Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Health Insurance for "Humans": Information Frictions, Plan Choice, and Consumer Welfare

Traditional models of insurance choice are predicated on fully informed and rational consumers protecting themselves from exposure to financial risk. In practice, choosing an insurance plan from a set of complex non-linear contracts is a complicated decision often made without full information on several potentially important dimensions. In this paper we combine new administrative data on health plan choices and claims with unique survey data on consumer information and other typically unobserved preference factors in order to separately identify risk preferences, information frictions, and perceived plan hassle costs. The administrative and survey data are linked at the individual level, allowing in-depth investigations of the links between these micro- foundations in both descriptive and choice-model based analyses. We find that consumers lack information on many important dimensions that they are typically assumed to understand, perceive high plan hassle costs, and make choices that depend on these frictions. Moreover, in the context of an expected utility model, including the additional frictions that we measure has direct implications for risk preference estimates, which are typically assumed to be the only source of persistent unobserved preference heterogeneity in such models. In our setting, we show that incorporating measures of these frictions leads to meaningful reductions in estimated consumer risk aversion. This result has both positive and normative implications since risk aversion generally has different welfare implications than information frictions. We assess the welfare impact of a counterfactual menu design and find that the welfare loss from risk exposure when additional frictions are not taken into account is more than double that when they are, illustrating the potential importance of our analysis for policy decisions.
Final design of the Energy-Resolved Neutron Imaging System “RADEN” at J-PARC

A new pulsed-neutron instrument, named the Energy-Resolved Neutron Imaging System “RADEN”, has been constructed at the beam line of BL22 in the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) of J-PARC. The primary purpose of this instrument is to perform energy-resolved neutron imaging experiments through the effective utilization of the pulsed nature of the neutron beam, making this the world's first instrument dedicated to pulsed neutron imaging experiments. RADEN was designed to cover a broad energy range: from cold neutrons with energy down to 1.05 meV (or wavelength up to 8.8 Å) with a good wavelength resolution of 0.20% to high-energy neutrons with energy of several tens keV (or wavelength of 10-3 Å). In addition, this instrument is intended to perform state-of-the-art neutron radiography and tomography experiments in Japan. Hence, a maximum beam size of 300 mm square and a high L/D value of up to 7500 are provided.
Quality of bimetal Al-Cu joint after explosive cladding

Purpose: An analysis of quality of bimetallic joint between aluminium and copper layers of billet for extrusion process is the subject of the work. Design/methodology/approach: For preparing the quality analysis of particular layer of bimetal, the shearing test were done. During the tests the maximal stress for particular sets of the bimetal was established. For chosen cases the metallographic research of Al-Cu joint were done. Findings: The geometry of the cylindrical set and explosive cladding process parameters which allow to obtain the cylindrical bimetallic billets without cracks and delaminations and also with uniform cladded layer along and across the billet. Research limitations/implications: The analysis is concerning the explosive joint of pure aluminium Al995 and electrolytic copper M1E 99,97 in cylindrical sets. In the future research the analysis of this kind of joints after direct extrusion process is planning. Practical implications: The analysis could be helpful for more effective designing of the bimetal billets through the explosive cladding process and next for the plastic working processes. Originality/value: During the extrusion process with high value of extrusion ratio the delamination of the billet layers especially on the boundary of the layers is observed, this fact causes that joint after the metal working processes has lower strength even than components of the bimetal billet. So very important task is establishing the geometry set and explosive parameters to obtain the best quality of the joint.
Different language association using mutual information between tags and visual features

This paper presents a method for associating tags in one language with the tags representing the same meaning in another language. Since recent image search and sharing services highly rely on annotations like tags with images for obtaining the desired images, the proposed method utilizes the visual features extracted from images with tags. In the proposed method, mutual information between tags and visual features are calculated. Tag similarity is then calculated based on the mutual information. Mutual information takes into consideration the relevance between tags and visual features. Therefore, the similarity based on the mutual information represents tag-to-tag relationships more effectively than direct use of the visual features. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method in associating English tags with Japanese tags representing the same meanings.
Manipulating vibratory devices’ orientation and position enhances proprioceptive disturbance during upright stance

