Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
‘Let’s hope the Boston Marathon Bomber is a White American’: racialising Muslims and the politics of white identity

ABSTRACT This paper examines public discourse on race, whiteness and Muslims through an in-depth exploration of an online media controversy following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. On 16 April, the day after the attacks, the liberal magazine Salon.com published David Sirota’s article, ‘Let’s Hope the Boston Marathon Bomber is a White American’. A firestorm of commentary followed, with conservatives defending the profiling of Muslims, and accusing Sirota of anti-white racism. Anchored in questions of race, racism and Muslims and marked by a sharp partisan polarisation, these discussions intensified after 18 April, when the Tsarnaev brothers were identified as the perpetrators. The ensuing debate surrounding the racial identity of the Tsarnaevs displays how Muslim racialisation occurs and operates within a conservative discourse strongly committed to a colour-blind ideology. Our paper moves beyond this affirmation of literature on Muslim racialisation and sets this process within a relationally constructed and performative white racial identity.
Spin Foam Perturbation Theory

We study perturbation theory for spin foam models on triangulated manifolds. Starting with any model of this sort, we consider an arbitrary perturbation of the vertex amplitudes, and write the evolution operators of the perturbed model as convergent power series in the coupling constant governing the perturbation. The terms in the power series can be efficiently computed when the unperturbed model is a topological quantum field theory. Moreover, in this case we can explicitly sum the whole power series in the limit where the number of top-dimensional simplices goes to infinity while the coupling constant is suitably renormalized. This `dilute gas limit' gives spin foam models that are triangulation-independent but not topological quantum field theories. However, we show that models of this sort are rather trivial except in dimension 2.
A strategy for implementing dynamic element matching in current-steering DACs

Interesting comparisons of dynamic element matching (DEM) techniques, have been presented during the last decade. However, not many chip implementations of these DEM techniques have been presented so far. A brief review of different DEM techniques are presented in this paper together with a strategy for implementing the partial randomization DEM, PRDEM, technique in a 3.3 V supply, 14 bit CMOS current-steering wideband digital-to-analog converter (DAC).
An Analysis of Rational Voting with Private Values and Cost Uncertainty

We provide a unified analysis of the canonical rational voting model with privately known political preferences and costs of voting. Focusing on type-symmetric equilibrium, we show that for small electorates, members of the minority group vote with a strictly higher probability than do those in the majority, but the majority is strictly more likely to win the election. As the electorate size grows without bound, equilibrium outcome is completely determined by the individuals possessing the lowest cost of voting in each political group. We relate our equilibrium characterization to Myerson’s Poisson games, and examine the rate of convergence as well as the potential uniqueness of equilibrium.
Coastal Geomorphic and Lake Variability in the Laurentian Great Lakes: Implications for a Diatom-based Monitoring Tool

ABSTRACT In an evaluation of diatoms as indicators of human disturbance in coastal ecosystems of the Laurentian Great Lakes, we characterized assemblage specificity to lake and habitat type to identify non-anthropogenic factors influencing indicator models. Surface sediment assemblages and environmental variables were collected along the U.S. coastline at 191 sample sites, which were classified by lake and geomorphic type: high-energy (HE), embayment (EB), coastal wetland (CW), riverine wetland (RW), protected wetland (PW), and open water (OP). Diatom inferred (DI) total phosphorus (TP) transfer functions (models) were developed for each lake and geomorphic type. Robust models included: the overall model (RMSEP; r2jack = 0.65; RMSEP = 0.005), Lake Superior (r2jack = 0.73; RMSEP = 0.003), Lake Ontario (r2jack = 0.73; RMSEP = 0.007), PW (r2jack = 0.64; RMSEP = 0.003), and EB (r2jack = 0.64;RMSEP = 0.007). Weaker models, indicating poorer diatom-TP relationships, included: RW (r2jack =0.03; RMSEP = 0.005), OP (r2jack = 0.15; RMSEP = 0.059), and Lake Michigan (r2jack = 0.38; RMSEP =0.006). DI TP data were regressed against landscape characteristics to quantify the relationships to adjacent watershed stressors. RW data were further scrutinized as a case study to investigate the suitability of diatom-based approaches in systems with poor diatom-TP relationships. Despite poor performance of the RW model, DI phosphorus data for riverine wetlands, derived from the overall model, were strongly related to watershed characteristics (r2 = 0.61), indicating the overall model's ability to integrate stressors from the surrounding watershed in areas where measured phosphorus did not adequately characterize prevailing conditions. This study confirms that physical properties (e.g., lake or habitat type) can influence indicator models; however, weaknesses may be overcome by robust calibration techniques.
Lung Regeneration: Endogenous and Exogenous Stem Cell Mediated Therapeutic Approaches

