Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Private experiments in global governance: primary commodity roundtables and the politics of deliberation

Emerging scholarship on global governance offers ever-more detailed analyses of private regulatory regimes. These regimes aim to regulate some area of social activity without a mandate from, or participation of, states or international organizations. While there are numerous empirical studies of these regimes, the normative theoretical literature has arguably struggled to keep pace with such developments. This is unfortunate, as the proliferation of private regulatory regimes raises important issues about legitimacy in global governance. The aim of this paper is to address some of these issues by elaborating a theoretical framework that can orientate normative investigation of these schemes. It does this through turning to the idea of experimentalist governance. It is argued that experimentalism can provide an important and provocative set of insights about the processes and logics of emerging governance schemes. The critical purchase of this theory is illustrated through an application to the case of primary commodities roundtables, part of ongoing attempts by non-governmental organizations, producers, and buyers to set sustainability criteria for commodity production across a range of sectors. The idea of experimentalist governance, we argue, can lend much needed theoretical structure to debates about the normative legitimacy of private regulatory regimes.
Microstructure and network organization of the microvasculature in the human macula.

PURPOSE To characterize the topography and cellular structure of the macular microvasculature using a recently developed technique of arterial cannulation, perfusion, fixation, and staining of human donor eyes. METHODS Sixteen human donor eyes were used. The central retinal artery was cannulated and perfused with Ringer's, then fixative, membrane permeabilizing, and selected labeling solutions. The eyes were immersion fixed, and the retina was flat mounted for confocal microscopy. The macular area, including the foveola, fovea, and parafovea, was sampled. The intracellular cytoskeleton of vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cells was studied in different orders of arterioles and venules and in the capillaries. To evaluate the degree of asymmetry within vascular networks, the distribution of generation numbers and the Horton-Strahler approach to vessel naming were compared. RESULTS The distribution of the microvascular network in the macular region was complex but followed a general theme. The parafoveal region was supplied by dense vasculature with approximately nine closely arranged pairs of arterioles and venules. Each arteriole had abundant branches and a high degree of asymmetry (∼10 generations and 3.5 orders within 1.2-mm length). Only a few arterioles (average ∼2.9) supplied the terminal capillary ring. Very long spindle endothelial cells were seen in the superficial and deep capillaries. Significant heterogeneity of distribution and shape of the endothelial and smooth muscle cells was evident in different orders of the macular vasculature. CONCLUSIONS The authors have demonstrated for the first time the cellular structure and topographic features of the macular microvasculature in human donor eyes.
A semantics for lambda calculi with resources

We present the λ-calculus with resources λr, and two variants of it: a deterministic restriction λm and an extension λcr with a convergence testing operator. These calculi provide a control on the substitution process – deadlocks may arise if not enough resources are available to carry out all the substitutions needed to pursue a computation. The design of these calculi was motivated by Milner's encoding of the λ-calculus in the π-calculus. As Boudol and Laneve have shown elsewhere, the discriminating power of λm (given by the contextual observational equivalence) over λ-terms coincides with that induced by Milner's π-encoding, and coincides also with that provided by the lazy algebraic semantics (Lévy–Longo trees). The main contribution of this paper is model-theoretic. We define and solve an appropriate domain equation, and show that the model thus obtained is fully abstract with respect to λcr. The techniques used are in the line of those used by Abramsky for the lazy λ-calculus, the main departure being that the resource-consciousness of our calculi leads us to introduce a non-idempotent form of intersection types.
Interference cancellation based on blindly-detected interference parameters for LTE-advanced UE

The network-assisted interference cancellation and suppression (NAICS) feature has been studied by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) [1]. A user equipment (UE) can perform interference cancellation under the assumption that the interference parameters including traffic-to-pilot power ratio (TPR), rank indicator (RI), precoding matrix indicator (PMI) and modulation level (MOD) are known to the UE through the aid of network signaling. This assumption, however, not only leads to an excessive increase in the network-signaling load but also limits the scheduling performance. This paper presents interference cancellation techniques based on blindly-detected NAICS interference parameters. We first investigate blind detection methods for estimating a TPR being used by interfering base station (BS) and then propose low-complexity blind detection (BD) algorithms based on max-log approximation for estimating the interference parameters RI, PMI, and MOD. In particular, we introduce a compensation method for correcting the error imposed by the suboptimal approximation. The link-level simulation results are provided to verify the efficacy of the proposed interference detection algorithms and interference cancellation techniques.
Order of age at onset for substance use, substance use disorder, conduct disorder and psychiatric illness

