Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can Discrimination in the Housing Market Be Reduced by Increasing the Information about the Applicants?

We investigate how increasing the information about applicants affects discrimination in the rental housing market. We let four fictitious applicants, two with typical Arab/Muslim names and two with typical Swedish names, use application letters containing different amounts of information to apply for apartments over the Internet in Sweden. The Arab/Muslim applicants received fewer responses from the landlords than did the Swedish applicants. All of the applicants gained by providing more information about themselves, but the amount of discrimination against the Arab/Muslim applicants remained unchanged, indicating that increasing the amount of information about the applicants will not reduce discrimination. (JEL J17)
Knowledge seeking in going abroad

Based on knowledge theories, this study examines the impact of client-following and market-seeking entry strategies on foreign market entry by firms. The article also explores the subsequent development of knowledge in firms. Using data from 116 firms, we test three hypotheses using logistic regression. Our hypotheses are supported in the data. Our analysis shows that significant differences exist between client-following firms and market-seeking firms. Client followers are both supported and trapped by their international network, whereas market seekers, though not supported, are much freer to pursue higher-order learning. Due to differences in their network ties, these two types of firms learn at different speeds and learn different things. We also found that firms with proactive knowledge-seeking strategies learn more. Thus, learning strategies have consequences for exploration and exploitation of international markets, what is learned and how much is learned, and proactive internationalization strategies for firms. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Mainstreaming equality in the European union : education,training and labour market policies

1. Introduction 2. The context 3. Conceptualising equal opportunities 4. The European Union and equal opportunities 5. Key issues in women's education and training in the UK 6. Skill shortages, women, and training for the new information technologies 7. EC community action programmes on education and training 8. The European Social Fund and LEONARDO DA VINCI 9. Competitiveness, social exclusion and the learning society: EO and the White Papers 10. Mainstreaming equality
Nonrigid motion correction in 3D using autofocusing withlocalized linear translations

MR scans are sensitive to motion effects due to the scan duration. To properly suppress artifacts from nonrigid body motion, complex models with elements such as translation, rotation, shear, and scaling have been incorporated into the reconstruction pipeline. However, these techniques are computationally intensive and difficult to implement for online reconstruction. On a sufficiently small spatial scale, the different types of motion can be well approximated as simple linear translations. This formulation allows for a practical autofocusing algorithm that locally minimizes a given motion metric — more specifically, the proposed localized gradient‐entropy metric. To reduce the vast search space for an optimal solution, possible motion paths are limited to the motion measured from multichannel navigator data. The novel navigation strategy is based on the so‐called “Butterfly” navigators, which are modifications of the spin‐warp sequence that provides intrinsic translational motion information with negligible overhead. With a 32‐channel abdominal coil, sufficient number of motion measurements were found to approximate possible linear motion paths for every image voxel. The correction scheme was applied to free‐breathing abdominal patient studies. In these scans, a reduction in artifacts from complex, nonrigid motion was observed. Magn Reson Med, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
R&D collaboration networks of Chinese universities in medical field: An empirical analysis based on informetrics

Aims: This study aims to profile the R&D collaboration networks of Chinese top universities in medical field and to provide references for facilitating university cooperation and academic development. Methods: (1) Select 59 university representatives in medical research field as samples; (2) Retrieve co-publication data between universities from CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) in general and specific research fields, such as, “Pharmacy”, “Traditional Chinese Medicine”, “Stomatology” and “Clinical Medicine”, respectively; (3) Construct the collaboration networks of Chinese top universities in medical research field by informetrics tools based on Social Network Analysis, Netdraw and Ucinet. Results: (1) The collaboration between Chinese universities appeals to be influenced by geographic and industrial factors. (2) Comprehensive universities and professional ones perform totally different in the general and branched academic fields. (3) The collaboration dependence among universities is related to their academic capability during cooperation. Conclusion: Through the R&D network visualization, the results are discussed in four aspects of the collaboration — location, industrialization, centrality and dependence. Based on their own features, both comprehensive and professional universities can pinpoint the direction and objective of research.
The Banking School and the Monetary Thought of Karl Marx

Karl Marx's opposition to the quantity theory of money, the distinction he drew between fiat and credit money, and the emphasis he laid on money hoard formation all reveal the influence of the Banking School. His own monetary work, however, provided important theoretical foundations, which the anti-quantity theory tradition lacked. First, Marx elaborated the close connection between forms and functions of money. Second, his analysis of capitalist reproduction provided a model for the continuous redivision of the money stock into a circulating and a hoarded part. This work supported the claim that determination runs from prices to money and not vice versa. (c) 1994 Academic Press, Inc. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
Dietary intakes of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofurans and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls in Spain

