Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Dynamics of Evolving Markets: The Effects of Business Sales and Age on Dissolutions and Divestitures

I am grateful for comments received on several versions of the paper from Bill Barnett, Joel Baum, Dan Levinthal, Kulwant Singh, Anand Swaminathan, David Tucker, and members of the Corporate Strategy doctoral seminar at the University of Michigan School of Business. I also appreciate the thoughtful comments of Christine Oliver, Linda Pike, and several reviewers. I appreciate the careful research assistance provided by Paul Christian Stone and Maria Weisenberger. Data from seven American medical sector product markets established between the 1950s and the 1980s are used to investigate how business sales and age in evolving industries affect the likelihood that start-up firms and existing firms entering the market (diversifying entrants) will shut down or sell their businesses. The study shows that the influences of business sales and age differ systematically by type of entrant and type of exit. The dissolution rate declined with greater sales and age for start-up firms. While the dissolution rate of diversifying entrants also declined with greater sales, the rate was not affected by business age when the level of sales was controlled. By contrast, start-up firms and diversifying entrants became more likely to sell their businesses over time, while sales levels had no effect on the divestiture rate. When age, sales, and other business and corporate characteristics were controlled, there was little difference in the business dissolution rate of start-up firms and diversifying entrants, but diversifying entrants were more likely than start-up firms to sell their businesses. The paper explores the interrelationship of economic, ecological, and evolutionary explanations for business survival. The results help us understand the processes by which organizational capabilities are retained in a product market as businesses age and grow, suggesting that start-up firms play a moderating role in the almost Darwinian process by which larger businesses are selected for survival. '
The birth of a particle: know in Colloquial Singapore English

The discourse marker you know has been widely noted and analyzed in different varieties of English. However, it is less widely recognized that Colloquial Singapore English (CSE), in addition to the marker you know, has also developed the particle know. This paper provides data showing that know has distributional and collocational properties that distinguish it from you know, even though their discourse–pragmatic functions are similar. The differences between you know and know indicate that the latter has become a member of a linguistic category, referred to in this paper as the discourse particle. This category is exemplified by more familiar forms such as lah, lor, and meh. The paper suggests that the mechanism by which know has joined the other particles is that of analogical change, made possible because (1) CSE already contains a rich inventory of such particles, and (2) it is a pro–drop language. The first feature motivates the extraction of a category where members are monosyllabic, occur in clause–final position, and perform discourse–pragmatic functions. You know possesses two of the three characteristics, but is excluded because it is not monosyllabic. However, the pro–drop feature allows the monosyllabic know to emerge and join the category of discourse particle.
Estimation of Delay Propagation in the National Aviation System Using Bayesian Networks

Flight delay creates major problems in the current aviation system. Methods are needed to analyze the manner in which micro-level causes propagate to create system-level patterns of delay. Traditional statistical methods are inadequate to the task. This paper proposes the use of Bayesian networks (BNs) to investigate and visualize propagation of delays among airports. The BN structure was developed from expert judgment and validated against empirical data. Parameters were estimated using a novel empirical Bayes approach in which regression estimates were used to construct a Dirichlet prior distribution, which was then updated from multinomial samples. Empirical results demonstrate greater predictive accuracy using our empirical Bayes approach than linear regression or Bayesian analysis with non-informative prior distributions. Our results clearly demonstrate the value of Bayesian networks for analyzing and visualizing how system-level effects arise from subsystem-level causes.
Challenges and trends about smart big geospatial data: A position paper

Currently, we are witnessing an exponential growth in the amount of data being generated and captured at multiple locations. This trend will continue over the next years. Hence, we have envisioned a scenario in which many objects will be referencing to or generating location information. Thus, the need for appropriately managing geospatial data is evident. In this paper, we present our vision for an integral Geo Linked Data platform; pointing out the current limitations and challenges in the GeoRDFization, Storage, Query Federation, and Visualization of data with an inherent spatial context.
Pregnancy incidence and outcomes among women receiving preexposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention: a randomized clinical trial.

