Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Party and Promotions After the Republican Revolution

We take advantage of a rare shift in institutional rules to provide unambiguous evidence of causal eects of party inuence in Congress. After the 1994 Republican Revolution, the new majority party in the US House adopted rules that centralized committee assignments within the party leadership. We build a research design around this event to study how committee promotion aects party support. Using both regression and matching, a series of placebo tests, a sensitivity analysis, and an analysis of the doseresponse relationship between the value of the promotion and party support, we nd that post-Revolution Republicans who were promoted to more prestigious committees supported the party more than did unpromoted members with statistically indistinguishable preferences and past behavior. These eects are unique to post-Revolution Republicans, robust to substantial relaxation of the key identifying assumption, and specic
Distribution of gluten proteins in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) grain.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Gluten proteins are the major storage protein fraction in the mature wheat grain. They are restricted to the starchy endosperm, which forms white flour on milling, and interact during grain development to form large polymers which form a continuous proteinaceous network when flour is mixed with water to give dough. This network confers viscosity and elasticity to the dough, enabling the production of leavened products. The starchy endosperm is not a homogeneous tissue and quantitative and qualitative gradients exist for the major components: protein, starch and cell wall polysaccharides. Gradients in protein content and composition are the most evident and are of particular interest because of the major role played by the gluten proteins in determining grain processing quality. METHODS Protein gradients in the starchy endosperm were investigated using antibodies for specific gluten protein types for immunolocalization in developing grains and for western blot analysis of protein extracts from flour fractions obtained by sequential abrasion (pearling) to prepare tissue layers. KEY RESULTS Differential patterns of distribution were found for the high-molecular-weight subunits of glutenin (HMW-GS) and γ-gliadins when compared with the low-molecular-weight subunits of glutenin (LMW-GS), ω- and α-gliadins. The first two types of gluten protein are more abundant in the inner endosperm layers and the latter more abundant in the subaleurone. Immunolocalization also showed that segregation of gluten proteins occurs both between and within protein bodies during protein deposition and may still be retained in the mature grain. CONCLUSIONS Quantitative and qualitative gradients in gluten protein composition are established during grain development. These gradients may be due to the origin of subaleurone cells, which unlike other starchy endosperm cells derive from the re-differentiation of aleurone cells, but could also result from the action of specific regulatory signals produced by the maternal tissue on specific domains of the gluten protein gene promoters.
Inverse Reinforcement Learning through Policy Gradient Minimization

Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) deals with the problem of recovering the reward function optimized by an expert given a set of demonstrations of the expert's policy.Most IRL algorithms need to repeatedly compute the optimal policy for different reward functions.This paper proposes a new IRL approach that allows to recover the reward function without the need of solving any "direct" RL problem.The idea is to find the reward function that minimizes the gradient of a parameterized representation of the expert's policy.In particular, when the reward function can be represented as a linear combination of some basis functions, we will show that the aforementioned optimization problem can be efficiently solved.We present an empirical evaluation of the proposed approach on a multidimensional version of the Linear-Quadratic Regulator (LQR) both in the case where the parameters of the expert's policy are known and in the (more realistic) case where the parameters of the expert's policy need to be inferred from the expert's demonstrations.Finally, the algorithm is compared against the state-of-the-art on the mountain car domain, where the expert's policy is unknown.
Modelling intertemporal consumer behaviour : theoretical results and empirical evidence

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Improved training and training power allocation schemes for multi-relay AF networks

For a multi-relay amplify-and-forward (AF) network, an improved training scheme is proposed and the corresponding training power allocation problem is investigated for the individual channel estimation at the destination. Compared with a previous scheme where the training of the source-relay channels is conducted sequentially, the proposed scheme exploits the broadcast nature of the source-relay links to save training time and power. By analyzing the total mean square error (MSE) of all channel estimates and with the help of approximations, we derive a training power allocation solution among the source and the relays. Simulation results demonstrate that our improved training scheme and power allocation solution obtain lower total MSE than the existing schemes.
A Novel Spatially Confined Non-Negative Matrix Factorization for Face Recognition

In this paper, a novel method for facial representation called Spatially Confined Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (SFNMF) is presented. SFNMF aims to extract more spatially confined, parts-based representation from the NMF based representation by merely removing non-prominent region, and focalize on the salient feature. SFNMF derived a significant set of basis which allows a non-subtractive representation of images and these bases manifest localized features. Experimental results are presented to compare SFNMF with NMF and Local NMF. Advantageous of SFNMF is demonstrated when SFNMF achieves highest verification rate among the other.
EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF FOREIGN AID ON ECONOMIC GROWTH: A CROSS-COUNTRY STUDY

