Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang&Apos;S Finances

We analyze a unique data set detailing the financial activities of a drug-selling street gang on a monthly basis over a four-year period in the recent past. The data, originally compiled by the gang leader to aid in managing the organization, contain detailed information on both the sources of revenues (e.g. drug sales, extortion) and expenditrues (e.g. costs of drugs sold, weapons, tribute to the central gang organization, wages paid to various levels of the gang). Street-level drug dealing appears to be less lucrative than is generally though. We estimate the average wage in the organization to rise from roughly $6 per hour to $11 per hour over the time period studied. The distribution of wages, however, is extremely skewed. Gang leaders earn far more than they could in the legitimate sector, but the actual street-level dealers appear to earn less than the minimum wage throughout most of our sample, in spite of the substantial risks associated with such activities (the annual violent death rate in our sample is 0.07), There is some evidence consistent both with compensating differentials and efficiency wages. The markup on drugs suggests that the gang has substantial local market power. Gang wars appear to have an important strategic component: violence on another gang's turf shifts demand away from that area. The gang we observe responds to such attacks by pricing below marginal cost, suggesting either economic punishment for the rival gang or the presence of switching for users that makes market share maintenance valuable. We investigate a range of alternative methods for estimating the willingness of gang members to accept risks of death, all of which suggest that the implicit value that gang members place on their own lives is very low.
Altered serotonin 2C receptor RNA splicing in suicide: association with editing

In an earlier study, we showed increases in serotonin 2C receptor (5-HT2CR) pre-mRNA editing in prefrontal cortex that were specific to suicide victims irrespective of associated psychiatric diagnoses. Here we demonstrate that the ratio between the two 5-HT2CR splice variants is increased in people who committed suicide, but does not vary among the diagnostic groups. This provides further evidence for suicide-specific neurobiology and suggests that, as it was previously shown in vitro, 5-HT2CR editing modulates its splicing in human brain. The association analysis indicates, however, that the efficiency of 5-HT2CR editing is an imperfect predictor of the splicing outcome, and that splice site selection is only partially controlled by the level of editing in vivo.
Semantic annotation for Mandarin verbal lexicon

This study examines the challenging issues in the semantic annotation of the characteristics of verbal information of Mandarin Chinese. It proposes a frame-based constructional approach that aligns with linguistic premises in Frame Semantics, Construction Grammar and Cognitive Grammar. Given that semantic processing has a lot to do with human cognitive capacities, semantic transfer and profile on the basis of natural inferences of event chains have to be considered in verb categorization and representation. The proposed approach has been adopted in the development of Mandarin VerbNet that has analyzed a number of major classes of Mandarin verbs up to date.
Impact of corticosteroid-binding globulin deficiency on pregnancy and neonatal sex.

CONTEXT Plasma corticosteroid-binding globulin (CBG) transports cortisol but high progesterone levels at the maternal-fetal interface can displace cortisol from its steroid-binding site. A secretion-deficient CBG mutant (A51V) in ∼1 of 36 Chinese causes low circulating CBG levels. OBJECTIVE Assess the implications of a CBG deficiency on pregnancy outcomes. PARTICIPANTS AND DESIGN From 1978 Chinese women screened at 12-16 weeks' gestation, 50 A51V carriers were identified and 46 were followed with 60 controls throughout pregnancy. Blood samples from another 2051 pregnant women were obtained at term to determine the secondary sex ratio (SSR) of newborns in an extended cohort (n = 101) of A51V mothers. OUTCOME MEASURES AND RESULTS Among women recruited at 12-16 weeks' gestation, serum CBG increased progressively during pregnancy but was lower (P < .0001) in heterozygous A51V carriers than controls. Two women homozygous for A51V had very low serum CBG but their pregnancies progressed normally. The A51V mothers did not differ from controls in body mass index, gestational age at delivery, duration of parturition, blood pressure, gravidity, infant birth weight and size, or placental weights, and reported no unusual clinical symptoms. Peripheral CBG and progesterone levels correlated (r = 0.459) during first and second trimesters. Progesterone levels were much higher in intervillous blood and correlated (r = 0.637) with CBG levels. A female-skewed SSR in newborns of A51V mothers (0.77) differed (P < .05) from the SSR (1.17) in a reference cohort. CONCLUSIONS CBG influences progesterone levels in peripheral blood and at the maternal-fetal interface. The female-skewed SSR suggests that male fetal survival is compromised in CBG-deficient mothers.
Analysis of Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Signaling Specificity in Response to Hyperosmotic Stress: Use of an Analog-Sensitive HOG1 Allele

