Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rethinking policy-related research: charting a path using qualitative comparative analysis and complexity theory

This article argues that conventional quantitative and qualitative research methods have largely failed to provide policy practitioners with the knowledge they need for decision making. These methods often have difficulty handling real-world complexity, especially complex causality. This is when the mechanism of change is a combination of conditions that occur in a system such as an organisation or locality. A better approach is to use qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), a hybrid qualitative/quantitative method that enables logical reasoning about actual cases, their conditions and how outcomes emerge from combinations of these conditions. Taken together, these comprise a system, and the method works well with a whole-system view, avoiding reductionism to individual behaviours by accounting for determinants that operate at levels beyond individuals. Using logical reduction, QCA identifies causal mechanisms in sub-types of cases differentiated by what matters to whether the outcome happens or not. In contrast to common variable-based methods such as multiple regression, which are divorced from actual case realities, QCA is case-based and rooted in these realities. The use of qualitative descriptors of conditions such as ways of working engages practitioners, while their standardisation enables systematic comparison and a degree of generalisation about ‘why’ questions that qualitative techniques typically do not achieve. The type of QCA described in the article requires conditions and outcomes to be dichotomised as present or absent, which is helpful to practitioners facing binary decisions about whether to do (a) or (b), or whether or not an outcome has been achieved.
An Obesity-Predisposing Variant of the FTO Gene Regulates D2R-Dependent Reward Learning

Variations in the fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) gene are linked to obesity. However, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms by which these genetic variants influence obesity, behavior, and brain are unknown. Given that Fto regulates D2/3R signaling in mice, we tested in humans whether variants in FTO would interact with a variant in the ANKK1 gene, which alters D2R signaling and is also associated with obesity. In a behavioral and fMRI study, we demonstrate that gene variants of FTO affect dopamine (D2)-dependent midbrain brain responses to reward learning and behavioral responses associated with learning from negative outcome in humans. Furthermore, dynamic causal modeling confirmed that FTO variants modulate the connectivity in a basic reward circuit of meso-striato-prefrontal regions, suggesting a mechanism by which genetic predisposition alters reward processing not only in obesity, but also in other disorders with altered D2R-dependent impulse control, such as addiction. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Variations in the fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) gene are associated with obesity. Here we demonstrate that variants of FTO affect dopamine-dependent midbrain brain responses and learning from negative outcomes in humans during a reward learning task. Furthermore, FTO variants modulate the connectivity in a basic reward circuit of meso-striato-prefrontal regions, suggesting a mechanism by which genetic vulnerability in reward processing can increase predisposition to obesity.
Monetary Commitment and the Level of Public Debt

We analyze the interaction between committed monetary policy and discretionary fiscal policy in a model with public debt, endogenous government expenditures, distortive taxation and nominal rigidities. Fiscal decisions lack commitment but are Markov-perfect. Monetary commitment to an interest rate path leads to a unique level of debt. This level of debt is positive if the central bank adopts closed-loop strategies that raise the real interest rate when inflation is above target owing to fiscal deviations. More aggressive defence of the inflation target implies lower debt and higher welfare. Simple Taylor-type interest rate rules achieve welfare levels similar to those generated by sophisticated closed-loop strategies.
Human Sperm-Specific Peptide Vaccine That Causes Long-Term Reversible Contraception1

Abstract A novel dodecamer peptide sequence, YLP12, was identified on human sperm that is involved in oocyte binding. We investigated its immunocontraceptive effects in a murine model. A vaccine was prepared by conjugating the synthetic YLP12 peptide with the binding subunit of recombinant cholera toxin. Vaccination of female mice by i.m. or intranasal routes without any additional adjuvant induced a sperm-specific immune response in serum and the vaginal tract that caused a long-term contraceptive state. Fertility was fully regained when antibody reactivity diminished at 305–322 days. The contraceptive effect was also completely reversed voluntarily by intravaginal administration of the peptide. Antibodies affected fertility at the prefertilization stage by inhibiting sperm capacitation and the acrosome reaction, and sperm-oocyte binding. The peptide sequence is an epitope of a 50 ± 5-kDa membrane protein localized on the acrosome and tail of spermatozoa. Thus, the sperm-specific YLP12 is an attractive candidate for contraceptive vaccine.
Impact of Research and Innovation on Productivity of Firms: Empirical Evidence on German Smes