Abstract We tested local vibration effects during upright standing considering: (i) the orientation of vibratory devices in relation to muscle fibres; (ii) the muscle region stimulated; and (iii) the number of stimulation spots. Results showed a higher balance disturbance with vibration devices oriented parallel to triceps surae muscle fibres. The single stimulation of the proximal region of the tibialis anterior muscle belly induces the same proprioceptive disturbance as stimulating multiple regions simultaneously.
Lack of Variation at Phosphoglucose Isomerase (Pgi) in Bumblebees: Implications for Conservation Genetics Studies

Assessing genetic variation underlying ecologically important traits is increasingly of interest and importance in population and conservation genetics. For some groups generally useful markers exist for examining the relative role of selection and drift in shaping genetic diversity e.g. the major histocompatibility complex in vertebrates and self-incompatibility loci in plants. For invertebrates there is no such generally useful locus. However, phosphoglucose isomerase (Pgi) has been proposed as a useful functional marker in the conservation genetics of invertebrates. Where thermal microclimate varies, balanced polymorphisms may be maintained due to trade-offs between thermally stable and kinetically advantageous allelic forms. We here report very low levels of Pgi variation in bumblebees rendering this locus to be of little use as an adaptive marker in a conservation genetics context in this group. Potential explanations for this lack of variation are considered.
An Open Digest-based Technique for Spam Detection

A promising anti-spam technique consists in collecting users opinions that given email messages are spam and using this collective judgment to block message propagation to other users. To be effective, this strategy requires a way to identify similarity among email messages, even if the program used by the spammer to generate the messages may try to obfuscate their common origin. In this paper, we investigate the issues arising in the design of a digest-based spam detection mechanism, which has to satisfy many conflicting requirements: protect message confidentiality, be public, and prove difficult or expensive to fool by obfuscation techniques that automatically introduce differences into the same base spam message. We show that an open digest function is able to satisfy the above requirements and contribute to the fight against spam.
Ex-plant retinal laser induced threshold studies in the millisecond time regime

Excised bovine retinas were used as model for threshold determination of laser induced thermal damage in the pulse regime of 1 ms to 655 ms for a range of laser spot size diameters. The thresholds as determined by fluorescence viability staining compare very well with the prediction of thermal damage models. Both models compare well with published and new Rhesus monkey threshold data. A distinctive dependence of the threshold on laser spot size diameter for different pulse duration was found which indicates that current (ICNIRP, ANSI and IEC) laser exposure limits for large spots can be increased in this pulse duration regime. A time dependent αmax is proposed which only for the case of long exposure durations has the current value of 100 mrad, but decreases to smaller angles for short exposure durations, effectively increasing the permissible exposure level. An explanation based on intra-retinal scattering is offered for the unexpected spot size dependence for spot diameters less than about 80 µm. The time dependence and nature of damage is discussed for pulse durations shorter than 1 ms where bubble induced damage seems to lead to a threshold a factor of 10 lower than the thermally induced threshold, resulting in the need to lower the MPE values for this condition. Possible changes of the MPE values are offered and discussed.
Portable Chronic Alcohol Consumption Monitor in Human Sweat through Square-Wave Voltammetry

