Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Active Labor Market Programs: Employment Gain or Fiscal Drain?

This paper provides a new perspective by classifying active labor market programs (ALMPs) depending on their main objectives and their relevance and cost-effectiveness during normal times, during a crisis, and during recovery. We distinguish ALMPs that provide: (i) incentives for retaining employment, (ii) incentives for creating employment, (iii) incentives for seeking and keeping a job, (iv) incentives for human capital enhancement, and (v) improved labor market matching. Reviewing evidence from the literature, we discuss direct and indirect effects of various interventions, their cost-effectiveness, and draw lessons for transition and developing countries. The paper concludes by providing a systematic overview of how, why, when and to what extent specific ALMPs are effective. In particular, the paper shows that ALMPs retaining employment, like work sharing schemes, should be applied in severe recessions for a limited time period of time only. ALMPs creating employment, like hiring subsidies, perform much better on cost-effectiveness and strengthen the outsiders' position in the labor market, especially during recoveries. In-work benefits and public works are not very cost-efficient in terms of raising employment, but might be cost-efficient in reducing poverty and inequity. Policies readjusting distorted employment incentives, such as activation and sanction measures, have proven to provide cost-effective results during normal times.
Hand‐held optical coherence tomography imaging in children with anterior segment dysgenesis

Case 1: A 5-year-old patient was seen because of conjunctivitis. An irregular circular white structure located underneath of the endothelium anteriorly to the limbus was found incidentally (Fig. 2). Diagnosis of Axenfeld’s anomaly was made. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) angle scans demonstrated a prominent anteriorly displaced Schwalbe line. The patient had several small (less than 1 mm) zones of the iridocorneal adhesions originating from the angular part of the iris and fixed behind the displaced Schwalbe line (Fig. 2E, right) in both eyes.
A Flow Cytometry-Based Phenotypic Screen To Identify Novel Endocytic Factors in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Endocytosis is a fundamental process for internalizing material from the plasma membrane, including many transmembrane proteins that are selectively internalized depending on environmental conditions. In most cells, the main route of entry is clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME), a process that involves the coordinated activity of over 60 proteins; however, there are likely as-yet unidentified proteins involved in cargo selection and/or regulation of endocytosis. We performed a mutagenic screen to identify novel endocytic genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae expressing the methionine permease Mup1 tagged with pHluorin (pHl), a pH-sensitive GFP variant whose fluorescence is quenched upon delivery to the acidic vacuole lumen. We used fluorescence-activated cell sorting to isolate mutagenized cells with elevated fluorescence, resulting from failure to traffic Mup1-pHl cargo to the vacuole, and further assessed subcellular localization of Mup1-pHl to characterize the endocytic defects in 256 mutants. A subset of mutant strains was classified as having general endocytic defects based on mislocalization of additional cargo proteins. Within this group, we identified mutations in four genes encoding proteins with known roles in endocytosis: the endocytic coat components SLA2, SLA1, and EDE1, and the ARP3 gene, whose product is involved in nucleating actin filaments to form branched networks. All four mutants demonstrated aberrant dynamics of the endocytic machinery at sites of CME; moreover, the arp3R346H mutation showed reduced actin nucleation activity in vitro. Finally, whole genome sequencing of two general endocytic mutants identified mutations in conserved genes not previously implicated in endocytosis, KRE33 and IQG1, demonstrating that our screening approach can be used to identify new components involved in endocytosis.
Subcarrier and Power Allocation for Multiuser MIMO-OFDM Systems with Various Detectors

Radio resource allocation for multiuser multiple input multiple output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) systems is an important issue to improve overall system performance. Although the achievable rate has been adopted for a performance indicator in most resource allocation schemes, it may not be practical if a nonideal receiver including a suboptimal detector is used instead of optimal one. Under this practical circumstance, we study the subcarrier and power allocation to minimize the average bit error rate (BER) subject to a total power constraint. Different allocation algorithms are proposed for various MIMO detectors such as the maximum likelihood (ML) detector, linear detectors and the successive interference cancellation (SIC) detector. We also propose suboptimal algorithms to reduce the complexity. Based on the simulation results, we can confirm that the proposed suboptimal algorithm for each detector can achieve a comparable performance with the optimal allocation with a much lower complexity.
Statistical Analysis of Large Simulated Yield Datasets for Studying Climate Effects