The tissue turnover of unperturbed adult lung is remarkably slow. However, after injury or insult, a specialised group of facultative lung progenitors become activated to replenish damaged tissue through a reparative process called regeneration. Disruption in this process results in healing by fibrosis causing aberrant lung remodelling and organ dysfunction. Post-insult failure of regeneration leads to various incurable lung diseases including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Therefore, identification of true endogenous lung progenitors/stem cells, and their regenerative pathway are crucial for next-generation therapeutic development. Recent studies provide exciting and novel insights into postnatal lung development and post-injury lung regeneration by native lung progenitors. Furthermore, exogenous application of bone marrow stem cells, embryonic stem cells and inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) show evidences of their regenerative capacity in the repair of injured and diseased lungs. With the advent of modern tissue engineering techniques, whole lung regeneration in the lab using de-cellularised tissue scaffold and stem cells is now becoming reality. In this review, we will highlight the advancement of our understanding in lung regeneration and development of stem cell mediated therapeutic strategies in combating incurable lung diseases.
A uniform framework for community detection via influence maximization in social networks

Community structure as a significant feature helps us understand networks in a mesoscopic view. Existing approaches for community detection haven't considered about the formation of communities, whereas community in real social networks is usually established around influential nodes. In this paper, we present an efficient and effective framework based on local influence to detect both overlapping and hierarchical communities. We try to illuminate two fundamental questions: 1)Whether local influence regarded as a new property can affect the formation of communities; 2)How to quantify node's local influence and utilize it to detect communities. To demonstrate the effectiveness of local influence in terms of evaluating node importance, nodes with high local influence are selected to perform the influence maximization experiments on real social networks. Experimental results show that our framework is effective and efficient for both community detection and influence maximization.
Type Ia Supernovae in semi-detached binary systems

We have considered scenarios for the evolution of close binaries resulting in the formation of semi-detached systems in which a white dwarf can accumulate Chandrasekhar mass by accretion from a main-sequence or subgiant companion with M ∼ 2 M ⊙. These white dwarfs, probably, explode as type Ia supernovae or collapse with formation of neutron stars. We have carried out a population synthesis study for these systems and have estimated the occurrence rate of such events in the Galaxy, depending on the parameter of common envelopes, mass-exchange rate in the binary, reaction of the main-sequence component on accretion of helium in the intervening phase of evolution. We have found that the model occurrence rate of SNe Ia in semi-detached systems is ≃ 0.2×10 −3 yr −1 , i. e. , it does not exceed ∼ 10% of the observational estimate of the Galactic occurrence rate of SNe Ia.
Community evolution and engagement through assortative mixing in online social networks

In this exploratory paper, we examine the evolution and engagement of an online community through a ten-year period. Data is collected from an online public discussion forum provided by a government-sponsored website specifically developed for community capacity building. We postulate that there are clear patterns of assortativity where similar actors engage in communication with each other over time. Results show that there is a clear pattern of networks losing their disassortative character in the early years followed by disassortative networks in the later years. The network-level results challenges government-level metrics of community-building success and suggests network analysis as an empirical avenue for understanding social processes involved in the very nature of community building.
Finding distractors in images

