demands, limited latitude in decision-making, and unhappiness about the place of MHSWs in modern services contributed to the poor job satisfaction and most aspects of burnout. Those who had approved social worker status had greater dissatisfaction. Conclusions Stress may exacerbate recruitment and retention problems. Employers must recognise the demands placed upon MHSWs and value their contribution to mental health services.
Analyzing a web-based system's performance measures at multiple time scales

Web and e-commerce workloads are known to vary significantly from hour to hour, day to day, and week to week. The causes of these fluctuations are changes in the number of users visiting a site and the mix of services they require. Since the workloads are known to vary over time, one should not simply choose an arbitrary time interval and consider it as a reference for performance evaluation. We conclude that times scales are of great importance for operational analysis, particularly for systems with bursty loads. Service level agreements must certainly take into account measurement time scales. Similarly input parameters for predictive models are sensitive to time scale. Ultimately, a time scale should be chosen for service level requirements that best expresses the needs of end-users and the price the owner of a site is willing to pay for QoS.
Antigenic and molecular characterisation of Border disease virus associated with high mortality in lambs in Spain

Introduction Border disease virus (BDV) causes congenital disorders in sheep and results in severe, but underestimated, economic losses worldwide. However, information about BDV strains affecting several ruminants worldwide is scarce. Therefore, antigenic and genetic classification of isolates from different geographical regions is important to enhance the knowledge of the epidemiology of BDV. Materials and methods Five pestiviruses isolated from lambs in an epidemic outbreak with an unusually high mortality in Spain in 1997 were characterised antigenically with a panel of monoclonal antibodies and genetically by sequencing within the 50 untranslated (50UTR) region of the genome. Results All the isolates were classified as BDV and showed a high homology with the Aveyron strain (Av), which was associated with an epidemic reported in sheep from the Aveyron region of France in 1984. Conclusions Classification of the isolates from this study provides valuable information on the molecular epidemiology of BDV.
Multichannel digital transmit beamforming experiments for RFID tag localization

The spatial localization of passive UHF (ultra-high frequency) radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags is an emerging technology that has reached a high level of interest in industry and research. Most solutions are based on classical receive beamforming techniques, like the angle-of-arrival estimation, that are prone to multipath and deliver low localization accuracies. Therefore, a new approach for estimating the position of a passive UHF RFID tag is introduced that uses a transmit beamforming technique called 'Angle-of-Activation' (AoAct). It is based on manipulating the shape of the radiation pattern of the reader's transmit antenna array. Based on a set of power levels and phases for the transmit signals of the array elements, the I and Q components of the complex baseband phasor are calculated. In comparison to analog techniques, this new approach delivers higher angular accuracy of the radiation patterns. The self-developed digital beamforming hardware is able to pivot the main lobe of a three- element antenna array in a range between -52° and 52° with a mean angular resolution of 0.02°. By utilizing the very sensitive response threshold of passive UHF RFID tags, the AoAct can be estimated wiht high accuracy. Experimental measurements deliver a mean AoAct accuracy of 1.2° in the anechoic chamber, 19° in a basic multipath environment, and 2.5° in a real-world multi-path environment in a range of ±45°.
Adenovirus Type 5 Viral Particles Pseudotyped with Mutagenized Fiber Proteins Show Diminished Infectivity of Coxsackie B-Adenovirus Receptor-Bearing Cells

ABSTRACT A major limitation of adenovirus type 5 (Ad5)-based gene therapy, the inability to target therapeutic genes to selected cell types, is attributable to the natural tropism of the virus for the widely expressed coxsackievirus-adenovirus receptor (CAR) protein. Modifications of the Ad5 fiber knob domain have been shown to alter the tropism of the virus. We have developed a novel system to rapidly evaluate the function of modified fiber proteins in their most relevant context, the adenoviral capsid. This transient transfection/infection system combines transfection of cells with plasmids that express high levels of the modified fiber protein and infection with Ad5. βgal. ΔF, an E1-, E3-, and fiber-deleted adenoviral vector encoding β-galactosidase. We have used this system to test the adenoviral transduction efficiency mediated by a panel of fiber protein mutants that were proposed to influence CAR interaction. A series of amino acid modifications were incorporated via mutagenesis into the fiber expression plasmid, and the resulting fiber proteins were subsequently incorporated onto adenoviral particles. Mutations located in the fiber knob AB and CD loops demonstrated the greatest reduction in fiber-mediated gene transfer in HeLa cells. We also observed effects on transduction efficiency with mutations in the FG loop, indicating that the binding site may extend to the adjacent monomer in the fiber trimer and in the HI loop. These studies support the concept that modification of the fiber knob domain to diminish or ablate CAR interaction should result in a detargeted adenoviral vector that can be combined simultaneously with novel ligands for the development of a systemically administered, targeted adenoviral vector.
A short phytogeography of the prairies and great plains of Central north America