This study aimed to assess the number of patients who reported earlier age at onset for psychiatric illness versus those with an earlier age at onset for substance use. Subjects were 194 patients from substance use disorder (SUD) treatment services in the Municipality of Fredericia who accepted an offer of psychological assessment. Patients were administered the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), and when diagnoses were indicated, queried about the age at onset for each disorder. Additionally, subjects were administered the WAIS-III vocabulary scale, the Structured Assessment of Personality – Abbreviated Scale (SAPAS), completed the MCMI-III, the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and were rated with the Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale. Age at onset was lowest for conduct disorder/antisocial behaviour, followed by tasting alcohol, trying drugs, post-traumatic stress disorder and social phobia. Of patients reporting an age at onset for SUD and conduct disorder, 84% reported that age.
Parenthood and employment: the impact of policies and culture on gender inequality in Switzerland

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of cantonal social policies and cultural settings (in Switzerland) on women’s and men’s employment behaviour. Special consideration is given to the transition to parenthood. Design/methodology/approach – Based on data from the Swiss Labour Force Survey (SLFS) this paper conducts multilevel analyses to test individual and cantonal effects on the probability of employment and on working hours. To analyse the effect of parenthood, models for women and men with children under three are contrasted with models for women and men without children or with older children. Findings – The paper documents the persistence of gender inequality in employment linked to parenthood. How the reconciliation of work and family life can be realised for women and men strongly depends on a set of policies and cultural conditions. Moreover, individual characteristics such as education or marriage are important predictors. Research limitations/implications – A shortcoming.
A multi-agent projected dual gradient method with primal convergence guarantees

We consider a class of multi-agent optimization problems, where each agent is endowed with a strongly convex (but not necessarily differentiable) loss function and is subject to individual constraints composed of linear equalities, convex inequalities, and convex set constraints. We derive a novel algorithm that allows the agents to collaboratively reach a decision that minimizes the sum of the loss functions over the intersection of the individual constraints. The algorithm is based on a projected dual gradient technique and exploits the structure of the individual constraint sets to avoid costly projections. A convergence rate analysis shows that the primal iterates produced by individual agents under our algorithm converge to the primal optimal solution at a rate that is superior to alternatives in the literature. Finally, we provide a thorough comparison of our algorithm with alternatives in terms of both theoretical and algorithmic aspects.
Extending Autonomy for Health Care Preferences in Late Life

Mechanisms for extending autonomy in financial and health care decisions (e.g., advanced directives) are being utilized more frequently. This study examined the hierarchy of documents completed, the characteristics of people completing these documents, the choice of surrogate decision-maker for health care decisions, and with whom health care decisions were being discussed in a sample of 661 persons 65 years of age and older. Comparison between people with and without documents in place suggested that cognitive impairment, level of education, and age were related to preparation of documents. Women were typically chosen as surrogate decision-makers, except in a sample of unmarried men. Surprisingly, participants reported discussing preferences for health care decisions with someone other than their preferred surrogate. There appears to be a need to promote discussion of health care preferences between care-receivers and preferred surrogates.
VLA HI and OVRO CO Interferometry of a Tidal Dwarf Galaxy

We present high resolution interferometric observations of the cool atomic and cold molecular ISM of the TDG candidate Arp 245N, an object resembling a dwarf galaxy in the northern tidal tail of the interacting system NGC 2992/3. We observed the HI line with the NRAO VLA and the CO(1-->0) transition with the OVRO millimeter interferometer at 5''-6'' angular resolution (750 pc linear resolution). These datacubes offer the required spatial and velocity resolution to determine whether the mass concentration near the tip of the tail is a genuine feature, and hence a good TDG candidate, or an artefact caused by a fortuitous alignment of our line of sight with the direction of the tail. A preliminary analysis seems to confirm that Arp 245N is a self-gravitating entity.
Computer-Assisted Instruction In Adult Basic and Secondary Education: A Review of the Experimental Literature, 1984-1992

Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) in the adult basic and secondary education setting continues to attract the attention of researchers attempting to examine its effects compared to traditional methods not including CAI. All of the reviewed studies utilized control (non-CAI) and experimental (CAI) groups, and most examined any differences in reading, math, and/or other areas of achievement for statistical significance. A few investigations examined attitudes towards computers as well as achievement gains. Of 12 studies meeting the criteria for review, six indicated no statistically significant differences in achievement, two had mixed results, one had significance favorable to CAI, one had significance favorable to traditional methods, and two failed to report statistical significance. Implications are discussed.
Role of Fat Body Lipogenesis in Protection against the Effects of Caloric Overload in Drosophila*