Congener-specific analyses of seventeen 2,3,7,8-substituted PCDD/Fs, three non-ortho and 8 mono-ortho dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were performed on 258 Spanish foodstuff samples, mainly of animal origin, for 2000–03. Daily dietary intakes of PCDD/Fs and PCBs, expressed as toxic equivalents (WHO-TEQs), were estimated by combining food consumption data from the Spanish National Institute Statistics survey and concentration levels measured in individual samples, using upper bound determination values (not detectable = limit of detection). The calculated dietary intake of PCDD/Fs for a person weighing 70 kg was 1.35 ± 0.11 pg WHO-TEQs kg−1 bw day−1, and 3.22 ± 0.75 pg WHO-TEQs kg−1 bw day−1 if dioxin-like PCBs (non- and mono-ortho PCBs) were included, showing the importance of their inclusion in monitoring studies. Both values were within the range of tolerable daily intake (TDI) proposed by the WHO (1–4 pg WHO-TEQs kg−1 bw day−1). The current levels are lower than earlier intakes estimates conducted in Spain. Meat and meat products accounted for more than 35% of the intake, followed by milk and milk products (29%), vegetables oils (19%), fish and sea food (11%) and eggs (4%). Dioxin-like PCBs are an important component in the total WHO-TEQs in foodstuffs. This is particularly true for the fish food group, where the total WHO-TEQs is dominated by dioxin-like PCBs (up to 80% of WHO-TEQs in some cases).
Capitalism and Efficiency: A Review and Appraisal of the Recent Discussion

The paper reviews recent theoretical and empirical work by neo-Marxists suggesting that capitalist firms are inefficient, either technically or by Pareto criteria. The paper examines potential inefficiencies due to the division of labor, unemployment, labor segmentation/fragmentation, and bureaucracy/supervision. It is argued that technical inefficiency claims are incapable of being validated. While Pareto efficiency arguments may be warranted, presently existing socialist societies and experiments offer little persuasive evidence. Further empirical and theoretical work will be required to sustain efficiency arguments.
Adaptive reconstruction of anatomical surfaces from human body measurements

A technique that adaptively fits a deformable Bezier surface to partial or whole human body measurements for free-form surface reconstruction is described. The proposed method utilizes an unconventional neural network, called a Bernstein basis function (BBF) network, which performs a weighted summation of rational Bernstein polynomial basis functions. Modifying the number of basis neurons is equivalent to changing the degree of the Bernstein polynomials. Each BBF network determines the control points of a low-order rational Bezier surface that best approximates the shape of randomly organized coordinate data. A key feature of the algorithm is that the measured data does not have to be re-ordered or parameterized prior to fitting. In addition, the rational Bezier surface retains the relative position of the parametric coordinates (u,v) as it deforms. Once the adaptation phase is complete, the weights of the network can be entered directly into a variety of commercially available geometric modeling and CAD/CAM packages for shape reconstruction. An experimental study is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the BBF network for generating rational Bezier surfaces.
Shadow mask assisted droplet-born air-blowing method for fabrication of dissoluble microneedle

A droplet-born air-blowing method is an advanced method of the drawing lithography enables simple and fast fabrication, which does not require UV irradiation or moulding process. However, it has disadvantages such as low throughput in the formation of droplet array as it uses the dispenser to make droplets one by one. To increase the throughput while also simplifying the fabrication method, we suggest a novel fabrication method for microneedles array (MNs array) using the shadow mask, which can fabricate the microneedles array uniformly. Furthermore, our method enables us to control the amount of polymer in the microneedle by adjusting the hole dimension as well as the thickness of the shadow mask. Here, we established the use of a shadow mask to form multiple droplet array at one time and then achieved microneedles array from the droplet array by drawing lithography in a short time (≤ 10 min). We anticipate that shadow mask assisted drawing lithography will be suitable to improve the fabrication throughput of dissoluble microneedle for new generation of drug delivery system.
Does a Ged Lead to More Training, Post-Secondary Education, and Military Service for School Dropouts?

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth for the years 1979–91, the authors investigate how school dropouts' acquisition of a General Educational Development certificate (GED) affected the probability that they would obtain training, post-secondary education, or military service. The authors use the longitudinal data to estimate prototypical training and education profiles. They find that the probability that a dropout participated in post-secondary education or non-company training was greater after GED receipt than before for both men and women. Still, less than half of GED recipients obtained post-secondary education or training by age 26.
Shortcuts to isothermality and nonequilibrium work relations.