ABSTRACT When confronted with a marked increase in external osmolarity, budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) cells utilize a conserved mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling cascade (the high-osmolarity glycerol or HOG pathway) to elicit cellular responses necessary to permit continued growth. One input that stimulates the HOG pathway requires the integral membrane protein and putative osmosensor Sho1, which recruits and enables activation of the MAPK kinase kinase Ste11. In mutants that lack the downstream MAPK kinase (pbs2Δ) or the MAPK (hog1Δ) of the HOG pathway, Ste11 activated by hyperosmotic stress is able to inappropriately stimulate the pheromone response pathway. This loss of signaling specificity is known as cross talk. To determine whether it is the Hog1 polypeptide per se or its kinase activity that is necessary to prevent cross talk, we constructed a fully functional analog-sensitive allele of HOG1 to permit acute inhibition of this enzyme without other detectable perturbations of the cell. We found that the catalytic activity of Hog1 is required continuously to prevent cross talk between the HOG pathway and both the pheromone response and invasive growth pathways. Moreover, contrary to previous reports, we found that the kinase activity of Hog1 is necessary for its stress-induced nuclear import. Finally, our results demonstrate a role for active Hog1 in maintaining signaling specificity under conditions of persistently high external osmolarity.
Dichlorido(2,9-dipropoxy-1,10-phenanthroline-κ2 N,N′)cadmium(II)

In the title complex, [CdCl2(C18H20N2O2)], the CdII ion is coordinated by two N atoms from a bis-chelating 2,9-dipropoxy-1,10-phenanthroline ligand and two Cl atoms in a distorted tetrahedral environment. The two Cd—Cl bond distances are significantly different from each other and the N—Cd—N bond angle is acute. In the crystal structure, there are π–π stacking interactions between symmetry-related phenanthroline ring systems, with a centroid–centroid distance of 3.585 (3) Å.
What Humour Tells Us About Discourse Theories

Many verbal jokes, like garden path sentences, pose difficulties to models of discourse since the initially primed interpretation needs to be discarded and a new one created based on subsequent statements. The effect of the joke depends on the fact that the second (correct) interpretation was not visible earlier. Existing models of discourse semantics in principle generate all interpretations of discourse fragments and carry these until contradicted, and thus the dissonance criteria in humour cannot be met. Computationally, maintaining all possible worlds in a discourse is very inefficient, thus computing only the maximum-likelihood interpretation seems to be a more efficient choice on average. In this work we outline a probabilistic lexicon based lexical semantics approach which seems to be a reasonable construct for discourse in general and use some examples from humour to demonstrate its working.
Moving-object tracking with multi-laser range sensors for mobile robot navigation

This paper presents a method for moving-object tracking with in-vehicle 2D-laser range sensors (LRS). Since a sensing area of the LRS is limited in orientation, mobile robot is equipped with multi-LRS's for omnidirectional sensing. In order for moving-object tracking by multi-LRS's cooperation, the coordinate frames of the multi-LRS's are calibrated based on Kalman filter and chi-hypothesis testing. The moving-object tracking is achieved by Kalman filter, Covariance Intersection and the assignment algorithm based data association. A rule based track management system is embedded into the tracker in order to improve the tracking performance. The experimental result of three people tracking in indoor environments validates the proposed method.
Region-Based Coding of Color Images Using Karhunen-Loeve Transform

Abstract In this paper we consider a number of extensions to current adaptive compression methods for color images. One, we use clustering or segmentation procedures to determine self-similar image regions. Two, for each such region we use a Karhunen–Loeve compression method to model the important spatiochromatic information. Three, we employ linear prediction to encode the resultant eigenimages. Finally, comparisons are made with current methods and improvements are demonstrated particularly for low bit-rate coding of color textured images such as those that occur in aerial photography.
DCA: Dynamic Challenging Level Adapter for Real-time Strategy Games