Many simulation studies have been carried out to predict the effect of climate change on crop yield. Typically, in such study, one or several crop models are used to simulate series of crop yield values for different climate scenarios corresponding to different hypotheses of temperature, CO2 concentration, and rainfall changes. These studies usually generate large datasets including thousands of simulated yield data. The structure of these datasets is complex because they include series of yield values obtained with different mechanistic crop models for different climate scenarios defined from several climatic variables (temperature, CO2 etc.). Statistical methods can play a big part for analyzing large simulated crop yield datasets, especially when yields are simulated using an ensemble of crop models. A formal statistical analysis is then needed in order to estimate the effects of different climatic variables on yield, and to describe the variability of these effects across crop models. Statistical methods are also useful to develop meta-models i.e., statistical models summarizing complex mechanistic models. The objective of this paper is to present a random-coefficient statistical model (mixed-effects model) for analyzing large simulated crop yield datasets produced by the international project AgMip for several major crops. The proposed statistical model shows several interesting features; i) it can be used to estimate the effects of several climate variables on yield using crop model simulations, ii) it quantities the variability of the estimated climate change effects across crop models, ii) it quantifies the between-year yield variability, iv) it can be used as a meta-model in order to estimate effects of new climate change scenarios without running again the mechanistic crop models. The statistical model is first presented in details, and its value is then illustrated in a case study where the effects of climate change scenarios on different crops are compared. See more from this Division: Special Sessions See more from this Session: Symposium--Perspectives on Climate Effects on Agriculture: The International Efforts of AgMIP
Profit-Aware Server Allocation for Green Internet Services

A server farm is examined, where a number of servers are used to offer a service to impatient customers. Every completed request generates a certain amount of profit, running servers consume electricity for power and cooling, while waiting customers might leave the system before receiving service if they experience excessive delays. A dynamic allocation policy aiming at satisfying the conflicting goals of maximizing the quality of users' experience while minimizing the cost for the provider is introduced and evaluated. The results of several experiments are described, showing that the proposed scheme performs well under different traffic conditions.
Industrial network anomaly behavior detection via exponential smoothing model

There are a lot of network monitors which are capable of performing network packets deep inspection (DPI) as a set of information security check. These steps include intrusion detection system check, exfiltration, detection and parental filtering. However, it is not allowed to use such a slow mechanism as DPI in industrial networks. Hence, architectors have to choose only one of two capabilities of the system: system is required to be fast and fail safe even without any protection mechanisms such as encryption and/or signatures. The proposed approach describes a model of abnormal activity detection, which uses two algorithms to work with industrial network traffic: one is based on Brown's adaptive prediction model and another one based on Support Vector Machine (SVM) predict method. Not typical events detection is demonstrated on test traffic captures.
Troubles With the Internet: The Dynamics of Help at Home

Despite advances in technology, nearly everyone experiences technical challenges using home computers and the Internet. In a field trial of household Internet usage, 89% of 93 families needed support from a computer help desk in the 1st year they used the Internet. However, usually only the most technically involved members of the family requested external technical support, and this behavior was associated with other computer-related behaviors in the household. We explore the process by which a family member with comparatively high technical skill or enthusiasm, often a teenager, becomes the family guru, makes external support requests, and becomes the person in the family to whom others turn for technical help. The family guru benefits from this role, influences the household's adoption of technology, and represents an important link between households and computer support professionals. The role also is a fascinating example of the evolution of intergeneration relationships.
Thickness Sensitivities for the Surface Course of Pavement based on the Variation of the Poisson Coefficient of Bituminous Concrete

The laboratory tests that allow to evaluate the Poisson coefficient of the pavement materials are costly in tropical countries. In the absence of these tests, a finite number of Poisson coefficient is often prescribed to design the pavements. This paper consists of studying the influence of these prescribed values in the structural design of the pavement, especially, on the thickness of the surface course. For this, we show that the values of Poisson coefficient taken between 0.25 and 0.45 are adapted for the flexible pavements because they do not affect the thickness of the surface course. The usefulness of the variation of the Poisson coefficient is illustrated with local data and the results show that the thickness of the bituminous and semi-rigid pavements can change when the prescribed values change. Keywords—Pavement structures; French method; Poisson coefficient; Bituminous concrete
SARS-CoV 3CL protease cleaves its C-terminal autoprocessing site by novel subsite cooperativity

