Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Location, search costs and youth unemployment: A randomized trial of transport subsidies in Ethiopia

Do high costs of search affect the labour market outcomes of young job seekers living far away from the centre of cities? I randomly assign temporary and non-fungible transport subsidies to unemployed youth living in spatially dislocated areas of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Lowering transport costs increases the intensity of job search (during and after treatment), and increases the likelihood of finding permanent employment by 6 percentage points in the short run. Analysis of weekly phone call data show that search activity declines over time but the subsidies prevent this from happening in the treatment group. The subsidies reduce participation in temporary and informal work, suggesting an important role for alternative sources of income to support job seekers. I explain these results with a dynamic model of job search with savings, cash constraints and monetary search costs. The predictions of the model are quantitatively consistent with the estimated impacts on increased job search activity, and in turn the rates at which jobs are found. These results suggest that the cost of transport in large cities can lead to frictions in the matching of firms and workers and reinforce spatial inequality.
Reinforcement active learning hierarchical loops

A curious agent, be it a robot, animal or human, acts so as to learn as much as possible about itself and its environment. Such an agent can also learn without external supervision, but rather actively probe its surrounding and autonomously induce the relations between its action's effects on the environment and the resulting sensory input. We present a model of hierarchical motor-sensory loops for such an autonomous active learning agent, meaning a model that selects the appropriate action in order to optimize the agent's learning. Furthermore, learning one motor-sensory mapping enables the learning of other mappings, thus increasing the extent and diversity of knowledge and skills, usually in hierarchical manner. Each such loop attempts to optimally learn a specific correlation between the agent's available internal information, e.g. sensory signals and motor efference copies, by finding the action that optimizes that learning. We demonstrate this architecture on the well-studied vibrissae system, and show how sensory-motor loops are actively learnt from the bottom-up, starting with the forward and inverse models of whisker motion and then extending them to object localization. The model predicts transition from free-air whisking that optimally learns the self-generated motor-sensory mapping to touch-induced palpation that optimizes object localization, both observed in naturally behaving rats.
Towards an automatic road lane marks extraction based on ISODATA segmentation and shadow detection from large-scale aerial images

The automatic extraction of road features from remote sensed images has been a topic of great interest within the photogrammetric and remote sensing communities for over 3 decades. Although various techniques have been reported in the literature, it is still challenging to efficiently extract the road details with the increasing of image resolution as well as the requirement for accurate and up-to-date road data. In this paper, we will focus on the automatic detection of road lane markings, which are crucial for many applications, including lane level navigation and lane departure warning. The approach consists of four steps: i) data preprocessing, ii) image segmentation and road surface detection, iii) road lane marking extraction based on the generated road surface, and iv) testing and system evaluation. The proposed approach utilized the unsupervised ISODATA image segmentation algorithm, which segments the image into vegetation regions, and road surface based only on the Cb component of YCbCr color space. A shadow detection method based on YCbCr color space is also employed to detect and recover the shadows from the road surface casted by the vehicles and trees. Finally, the lane marking features are detected from the road surface using the histogram clustering. The experiments of applying the proposed method to the aerial imagery dataset of Gympie, Queensland demonstrate the efficiency of the approach.
Quantitative System Evaluation with Java Modeling Tools (Tutorial Paper)

Java Modelling Tools (JMT) is a suite of open source applications for performance evaluation and workload characterization of computer and communication systems based on queueing networks. JMT includes tools for workload characterization (JWAT), solution of queueing networks with analytical algorithms (JMVA), simulation of general-purpose queueing models (JSIM), bottleneck identification (JABA), and teaching support for Markov chain models underlying queueing systems (JMCH). This tutorial summarizes the main features of the tools that compose the suite. Furthermore, using a composite case study, we provide intuition on the versatility of JMT in dealing with the different aspects of quality-of-service (QoS) evaluation, what-if analysis, and software performance tuning.
Mining Cross-network Association for YouTube Video Promotion

We introduce a novel cross-network collaborative problem in this work: given YouTube videos, to find optimal Twitter followees that can maximize the video promotion on Twitter. Since YouTube videos and Twitter followees distribute on heterogeneous spaces, we present a cross-network association-based solution framework. Three stages are addressed: (1) heterogeneous topic modeling, where YouTube videos and Twitter followees are modeled in topic level; (2) cross-network topic association, where the overlapped users are exploited to conduct cross-network topic distribution transfer; and (3) referrer identification, where the query YouTube video and candidate Twitter followees are matched in the same topic space. Different methods in each stage are designed and compared by qualitative as well as quantitative experiments. Based on the proposed framework, we also discuss the potential applications, extensions, and suggest some principles for future heterogeneous social media utilization and cross-network collaborative applications.
Immigrant Versus Non-Immigrant Differences in Demand for Unions : A Test of the Self -Protection Model