One branch of the literature on aid effectiveness attempts to measure the contribution of foreign aid to the growth of developing countries. The micro results are clear and encouraging: foreign aid is beneficial to economic growth. However, until recently, the macro results were inconclusive: the impact of aid on growth was positive, negative, or even non-existent, in statistical terms. This contradiction is known as the i°micro-macro paradoxi±. Certain methodological and econometric flaws inherent in the assessments being carried out up to the mid-nineties may provide an explanation for the misleading macro results. Examining a large panel data set, I have found that foreign aid has had a positive impact on economic growth. In light of these findings, I conclude that earlier-generation work is in accordance with the new and recent generation of aid effectiveness studies. Thus, less importance should be attributed to the i°micro-macro paradoxi± as an overall appraisal of aid effectiveness. In terms of magnitude, I have also found that aid has less effect on growth in the short-run than in the long-run. I also conclude that the time lags in the aid-growth relationship should not be ignored.
"Political polarization of web search queries and hashtags" by Ingmar Weber, with Martin Vesely as coordinator

What can user-generated online data tell us about political issues and partisan politics? How polarized is a web search query such as "climategate 2.0" and can we quantify the leaning of the hashtag #climatechange? We summarize recent work that studies U.S. politics using web search logs and Twitter data from the angle of political left-vs.-right polarization. With a simple yet effective methodology we discover a number of interesting findings. For example, we show a tendency for web search queries with a right leaning to surface more results with a negative sentiment, and we give a description of political hashtag hijacking where one political camp tries to \jam the frequency" of the other one. We end with a discussion of challenges and opportunities in the area of data-driven political science that might be of interest to researchers looking to apply knowledge management in an interdisciplinary setting.
On Coding for Delay—Network Coding for Time-Division Duplexing

In networks with large latency, feedback about received packets may lag considerably the transmission of the original packets, limiting the feedback's usefulness. Moreover, time duplex constraints may entail that receiving feedback may be costly. In this work, we consider tailoring feedback and coding jointly in such settings to reduce the expected delay for successful in order reception of packets. We find that, in certain applications, judicious choices provide results that are close to those that would be obtained with a full-duplex system. We study two cases of data transmission: one-to-all broadcast and all-to-all broadcast. We also analyze important practical considerations weighing the trade off between performance and complexity in applications that rely on random linear network coding. Finally, we study the problem of transmission of information under the large latency and time duplexing constraints in the presence of random packet arrivals. In particular, we analyze the problem of using a batch by batch approach and an online network coding approach with Poisson arrivals. We present numerical results to illustrate the performance under a variety of scenarios and show the benefits of the proposed schemes as compared to typical ARQ and scheduling schemes.
The Capitalization of Insurance Premiums in House Prices

type="main" xml:lang="en"> This study uses Miami-Dade County, Florida home sales, and Citizens Property Insurance Corporation data for the period 2004 through 2009 to measure the capitalization effect of increases in premiums on house prices. Using hedonic pricing models, spatial autocorrelation models, and difference-in-differences models, we find that new information was conveyed to homeowners in the higher risk areas by the 2004/2005 storms and that consumers appear to use the insurance premium as a “risk signal. ” We also find some support for the hypothesis that the risk of potential hurricane losses is communicated to potential homebuyers through windzone maps.
Interferon-γ–induced inflammatory markers and the risk of cancer: The Hordaland Health Study

It has been reported that interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ)–induced inflammatory markers, such as circulating neopterin and kynurenine‐to‐tryptophan ratio (KTR), are increased in patients with cancer and are also a predictor of poor prognosis. However, whether baseline levels of these makers are associated with subsequent cancer risk in the general population remains unknown.
Estimating the Effect of Damages Caps in Medical Malpractice Cases: Evidence from Texas