IMPORTANCE Antiretroviral preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP), using tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) and combination emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (FTC+TDF), is efficacious for prevention of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) acquisition. PrEP could reduce periconception HIV risk, but the effect on pregnancy outcomes is not well defined. OBJECTIVE To assess pregnancy incidence and outcomes among women using PrEP during the periconception period. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Randomized trial among 1785 HIV-serodiscordant heterosexual couples (the Partners PrEP Study) in which the female partner was HIV uninfected that demonstrated that PrEP was efficacious for HIV prevention, conducted between July 2008 and June 2013 at 9 sites in Kenya and Uganda. INTERVENTIONS Daily oral TDF (n = 598), combination FTC+TDF (n = 566), or placebo (n = 621) through July 2011, when PrEP demonstrated efficacy for HIV prevention. Thereafter, participants continued receiving active PrEP without placebo. Pregnancy testing occurred monthly and study medication was discontinued when pregnancy was detected. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Pregnancy incidence, birth outcomes (live births, pregnancy loss, preterm birth, congenital anomalies), and infant growth. RESULTS A total of 431 pregnancies occurred. Pregnancy incidence was 10.0 per 100 person-years among women assigned placebo, 11.9 among those assigned TDF (incidence difference, 1.9; 95% CI, -1.1 to 4.9 [P = .22 vs placebo]), and 8.8 among those assigned FTC+TDF (incidence difference, -1.3; 95% CI, -4.1 to 1.5 [P = .39 vs placebo]). Before discontinuation of the placebo treatment group in July 2011, the occurrence of pregnancy loss (96 of 288 pregnancies) was 42.5% for women receiving FTC+TDF compared with 32.3% for those receiving placebo (difference for FTC+TDF vs placebo, 10.2%; 95% CI, -5.3% to 25.7%; P = .16) and was 27.7% for those receiving TDF alone (difference vs placebo, -4.6%; 95% CI, -18.1% to 8.9%; P = .46). After July 2011, the frequency of pregnancy loss (52 of 143 pregnancies) was 37.5% for FTC+TDF and 36.7% for TDF alone (difference, 0.8%; 95% CI, -16.8% to 18.5%; P = .92). Occurrence of preterm birth, congenital anomalies, and growth throughout the first year of life did not differ significantly for infants born to women who received PrEP vs placebo. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Among HIV-serodiscordant heterosexual African couples, differences in pregnancy incidence, birth outcomes, and infant growth were not statistically different for women receiving PrEP with TDF alone or combination FTC+TDF compared with placebo at conception. Given that PrEP was discontinued when pregnancy was detected and that CIs for the birth outcomes were wide, definitive statements about the safety of PrEP in the periconception period cannot be made. These results should be discussed with HIV-uninfected women receiving PrEP who are considering becoming pregnant. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00557245.
Fixational eye movements, natural image statistics, and fine spatial vision

Perception and motor control are often regarded as two separate branches of neuroscience. Like most species, however, humans are not passively exposed to the incoming flow of sensory data, but actively seek useful information. By shaping input signals in ways that simplify perceptual tasks, behavior might play an important role in establishing efficient sensory representations in the brain. Under natural viewing conditions, the main source of motion of the stimulus on the retina is not the scene but our own behavior. The retinal image is never still, even during visual fixation, when small eye movements combine with movements of the head and body to continually perturb the location of gaze. This article examines the impact of the fixational motion of the retinal image on the statistics of visual input and the neural encoding of visual information. Building upon recent theoretical and experimental results, it is argued that an unstable fixation constitutes an efficient strategy for acquiring information from natural scenes. According to this theory, the fluctuations of luminance caused by the incessant motion of the eye equalize the power present at different spatial frequencies in the spatiotemporal stimulus on the retina. This phenomenon yields compact neural representations, emphasizes fine spatial detail, and might enable a temporal multiplexing of visual information from the retina to the cortex. This theory posits motor contributions to early visual representations and suggests that perception and behavior are more intimately tied than commonly thought.
Plasma Switching by Laser Ablation

Plasma offers great potential for materials science [Lieberman & Lichtenberg, 2005]. Many interesting materials have been synthesized through plasma such as chemical vapour deposition (CVD). Besides, plasma etching is also known as one of the significant techniques utilizing plasma. In general, plasma is generated by direct electrical discharges of gases. On the other hand, we recently found a new method to form pulse plasma in an electric field lower than that necessary for the plasma formation by the direct discharges [Nakano et al., 2010; Tanaka et al, 2003a, 2003b, 2004]; the laser ablation of metals switches plasma formation and extinction alternately. We call this phenomenon PLASLA (plasma switching by laser ablation) and the plasma formed by this method PLASLA (plasma switched by laser ablation). The facts that PLASLA is the pulse plasma completely synchronized with laser ablation and can be formed in a lower electric field suggest PLASLA as a promising metalcatalysis reaction for materials science. For instance, the former fact suggests that we will be able to set the most suitable conditions for materials synthesis by appropriately integrating the ablation laser and the laser for the photochemical reactions and controlling their timing. As for the latter fact, the lower discharge potential of PLASLA can exclude the discharge of impurity gases. Furthermore, our previous experiments indicate that the products of the PLASLA reactions are different in the presence and absence of a magnetic field [Nakano et al., 2010]. In the present manuscript, as well as the overview of our previous study on PLASLA, we discuss PLASLA, focusing on its spatial discharge patterns and temporal waves. These ordered structures are of great interest, since plasma is a nonlinear process.
Combining Evidences from Bark Scale and Mel Scale Warped Features for VTLN