Significance The SARS-CoV protease (3CLpro) has “noncanonical” substrate specificity for its C-terminal autoprocessing. Phe is required at both the second position upstream of the cleavage point (P2) and the third downstream position (P3′). This finding is surprising, given that 3CLpro reportedly requires Leu at the P2 position with no preference at the P3′ position. The conventional “consensus sequence” cannot explain this noncanonical specificity. Crystallography revealed that Phe at the P2 position changes the conformation of the substrate-binding pocket, and thereby creates the subsite for Phe at the P3′ position. This noncanonical specificity avoids the autoinhibition due to the mature C-terminal sequence of 3CLpro, which should be serious if Leu exists at the P2 position. The 3C-like protease (3CLpro) of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) cleaves 11 sites in the polyproteins, including its own N- and C-terminal autoprocessing sites, by recognizing P4–P1 and P1′. In this study, we determined the crystal structure of 3CLpro with the C-terminal prosequence and the catalytic-site C145A mutation, in which the enzyme binds the C-terminal prosequence of another molecule. Surprisingly, Phe at the P3′ position [Phe(P3′)] is snugly accommodated in the S3′ pocket. Mutations of Phe(P3′) impaired the C-terminal autoprocessing, but did not affect N-terminal autoprocessing. This difference was ascribed to the P2 residue, Phe(P2) and Leu(P2), in the C- and N-terminal sites, as follows. The S3′ subsite is formed by Phe(P2)-induced conformational changes of 3CLpro and the direct involvement of Phe(P2) itself. In contrast, the N-terminal prosequence with Leu(P2) does not cause such conformational changes for the S3′ subsite formation. In fact, the mutation of Phe(P2) to Leu in the C-terminal autoprocessing site abolishes the dependence on Phe(P3′). These mechanisms explain why Phe is required at the P3' position when the P2 position is occupied by Phe rather than Leu, which reveals a type of subsite cooperativity. Moreover, the peptide consisting of P4–P1 with Leu(P2) inhibits protease activity, whereas that with Phe(P2) exhibits a much smaller inhibitory effect, because Phe(P3′) is missing. Thus, this subsite cooperativity likely exists to avoid the autoinhibition of the enzyme by its mature C-terminal sequence, and to retain the efficient C-terminal autoprocessing by the use of Phe(P2).
Green Synthesis of Gold Nanoparticles Using Cyanobacteria and their Characterization

Two cyanobacteria Lyngbya majuscula and Spirulina subsalsa were used as bioreagent for the green synthesis of gold nanoparticles. Within 72 h of incubation at 15 mg L-1 Au3+ solution, the cyanobacterial biomass turned purple indicating intracellular reduction of Au3+ to Au0 and subsequent formation of gold nanoparticles. Gold nanoparticles were extracted from the gold-loaded biomass using 7.5 mM sodium citrate solution and characterization was done by UVvisible spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). While Spirulina showed synthesis of spherical nanoparticles of 5 nm -30 nm diameter along with very few nanorods, Lyngbya showed presence of spherical and hexagonal nanoparticles of 2 nm -25 nm diameters. XRD study confirmed the reduction of Au3+ to Au0. FTIR analysis indicated the presence of protein shells around the gold nanoparticles.
Association between HLA gene polymorphism and cutaneous adverse reactions caused by antiepileptic drugs

The association between cutaneous adverse drug reactions (cADRs) caused by antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) and human leukocyte antigen-A (HLA-A) and HLA-B genes in Chinese Han population in Shanghai was investigated. Through the case-control study, 30 child patients with AED-induced cADRs (cADRs group), 60 AED-tolerant child patients (AED-tolerant group) and 60 normal children not taking AEDs (normal group) were collected. The HLA-B*15:02 and HLA-A*31:01 genotypes were detected using the polymerase chain reaction-sequence-specific oligonucleotide (PCR-SSO) probe method, and the correlation of HLA-B*15:02 and HLA-A*31:01 genes with the incidence of cADRs was analyzed. The positive rate of HLA-B*15:02 gene was 83.33% in the cADRs group, which was significantly increased compared with that in the AED-tolerant and normal groups (P<0.01). The positive rate of HLA-A*31:01 gene was 63.33% in the cADRs group, which was obviously increased compared with that in the AED-tolerant and normal groups (P<0.01). There were no significant differences in HLA-B*15:02 and HLA-A*31:01 genotypes between the AED-tolerant and normal groups (P>0.05). The results showed that HLA-B*15:02 and HLA-A*31:01 are significantly associated with cADRs in a Chinese Han population in Shanghai, suggesting that HLA-B*15:02 and HLA-A*31:01 genotypes should be detected in the application of AEDs.
Coming to terms with quantified reasoning

The theory of finite term algebras provides a natural framework to describe the semantics of functional languages. The ability to efficiently reason about term algebras is essential to automate program analysis and verification for functional or imperative programs over inductively defined data types such as lists and trees. However, as the theory of finite term algebras is not finitely axiomatizable, reasoning about quantified properties over term algebras is challenging. In this paper we address full first-order reasoning about properties of programs manipulating term algebras, and describe two approaches for doing so by using first-order theorem proving. Our first method is a conservative extension of the theory of term alge- bras using a finite number of statements, while our second method relies on extending the superposition calculus of first-order theorem provers with additional inference rules. We implemented our work in the first-order theorem prover Vampire and evaluated it on a large number of inductive datatype benchmarks, as well as game theory constraints. Our experimental results show that our methods are able to find proofs for many hard problems previously unsolved by state-of-the-art methods. We also show that Vampire implementing our methods outperforms existing SMT solvers able to deal with inductive data types.
Social Positions and Collective Sense-Making in Crisis Communication