This study examines differences in demand for unions between native born and foreign born persons in Canada. Surveying 175 participants from immigrant and non-immigrant samples allowed evaluation of assumptions within the selfprotection model. Some differences exist in the perceptions and importance of unions during job search between the two groups. 2 We have entered an era of globalization that not only promotes movement of goods and services between countries, but also movement of labour, through immigration, across the world. This leads to a growing diversity in the labour market, which has a direct and significant impact on organized labour. Specifically, in Canada, the nineties brought on a serge of immigration. According to the 2001 Census completed by the Canadian Federal Government, the percentage of the population that represented individuals residing in Canada who were foreign born in 2001 was 18.4%. This is the highest proportion of immigrants in the population that Canada has seen in the last seventy years. 46% of new immigrants were between the ages 25-44 (labour force ready), as compared with only 31% of the Canadian population. Additionally, immigrants accounted for 70% of the labour force growth between 1991 and 2001. Nevertheless, Canadian academic research has neglected the impact of immigrants on the labour market, specifically labour market institutions (unions). The importance of the immigrant group on organized labour can no longer be overlooked. Union recruiting efforts and management behaviour control the supply of unions, but as more immigrants become active members of the labour force they have an increasingly influential effect on the demand for organized labour. Collectively, the equilibrium point between supply and demand determines unionization levels. There exists no research investigating demand differences between immigrants and non-immigrants in Canada. Thus, the impact of immigrants on the demand for unions as compared to non-immigrant Canadians demand for unions has yet to be explored. First, this article outlines its uniqueness and develops key definitions to create an awareness of the significance of the issue. Next, a review of four prominent theories regarding the impact of immigrants on organized labour reveals that the most applicable theory of organized labour in Canada is the self-protection model, which was developed by industrial relations academics. Subsequently, the self-protection model is applied to form hypotheses regarding importance of unionization in job search and union instrumentality, comparing foreign born vs. native born differences. A comparative analysis is developed which assesses demands for unionization using immigrant and non-immigrant subjects. The difference in demand for unions between these two groups is measured to provide a basis for outlining the impact that immigrants will have on organized labour.
Experiments with Lattice-based PPRLM Language Identification

In this paper we describe experiments conducted during the development of a lattice-based PPRLM language identification system as part of the NIST 2005 language recognition evaluation campaign. In experiments following LRE05, the PPRLM-lattice sub-system presented here achieved a 30s/primary condition EER of 4.87%, making it the single best performing recognizer developed by the MIT-LL team. Details of implementation issues and experimental results are presented and interactions with backend score normalization are explored
Perspectives of Juvenile Offenders Undergoing Victim-Offender Mediation with their Own Family Members: A Qualitative Study

ABSTRACT The authors suggest that victim-offender mediation could be applied within the family contexts based on two arguments: (a) family members of offenders are also victims of the latter’s crime and (b) repairing family relationships is pivotal in juvenile rehabilitation. Therefore, the objective of this research was to assess the perspectives of 11 juvenile offenders undergoing victim-offender mediation with their family members. A thematic analysis suggests that the juvenile offenders were satisfied with the process and outcome of the mediation especially in regard to the honesty and behavior shown by their family members. The mediation sessions and feedback from the juvenile offenders are discussed. The broad satisfaction reported by the offenders, with both the program and family participation, suggests that the application of the victim-offender mediation model into the family context may provide a promising alternative avenue for the rehabilitation of offenders.
Immune function and psychological distress in familial dementia caregivers: A controlled trial of a cognitive -behavioral intervention

Immune Function And Psychological Distress In Familial Dementia Caregivers: A Controlled Trial Of A Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention by Kevin M. Lancer, M.A. Dr. Douglas Ferraro, Examination Committee Chair Professor o f Psychology University o f Nevada, Las Vegas Recent data on the prevalence o f Alzhiemer’s disease estimate that sufferers could number as high as 4.78 million; that number is expected to quadruple by the year 2050. The vast majority o f persons with dementia reside in the community, able to do so because o f the care received from their families. The increase in the number o f the elderly dependent on others for assistance will continue to increase, straining already limited individual and societal resources. The subjects o f this study were Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (ADRD) familial caregivers, representing a portion o f society needing assistance and that is growing both in sheer numbers and overall percentage of the population. Caregivers dealing with the symptoms o f a gradual, progressive, irreversible neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s face numerous emotional, psychological, social, and financial demands that classify ADRD caregiving as a chronic stressor. In addition, familial caregivers are often elderly themselves, and are at an
Report of a Novel Mutation in MLH1 Gene in a Hispanic Family from Puerto Rico Fulfilling Classic Amsterdam Criteria for Lynch Syndrome