Using claim-level data, we estimate the effect of Texas's 2003 cap on non-economic damages on jury verdicts, post-verdict payouts, and settlements in medical malpractice cases closed during 1988-2004. For pro-plaintiff jury verdicts, the cap affects 47 percent of verdicts, and reduces mean allowed non-economic damages, mean allowed verdict, and mean total payout by 73 percent, 38 percent, and 27 percent, respectively. In total, the non-econ cap reduces adjusted verdicts by $156M, but predicted payouts by only $60M. The impact on payouts is smaller because a substantial portion of the above-cap damage awards were not being paid to begin with. In cases settled without trial, the non-econ cap affects 18 percent of cases and reduces predicted mean total payout) by 18 percent. The non-econ cap has a smaller impact on settled cases than tried cases because settled cases tend to involve smaller payouts. The impact of the non-econ cap varies across plaintiff categories. Deceased, unemployed, and (likely) elderly plaintiffs suffer a larger percentage reduction in payouts than living, employed, and non-elderly plaintiffs. We also simulate the effects of different caps, and find substantial differences in cap stringency across states. Different caps reduce aggregate payouts in tried cases (all cases) by between 16 percent and 65 percent (7 percent and 42 percent). Caps on total damages have especially large effects.
Immunological Balance Is Associated with Clinical Outcome after Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation in Type 1 Diabetes

Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT) increases C-peptide levels and induces insulin independence in patients with type 1 diabetes. This study aimed to investigate how clinical outcomes may associate with the immunological status, especially concerning the balance between immunoregulation and autoreactivity. Twenty-one type 1 diabetes patients were monitored after AHSCT and assessed every 6 months for duration of insulin independence, C-peptide levels, frequencies of islet-specific autoreactive CD8+ T cells (CTL), regulatory lymphocyte subsets, thymic function, and T-cell repertoire diversity. In median follow-up of 78 (range 15–106) months, all patients became insulin-independent, resuming insulin after median of 43 (range 6–100) months. Patients were retrospectively divided into short- or prolonged-remission groups, according to duration of insulin independence. For the entire follow-up, CD3+CD4+ T-cell numbers remained lower than baseline in both groups, whereas CD3+CD8+ T-cell levels did not change, resulting in a CD4/CD8 ratio inversion. Memory CTL comprehended most of T cells detected on long-term follow-up of patients after AHSCT. B cells reconstituted to baseline levels at 2–3 months post-AHSCT in both patient groups. In the prolonged-remission-group, baseline islet-specific T-cell autoreactivity persisted after transplantation, but regulatory T cell counts increased. Patients with lower frequencies of autoreactive islet-specific T cells remained insulin-free longer and presented greater C-peptide levels than those with lower frequencies of these cells. Therefore, immune monitoring identified a subgroup of patients with superior clinical outcome of AHSCT. Our study shows that improved immunoregulation may balance autoreactivity endorsing better metabolic outcomes in patients with lower frequencies of islet-specific T cells. Development of new strategies of AHSCT is necessary to increase frequency and function of T and B regulatory cells and decrease efficiently autoreactive islet-specific T and B memory cells in type 1 diabetes patients undergoing transplantation.
Experimental bilateral control by state convergence

This paper presents a discrete design and control method of teleoperation systems. The design method is based on the state space formulation and it allows to obtain the control gains for any teleoperation system where the master and the slave manipulators would be represented by nth-order discrete linear transfer functions. The control method allows that the slave follows the master through the state convergence between the master and the slave. The method is able also to establish the desire dynamics of this convergence and the dynamics of the slave manipulator. The advantage of this method is that it can be applied to control a teleoperation system where the master and the slave are modeled by transfer functions of different order. In order to validate the control method, simulation results are shown considering a teleoperation system where the master and the slave are modeled by discrete transfer functions of different order
Directed Random Graphs with given Degree Distributions

Given two distributions F and G on the nonnegative integers we propose an algorithm to construct in- and out-degree sequences from samples of i.i. d. observations from F and G, respectively, that with high probability will be graphical, that is, from which a simple directed graph can be drawn. We then analyze a directed version of the configuration model and show that, provided that F and G have finite variance, the probability of obtaining a simple graph is bounded away from zero as the number of nodes grows. We show that conditional on the resulting graph being simple, the in- and out-degree distributions are (approximately) F and G for large size graphs. Moreover, when the degree distributions have only finite mean we show that the elimination of self-loops and multiple edges does not significantly change the degree distributions in the resulting simple graph.
Essays on the microstructure of the market pre-opening period

