Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Civil Renewal and Community Safety: Virtuous Policy Spiral or Dynamic of Exclusion?

Civil renewal is an emerging policy priority for the UK government, aiming to build stronger, more cohesive communities and to encourage individual citizens to be active members of such communities. The promotion of social capital and trust relationships is central to this approach. Strategies to improve community safety and reduce crime and disorder are closely related to the drive for civil renewal, with the two sets of policies seen as mutually supportive. This article shows, however, that many community safety initiatives are founded on relationships of suspicion between citizens. This generates a dynamic of exclusion that is likely to undermine attempts at civil renewal.
STUDENTS' ATTITUDES: THE "OTHER" IMPORTANT OUTCOME IN STATISTICS EDUCATION

The ultimate goal of statistics education is to produce adults who appropriately use statistical thinking. Most college students take only one statistics course, the introductory course. This course, then, is where we, as statistics instructors, do or do not motivate students to apply the statistics that they have learned in their jobs and in their lives. Yet, Butler (1998) entitled an AmStat Forum article “On the Failure of the Widespread Use of Statistics. ” He suggested that, in spite of the increasing numbers of adults who complete introductory statistics courses, these adults often do not use statistical methods in their jobs and, when they do try, “the results are shambles” (p. 84). The appropriate use of statistical understanding requires persistence. Students, of course, first need to complete their introductory statistics course successfully, rather than drop out. In their lives outside of class, they then need to be able to recognize when they require additional statistical knowledge and skills; obtain this additional statistical understanding or better yet enlist the aid of a statistician; and accurately use the skills they possess. The accomplishment of these goals requires more from students than a good grade in a statistics course. Students who will use their statistical knowledge appropriately must:
Postoperative Wound Oxygen Tension with Epidural or Intravenous Analgesia: A Prospective, Randomized, Single-blind Clinical Trial

Background Adequate tissue oxygen tension is an essential requirement for surgical-wound healing. The authors tested the hypothesis that epidural anesthesia and analgesia increases wound tissue oxygen tension compared with intravenous morphine analgesia. Methods In a prospective, randomized, blind clinical study, the authors allocated patients having major abdominal surgery (n = 32) to receive combined general and epidural anesthesia with postoperative patient-controlled epidural analgesia (epidural group, n = 16), or general anesthesia alone with postoperative patient-controlled intravenous analgesia (intravenous group, n = 16). An oxygen sensor and a temperature sensor were placed subcutaneously in the wound before closure. Wound oxygen tension (Pwo2) and temperature were measured continuously for 24 h. Other variables affecting wound tissue oxygenation and visual analogue scale (VAS) pain scores were also documented. Results Despite epidural patients having lower body temperatures at the end of surgery (35.7 ± 0.3) versus 36.3 ± 0.5 °C, P = 0.004), they had significantly higher mean Pwo2 over the 24 h period, compared with the intravenous group (64.4 ± 14 vs. 50.7 ± 15) mmHg, mean (SD), 95% CI difference, −22 to −5, P = 0.002). Area under the Pwo2 −24 h time curve was also significantly higher in the epidural group (930 ± 278 vs. 749 ± 257) mmHg × h, 95% CI difference −344 to −18, P = 0.03). VAS pain scores at rest and moving were significantly lower in the epidural group at all times. Conclusion Epidural anesthesia and postoperative analgesia for major abdominal surgery increases wound tissue oxygen tension compared with general anesthesia and intravenous morphine analgesia.
Market Timing And Selectivity: An Empirical Investigation Into The Features Of Greek Mutual Fund Managers

Τhis paper is an empirical assessment of the performance of mutual fund managers in terms of “market timing” and “selectivity”, within the framework suggested by Treynor and Mazuy (1966) and Henriksson and Merton (1981). The relevant data set is a balanced panel of nineteen Greek managers, over a sixty-month period. Empirical evidence does not provide support for correct timing, irrespectively of how the returns of the market index are calculated. It is interesting to note that using the Total Performance Index reduces the ability of managers for selectivity. This result holds for both the models utilized in our study.
Asian Fragmentation in the Global Financial Crisis

This paper studies the impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 on Japanese exports, focusing on international production networks in machinery sectors. For our survival analysis, we estimate a Cox proportional hazards model. Consequently, we find that Japanese exports to Asian countries, parts and components trade in particular, were less likely to stop during the crisis. Even if they stopped, such trade is more likely to be revived. Therefore, regardless of the worldwide economic crisis, Japan maintained trade relationships in parts and components in the machinery sectors.
Technical Note—Price as an Aspect of Choice in EBA

Elimination By Aspects (EBA) is a feature-based, psychological processing model of choice whose potential for customer decision modeling has not been exploited. One of several barriers to econometric application of the theory is the lack of an explicit framework for incorporating quantitative variables, such as price. The present study discusses a theoretical treatment of price within EBA which also serves as a guide to the treatment of other quantitative variables. Specifically, it is proposed that prices be represented as a sequence of nested price feature sets, in which the price feature set of an alternative is included in the price feature sets of all lower priced alternatives. The formal consequences of this representation are examined. Some predictions from the theory are tested on customer choice data.
From Raw Text to Universal Dependencies - Look, No Tags!