In conventional thermodynamics, it is widely acknowledged that the realization of an isothermal process for a system requires a quasistatic controlling protocol. Here we propose and design a strategy to realize a finite-rate isothermal transition from an equilibrium state to another one at the same temperature, which is named the "shortcut to isothermality. " By using shortcuts to isothermality, we derive three nonequilibrium work relations, including an identity between the free-energy difference and the mean work due to the potential of the original system, a Jarzynski-like equality, and the inverse relationship between the dissipated work and the total driving time. We numerically test these three relations by considering the motion of a Brownian particle trapped in a harmonic potential and dragged by a time-dependent force.
Pharmacologic approaches to treatment resistant depression: a re-examination for the modern era

Importance of the field: Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is common and debilitating. Initial treatment is often insufficient to achieve full remission in a given depressive episode, resulting in more frequent episodes, worsened severity, and major disability. Areas covered in this review: This review surveys literature on the diagnosis and pharmacological management of TRD in light of recent developments. Evidence regarding commonly used treatment options is critically examined and key recommendations are offered. The review ends by considering drugs acting on the melatonin, acetylcholine, and glutamate systems that hold promise as future options for TRD. What the reader will gain: Recent trends and research findings have impacted how the evidence supporting different approaches to TRD should be evaluated. For example, many earlier TRD studies employed tricyclics as the primary antidepressant, but tricyclics have now been superseded by selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in routine clinical practice. This deficiency has been addressed by the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study, the largest effectiveness study of TRD ever conducted. However, design characteristics of the STAR*D study preclude simple comparisons with earlier studies. Take home message: A shortcoming of most treatment recommendations for TRD is their reliance on older studies that do not reflect the current preeminence of SSRIs in clinical practice. This has distorted the prioritization of pharmacological strategies for TRD. Efforts to correct this distortion with effectiveness research, designed to better reflect current practice trends, require critical consideration of the strengths and limitations of this approach.
Participation in the cooperative family registry for breast cancer studies: issues of informed consent.

No universal surveillance system collects information on all cases of cancer in the United States. Instead, cancer data are assembled in a variety of ways. Several very good populationbased registries collect data in a fairly uniform manner, but different hospital-based registries often have different formats for data reporting, collection, coding, and analysis. Outcomes of interest include estimates of incidence, prevalence, and mortality; the identification of risk factors through epidemiologic analyses; the evaluation of patterns of care; and financial and resource planning. Few of the registries, however, have any genetic information. The recent identification of genes associated with high penetrance for breast cancer has brought a new focus to the study of cancer genetics—one that emphasizes the identification of families with heritable patterns of cancer—and has created the need for the development of registries that are defined by familial cancers.
Study of Data Partition Algorithm for Irregular Meshes

A novel partition method is introduced, in which the traditional edge detection approach and region growing approach are integrated together to achieve robust partition from point data with moderate noise. First of all, the edge detection process will be used to extract edge regions, which include mesh elements near edge curves and coarsely segment the mesh surface into disjoint patches. Then the edge regions will be thinned into edge polygons by simultaneously growing the mesh patches to absorb compatible vertices. Point clouds sampled from objects of complex shapes with different scanning devices will be experimentally tested. The partition results point out that the developed algorithm is reasonably robust to noise.
Microcirculatory perfusion deﬁcits are not essential for remote parenchymal injury within the liver

Richard F. Potter. Microcirculatory perfusion deﬁcits are not essential for remote parenchymal injury within the liver. Am. J. Physiol. 277 ( Gastrointest. Liver Physiol. 40): G55–G60, 1999. —A normotensive model of hindlimb ischemia-reperfusion in Wistar rats was used to test the hypothesis that microvascular perfusion deﬁcits contribute to the initiation of remote hepatic injury during a systemic inﬂammatory response. Animals were randomly assigned to one of three groups: 4 h ofischemia wit h 6 h of reperfusion (I/R-6; n 5 4), 4 h ofischemia wit h 3 h of reperfusion (I/R-3; n 5 5), or no ischemia (naive; n 5 5). With intravital ﬂuorescence microscopy, propidium iodide (PI; 0.05 mg/100 g body wt) was injected for the in vivo labeling of lethally injured hepatocytes (number/10 2 1 mm 3 ). PI-positive hepatocytes increased progressively over the 6-h period (na-ive 32.9 6 7.8 vs. I/R-3 92.8 6 11.5 vs. I/R-6 232 6 39.2), with no difference between periportal and pericentral regions of the lobule. Additionally, a signiﬁcant decrease in continuously perfused sinusoids (naive 70.0 6 1.5 vs. I/R-3 65.0 6 1.0 vs. I/R-6 48.8 6 0.9%) was measured. Regional sinusoidal perfusion differences were only observed after 3 h of limb reperfusion. Indirect measures of hepatocellular injury using alanine transaminase levels support the progressive nature of hepatic parenchymal injury (0 h 57.8 6 6.5 vs. 3 h 115.3 6 20.7 vs. 6 h 125.6 6 19.5 U/l). Evidence from this study suggests that remote hepatic parenchymal injury occurs early and progresses after the induction of a systemic inﬂammatory response and that microvascular perfusion deﬁcits are not essential for the initiation of such injury. blood samples were collected the carotid artery for measurement of Arterial P O
Comparative transcriptome analysis unveils the tolerance mechanisms of Citrus hystrix in response to ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’ infection