Background: A high sugar diet leads to obesity and insulin resistance in Drosophila. Results: The metabolic fate of dietary glucose is reprogrammed in high sugar-fed and lean animals. Conclusion: Obesity is protective against the deleterious effects of a high sugar diet. Significance: An emerging perspective that obesity is protective against sequelae of human metabolic disease is conserved in the fly. The Drosophila fat body is a liver- and adipose-like tissue that stores fat and serves as a detoxifying and immune responsive organ. We have previously shown that a high sugar diet leads to elevated hemolymph glucose and systemic insulin resistance in developing larvae and adults. Here, we used stable isotope tracer feeding to demonstrate that rearing larvae on high sugar diets impaired the synthesis of esterified fatty acids from dietary glucose. Fat body lipid profiling revealed changes in both carbon chain length and degree of unsaturation of fatty acid substituents, particularly in stored triglycerides. We tested the role of the fat body in larval tolerance of caloric excess. Our experiments demonstrated that lipogenesis was necessary for animals to tolerate high sugar feeding as tissue-specific loss of orthologs of carbohydrate response element-binding protein or stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1 resulted in lethality on high sugar diets. By contrast, increasing the fat content of the fat body by knockdown of king-tubby was associated with reduced hyperglycemia and improved growth and tolerance of high sugar diets. Our work supports a critical role for the fat body and the Drosophila carbohydrate response element-binding protein ortholog in metabolic homeostasis in Drosophila.
Scale-Dependent Variability and Quantitative Regimes in Graph-Theoretic Representations of Human Cortical Networks

Studying brain connectivity is important due to potential differences in brain circuitry between health and disease. One drawback of graph-theoretic approaches to this is that their results are dependent on the spatial scale at which brain circuitry is examined and explicitly on how vertices and edges are defined in network models. To investigate this, magnetic resonance and diffusion tensor images were acquired from 136 healthy adults, and each subject's cortex was parceled into as many as 50,000 regions. Regions were represented as nodes in a reconstructed network representation, and interregional connectivity was inferred via deterministic tractography. Network model behavior was explored as a function of nodal number and connectivity weighing. Three distinct regimes of quantitative behavior assumed by network models as a function of spatial scale are identified, and their existence may be modulated by the spatial folding scale of the cortex. The maximum number of network nodes used to model human brain circuitry in this study (∼50,000) is larger than in previous macroscale neuroimaging studies. Results suggest that network model properties vary appreciably as a function of vertex assignment convention and edge weighing scheme and that graph-theoretic analysis results should not be compared across spatial scales without appropriate understanding of how spatial scale and model topology modulate network model properties. These findings have implications for comparing macro- to mesoscale studies of brain network models and understanding how choosing network-theoretic parameters affects the interpretation of brain connectivity studies.
VIP: A Flexible Virtual Integrated Platform for EVM Emulation

EVM (evaluation module) has become an important and useful tool both in developing embedded systems and in teaching course modules which cover embedded system programming. However, an EVM with the configuration suitable for the diversity in embedded system programming is usually quite expensive such that setting up a laboratory for students to practice programming embedded system sums a large amount of funding. This paper presents the development of VIP (virtual integrated platform) to provide flexibility in EVM emulation. VIP has notable features of flexibility in configuration, dynamic loading of device emulation modules, and visual device emulation. It integrates the emulation of configured devices at runtime to build an emulator of the target EVM. The development of VIP is composed of a framework to emulate a bus-structured platform as the base EVM and the device emulation modules connected to the bus, which are loaded at run time. It therefore has the advantages of not only its capability of flexible and extensible configuration and dynamically loading of device modules, but also the capability of catching up with the changes to new platforms or new devices by replacing device modules, in addition to being a low cost educational tool.
Maturation of synaptic partners: functional phenotype and synaptic organization tuned in synchrony

Maturation of principal neurons of the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body (MNTB) was assessed in the context of the developmental organization and activity of their presynaptic afferents, which grow rapidly to form calyces of Held and to establish mono‐innervation between postnatal days (P)2 and 4. MNTB neurons and their inputs were studied from embryonic day (E)17, when the nucleus was first discernable, until P14 after the onset of hearing. Using a novel slice preparation containing portions of the cochlea, cochlear nucleus and MNTB, we determined that synaptic inputs form onto MNTB neurons at E17 and stimulation of the cochlear nucleus can evoke action potentials (APs) and Ca2+ signals. We analysed converging inputs onto individual MNTB neurons and found that competition among inputs was resolved quickly, as a single large input, typically larger than 4 nA, emerged from P3–P4. During calyx growth but before hearing onset, MNTB cells acquired their mature, phasic firing property and quantitative real‐time PCR confirmed a coincident increase in low threshold K+ channel mRNA. These events occurred in concert with an increase in somatic surface area and a 7‐fold increase in the current threshold (30 to >200 pA) required to evoke action potentials, as input resistance (Rin) settled from embryonic values greater than 1 GΩ to approximately 200 MΩ. We postulate that the postsynaptic transition from hyperexcitability to decreased excitability during calyx growth could provide a mechanism to establish the mature 1:1 innervation by selecting the winning calyceal input based on synaptic strength. By comparing biophysical maturation of the postsynaptic cell to alterations in presynaptic organization, we propose that maturation of synaptic partners is coordinated by synaptic activity in a process that is likely to generalize to other neural systems.
[Prognostic significance of tryptophan catabolism in adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma].