In Puerto Rico, colorectal cancer (CRC) represents the second leading cause of cancer in men and women. Familial CRC accounts for 10–15% of the total CRC cases, while Lynch syndrome accounts for approximately 2–4% of cases. Limited information is available about the prevalence, clinical manifestations, and genetic mutations of hereditary CRC in US Hispanic individuals. In this paper we report a novel mutation in the hMLH1 gene in a Puerto Rican Hispanic family with Lynch syndrome recruited through the Puerto Rico Familial Colorectal Cancer Registry (PURIFICAR). Our proband was identified by applying Amsterdam and Bethesda criteria for Lynch syndrome, analysis of protein expression by immunohistochemistry, and genetic sequencing of the mismatch repair genes. A novel mutation at c. 2044_2045 in hMLH1 consisting of the deletion of two consecutive nucleotides (AT) at exon 18 was identified. This deletion causes a frameshift in the protein coding sequence at p.682 resulting in premature termination and a truncated MLH1 protein. To our knowledge, this mutation has not been previously reported in the literature. The detection of this novel mutation in MLH1 further emphasizes the need for genetic testing in at-risk patients for hereditary CRC from various ethnic and racial backgrounds.
Streaming agent for wired network/wireless link rate-mismatch environment

It has been shown that an agent located at the junction of wired and wireless links can help streaming media systems identify where packet losses occur and therefore maintain proper end-to-end congestion control. In this paper, we further expand the functionality of such agents in two ways. First, they allow streaming servers to identify the allowed transmission rate in both the wired and wireless parts of the path. Second, they serve as a relay to exploit the difference in transmission rate of the two parts. Simulation results show that PSNR improvement of over 2 dB can be achieved without extra bandwidth usage in the bottleneck links.
POOLED ESTIMATION AND ERROR CORRECTION APPROACH TO A DYNAMIC PANEL SOLOW GROWTH MODEL

SUMMARY The purpose of this paper is to estimate a Solow growth model taking into account a specific dynamic panel data approach, which allows for model misspecification and error correction model (ECM) estimation. Our data set compiles information about per capita income, population growth and saving rates for 123 countries during thirty years, from 1960 to 1989. First, we run ADF and PP unit root tests and LS tests to allow possible structural changes for all countries in the sample. This country-by-country analysis is carried out in order to identify the variables integration orders that drive all the variables in the model. Based upon this three samples are endogenously selected: the I(1) per capita income countries, the I(2) per capita income countries and those which an structural break in the per capita income series can be found. Then, we perform panel data unit root and cointegration tests in order to check for the entire panel dynamics. Finally the panel cointegration dynamics is estimated by the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) method only for I(1) time series. The final model we have achieved is corrected to account for usual misspecifications of traditional panel data growth models. Moreover, it is able to demonstrate evidences that support the original findings on the magnitude of inputs shares of the neoclassical function and approach a more reasonable convergence rates across countries. The neoclassical economic growth theory was revolutionized since Robert Solow has published a seminal paper in 1956. Furthermore, it posited the arguments for a discussion based on the long run dynamics of growth. The essential aspect of the Solow model is the neoclassical assumption on the analytical representation of the production function, which usually assumes constant returns to scale, diminishing returns to each input and some degree of substitution among them. Such a kind of framework, combined to a specification that takes into account a constant saving rate function and an exogenous technical change rate became the cornerstone of the literature concerning the behavior of income growth across countries. Two important results arise from the basic models sketched above that are worth to emphasize. The first one concerns the conditional convergence of income among countries and the second addresses an issue on how to introduce technical change into this sort of model. Moreover, the first result has been exhaustively discussed in the past decades and implies a negative correlation between the initial level of …
Particle Swarm Optimization Model for Dynamic Supply Chain Inventory Optimization involving Lead Time