We present the Uppsala submission to the CoNLL 2017 shared task on parsing from raw text to universal dependencies. Our system is a simple pipeline consisting of two components. The first performs joint word and sentence segmentation on raw text; the second predicts dependency trees from raw words. The parser bypasses the need for part-of-speech tagging, but uses word embeddings based on universal tag distributions. We achieved a macro-averaged LAS F1 of 65.11 in the official test run, which improved to 70.49 after bug fixes. We obtained the 2nd best result for sentence segmentation with a score of 89.03.
Time-Series Momentum versus Technical Analysis

Time-series momentum and technical analysis are closely related. The returns generated by these two hitherto distinct return predictability techniques frequently have correlations in excess of 0.8. However, despite the similarities, there is a clear pattern of technical trading rules giving larger returns. These rules tend to signal earlier entries into and exits from long positions, which results in meaningful return gains. Both time-series momentum and technical analysis perform best outside of large stock series and both techniques are relatively immune to the crash risk which has been shown to be prevalent in cross-sectional momentum strategies.
Stress testing at the cellular and molecular level to unravel cellular dysfunction and growth factor signal transduction defects: What Molecular Cell Biology can learn from Cardiology

Summary Clinical medicine has been revolutionized by the impact of cellular and molecular biology in the past 30 years. This article focuses on a novel approach, whereby the clinically proven and important concept of patient or organ stress testing is being applied to cellular models, thereby developing and validating novel quantitative molecular and cellular stress tests. One example is monocyte chemotaxis analysis, whereby circulating monocytes freshly isolated from peripheral blood are being tested for their migratory responsiveness towards relevant biological stimuli such as growth factors or chemokines. These stimuli are relevant for recruiting monocytes to sites of local inflammation such as during wound healing or arteriogenesis, i.e. growth of collateral arteries. Initial clinical studies to validate “ligand-induced monocyte chemotaxis” indicate that this parameter is impaired in the presence of various cardiovascular risk factors including diabetes mellitus, hypercholesterolemia or smoking. In addition, there is proof of concept that impaired monocyte chemotaxis is reversible as shown for anti-oxidants in smokers. Moreover, the parameter “ligand-induced monocyte chemotaxis” is of great relevance for basic science (including Molecular Cell Biology) as unravelling the underlying molecular mechanisms of cellular dysfunction will certainly stimulate our understanding of the molecular basis of cellular function. This article highlights the concept of stress testing in modern medicine. Cellular stress testing is introduced as a novel and intriguing approach, which was developed as bedside-to-bench. Future prospective clinical trials will have to validate the predictive value of cellular stress testing.
Gender equality still on the European agenda—but for how long?

While the momentum has certainly not yet disappeared from the gender equality agenda within Europe, the impact of that agenda remains patchy. Progress within individual member states has been significant but not always steady or cumulative. At the European level more attention has been paid to the gender pay gap but policy initiatives remain weak. The loss of the equal opportunities pillar in the new employment guidelines puts this momentum at risk but the new phase still includes commitments to an integrated strategy of gender mainstreaming and equal opportunities.
Feature selection using modified imperialist competitive algorithm

Feature selection process is one of the main steps in data mining and knowledge discovery. Feature selection is a process to remove redundant and irreverent features without reducing the classification accuracy. This paper tries to select the best features set using imperialist competitive algorithm. Imperialist competitive algorithm is a novel population based algorithm which is inspired sociopolitical process of imperialist competition. In this paper, a modified imperialist competitive algorithm is presented and then this proposed algorithm is applied to feature selection process. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach, experiments carried out on some datasets. Results showed the features set selected by the imperialist competitive algorithm provide the better classification performance compared to the other methods.
Demo abstract: An experimentation facility enabling flexible network control for the Internet of Things