Chronic alcohol consumption is a significant financial and physical burden in the United States each year. Alcohol consumption monitors focus on establishing a state of intoxication, not assessing a user’s health risks as a function of consumed alcohol. This work demonstrates a biosensor for a chronic alcohol consumption monitor through the electrochemical detection of ethyl glucuronide (EtG) in human sweat using square-wave voltammetry (SWV). A novel affinity assay was demonstrated in which monoclonal antibodies were chemically coabsorbed onto a gold electrode surface in parallel with thiolated charge transfer molecule. Concentration-dependent EtG binding was detected by measuring a reduction in the charge transfer of the sensor, manifesting as a current response during SWV measurement. A companion compact electronic reader was constructed, demonstrating comparable sensitivity to a conventional lab instrument. Both tools demonstrated a limit of detection of 0.1 µg/L and a linear dynamic range of 0.1–100 µg/L corresponding to the physiologically relevant range of EtG expression in human sweat. This device can address the need for a chronic alcohol consumption monitor toward establishing a user’s long-term consumption habits to assess the risk of developing specific diseases and conditions associated with regular alcohol consumption, through integration with existing technologies.
Topography-guided spreading and drying of 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)-pentacene solution on a polymer insulator for the field-effect mobility enhancement

We report on the enhancement of the field-effect mobility of solution-processed 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)-pentacene (TIPS-pentacene) by unidirectional topography (UT) of an inkjet-printed polymer insulator. The UT leads to anisotropic spreading and drying of the TIPS-pentacene droplet and enables to spontaneously develop the ordered structures during the solvent evaporation. The mobility of the UT-dictated TIPS-pentacene film (0.202 ± 0.012 cm2/Vs) is found to increase by more than a factor of two compared to that of the isotropic case (0.090 ± 0.032 cm2/Vs). The structural arrangement of the TIPS-pentacene molecules in relation to the mobility enhancement is described within an anisotropic wetting formalism. Our UT-based approach to the mobility enhancement is easily applicable to different classes of soluble organic field-effect transistors by adjusting the geometrical parameters such as the height, the width, and the periodicity of the UT of an inkjet-printed insulator.
On imaging metal grains at high temperature: Laser light scattering microscopy

A simple device has been developed to meet the need of a base that is free from thermal expansion and is required in certain hot-stage microscopy studies. Further, images of sub-millimeter sized metal grains at high temperatures are noticed to under go vibration-like motion. In order to achieve stabilization of images, a unit called beam path cooler has been devised and its effect is examined.
The Impairment of Macrophage-to-Feces Reverse Cholesterol Transport during Inflammation Does Not Depend on Serum Amyloid A

Studies suggest that inflammation impairs reverse cholesterol transport (RCT). We investigated whether serum amyloid A (SAA) contributes to this impairment using an established macrophage-to-feces RCT model. Wild-type (WT) mice and mice deficient in SAA1.1 and SAA2.1 (SAAKO) were injected intraperitoneally with 3H-cholesterol-labeled J774 macrophages 4 hr after administration of LPS or buffered saline. 3H-cholesterol in plasma 4 hr after macrophage injection was significantly reduced in both WT and SAAKO mice injected with LPS, but this was not associated with a reduced capacity of serum from LPS-injected mice to promote macrophage cholesterol efflux in vitro. Hepatic accumulation of 3H-cholesterol was unaltered in either WT or SAAKO mice by LPS treatment. Radioactivity present in bile and feces of LPS-injected WT mice 24 hr after macrophage injection was reduced by 36% (P < 0.05) and 80% (P < 0.001), respectively. In contrast, in SAAKO mice, LPS did not significantly reduce macrophage-derived 3H-cholesterol in bile, and fecal excretion was reduced by only 45% (P < 0.05). Injection of cholesterol-loaded allogeneic J774 cells, but not syngeneic bone-marrow-derived macrophages, transiently induced SAA in C57BL/6 mice. Our study confirms reports that acute inflammation impairs steps in the RCT pathway and establishes that SAA plays only a minor role in this impairment.
The impact of middle names: Middle name initials enhance evaluations of intellectual performance

Middle name initials often appear in formal contexts, especially when people refer to intellectual achievements. On the basis of this common link, the display of middle initials increases positive evaluations of people's intellectual capacities and achievements. We document this effect in seven studies: Middle initials in authors' names increased the evaluation of their writing performance (Study 1), and middle initials increased perceptions of status (Studies 2 and 4). Moreover, the middle initials effect was specific to intellectual performance (Studies 3 and 6), and it was mediated by perceived status (Studies 5–7). Besides supporting our hypotheses, the results of these studies yield important implication for everyday life. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Cross-Platform SpMV Framework on Many-Core Architectures