We propose a new computer vision task we call “distractor prediction. ” Distractors are the regions of an image that draw attention away from the main subjects and reduce the overall image quality. Removing distractors-for example, using in-painting - can improve the composition of an image. In this work we created two datasets of images with user annotations to identify the characteristics of distractors. We use these datasets to train an algorithm to predict distractor maps. Finally, we use our predictor to automatically enhance images.
Take Action Now: Motivational Framing and Action Requests in Climate Advocacy

ABSTRACT This article explores similarities and differences between Internet-mediated climate change advocacy organizations and their legacy counterparts. It relies on a content analysis of advocacy emails produced by Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, League of Conservation Voters, Climate Reality Project, 1Sky, and 350.org. The study finds differences and similarities in strategic Internet use, including greater emphasis by climate groups on high threshold, offline actions; greater emphasis by legacy groups on low threshold, online actions; and high reliance by both framings that demand accountability from political elites. Implications for Internet-mediated and climate advocacy are discussed.
The Orderings of Bicyclic Graphs and Connected Graphs by Algebraic Connectivity

The algebraic connectivity of a graph $G$ is the second smallest eigenvalue of its Laplacian matrix. Let $\mathscr{B}_n$ be the set of all bicyclic graphs of order $n$. In this paper, we determine the last four bicyclic graphs (according to their smallest algebraic connectivities) among all graphs in $\mathscr{B}_n$ when $n\geq 13$. This result, together with our previous results on trees and unicyclic graphs, can be used to further determine the last sixteen graphs among all connected graphs of order $n$. This extends the results of Shao et al. [The ordering of trees and connected graphs by their algebraic connectivity, Linear Algebra Appl. 428 (2008) 1421-1438].
Fixpoint logic vs. infinitary logic in finite-model theory

The relationship between fixpoint logic and the infinitary logic L/sub infinity omega //sup omega / with a finite number of variables is studied. It is observed that the equivalence of two finite structures with respect to L/sub infinity omega //sup omega / is expressible in fixpoint logic. As a first application of this, a normal-form theorem for L infinity /sub omega //sup omega / on finite structures is obtained. The relative expressive power of first-order logic, fixpoint logic, and L/sub infinity omega //sup omega / on arbitrary classes of finite structures is examined. A characterization of when L/sub infinity omega //sup omega / collapses to first-order logic on an arbitrary class of finite structures is given. <<ETX>>
Model-checking problems, machines and parameterized complexity

iii iv CONTENTS Bibliography 105 Index 109 Chapter 1 Introduction Model-checking problems, in essence, are logic problems asking if a given structure satisfies a given sentence. They are ubiquitous in computer science, although appearing often in seemingly different forms. Two prominent examples are database query and hardware verification, in which databases and hardware are modelled as structures while queries and specifications as logic formulas. Many well-studied combinatoric problems can be reformulated as model-checking problems as well. For example, the famous Dominating Set problem can be translated to the model-checking problem of deciding Σ 2-sentences of first-order logic on the finite graph structures. Because of the practical importance and theoretical interest, model-checking problems have been studied intensively, particularly their associated complexity. However most results are not so satisfying, since they show even very restricted model-checking problems already have very high complexity. Researchers have proposed different approaches to tackle the problems and to design practically acceptable algorithms. Among others Downey and Fellows introduced the parameterized complexity [18], which is a refined complexity theory to deal with two-dimensional languages in which one part of the input instances, or parameter, is expected to be far smaller than the other. Notice this well echoes one crucial fact about the problems we have just mentioned: in database query, the size of most queries is a tiny fraction of the size of any normal database; hardware, when represented by transition systems, having states of number 2 100 , would hardly be a surprise, while real-life specifications can be written in a few lines. Based on that observation , parameterized complexity centers on a novel concept of tractability, i.e., fixed-parameter tractability, or FPT, which, say, admits query algorithms whose running time might be exponential, but only in terms of the queries, while still polynomial in terms of the databases. Thereby many classical intractable problems turn out to be fixed-parameter tractable when appropriately para-meterized. Rich theory has been built on designing fixed-parameter tractable algorithms [18, 42] for a great number of practical problems. But expectedly some classical intractable problems under natural parameterization seem not fixed-parameter tractable either. So similar to the classical NP-completeness
A Gain-of-Function Polymorphism Controlling Complex Traits and Fitness in Nature