We present a showcase of our SDN-inspired facility for the Internet of Things (IoT) — the CORAL (Cross-Layer Control of Data Flows) infrastructure. CORAL provides a hierarchy of network controllers that monitor network behaviour and adapts network protocol parameters on demand. It is built on top of rich network control abstractions and is hardware-independent. Our facility offloads protocol functionality to the controllers, enabling intelligent IoT protocol adaptations. To demonstrate our solution, we focused on the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL). Although RPL is the state-of-the-art routing protocol for constrained devices and lossy networks, it is inefficient in mobile environments. We show a particular example where, using CORAL, we improve the Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) in a dynamic IoT topology.
Comparing MOOC Adoption Strategies in Europe: Results from the HOME Project Survey

Much of the literature and the academic discussion about the impact of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) in institutional strategic planning has been centred on the US context. However, data shows that although the US are responsible for the largest MOOC platforms and the most successful course provision, it is the European region which accounts for the highest percentage of global MOOC participation. Differently from the US Higher Education system framework, however, in Europe public policy and in particular the European Commission is now driving MOOC institutional uptake. Given the very different institutional, political and cultural contexts, it is interesting to analyse how in these two different regions Higher Education institutions are responding to the challenges of the MOOC phenomena and are integrating it in their own strategic planning. The current research presents the first attempt to conduct a benchmarking study of institutional MOOC strategies in Europe and the US. It's based on a survey launched by the EU-funded project HOME and compares results with a similar survey launched in the US. Results show that are significant differences in how US and European institutions understand the impact of massive forms of open education and also how they perceive the efficiency of digital education and online learning.
Are Busy Boards Detrimental?

Busy directors have been widely criticized as being ineffective. However, we hypothesize that busy directors offer advantages for many firms. While busy directors may be less effective monitors, their experience and contacts arguably make them excellent advisors. Among IPO firms, which have minimal experience with public markets and likely rely heavily on their directors for advising, we find busy boards to be common and to contribute positively to firm value. Moreover, these positive effects of busy boards extend to all but the most established firms. Benefits are lowest among Forbes 500 firms, which likely require more monitoring than advising.
APACHE II Predicts long-term survival in COPD patients admitted to a general medical ward

OBJECTIVE: The Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) was developed to predict intensive-care unit (ICU) resource utilization. This study tested APACHE II’s ability to predict long-term survival of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) admitted to general medical floors.DESIGN: We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients admitted for COPD exacerbation outside the ICU. APACHE II scores were calculated by chart review. Mortality was determined by the Social Security Death Index. We tested the association between APACHE II scores and long-term mortality with Cox regression and logistic regression.PATIENTS: The analysis included 92 patients admitted for COPD exacerbation in two Burlington, Vermont hospitals between January 1995 and June 1996.MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: In Cox regression, APACHE II score (hazard ratio [HR] 1.76 for each increase in a 3-level categorization, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.16 to 2.65) and comorbidity (HR 2.58; 95% CI, 1.36 to 4.88) were associated with long-term mortality (P < .05) in the univariate analysis. After controlling for smoking history, comorbidity, and admission pCO2, APACHE II score was independently associated with long-term mortality (HR 2.19; 95% CI, 1.27 to 3.80). In univariate logistic regression, APACHE II score (odds ratio [OR] 2.31; 95% confidence internal [CI] 1.24 to 4.30) and admission pCO2 (OR 4.18; 95% CI, 1.15 to 15.21) were associated with death at 3 years. After controlling for smoking history, comorbidity, and admission pCO2, APACHE II score was independently associated with death at 3 years (OR 2.62; 95% CI, 1.12 to 6.16). CONCLUSION: APACHE II score may be useful in predicting long-term mortality for COPD patients admitted outside the ICU.
Vascular and cognitive functions associated with cardiovascular disease in the elderly

This study examines the relationship between systemic vascular function, neurocognitive performance, and structural brain abnormalities on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) among geriatric outpatients with treated, stable cardiovascular disease and no history of neurological illness (n = 88, ages 56–85 years). Vascular function was assessed by cardiac ejection fraction and output, sequential systolic and diastolic blood pressures, flow mediated brachial artery reactivity (BAR), and carotid intima media thickness (IMT). White matter hyperintensities (WMH) on MRI were quantified and examined relative to cognitive and vascular function. Principal component analysis revealed two primary vascular components: one associated with cardiac function, the other with atherosclerotic burden/endothelial dysfunction. Both factors were significantly associated with cognitive function and WMH volume. Reduced systolic variability and increased IMT were most strongly related to reduced attention, executive function, and information-processing speed. These findings suggest the possibility that systemic vascular indices may provide proxy measures of cerebrovascular dysfunction and reinforce the importance of achieving greater understanding of interaction between systemic vascular disease and brain dysfunction among elderly people with cardiovascular disease.
Consumer behavior and perception of marketing strategy for amusement parks: A case study of Taiwan