Sparse Matrix-Vector multiplication (SpMV) is a key operation in engineering and scientific computing. Although the previous work has shown impressive progress in optimizing SpMV on many-core architectures, load imbalance and high memory bandwidth remain the critical performance bottlenecks. We present our novel solutions to these problems, for both GPUs and Intel MIC many-core architectures. First, we devise a new SpMV format, called Blocked Compressed Common Coordinate (BCCOO). BCCOO extends the blocked Common Coordinate (COO) by using bit flags to store the row indices to alleviate the bandwidth problem. We further improve this format by partitioning the matrix into vertical slices for better data locality. Then, to address the load imbalance problem, we propose a highly efficient matrix-based segmented sum/scan algorithm for SpMV, which eliminates global synchronization. At last, we introduce an autotuning framework to choose optimization parameters. Experimental results show that our proposed framework has a significant advantage over the existing SpMV libraries. In single precision, our proposed scheme outperforms clSpMV COCKTAIL format by 255% on average on AMD FirePro W8000, and outperforms CUSPARSE V7.0 by 73.7% on average and outperforms CSR5 by 53.6% on average on GeForce Titan X; in double precision, our proposed scheme outperforms CUSPARSE V7.0 by 34.0% on average and outperforms CSR5 by 16.2% on average on Tesla K20, and has equivalent performance compared with CSR5 on Intel MIC.
Trust Negotiation as an Authorization Service forWeb Services

Like other open computing environments, web services need a scalable method of determining authorized users. We present desiderata for authorization facilities for web services, and analyze potential ways of satisfying them. We propose a third-party authorization system for web services based on trust negotiation, discuss its implementation using the TrustBuilder runtime system for trust negotiation, and present performance results from a stock trading application.
You Watch, You Give, and You Engage: A Study of Live Streaming Practices in China

Despite gaining traction in North America, live streaming has not reached the popularity it has in China, where live- streaming has a tremendous impact on the social behaviors of users. To better understand this socio-technological phenomenon, we conducted a mixed methods study of live streaming practices in China. We present the results of an online survey of 527 live streaming users, focusing on their broadcasting or viewing practices and the experiences they find most engaging. We also interviewed 14 active users to explore their motivations and experiences. Our data revealed the different categories of content that was broadcasted and how varying aspects of this content engaged viewers. We also gained insight into the role reward systems and fan group-chat play in engaging users, while also finding evidence that both viewers and streamers desire deeper channels and mechanisms for interaction in addition to the commenting, gifting, and fan groups that are available today.
Structural Insights into the Mechanism for Recognizing Substrate of the Cytochrome P450 Enzyme TxtE

Thaxtomins, a family of phytotoxins produced by Streptomyces spp. , can cause dramatic plant cell hypertrophy and seedling stunting. Thaxtomin A is the dominant form from Streptomyces scabies and has demonstrated herbicidal action. TxtE, a cytochrome P450 enzyme from Streptomyces scabies 87.22, catalyzes direct nitration of the indolyl moiety of L-tryptophan to L-4-nitrotryptophan using nitric oxide, dioxygen and NADPH. The crystal structure of TxtE was determined at 2.1 Å resolution and described in this work. A clearly defined substrate access channel is observed and can be classified as channel 2a, which is common in bacteria cytochrome P450 enzymes. A continuous hydrogen bond chain from the active site to the external solvent is observed. Compared with other cytochrome P450 enzymes, TxtE shows a unique proton transfer pathway which crosses the helix I distortion. Polar contacts of Arg59, Tyr89, Asn293, Thr296, and Glu394 with L-tryptophan are seen using molecular docking analysis, which are potentially important for substrate recognition and binding. After mutating Arg59, Asn293, Thr296 or Glu394 to leucine, the substrate binding ability of TxtE was lost or decreased significantly. Based on the docking and mutation results, a possible mechanism for substrate recognition and binding is proposed.
Scale‐dependence of phylogenetic signal in ecological traits of ectoparasites