This paper is focusing on the impacts of R&D and innovation on productivity of firms at the firm level due to different behaviour towards innovation between SMEs and large firms. The aim is to understand why and to which extent firms decide to invest in innovation, what drives the innovation output and what are the impacts of the innovation output on productivity of firms. We make use of the data from specific innovation surveys on which we estimate an extended CDM model by size of firm applied in 4 successive steps. We find that for small firms unlike medium or large firms, innovation output has a negative impact on their productivity, which is counterbalanced by the public support.
Cryptanalysis of two password authenticated key exchange protocols based on RSA

In 2002, Zhu et al. proposed a password-based authenticated key exchange protocol based on RSA. Many researchers pointed out that Zhu et al.'s protocol is vulnerable to off-line dictionary attack. In 2003, Yeh et al. proposed an improved protocol. Recently, Lo and Yang-Wang pointed out that Yeh et al.'s improved protocol is also vulnerable to offline dictionary attack. To avoid this weakness existed in Yeh et al.'s protocol, Lo and Yang-Wang proposed two improved protocols. However, in this letter, we show that the Lo protocol is vulnerable to an active off-line dictionary attack and the Yang-Wang protocol is vulnerable to a passive off-line dictionary attack
Making chocolate-covered broccoli: designing a mobile learning game about food for young people with diabetes

Assessing the amount of carbohydrates in their food is central for people with diabetes mellitus on intensive insulin therapy. This can be a challenging task for adults, but it is particularly so for young people since being a teenager takes attention from disease management. Learning happens in everyday life, but formal diabetes education is also considered an important aspect of diabetes self-management. In a case study we wanted to investigate how, and to which extent, to add motivation (chocolate) to learning (broccoli) by applying participatory design methods in the development of a mobile game about carbohydrate counting. This paper presents the design process and the resulting prototype. It concludes with challenges and opportunities for design of digital learning systems for children and adolescents addressing the carbohydrate counting issue.
Exploring the health and wellbeing benefits of gardening for older adults

ABSTRACT Research shows that contact with nature plays a vital role in our psychological wellbeing. Domestic gardening is common among older adults who spend more leisure hours gardening than any other age group. Despite this, few studies have systematically explored the significance of domestic gardens in relation to older adults' health and wellbeing. This study examined the perceived therapeutic benefits of gardening, and the effect of ageing in relation to older gardeners' continued participation in gardening, using quantitative and qualitative data from a survey of Australian older adult gardeners (N=331). The quantitative data, which included frequencies, were analysed using the PASW Statistics 18.0 package. The qualitative data, which included participants' responses to open questions, were analysed by deriving themes via Leximancer, an innovative text analytics software that uses word association information to elicit concepts, extracting the most important and grouping these according to themes. In relation to the reasons for gardening, several themes were identified including valuing the aesthetics of gardens, connecting with nature, achievement, and physical and mental activity. The benefits of gardening, and the variety of ways that respondents had adapted or modified their gardening activities in order to continue, are also reported. Gardening was more than a casual leisure pursuit for these participants, who saw it as critical to their physical and psychological wellbeing.
An information grid contents management platform for cultural heritage promotion

In this paper the authors address some methodological and technical issues on managing collections of digital documents published on the web by many different and autonomous stakeholders. To cope with this kind of problems the notions of document, of cooperative knowledge community, a set of cooperative content management system nodes glued together by a web semantic oriented middleware, and content knowledge authority are introduced. Within the community, each content provider will publish a set of documents and data model interpreters to collect, organize and publish documents through internet. The architecture of the distributed and cooperative content management system developed and deployed, called Octapy3), and its usage to organize cultural heritage multimedia documents collections are described. The test-bed prototype connects about 100 museums spread on the territory of Campania, Puglia (Italy) and Albany.
Differential responses to branched and unsaturated aliphatic hydrocarbons in the rat olfactory system

In an effort to understand mammalian olfactory processing, we have been describing the responses to systematically different odorants in the glomerular layer of the main olfactory bulb of rats. Previously, we demonstrated chemotopically organized and distinct olfactory responses to a homologous series of straight‐chained alkanes that consisted of purely hydrocarbon structures, indicating that hydrocarbon chains could serve as molecular features in the combinatorial coding of odorant information. To better understand the processing of hydrocarbon odorants, we now have examined responses to other types of chemical changes in these kinds of molecules, namely, branching and carbon–carbon bond saturation. To this end, we used the [14C]2‐deoxyglucose method to determine glomerular responses to a group of eight‐carbon branched alkane isomers, unsaturated octenes (double‐bonded), and octynes (triple‐bonded). In contrast to the differential responses we observed previously for straight‐chained alkanes of differing carbon number, the rat olfactory system was not particularly sensitive to these variations in branching and bond saturation. This result was unexpected, given the distinct molecular conformations and property profiles of the odorants. The similarity in activity patterns was paralleled by a similarity in spontaneous perceptual responses measured using a habituation assay. These results demonstrate again the functional relationship between bulbar activity patterns and odor perception. The results further suggest that the olfactory system does not respond equally to all aspects of odorant chemistry, functioning as a specific, rather than a general, chemical analysis system. J. Comp. Neurol. 499:519–532, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Task, Coping, and Scheduling Self-Efficacy in Relation to Frequency of Physical Activity1