Recently, Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games, such as Star Craft and Age of Empire, become more and more popular. Reasons of these RTS games attracting many game players are not only the fancy game presentation but also challenging game AI of computer opponents. In order to match game challenging level to different game players, these RTS games always provide several default difficulty levels for game players' choosing. However, settings of these difficulty levels cannot always accommodate challenging level requirements of different level game players. Therefore, this paper proposes a Dynamic Challenging Level Adapter (DCA) mechanism to automatically adapt computer opponent's behaviors for different game players. Each game player doesn't need to choose a difficulty level in advance and the game AI of computer opponent controlled by the DCA mechanism can dynamically adapt for meeting the challenging level of each game player. This paper proposes that the warrior is the most important element to dominate the result of each match in RTS games. Therefore, the main idea underlying the DCA mechanism is based on analyzing warrior capabilities between two game players and real-time adjusting action strategies to fight with its opponent. In order to test the effectiveness of the DCA mechanism, this study applies the most popular RTS game, Star Craft II (SC II), as the experimental game platform. In the experiments, this study uses default difficulty level AI of SC II game to emulate game players and makes these emulated game players to fight with the opponents controlled by the DCA mechanism. Additionally, a challenging rate (CR) formula is proposed as a strength evaluation between two opponents. From the experimental results, the difference of CR value of computer opponent improved by the DCA mechanism can be reduced by more than 80%. Additionally, the duration of a game match is usually double. Furthermore, the winner is always decided in the rear of each game match.
Quantum algorithm for tree size estimation, with applications to backtracking and 2-player games

We study quantum algorithms on search trees of unknown structure, in a model where the tree can be discovered by local exploration. That is, we are given the root of the tree and access to a black box which, given a vertex v, outputs the children of v. We construct a quantum algorithm which, given such access to a search tree of depth at most n, estimates the size of the tree T within a factor of 1± δ in Õ(√nT) steps. More generally, the same algorithm can be used to estimate size of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) in a similar model. We then show two applications of this result: a) We show how to transform a classical backtracking search algorithm which examines T nodes of a search tree into an Õ(√Tn3/2) time quantum algorithm, improving over an earlier quantum backtracking algorithm of Montanaro (arXiv:1509.02374). b)We give a quantum algorithm for evaluating AND-OR formulas in a model where the formula can be discovered by local exploration (modeling position trees in 2-player games) which evaluates formulas of size T and depth To(1) in time O(T1/2+o(1)). Thus, the quantum speedup is essentially the same as in the case when the formula is known in advance.
REARC-a Bangla Phoneme recognizer

The field of Information Technology has undergone an evolution in the past couple of decades and so has risen the need for development of better modes of interaction between the users and the electronic devices for exhaustive exploration of the world of IT with minimum hindrance. Speech can be one such mode of interaction as this has been the primary mode of communication since the advent of human civilization. Speech Recognition is the technique of identification of uttered words from voice signals. Every language is composed of an inventory of sounds called Phoneme set which makes up its entire vocabulary. Speech Recognition in Bangla is rather a complicated task due to the presence of compound characters and complex nature of the language itself. REARC (Record Extract Approximate Reduce Classify) is a Bangla Phoneme Recognition system which is designed to pave the way for a Bangla Speech Recognizer. At the outset, Mel Scale Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) features have been used for the system on a database of 3150 Bangla Vowel Phonemes and an accuracy of 98.22% has been obtained.
The effect of story drama on children's writing skills

The present study examined the effects of two kinds of interventions on children's written texts in a grade three classroom. Using a mixed method design, the two interventions were (a) discussion and (b) story drama. Before and after the interventions, 26 children in the experimental group class, as well as 19 children in the control group class, were asked to write a short text to determine their level of writing. Then, for a period of eight weeks, the 26 children from the experimental group were split into two equivalent groups and received alternating discussion and story drama sessions, with each session followed by a writing activity. The 203 texts produced by the 26 children were coded for the number of words, the quality of the descriptions, and the organization and structure of the children's written texts. The study revealed a significant difference in the number of words written, specifically, children produced texts with more words following the drama sessions than following the discussion sessions. A gender effect was also found in the texts written after the discussion interventions: Girls wrote more adjectives overall and more different adjectives than boys. Finally, through the exploration of field notes, other aspects of the interventions were examined qualitatively for information regarding ways in which both discussion and creative drama can enhance children's experience of writing activities.
Text-based experiments for Predicting mental health emergencies in online web forum posts

This article explores how to build a system for detecting users in a need of attention on ReachOut.com forums. The proposed method uses Tree Kernels over binary Support Vector Machines classification and linear regression, comparing these two machine learning techniques. Predictions from one of these systems were submitted to the CLPsych 2016 Shared Task. Nonetheless, results indicate that it is possible to build an accurate system using only text features without the use of other meta data.
Downregulation of Parvalbumin at Cortical GABA Synapses Reduces Network Gamma Oscillatory Activity