Natural Selection at Work Catching the evolution of a novel function and determining its selective parameters in nature remains an extremely difficult task. Prasad et al. (p. 1081) have undertaken this quest documenting the molecular basis of a natural allelic polymorphism and its effects on herbivory and survival in the Arabidopsis relative, Boechera stricta, living in the Rocky Mountains. Positive selection for a mutation that enhances resistance to herbivory in the model plant Boechera is described. Identification of the causal genes that control complex trait variation remains challenging, limiting our appreciation of the evolutionary processes that influence polymorphisms in nature. We cloned a quantitative trait locus that controls plant defensive chemistry, damage by insect herbivores, survival, and reproduction in the natural environments where this polymorphism evolved. These ecological effects are driven by duplications in the BCMA (branched-chain methionine allocation) loci controlling this variation and by two selectively favored amino acid changes in the glucosinolate-biosynthetic cytochrome P450 proteins that they encode. These changes cause a gain of novel enzyme function, modulated by allelic differences in catalytic rate and gene copy number. Ecological interactions in diverse environments likely contribute to the widespread polymorphism of this biochemical function.
Characterizing robust coordination algorithms via proximity graphs and set-valued maps

This paper studies correctness and robustness properties of motion coordination algorithms with respect to link failures in the network topology. The technical approach relies on computational geometric tools such as proximity graphs, nondeterministic systems defined via set-valued maps and Lyapunov stability analysis. The manuscript provides two general results to help characterize the asymptotic behavior of spatially distributed coordination algorithms. These results are illustrated in rendezvous and flocking coordination algorithms
Effect of DNA target sequence on triplex formation by oligo-2 ¢ -deoxy- and 2 ¢ - O -methylribonucleotides

The interactions of pyrimidine deoxyribo- or 2 ¢ - O -methylribo-psoralen-conjugated, triplex-forming oligonucleotides, psTFOs, with a 17-bp env -DNA whose purine tract is 5 ¢ -AGAGAGAAAAAAGAG-3 ¢ , or an 18-bp gag -DNA whose purine tract is 5 ¢ -AGG-GGGAAAGAAAAAA-3 ¢ , were studied over the pH range 6.0–7.5. The stability of the triplex formed by a deoxy- env -psTFO containing 5-methylcytosines and thymines decreased with increasing pH ( T m = 56 o C at pH 6.0; 27 o C at pH 7.5). Replacement of 5-methylcytosines with 8-oxo-adenines reduced the pH dependence, but lowered triplex stability. A 2 ¢ - O -methyl- env -psTFO containing uracil and cytosine did not form a triplex at pH 7.5. Surprisingly, replacement of the cytosines in this oligomer with 5-methylcytosines dramatically increased triplex stability ( T m = 25 o C at pH 7.5), and even greater stability was achieved by selective replacement of uracils with thymines ( T m = 37 o C at pH 7.5). Substitution of the contiguous 5-methylcytosines of the deoxy- gag -psTFO with 8-oxo-adenines signiﬁcantly reduced pH dependence and increased triplex stability. In contrast to the behavior of env speciﬁc TFOs, triplexes formed by 2 ¢ - O -methyl-gag -psTFOs did the of the methylphosphonate group
An appraisal of the UK bass fishery and its management