Self-efficacy has been shown to be a robust predictor of exercise and other health-related behaviors (e.g., Bandura, 1986, 1995, 1997; Godin, Desharnais, Valois, & Bradet, 1995; Maddux, 1995; McAuley, Wraith, & Duncan, 1991). Maddux has proposed that there are different types of self-efficacy and that these types may fulfill different roles in the motivation of behavior, perhaps based on characteristics of the target behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine 3 different types of self-efficacy: task, coping, and scheduling and their respective usefulness in distinguishing among persons reporting different levels of exercise involvement. A cross-sectional telephone survey using exercise behavior as the selection criterion was completed with 203 adults. Results showed that coping and scheduling efficacy were the best disciminators of level of exercise behavior. Task efficacy did not clearly distinguish between exercise groups. The theoretical and applied implications are discussed, particularly noting specific targets for future intervention.
Técnicas de representación de textos para clasificación no supervisada de documentos

En este articulo se estudia el impacto de la representacion del texto en el ambito de la clasificacion no supervisada (CNS) de documentos. Tomando como referencia una representacion basada en un modelo de espacio vectorial de terminos, se analizan diferentes tecnicas de representacion de los datos sobre espacios de menor dimensionalidad (obtenidas mediante tecnicas de extraccion de terminos como el Analisis de Semantica Latente, la Factorizacion en Matrices No Negativas y el Analisis en Componentes Independientes) con el objetivo de mejorar la CNS de un corpus de documentos. El rendimiento ofrecido por cada una de estas tecnicas de representacion de textos se analiza sobre diferentes corpus de documentos y problemas de clasificacion, evaluando tanto el coste computacional de los algoritmos, como los resultados de la clasificacion conseguidos mediante distintas metricas de evaluacion.
A microbial population–species interface: nested cladistic and coalescent inference with multilocus data

Using sequence data from seven nuclear loci in 385 isolates of the haploid, plant parasitic, ascomycete fungus, Sclerotinia, divergence times of populations and of species were distinguished. The evolutionary history of haplotypes on both population and species scales was reconstructed using a combination of parsimony, maximum likelihood and coalescent methods, implemented in a specific order. Analysis of site compatibility revealed recombination blocks from which alternative (marginal) networks were inferred, reducing uncertainty in the network due to recombination. Our own modifications of Templeton and co‐workers’ cladistic inference method and a coalescent approach detected the same phylogeographic processes. Assuming neutrality and a molecular clock, the boundary between divergent populations and species is an interval of time between coalescence (to a common ancestor) of populations and coalescence of species.
Impact of Doctors' Resistance on Success of Drug Utilization Review System

Objectives The drug utilization review (DUR) system, which checks any conflict event of medications, contributes to improve patient safety. One of the important barriers in its adoption is doctors' resistance. This study aimed to analyze the impacts of doctors' resistance on the success of the DUR system. Methods This study adopted an augmented the DeLone and McLean Information System (D&M IS) Success Model (2003), which used doctors' resistance as a socio-technological measure. This study framework is the same as that of the D&M IS Success Model in that it is based on qualities, such as system, information, and services. The major difference is that this study excluded the variable 'use' because it was not statistically significant for mandatory systems. A survey of doctors who used computers to enter prescriptions was conducted at a Korean tertiary hospital in February 2012. Results This study is very meaningful in that it is the first study to explore the success factors of the DUR system associated with doctors' resistance. Doctors' resistance to the DUR system was not statistically associated with user usefulness, whereas it affected user satisfaction. Conclusions The results indicate that doctors still complain of discomfort in using the DUR system in the outpatient clinical setting, even though they admit that it contributes to patient safety. To mitigate doctors' resistance and raise user satisfaction, more opinions from doctors regarding the DUR system have to be considered and have to be reflected in the system.
Contrasting linkage disequilibrium as a multilocus family‐based association test