This thesis consists of three related essays that examine investors? order submission strategies during the pre-opening period on the Malta Stock Exchange. The pre-opening is a period of liquidity formation and price discovery characterised by the absence of trade execution. The three essays collectively examine the information content of the order book in relation to: the intensity of order submissions, the aggressiveness of investors? order placement strategy and the determination of returns generated over the pre-opening period.The first essay empirically investigates if public information concerning the current state of the order book impacts the duration between order arrivals. Utilizing an augmented ACD model, the research reveals that the information which can be inferred from the characteristics of incoming orders has a more significant impact on the intensity of buy order submissions as compared to sell order submissions during the pre-opening period. Furthermore, prospective buyers appear to be more responsive to liquidity provided by the sell side than the reverse. Locked or crossed order submissions tend to increases (decreases) the intensity of order flow on the own (opposite) side of the order book, corroborating Cao et al. (2000) that such order-types contain informative signals about the fundamental value of the asset.The second essay analyses the impact of limit order book information on the aggressiveness observed in the submission, revision and cancellation of limit orders during the market pre-opening period. The empirical results indicate that the aggressiveness of order submissions and forward price revisions react both to the existing and subsequent changes in the execution probability at market opening, driven in part by the depth on either side of the order book. The aggressiveness of order cancellations increases on both sides of the order book when the depth at the top of the ask order book increases. In addition, the results suggest that the order book height and size of the inside spread impacts the aggressiveness of order submissions, revisions and cancellations.The third essay studies the contribution of the pre-opening period to the daily price discovery process and the factors that impact the return generated over this period. The results indicate that approximately one third of daily price discovery occurs in the pre-opening period. In addition, the impact of relative depth and height of the overnight and opening order book are concentrated at the top of the order book. Furthermore, cumulative changes to relative depth attributable to order submissions most significantly impact the opening returns of less actively traded stocks. The results show a strong relationship between opening returns and cumulative changes in the relative height along the order book attributable to order submissions, cancellations and forward and backward price revisions over the pre-opening period.
Emergence of Graphing Practices in Scientific Research

Graphing has long counted as one of the quintessential process skills that scientists apply independently of particular situations. However, recent expert/expert studies showed that when asked to interpret graphs culled from undergraduate courses of their own disciplines, scientists were far from perfect in providing interpretations that a course instructor would have accepted as correct. Drawing on five years of fieldwork, the present study was designed to investigate graphs and graph-related skills in scientific research. In addition to the fieldwork, a think-aloud protocol was used to elicit scientists' graph interpretations both on familiar and unfamiliar graphs. The analyses show that graph-related skills such as perceiving relevant graphical detail and interpreting the source of this detail emerge in the research process and are related to the scientists' increasing familiarity with a research object, instrumentation, and their understanding of the transformation process that turns raw data into graphs. When scientists do not know the natural object represented in a graph and are unfamiliar with the details of the corresponding data collection protocol, they often focus on graphical features that do not pertain to the phenomenon represented and therefore do not arrive at the correct interpretations. Based on these data, it is proposed that graphs are not only the outcomes of scientific research but also, in important ways, constitute representations that bear metonymic relations to the research context, most importantly to instrumentation, natural phenomenon, and the mathematical transformations used to produce the graphs from the raw data. I draw on the semantics of symbolic systems for articulating competencies and breakdowns in scientists' graphing-related practices.
A simple conceptual model of abrupt glacial climate events

Here we use a very simple conceptual model in an attempt to reduce essential parts of the complex nonlinearity of abrupt glacial climate changes (the so-called Dansgaard- Oeschger events) to a few simple principles, namely (i) the existence of two different climate states, (ii) a threshold pro- cess and (iii) an overshooting in the stability of the system at the start and the end of the events, which is followed by a millennial-scale relaxation. By comparison with a so-called Earth system model of intermediate complexity (CLIMBER- 2), in which the events represent oscillations between two climate states corresponding to two fundamentally different modes of deep-water formation in the North Atlantic, we demonstrate that the conceptual model captures fundamen- tal aspects of the nonlinearity of the events in that model. We use the conceptual model in order to reproduce and re- analyse nonlinear resonance mechanisms that were already suggested in order to explain the characteristic time scale of Dansgaard-Oeschger events. In doing so we identify a new form of stochastic resonance (i.e. an overshooting stochastic resonance) and provide the first explicitly reported manifes- tation of ghost resonance in a geosystem, i.e. of a mecha- nism which could be relevant for other systems with thresh- olds and with multiple states of operation. Our work enables us to explicitly simulate realistic probability measures of Dansgaard-Oeschger events (e.g. waiting time distributions, which are a prerequisite for statistical analyses on the regu- larity of the events by means of Monte-Carlo simulations). We thus think that our study is an important advance in or- der to develop more adequate methods to test the statistical significance and the origin of the proposed glacial 1470-year climate cycle.