SUMMARY The fishery 1. The fish resource considered comprises stocks of bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) exploited by fisheries landing their catch in England and Wales. Three different 'stocks' have been used for assessment purposes: • Southeast (southern North Sea and eastern English Channel), • Southwest (western English Channel), • West coast (Celtic Sea and Irish Sea). Recruitment of bass appears highly variable. The 1984-86 year-classes were poor but year-class strength improved from 1987. The 1989 year-class was exceptionally large. 2. The fishery is exploited by commercial fishermen and recreational anglers. It is estimated that in 1992 there were around 272 full-time commercial vessels employing about 430 fishermen and over 1,000 part-time vessels. The estimated first sale value of commercial bass landings in 1993 was £7.9 million, with a wholesale value of £9.9 million. The recreational sector is an important element in the fishery. It is estimated that there were around 361,000 bass anglers in England and Wales in 1992, spending £18.3 million on their activities. 3. The real wholesale price of bass in the UK has been falling since 1990 with a substantial fall of over 15% in 1993. The main factor has been increasing quantities of farmed bass available in the various European markets. This situation is likely to be sustained, to the longer term benefit of UK consumers. 4. Prior to 1990, control of the exploitation of bass was by means of minimum landing sizes only. In the mid-1980s, there seemed to be an increasing tendency for small bass to be exploited in situations where they were particularly vulnerable. This trend was one of the main factors leading to a package of national management measures which were introduced in 1990. The measures 5. The objectives of the measures were to maintain or increase yields from the bass fishery in England and Wales and to safeguard the bass spawning stock. The measures adopted were: • an increase in the minimum landing size of bass from 32 cm to 36 cm total length. • a prohibition on the use of gill-nets and similar enmeshing nets with mesh sizes between 65 mm and 89 mm, south of a line between Donna Nook in Lincolnshire and Haverigg Point in Cumbria within the 12-mile fishery limit; • a prohibition on bass fishing from any vessel in 34 specified nursery areas for all or part of the year. The minimum landing size is the basic …
Web annotator

The World Wide Web is increasingly becoming an integrated extension of users' computing environments, with content indexed and retrieved through Web browsers. Web browsers are increasingly being used as computer science curriculum delivery mechanism, for both books delivered as local content on CD ROMs as well as server-based material.Traditional computer science curriculum has often been presented through static printed media. What has been printed ahead of time in books or handouts can not be changed. Any changes would have to be attached externally by way of scribbled notes or explanations on the board. The Web gives us the technological affordances to change that, both for students and teachers.The original page remains unchanged, however the user's version of the page is filtered, adding, subtracting and changing web page elements, giving an enhanced view. A demonstration version of the Web Annotator can be downloaded from: http://logos.cs. uic.edu/Annotator.
GURLS: a Toolbox for Regularized Least Squares Learning

We present GURLS, a toolbox for supervised learning based on the regularized least squares algorithm. The toolbox takes advantage of all the favorable properties of least squares and is tailored to deal in particular with multi-category/multi-label problems. One of the main advantages of GURLS is that it allows training and tuning a multi-category classifier at essentially the same cost of one single binary classifier. The toolbox provides a set of basic functionalities including different training strategies and routines to handle computations with very large matrices by means of both memory-mapped storage and distributed task execution. The system is modular and can serve as a basis for easily prototyping new algorithms. The toolbox is available for download, easy to set-up and use.
Online tracking using saliency

When tracking small moving objects, primates use smooth pursuit eye movements to keep a target in the center of the field of view. In this paper, we propose the Smooth Pursuit tracking algorithm, which uses three kinds of saliency maps to perform online target tracking: appearance, location, and motion. In addition to tracking single targets, our method can track multiple targets with little additional overhead. The appearance saliency map uses deep convolutional neural network features along with gnostic fields, a brain-inspired model for object recognition. The location saliency map predicts where the object will move next. Finally, the motion saliency map indicates which objects are moving in the scene. We combine all three saliency maps into a smooth pursuit map, which is used to generate bounding boxes for tracked objects. We evaluate our algorithm and others from the literature on a vehicle tracking task. Our approach achieves the best overall performance, including being the only method we tested capable of handling long-term occlusions.