The vast grass-covered region of central United States has long been known as the prairies or prairie region. People from the eastern United States or from the Old World have the general idea that this region is a vast uniform steppe similar to southern Russia. This is far from true, for the flora of central Illinois is very different from that of eastern Colorado, as is that of the Saskatchewan plains from that of northern Texas. The reasons for this dissimilarity are manifold. The principal ones are the annual precipitation of central Illinois is about 37 inches and that of eastern Colorado is below 15; and the growing (frost-free) season of Saskatchewan is less than three months and that of the Staked Plains of Texas nearly seven months long. The floras could not be the same. It is unfortunate that this vast grass land did not receive a 'concise and, at the samie time, adequate description in print 50 to 75 years ago, when most of it still had its original vegetation. Now about 75 per cent. or more of the prairies have been turned into fertile fields. It is true that a large part of the Great Plains is still untouched by cultivation; but its original flora has been changed a good deal by over-grazing and the introduction of numerous weeds from other regions. It is now almost impossible to render a true account of the original vegetation, or to produce a reliable phytogeographic map of the region. Until lately, the only fairly reliable published maps of this kind are those of Dr. Merriam in connection with his articles on life zones and crop zones; but these have some serious defects, due to the facts that the author is a zo6logist and that the distribution of animals does not coincide with that of plants, more than due stress being laid on temperature. The most reliable map now published is the Atlas of Natural Vegetation, by H. L. Schanz and Raphael Zon, published in 1924 by the United States Department of Agriculture. While the outlines of the 57
Critical success factors in enterprise wide information management systems projects

In the past several years many organizations have initiated enterprise-wide information management systems projects, using such packages as SAP, Peoplesoft, and Oracle. These projects often represent the single largest investment in an information systems project in the history of these companies, and in many cases the largest single investment in any corporate-wide project. These enterprise-wide information management systems projects bring about a host of new questions. Some of these questions and issues are: . How are these projects justified? Do firms need to change their fundamental business processes, organizational structures, and business strategies to fit the package? What are the technical challenges associated with implementing a large-scale package such as SAP? What is the best way to implement a large-scale package: To work through the organization unit-byunit? Or to use a cross-functional approach? What are the critical success factors in the implementation of a large-scale package? What are the implications of these projects for the skill and knowledge requirements of the IT workforce? This paper will provide case studies of seven organizations implementing enterprise-wide information management systems projects and will provide insight into each of these questions based upon their experiences.
The economic impacts of climate change on agriculture in Iran: ‎a CGE model analysis

ABSTRACT In the following, the impacts of climate change on agricultural sector are analyzed through partial ‎equilibrium model and the effects of climate change scenarios on this section will be measured ‎separately. To this end, the data of value added, labor and capital in the agricultural sector between ‎‎1991 and 2014 are derived from the Central Bank and National Statistics Portal. De Martonne ‎index, which represents the climatic condition, is estimated using precipitation and temperature data ‎extracted from the Meteorological Organization of Iran sector between 1991 and 2014. The current study measured the effects of climate change on the agricultural sector in Iran. For this purpose, the function of agricultural sector production, which is affected by climate (temperature and precipitation), was estimated using the ARDL approach; then, the effect of climate change on the agricultural sector was evaluated in the framework of the SAM model. Different scenarios were applied. In general, it can be concluded that improving the climate will increase the country‘s economic potential and reduce costs, while adverse climate conditions will worsen the country‘s economic situation and, consequently, increase costs.
SFC Path Tracer: A troubleshooting tool for Service Function Chaining

Service Function Chaining (SFC) is a prominent research field in networking with several proposals from industry and academia. The lack of tools to check SFC path correctness forces network operators to spend a significant effort in guaranteeing that an SFC configuration meets their intent behavior. This work presents the SFC Path Tracer, a tool for troubleshooting SFC in NFV/SDN environments. The tool enables the identification of problems in an SFC configuration through the display of the whole path traversed by packets in a given SFC path. SFC Path Tracer is agnostic to the SFC encapsulation mechanism and incurs in low overhead on the SFC architecture.
Multi-scale modeling and rendering of granular materials