PURPOSE Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1: IDO) is an enzyme catabolizing tryptophan (Trp) into the kynurenine (Kyn) pathway, and is an important micro-environmental factor suppressing antitumor immune responses. We investigated the prognostic significance of Trp catabolism in adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL). EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN We quantified serum Trp and Kyn in 96 ATL patients, 38 human T-cell lymphotropic virus type-1 asymptomatic carriers (HTLV-1 ACs), and 40 healthy adult volunteers. The relationships between various clinical parameters were analyzed. IDO expression was evaluated in the affected lymph nodes of ATL patients. RESULTS Serum Kyn concentrations and Kyn/Trp ratios were significantly higher in HTLV-1 ACs than in healthy controls. Both increased significantly with progression from HTLV-1 AC to ATL. There were no significant differences in serum Trp concentrations between ATL patients, HTLV-1 ACs and controls. IDO was possibly produced by ATL and/or cells in the microenvironment. Multivariate analyses demonstrated a high serum Kyn/Trp ratio and high Kyn level, but not a high Trp level, to be significant independent detrimental prognostic factors in ATL and aggressive variant ATL. CONCLUSIONS Quantification of serum Kyn and Trp is prognostically useful for individual ATL patients. Furthermore, ATL is an appropriate disease for testing novel cancer immunotherapies targeting IDO.
Pre-sorted multiple-branch successive interference cancelation detection for high-dimensional MIMO systems

In multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, the maximum likelihood detection (MLD) can obtain the maximum receive diversity order while its computational complexity grows exponentially with the number of constellation points and the transmitted streams. Lattice reduction (LR)-aided detection can parallel the diversity order of MLD with low complexity; however, its performance gap to MLD becomes wider with the increase of the system dimension that is expected with very large MIMO systems. In this paper, pre-sorted multiple-branch successive interference cancelation (PS-MB-SIC) detection techniques are proposed. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can approach the diversity order of MLD with much lower complexity and is suited to high-dimensional MIMO systems.
Sources of Subjective Task Value in Sport: An Examination of Adolescents with High or Low Value for Sport

Sport is an avenue for children and adolescents to improve physical skills as well as enhance their psychosocial development. Despite these benefits, numerous children and adolescents choose not to participate in sport. Eccles et al. (1983) have proposed that subjective task value (intrinsic, attainment, and utility value), a multidimensional construct of value, is a critical determinant of individuals achievement choices and behaviors. Although Eccles model establishes the relationship between value and achievement behaviors, the sources of value development for sport have yet to be investigated from a multidimensional perspective. Thus, the primary purpose of this study was to examine self-identified sources of intrinsic, attainment, and utility value among male and female adolescents. Ten male and 10 female eighth grade students classified into highor low-value groups were interviewed. Content analyses revealed, for example, that being afraid of injury, not having supportive parents, not experiencing skill improvement, not having opportunities to make friends through sport, and conflicts with coaches had a negative affect on their value for sport. In contrast, positive achievement experiences such as reaching goals, attaining benefits from sport, and perceiving that sport could be useful for future goals, for example, reflected positive sources of subjective task value for sport.
Index-based Most Similar Trajectory Search

The problem of trajectory similarity in moving object databases is a relatively new topic in the spatial and spatiotemporal database literature. Existing work focuses on the spatial notion of similarity ignoring the temporal dimension of trajectories and disregarding the presence of a general-purpose spatiotemporal index. In this work, we address the issue of spatiotemporal trajectory similarity search by defining a similarity metric, proposing an efficient approximation method to reduce its calculation cost, and developing novel metrics and heuristics to support k-most-similar-trajectory search in spatiotemporal databases exploiting on existing R-tree-like structures that are already found there to support more traditional queries. Our experimental study, based on real and synthetic datasets, verifies that the proposed similarity metric efficiently retrieves spatiotemporally similar trajectories in cases where related work fails, while at the same time the proposed algorithm is shown to be efficient and highly scalable.