Linkage disequilibrium (LD) of genetic loci is routinely estimated and graphically illustrated in genetic association studies. It has been suggested that the information in LD is also useful for association mapping and genetic association can be detected by comparing LD patterns between cases and controls. Here, we extend this idea to analyze case‐parents data by comparing LD patterns between transmitted and nontransmitted genotypes. We provide the condition when contrasting LD is valid for testing gene‐gene interactions. A permutation procedure is given to assess statistical significance. One advantage of our proposed methods is that haplotype information is not required. Thus, the implementation of our methods is straightforward and the resulted tests are free from potential bias caused by assumptions made to estimate haplotypes in silico. Since our test statistics use pairwise LD measurements, they are less affected by missing data than many other multilocus methods. With simulated data, we demonstrate that examining LD patterns of case‐parents data is a useful multilocus association mapping strategy and it complements existing association mapping methods. The application of our methods to a Crohn's disease data set shows that our methods can detect multilocus association that might be missed by other association methods. Our permutation procedure can also be modified to allow multiple offspring from a family to be analyzed. Genet. Epidemiol. 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. 35: 487‐498, 2011
Reliability and Validity of the Loughborough Soccer Passing Test in Adolescent Males: Implications for Talent Identification

This study examined measurement properties of the Loughborough Soccer Passing Test (LSPT) in two groups of Under 13 players (a competitive group and a recreational group; n=26 in each) and a group of competitive Under 19 players (n=25). Participants completed the LSPT twice on a single day then repeated the protocol one week later. Significant differences between the three groups were evident for execution time and total time, with better players achieving superior scores. Hence, the test showed discriminant validity. A significant familiarisation effect for penalty time was also shown from Day 1 – Trial 1 to Day 2 – Trial 2 in the Under 13–Recreational group. The Under 19 – Competitive group showed the greatest number of acceptable (>0.70) ICC values for within-day and between-day reliability of the LSPT while the Under 13 – Recreational group showed less than acceptable reliability values. These findings have implications for talent identification and development programs.
Flicker Correction in Color Motion Pictures

Studies show that all the published work in flicker correction to date only deals with black and white motion pictures. In this paper, we will look into the problem of flicker correction in color motion pictures and propose a method to address this problem. The method is based on a simplified flicker parameter model developed by us in [5] which was originally used for flicker correction in black and white motion pictures. Test results show that the proposed method is a promising one which yields good correction results in correcting flicker-damaged color films
Structuring of Free-Text Diagnostic Report

PURPOSE It is useful to convert free-text diagnostic reports into structured diagnostic reports by semantic analysis for the secondary investigation of their contents. In this study, we propose a system in which description units are automatically extracted to create structured text reports and we evaluated its usefulness. METHODS We defined the rules to create description units and developed the system that can automatically extract these description units from free-text diagnostic reports. We applied this system to reports of cerebral perfusion scintigrams and obtained 5 dictionaries of description units, increasing the number of scintigrams from 100 to 500 in increments of 100. Each dictionary was used to analyze another 100 scintigrams. The results obtained using each dictionary were compared with the results of physicians' interpretation. RESULTS The recall rate of this system to the physicians' interpretation increased when correlated with the number of scintigrams but with 300 cases was almost saturated at 85%. CONCLUSION We propose a semantic analysis system and show its usefulness in the semantic evaluation of the reports of cerebral perfusion scintigrams.
An inertial-grade laterally-driven MEMS differential resonant accelerometer

Inertial-grade laterally-driven differential resonant accelerometer (DRXL), using a gap sensitive electrostatic stiffness change effect, is designed, fabricated and tested using a mixed micromachining process based on (111) single crystal silicon. The resonant accelerometer consists of a double ended tuning fork (DETF) and two proof masses in the same plane, so it can detect in-plane acceleration. Each pair, with proof mass and resonator, is completely isolated, so the coupling of mechanical vibration between them is protected. The fabricated accelerometer shows a sensitivity of 64 Hz/g per resonator at nominal frequency of 24,888 Hz, bandwidth of 110 Hz, and a bias stability of 5.2 /spl mu/g.
The penitentiary system in Spain

This article examines how close the Spanish penitentiary system comes to fulfilling an ideal role for the prison in the system of punishment based on: (a) limitation of the use of imprisonment; (b) normalization of prison life; and (c) early reintegration into society of prisoners in the process of rehabilitation. On the basis of official reports and data of the years 1996-2003, it is first shown that although non-custodial punishments have produced a reduction in the use of imprisonment, this effect has been extensively compensated for by the increased period that prisoners have to serve before parole is granted. Second, although prison conditions have improved considerably since the 1990s, the system continues to suffer from some important shortcomings. Finally, the article compares the use of open prison and parole in the two administrations that manage Spanish prisons (the Catalan administration and the General Administration of the State) and explores the relationship between a policy based on rehabilitation and the effective duration of the sentence.