We address the problem of modeling and rendering granular materials---such as large structures made of sand, snow, or sugar---where an aggregate object is composed of many randomly oriented, but discernible grains. These materials pose a particular challenge as the complex scattering properties of individual grains, and their packing arrangement, can have a dramatic effect on the large-scale appearance of the aggregate object. We propose a multi-scale modeling and rendering framework that adapts to the structure of scattered light at different scales. We rely on path tracing the individual grains only at the finest scale, and---by decoupling individual grains from their arrangement---we develop a modular approach for simulating longer-scale light transport. We model light interactions within and across grains as separate processes and leverage this decomposition to derive parameters for classical radiative transport, including standard volumetric path tracing and a diffusion method that can quickly summarize the large scale transport due to many grain interactions. We require only a one-time precomputation per exemplar grain, which we can then reuse for arbitrary aggregate shapes and a continuum of different packing rates and scales of grains. We demonstrate our method on scenes containing mixtures of tens of millions of individual, complex, specular grains that would be otherwise infeasible to render with standard techniques.
Factors promoting emissions of nitrous oxide and nitric oxide from denitrifying sequencing batch reactors operated with methanol and ethanol as electron donors

The emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitric oxide (NO) from biological nitrogen removal (BNR) operations via nitrification and denitrification is gaining increased prominence. While many factors relevant to the operation of denitrifying reactors can influence N2O and NO emissions from them, the role of different organic carbon sources on these emissions has not been systematically addressed or interpreted. The overall goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of three factors, organic carbon limitation, nitrite concentrations, and dissolved oxygen concentrations on gaseous N2O and NO emissions from two sequencing batch reactors (SBRs), operated, respectively, with methanol and ethanol as electron donors. During undisturbed ultimate‐state operation, emissions of both N2O and NO from either reactor were minimal and in the range of <0.2% of influent nitrate‐N load. Subsequently, the two reactors were challenged with transient organic carbon limitation and nitrite pulses, both of which had little impact on N2O or NO emissions for either electron donor. In contrast, transient exposure to oxygen led to increased production of N2O (up to 7.1% of influent nitrate‐N load) from ethanol grown cultures, owing to their higher kinetics and potentially lower susceptibility to oxygen inhibition. A similar increase in N2O production was not observed from methanol grown cultures. These results suggest that for dissolved oxygen, but not for carbon limitation or nitrite exposure, N2O emission from heterotrophic denitrification reactors can vary as a function of the electron donor used. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2010; 106: 390–398. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Accelerating the Divisive Information-Theoretic Clustering of Visual Words

Word clustering is an effective approach in the bag- of-words model to reducing the dimensionality of high-dimensional features. In recent years, the bag- of-words model has been successfully introduced into visual recognition and significantly developed. Often, in order to adequately model the complex and diversified visual patterns, a large number of visual words are used, especially in the state-of- the-art visual recognition methods. As a result, the existing word clustering algorithms become not computationally efficient enough. They can considerably prolong the process such as model updating and parameter tuning, where word clustering needs to be repeatedly employed. In this paper, we focus on the divisive information-theoretic clustering, one of the most efficient word clustering algorithms in the field of text analysis, and accelerate its speed to better deal with a large number of visual words. We discuss the properties of its cluster membership evaluation function, KL- divergence, in both binary and multi-class classification cases and develop the accelerated versions in two different ways. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed accelerated divisive information-theoretic clustering algorithm can handle a large number of visual words in a much more efficient manner. As demonstrated on the benchmark datasets in visual recognition, it can achieve speed-up by hundreds of times while well maintaining the clustering performance of the original algorithm.
From Luminescence Non-Linearity to Scintillation Non-Proportionality

The problem of non-linearity of luminescence is reviewed on the basis of kinetic equations for concentrations and two-particle correlation functions. The reasons of time dependence of the rates of reactions between excitations are discussed. The non-linearity of luminescence and non-exponentiality of its decay is attributed to initial correlation between excitations created by photons, and to non-homogeneous spatial distribution of deposited energy. The case of excitation by ionizing particle is discussed. The equation for the scintillation yield and decay kinetics with account for either small energy losses (plasmons, excitons and electron-hole pairs) or large energy losses (delta-electrons and Auger cascade) is obtained.