Vocal tract length normalization (VTLN) is a process of reducing the effects of VTL differences among speakers. In this paper, frequency warping based on Bark scale is presented to obtain VTL normalized features and Bark scale based features (BSBF) have been proposed. BSBFs are found to improve the accuracy of vowel recognition task by 1.05 % over MFCCs. A feature-level fusion of BSBFs with MFCCs performs better than MFCCs alone under matched and mismatched conditions in phoneme recognition.
Actin at cell-cell junctions is composed of two dynamic and functional populations

The ability of epithelial cells to polarize requires cell-cell adhesion mediated by cadherin receptors. During cell-cell contact, the mechanism via which a flat, spread cell shape is changed into a tall, cuboidal epithelial morphology is not known. We found that cadherin-dependent adhesion modulates actin dynamics by triggering changes in actin organization both locally at junctions and within the rest of the cell. Upon induction of cell-cell contacts, two spatial actin populations are distinguishable: junctional actin and peripheral thin bundles. With time, the relative position of these two populations changes and becomes indistinguishable to form a cortical actin ring that is characteristic of mature, fully polarized epithelial cells. Junctional actin and thin actin bundles differ in their actin dynamics and mechanism of formation, and interestingly, have distinct roles during epithelial polarization. Whereas junctional actin stabilizes clustered cadherin receptors at cell-cell contacts, contraction of peripheral actin bundle is essential for an increase in the maximum height at the lateral domain during polarization (cuboidal morphology). Thus, both junctional actin and thin bundles are necessary, and cooperate with each other to generate a polarized epithelial morphology.
Why do People Gamble and Keep Gambling despite Heavy Losses?

If a long series of gambles is subjectively structured into units each consisting of a string of consecutive losses followed by a win, positive valued strings will be short and negative valued strings will be long. Long negative strings will be temporally discounted more than short positive strings, increasing the gamble's subjective value. People, therefore, may gamble because even games of objectively negative expected value may be subjectively positive. People may keep gambling despite heavy losses because reduction of degree of discounting and expansion of the behavioral unit, characteristics of selfcontrol in other areas, fail to significantly decrease a gamble's subjective value.
Learning to rank for geographic information retrieval

The task of Learning to Rank is currently getting increasing attention, providind a sound methodology for combining different sources of evidence. The goal is to design and apply machine learning methods to automatically learn a function from training data that can sort documents according to their relevance. Geographic information retrieval has also emerged as an active and growing research area, addressing the retrieval of textual documents according to geographic criteria of relevance. In this paper, we explore the usage of a learning to rank approach for geographic information retrieval, leveraging on the datasets made available in the context of the previous GeoCLEF evaluation campaigns. The idea is to combine different metrics of textual and geographic similarity into a single ranking function, through the use of the SV Mmap framework. Experimental results show that the proposed approach can outperform baselines based on heuristic combinations of features.
Student Attitudes Toward Integration of People with Disabilities in Activity Settings: A European Comparison

This study examines, in a comparative context, the attitudes of undergraduate students toward the integration of people with disabilities in activity settings. The Physical Educators’ Attitudes Toward Teaching the Handicapped instrument was used to test preservice physical education undergraduates (N = 371) from universities in England, Denmark, Belgium, and Portugal on attitude variables previously found significant in North American research. Mann-Whitney U analysis revealed significant attitudinal differences between the variables of gender, previous experience with disability, and disability classification (physical or learning disability); between cross-cultural influences of the Belgian sample and the English, Danish, and Portuguese samples; and between the English and the Danish samples.
Subjective correlates and consequences of belief in free will

Four studies measured or manipulated beliefs in free will to illuminate how such beliefs are linked to other aspects of personality. Study 1 showed that stronger belief in free will was correlated with more gratitude, greater life satisfaction, lower levels of perceived life stress, a greater sense of self-efficacy, greater perceived meaning in life, higher commitment in relationships, and more willingness to forgive relationship partners. Study 2 showed that the belief in free will was a stronger predictor of life satisfaction, meaning in life, gratitude, and self-efficacy than either locus of control or implicit person theory. Study 3 showed that experimentally manipulating disbelief in free will caused a reduction in the perceived meaningfulness of life. Study 4 found that inducing a stronger belief in free will caused people to set more meaningful goals for themselves. The possible concern that believers in free will simply claim all manner of positive traits was contradicted by predicted null findings with regard to sense of humor, empathy, and self-rated attractiveness. Taken together, the present studies show that the belief in free will is a strong predictor of several positive traits and outcomes.
Targeted Deletion Reveals an Essential Function for the Telomere Length Regulator Trf1