Efficient and effective management of inventory throughout the supply chain significantly improves the ultimate service provided to the customer. Efficient inventory management is a complex process which entails the management of the inventory in the entire supply chain and getting the final solution as optimal leading to minimum total supply chain cost. The dynamic nature of the excess stock level and shortage level over all the periods is a serious issue when implementation is considered. In addition, the complexity of the problem increases when more number of distribution centers and agents are involved. Moreover, the supply chain cost increases because of the influence of lead times for supplying the stocks . A better optimization methodology would consider all these factors in the prediction of the optimal stock levels to be maintained in order to minimize the total supply chain cost. In this paper, an optimization methodology is proposed that utilizes the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm, one of the best optimization algorithms to overcome the impasse in maintaining the optimal stock levels in each member of the supply chain.
Relay selection for decode-and-forward cooperative vehicular networks with virtual noise modelling

In this paper, error performance analysis of decode and forward (DF) based cooperative vehicular networks with relay selection is considered. All of the links in the system are modeled as cascaded Nakagami-m distributed random variables which provide a realistic description of an intervehicular channel. The performance of virtual noise (VN) based detection technique developed for mitigating error propagation in wireless relay systems employing DF protocol is investigated and it has been shown that VN technique provides significant performance improvement with respect to the classic MRC method in cooperative vehicular networks.
Energy-Aware High Performance Computing: A Taxonomy Study

To reduce the energy consumption and build a sustainable computer infrastructure now becomes a major goal of the high performance community. A number of research projects have been carried out in the field of energy-aware high performance computing. This paper is devoted to categorize energy-aware computing methods for the high-end computing infrastructures, such as servers, clusters, data centers, and Grids/Clouds. Based on a taxonomy of methods and system scales, this paper reviews the current status of energy-aware HPC research and summarizes open questions and research directions of software architecture for future energy-aware HPC studies.
Parasites, testosterone and honest carotenoid-based signalling of health

1. Among the commonest sexual signals of birds are the red-yellow traits pigmented by carotenoids, but how they reliably advertise individual quality remain poorly understood. Here we tested the hypothesis that carotenoid-based signalling is enhanced by testosterone but reduced by parasites, and that the dual action of testosterone on ornament expression and parasite resistance ensures reliable signalling. 2. Tetraonid birds such as the red grouse Lagopus lagopus scoticus have bright red combs pigmented by carotenoids, which function in intra- and inter-sexual selection. In separate experiments, we manipulated a main nematode parasite, Trichostrongylus tenuis (using deparasitation and re-infection) and testosterone (using testosterone or combined Flutamide/ATD treatments) in free-living males and investigated effects on plasma carotenoids and comb colour. 3. In untreated males, comb redness positively correlated with plasma carotenoids, testosterone concentration and condition. Plasma carotenoids and comb redness both negatively correlated with T. tenuis abundance. 4. Plasma carotenoids decreased in response to a challenge from T. tenuis, but increased when parasites were reduced. Testosterone enhanced comb redness, but tended to deplete plasma carotenoids. Combined Flutamide and ATD treatment had no significant effects on comb colour or plasma carotenoids, indicating that testosterone effects might be direct. 5. Our experiments show contrasted effects of testosterone and nematode parasites on carotenoid-based ornamentation. Testosterone and parasites have well documented interactions in the study model. These, together with the opposite effects that testosterone and parasites have on carotenoid availability and use, would shape optimal levels of signalling, depending on individual quality, and might ensure reliable signalling. 6. Carotenoid-based and testosterone-dependent traits have rarely been linked. Our study provides such a connection and shows that investigating how parasites, testosterone and carotenoids interact helps in the understanding of the evolution and maintenance of honest carotenoid-based signals of health.
Sustainable innovation and frugal innovation: Exploring the relationships between Innovation and sustainability

Ce papier constitue une tentative de positionner innovation soutenable et innovation frugale par rapport aux principes de durabilite. Notre contribution vise a analyser ensemble ces deux types d’innovation tres recemment traites dans la litterature relevant des etudes sur l’innovation. L’innovation soutenable relie les efforts d’innovation avec les performances environnementales et les ameliorations des relations sociales. En revanche, l’innovation frugale est definie comme un nouveau paradigme technologique, principalement provoque par la recherche de produits a bas couts a destination des classes pauvres ou des consommateurs les moins riches. Nous decrivons comment et pourquoi ces deux types d’innovation constituent des nouveautes. On avance egalement que l’innovation frugale possede des proprietes de durabilite. Enfin, on considere les deux types d’innovation comme des innovations responsables, une nouvelle categorie dans le champ des etudes d’innovation. Cet article tend a clarifier la relation entre innovation et durabilite.