ABSTRACT This article addresses how uncertainties during crisis situations evolve over time and how social positions dynamically affect the collective sense-making process in social media crisis communication. We carried out two case studies on Twitter: (1) the Brussels attacks (2016) with 4,390,784 tweets and (2) the Munich rampage (2016) with 1,258,227 tweets. By applying computed regression-based time-series analyses, we revealed the underlying tweet behavior. As next steps, we trained a machine learning algorithm to identify tweets that express uncertainty and we conducted social network analyses to determine the most influential actors and their social positions. The results reveal that tweet behavior in early crisis stages is dominated by information distribution and guided by content that is characterized by a high percentage of tweets expressing uncertainty. Based on our results, we identified two forms of collective sense-making: (1) acute and guided collective sense-making and (2) evaluative and retrospective collective sense-making.
Quality of Experience Inference for Video Services in Home WiFi Networks

Customer experience is becoming of utmost importance for operators in home network management. Hence, a notion of the customers' QoE is vital, but has mostly been neglected in favor of QoS. In this article, we aim to close a significant gap between QoS and QoE in home networks by proposing a framework for inferring QoE from remotely collected network QoS metrics. We focus on video services (e.g., YouTube application) as the main contributor and generator of indoor network traffic. A case study is performed where an experimentally obtained dataset comprising network and application QoS parameters is obtained under varying conditions (i.e., poor coverage, network overload, contention, and interference). Predictive modeling is then used to build a predictor for multiple QoE classes given the network QoS metrics remotely accessible from access points based on industry adopted standards (i.e., TR-181). This enables operators to infer specific QoE metrics using remotely collected passive network measurement with no knowledge of application-specific parameters. We show that the proposed framework achieves accuracy in the range of 85 to 95 percent depending on the QoE class, hence demonstrating the effectiveness and potential of our approach.
Initiation of Apoptosis by Granzyme B Requires Direct Cleavage of Bid, but Not Direct Granzyme B–Mediated Caspase Activation

The essential upstream steps in granzyme B–mediated apoptosis remain undefined. Herein, we show that granzyme B triggers the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway through direct cleavage of Bid; however, cleavage of procaspases was stalled when mitochondrial disruption was blocked by Bcl-2. The sensitivity of granzyme B–resistant Bcl-2–overexpressing FDC-P1 cells was restored by coexpression of wild-type Bid, or Bid with a mutation of its caspase-8 cleavage site, and both types of Bid were cleaved. However, Bid with a mutated granzyme B cleavage site remained intact and did not restore apoptosis. Bid with a mutation preventing its interaction with Bcl-2 was cleaved but also failed to restore apoptosis. Rapid Bid cleavage by granzyme B (<2 min) was not delayed by Bcl-2 overexpression. These results clearly placed Bid cleavage upstream of mitochondrial Bcl-2. In granzyme B–treated Jurkat cells, endogenous Bid cleavage and loss of mitochondrial membrane depolarization occurred despite caspase inactivation with z-Val-Ala-Asp-fluoromethylketone or Asp-Glu-Val-Asp-fluoromethylketone. Initial partial processing of procaspase-3 and -8 was observed irrespective of Bcl-2 overexpression; however, later processing was completely abolished by Bcl-2. Overall, our results indicate that mitochondrial perturbation by Bid is necessary to achieve a lethal threshold of caspase activity and cell death due to granzyme B.
Stable distributions, pseudorandom generators, embeddings and data stream computation

In this paper we show several results obtained by combining the use of stable distributions with pseudorandom generators for bounded space. In particular: we show how to maintain (using only O(log n//spl epsiv//sup 2/) words of storage) a sketch C(p) of a point p/spl isin/l/sub 1//sup n/ under dynamic updates of its coordinates, such that given sketches C(p) and C(q) one can estimate |p-q|/sub 1/ up to a factor of (1+/spl epsiv/) with large probability. We obtain another sketch function C' which maps l/sub 1//sup n/ into a normed space l/sub 1//sup m/ (as opposed to C), such that m=m(n) is much smaller than n; to our knowledge this is the first dimensionality reduction lemma for l/sub 1/ norm we give an explicit embedding of l/sub 2//sup n/ into l/sub l//sup nO(log n)/ with distortion (1+1/n/sup /spl theta/(1)/) and a non-constructive embedding of l/sub 2//sup n/ into l/sub 1//sup O(n)/ with distortion (1+/spl epsiv/) such that the embedding can be represented using only O(n log/sup 2/ n) bits (as opposed to at least n/sup 2/ used by earlier methods).