ABSTRACT The human telomeric DNA binding factor TRF1 (hTRF1) and its interacting proteins TIN2, tankyrase 1 and 2, and PINX1 have been implicated in the regulation of telomerase-dependent telomere length maintenance. Here we show that targeted deletion of exon 1 of the mouse gene encoding Trf1 causes early (day 5 to 6 postcoitus) embryonic lethality. The absence of telomerase did not alter the Terf1ex1Δ/ex1Δ lethality, indicating that the phenotype was not due to inappropriate telomere elongation by telomerase. Terf1ex1Δ/ex1Δ blastocysts had a severe growth defect of the inner cell mass that was accompanied by apoptosis. However, no evidence was found for telomere uncapping causing this cell death; chromosome spreads of Terf1ex1Δ/ex1Δ blastocysts did not reveal chromosome end-to-end fusions, and p53 deficiency only briefly delayed Terf1ex1Δ/ex1Δ lethality. These data suggest that murine Trf1 has an essential function that is independent of telomere length regulation.
Development of an attitude scale toward sixth grade music lesson.

The success in music class does not solely affected by the instructor, student or/and musical learning experiences. Numerous factors are found, as physiological, psychological, environmental etc. which can be controlled or not, qua determinants. Attitude is considered among the primary factors that have an influence on the music class and the success in class. For the individual to have a positive or negative attitude towards the lesson affects the academic success in that lesson. Hence, it is significant to determine the attitudes of the students. In this respect attitude scales are substantial instruments to be used by the instructor. The goal of this study is to develop an attitude scale for primary school sixth grade music class. During the Music Class Attitude Scale development studies, firstly, the theories on attitude have been examined together with the review of the related literature. Afterwards, the attitude scales developed in music education and other fields have been investigated. Subsequent to this theoretical analysis, a draft scale has been formed which includes 60 positive-negative attitude expressions. In accordance with the feedbacks given by the experts, the scale has been reduced to 47 items, as the final version to be used in scale development evaluations. As a result of the pilot study, which had been carried out during the 2010-2011 academic year fall semester in Turkey, a total number of 238 forms have been subjected to validity-reliability analysis. Initially, the data gathered through the trial implementation has been investigated in order to figure out the data’s acceptability for factor analysis. KaiserMeyer Olkin (KMO) value has been measured as 0.95. This rate is above the 0.70 which is considered the critical threshold. The Bartlett Globosity Test calculated with the same data is significant being in 0.001 levels (X2300=3442,67). These rates point that the data gathered through the trial implementation can be put to factor analysis. In consequence of the following factor analysis, the Music Class Attitude Scale, consisting of a single factor, including 25 items, whose Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient is 0.95, has been obtained. The acquired results indicate that the scale is valid and reliable. It is projected that this scale is a substantial tool for a music instructor to specify the attitudes that are effective on students’ achievements.
isrupted in Schizophrenia 1 Genotype and Positive ymptoms in Schizophrenia

ackground: Converging evidence has demonstrated an association between the Disrupted in Schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) gene and schizohrenia (SZ). Within the DISC1 gene, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), Ser704Cys, has been associated with the structure and unction of the hippocampus. Because positive symptoms in SZ have also been associated with hippocampal structure and function, we ypothesized that variation in a DISC1 haplotype containing Ser704Cys would be significantly associated with positive symptomatology in SZ.
Local Control of AMPA Receptor Trafficking at the Postsynaptic Terminal by a Small GTPase of the Rab Family*

The delivery of neurotransmitter receptors into the synaptic membrane is essential for synaptic function and plasticity. However, the molecular mechanisms of these specialized trafficking events and their integration with the intracellular membrane transport machinery are virtually unknown. Here, we have investigated the role of the Rab family of membrane sorting proteins in the late stages of receptor trafficking into the postsynaptic membrane. We have identified Rab8, a vesicular transport protein associated with trans-Golgi network membranes, as a critical component of the cellular machinery that delivers AMPA-type glutamatergic receptors (AMPARs) into synapses. Using electron microscopic techniques, we have found that Rab8 is localized in close proximity to the synaptic membrane, including the postsynaptic density. Electrophysiological studies indicated that Rab8 is necessary for the synaptic delivery of AMPARs during plasticity (long-term potentiation) and during constitutive receptor cycling. In addition, Rab8 is required for AMPAR delivery into the spine surface, but not for receptor transport from the dendritic shaft into the spine compartment or for delivery into the dendritic surface. Therefore, Rab8 specifically drives the local delivery of AMPARs into synapses. These results demonstrate a new role for the cellular secretory machinery in the control of synaptic function and plasticity directly at the postsynaptic membrane.