Postmortem and functional imaging studies of patients with psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, are consistent with a dysfunction of interneurons leading to compromised inhibitory control of network activity. Parvalbumin (PV)-expressing, fast-spiking interneurons interacting with pyramidal neurons generate cortical gamma oscillations (30–80 Hz) that synchronize cortical activity during cognitive processing. In postmortem studies of schizophrenia patients, these interneurons show reduced PV and glutamic acid decarboxylase 67 (GAD67), an enzyme that synthesizes GABA, but the consequences of this downregulation are unclear. We developed a biophysically realistic and detailed computational model of a cortical circuit including asynchronous release from GABAergic interneurons to investigate how reductions in PV and GABA affect gamma oscillations induced by sensory stimuli. Networks with reduced GABA were disinhibited and had altered gamma oscillations in response to stimulation; PV-deficient GABA synapses had increased asynchronous release of GABA, which decreased the level of excitation and reduced gamma-band activity. Combined reductions of PV and GABA resulted in a diminished gamma-band oscillatory activity in response to stimuli, similar to that observed in schizophrenia patients. Our results suggest a mechanism by which reduced GAD67 and PV in fast-spiking interneurons may contribute to cortical dysfunction in schizophrenia and related psychiatric disorders.
Online The Open University ’ s repository of research publications and other research outputs Modelling student online behaviour in a virtual learning environment Conference Item

In recent years, distance education has enjoyed a major boom. Much work at The Open University (OU) has focused on improving retention rates in these modules by providing timely support to students who are at risk of failing the module. In this paper we explore methods for analysing student activity in online virtual learning environment (VLE) – General Unary Hypotheses Automaton (GUHA) and Markov chain-based analysis – and we explain how this analysis can be relevant for module tutors and other student support staff. We show that both methods are a valid approach to modelling student activities. An advantage of the Markov chain-based approach is in its graphical output and in the possibility to model time dependencies of the student activities.
Semi-Automatic Distribution Pattern Modeling of Web Service Compositions using Semantics

Enterprise systems are frequently built by combining a number of discrete Web services together, a process termed composition. There are a number of architectural configurations or distribution patterns, which express how a composed system is to be deployed. Previously, we presented a model driven architecture using UML 2.0, which took existing service interfaces as its input and generated an executable Web service composition, guided by a distribution pattern model. In this paper, we propose using Web service semantic descriptions in addition to Web service interfaces, to assist in the semi-automatic generation of the distribution pattern model. Web services described using semantic languages, such as OWLS, can be automatically assessed for compatibility and their input and output messages can be mapped to each other
Charting the progression in semantic dementia: implications for the organisation of semantic memory.

A patient, JL, with the syndrome of semantic dementia was assessed longitudinally over a two-year period. The data presented here address the controversy concerning the hierarchical organisation of semantic memory. On a range of category fluency tests, when first tested JL was just within the normal range on the broadest categories of animals and household items, but was virtually unable to produce any instances of specific categories such as breeds of dog or musical instruments. Longitudinal fluency data for the animal category demonstrate that while JL continued to produce the most prototypical responses (cat, dog, horse), other animal labels dropped out early from his vocabulary. On the picture-sorting tests from our semantic memory test battery, JL's discrimination between living things and man-made objects was preserved for a substantial time in conjunction with a marked decline in his sorting ability for more specific categories, particularly features or attributes (e.g. size, foreign-ness, or ferocity of animals). An analysis of naming responses to the 260 Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures on four occasions suggests a progressive loss of the features of semantic representations that enable discrimination between specific category instances. There was a progressive decline in circumlocutory and category co-ordinate responses with a rise in broad superordinate and cross-category errors. The latter are of particular theoretical interest; on session I, all cross-category errors respected the living/man-made distinction, but by session IV almost half of such errors failed to respect this distinction. The emergence of category prototypes was another notable feature, particularly in the living domain: at one stage, land (or four-legged) animals were all named either cat, dog, or horse. By contrast, within the man-made domain, items were frequently described in terms of their broad use or function, until eventually no defining features were produced. These findings are discussed in the context of competing theories of semantic organisation.
Ultra-wideband Signals for the Detection of Water Accumulations in the Human Body

In this paper, the concept for an Ultra-wideband (UWB) radar system for the detection and quantification of water accumulations in the human body is presented. With this system, the amount of water in human organs (e.g. the bladder or the lung) can be estimated by processing reflected UWB signals. A simulation-based prove of concept of this approach is presented and it is shown that the system promises a feasible way to implement a mobile on-body water detection system for medical applications. Based on the simulation results, it can be concluded that UWB technology is a very promising opportunity for the realization of a mobile and continuous on-body water detection system that can drastically reduce the costs in different areas in the fields of urology and cardiology.