The non-independence of traits among closely related species is a well-documented phenomenon underpinning modern methods for comparative analyses or prediction of trait values in new species. Surprisingly such studies have mainly focused on life-history or morphological traits of free-living organisms, ignoring ecological attributes of parasite species in spite of the fact that they are critical for conservation and human health. We tested for a phylogenetic signal acting on two ecological traits, abundance and host specificity, using data for 218 flea species parasitic on small mammals in 19 regions of the Palaearctic and Nearctic, and a phylogenetic tree for these species. We tested for the presence of a phylogenetic signal at both regional and continental scales using three measures (Abouheif/Moran's I, Pagel's λ, and Blomberg et al.'s K). Our results show 1) a consistent positive phylogenetic signal for flea abundance, but only a weaker and erratic signal for host specificity, and 2) a clear dependence on scale, with the signals being stronger at the continental scale and relatively weaker or inconsistent at the regional scale. Whenever values of Blomberg et al.'s K were found significant, they were < 1 suggesting that the effects of phylogeny on the evolution of abundance and host specificity in fleas are weaker than expected from a Brownian motion model. The most striking finding is that, within a continental fauna, closely-related flea species are characterized by similar levels of abundance, though this pattern is weaker within local assemblages, possibly eroded by local biotic or abiotic conditions. We discuss the link between history (represented by phylogeny) and pattern of variation among species in morphological and ecological traits, and use comparisons between the Palaearctic and Nearctic to infer a role of historical events in the probability of detecting phylogenetic signals.
Ethnoveterinary medicines used by tribals of Tadgarh-Raoli wildlife sanctuary, Rajasthan, India

Extensive ethnoveterinary survey was carried out during the 2006–2009 to document the precious indigenous healthcare practices prevalent among the different ethnic groups (Bhil, Meena, Garasia, etc.) of Tadgarh–Raoli wildlife sanctuary. Ethnoveterinary surveys of the study area revealed veterinary uses of 54 plants belonging to 34 families of Angiosperms. Euphorbiaceae is the dominant family with a number of 6 species used in veterinary medicines. The identified taxa are described by mentioning their families, vernacular names, ethnoveterinary medicinal uses along with mode of administration.
Biomimetic Design and Manufacturing of Anti-Erosion Functional Surfaces Inspired from Desert Scorpion

Sand erosion is a phenomenon that solid particles impinging to a wall cause serious mechanical damages to its surface. It's tough to be a machine in the desert: particles of dirt and sand work their way into moving parts, where they abrade helicopter propellers, airplane rotor blades, pipes and other equipments. However, the desert scorpion (Androctonus australis) live their entire lives subjected to blowing sand, yet they never appear to be eroded. In this study, the anti–erosion characteristic rules of the scorpion surfaces under aerodynamics effect of gas/solid mixed media were studied. Biomimetic linear–cutted surfaces consisting of an array of three types of grooves, square–type, V–type and U–type, were designed and investigated to quantify their erosion wear resistance properties. A smooth surface sample was fabricated for comparison. The ANSYS-Fluent simulation of biomimetic models showed that the V-type groove sample, inspired by the desert organism's surface with different morphologies, exhibited the best erosion resistance. It also indicated the anti-erosion property of biomimetic samples could be attributed to the rotating flow in the grooves that reduces the impact speed of particles. The synchronized erosion test confirmed the conclusions. Furthermore, an application exploring of bionic blades on a centrifugal fan was conducted. The blades with optimum parameters could effectively improve anti-erosion property by 29%. We envision that more opportunities for biomimetic application in improving the anti–erosion performance of parts that work under dirt and sand particle environment will be proposed.