Citrus Huanglongbing (HLB), a highly devastating citrus disease, is associated with ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiacitus’ (CLas), a member of phloem-inhabiting α-proteobacteria. HLB can affect all cultivated citrus and no cure is currently available. Previous studies showed that Kaffir lime (Citrus hystrix), primarily grown in South Asia and Southeast Asia, was tolerant to HLB but the molecular mechanism remains unknown. In this study, gene expression profiling experiments were performed on HLB-tolerant C. hystrix and HLB-susceptible C. sinensis three months after inoculation with CLas using RNA-seq data. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the two citrus cultivars were mainly involved in diverse cellular functions including carbohydrate metabolism, photosynthesis, cell wall metabolism, secondary metabolism, hormone metabolism and oxidation/reduction processes. Notably, starch synthesis and photosynthesis process were not disturbed in CLas-infected C. hystrix. Most of the DEGs involved in cell wall metabolism and secondary metabolism were up-regulated in C. hystrix. In addition, the activation of peroxidases, Cu/Zn-SOD and POD4, may also enhance the tolerance of C. hystrix to CLas. This study provides an insight into the host response of HLB-tolerant citrus cultivar to CLas. C. hystrix is potentially useful for HLB-tolerant/resistant citrus breeding in the future.
End-user Development for Knowledge Sharing - A Collaborative Web Mapping Application in the First Aid Domain

This paper describes FirstAidMap, a collaborative web mapping system for creating, managing and sharing territorial knowledge that can be useful in case of emergencies. The system arises from a design experience we have carried out with representative end users belonging to an association for public assistance and first aid. Volunteers of this association, and specifically ambulance drivers, need to know the characteristics of the territory where they ensure their assistance, in order to reach a given place quickly and in a safe manner. This knowledge is often tacit and usually distributed among the members of the association. Currently, to cope with this problem, paper-based maps are the only means to spread and share knowledge within the association; while training sessions are regularly taken to provide drivers with information about the dangers existing in the territory and possible viability modifications. Representative volunteers participated in the design of FirstAidMap and in the study of end-user development functionalities that could make all volunteers able to contribute their own knowledge and share it with the other volunteers. The resulting system engages and motivates users to participate in map shaping and, at the same time, reinforces the sense of community and individual awareness.
Effectiveness of evaluating tumor vascularization using 3D power Doppler ultrasound with high-definition flow technology in the prediction of the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for T2 breast cancer: a preliminary report

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of advanced ultrasound (US) imaging of vascular flow and morphological features in the prediction of a pathologic complete response (pCR) and a partial response (PR) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for T2 breast cancer. Twenty-nine consecutive patients with T2 breast cancer treated with six courses of anthracycline-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy were enrolled. Three-dimensional (3D) power Doppler US with high-definition flow (HDF) technology was used to investigate the blood flow in and morphological features of the tumors. Six vascularity quantization features, three morphological features, and two vascular direction features were selected and extracted from the US images. A support vector machine was used to evaluate the changes in vascularity after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and pCR and PR were predicted on the basis of these changes. The most accurate prediction of pCR was achieved after the first chemotherapy cycle, with an accuracy of 93.1% and a specificity of 85.5%, while that of a PR was achieved after the second cycle, with an accuracy of 79.31% and a specificity of 72.22%. Vascularity data can be useful to predict the effects of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Determination of changes in vascularity after neoadjuvant chemotherapy using 3D power Doppler US with HDF can generate accurate predictions of the patient response, facilitating early decision-making.
Human facial feature detection based on skin color and edge labeling

In the recent years facial feature detection and recognition is an interesting and challenging work in the field of image processing in which facial region detection is the most basic step. This paper proposes a framework for detecting the facial region and facial features from a frontal facial image. Initially, an RGB facial image is used to detect the facial region. In the next step, the facial features, i.e. eyebrows, eyes, nose, and lips regions are detected from the extracted facial region. For that, the binary information is used to detect the facial region from the input facial image. After that, the RGB image is converted into YCbCr based skin color image from where the edges of the facial features are extracted. In the next step, labeling operation is performed on the edge image to identify the location of the facial features region. Various frontal facial images are utilized to evaluate the proposed framework and presented outcomes demonstrate the adequacy.