The practice of the two-day weekend for tourist activities has improved the life quality. The purpose of this study was to investigate how marketing strategies influence the tourists’ consuming behaviors. By convenience sampling, this study investigated the 1170 customers who had experienced in Janfusun Fancy World Group in Central Taiwan. Inferential statistics including descriptive statistics, factor analysis, Pearson correlation coefficient, t-test and one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used to determine if there were significant differences in marketing strategies and consuming behavioral intentions among customers’ characteristics. The following conclusions were developed: (1) Consumer’s behaviors and perception of marketing strategies have significant correlation: alternative evaluation before consumption has a significant medium positive relationship with the price importance in the marketing mix; (2) about the perception of a marketing mix, the price importance has the highest positive relationship with the place importance; (3) Among demographic variables, gender makes significant impact on consumer’s choice of the security measures, traffic convenience and price levels. (4) Age and living areas appear to have significant differentiation in consumer’s choice of price strategies and marketing activities. Practical suggests are to have market segmentation by variables of gender, ages and geographical areas, and to make post purchase behavioral intention through high service quality. Key words: Marketing strategy, consuming behavior, amusement park.
Canada after 11 September: Security Measures and "Preferred" Immigrants

Canada has long been known as an immigrant-friendly nation with inviting policies allowing persons into the country. Founded on two distinct cultures of French and English immigrants, the government has developed policies that extend Canadian diversity by welcoming immigrants irrespective of their countries of origin. This tradition has served to shape and strengthen multiculturalism, defi ning Canada’s unique approach in both supporting immigrants’ retention of culture and their integration into Canadian life. Two recent events have contributed to changes in the way immigration is viewed in Canada: the smuggling and illegal landing of Fujian Chinese on the coast of British Columbia in 1999, and the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States. These events mark changes that more closely align Canadian and American policies and that have sparked a reversion to an earlier vision of preferred and nonpreferred immigrants. Consequently, there is a stronger focus on security that has far-reaching effects on Canadians and would-be Canadians, particularly immigrants and those in the process of immigrating to Canada. Immigrants from many cultural backgrounds, once viewed as contributors to the Canadian mosaic, are now portrayed negatively because of their race, religion, or both. The Canadian government’s department of immigration—Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)—has strengthened existing and developed new
Quasi-Analytical Model of 3-D Vertical-RRAM Array Architecture for MB-Level Design

This paper addresses the design challenges of simulating the 3-D vertical-resistive random access memory (V-RRAM) toward MB-level. The interconnect IR drop and sneak paths are known to be the limiting factors for building large-scale V-RRAM arrays. The previous approach to evaluate the write/read margin of V-RRAM was based on the exhaustive SPICE simulations, which prohibits the design exploration to MB-level as it takes huge amount of computation resources. In this paper, a quasi-analytical model is proposed, which aims to reduce the simulation time and the required memory usage. Through the validation with the SPICE simulation results, the proposed model shows a similar accuracy. Based on the proposed quasi-analytical model, the worst case data pattern of 3-D V-RRAM with large array size up to 4 MB is analyzed. The results show that it is more efficient to increase the number of stack layers than expanding the horizontal array size to achieve large subarray size.
FAILING COMPANY DISCRIMINANT-ANALYSIS

Mergers of competitors often violate antitrust laws. One of the few possible defenses to a merger prosecution is the Failing Company Doctrine. This defense can be invoked when one of two merging companies is failing and the failing company receives no offer to merge from a company with which a merger would have been legal. The Failing Company Model was constructed to aid in assessing the probability of business failure, where failure is defined in accordance with the meaning courts have imputed to it in the context of this antitrust defense. Predictive accuracy of the Failing Company Model was evaluated by discriminant analysis. This article reports the results of the discriminant analysis. Detailed discussion of the Failing Company Model and a proposed guide for decisions under the Failing Company Doctrine can be found elsewhere. '
Driving forces of informal labour supply and demand in Germany

The authors empirically investigate people's reasons for supplying or using informal labour , on the basis of data obtained from a 2010 survey of Ger- man residents. Building on existing research, they find that being unemployed, or having been unemployed in the past, significantly increases the probability of sup- plying informal labour. In addition, dissatisfaction with one's relative standing in society, and annoyance at government inefficiency, both have a significant positive effect on male informal labour supply. Informal labour demand, however, is not affected by these factors.