Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Are Female House Members Still More Liberal in a Polarized Era? The Conditional Nature of the Relationship Between Descriptive and Substantive Representation

Some past studies looking at the voting behavior of women in Congress have shown that they tend to be more liberal than their male colleagues and are more likely to support issues of importance to women. Yet many of these analyses were conducted prior to the entrance of a number of conservative women into the U.S. House over the past few election cycles. Focusing on roll-call voting data over 13 Congresses, this study demonstrates that women in the House are more divided along partisan and ideological lines than at any point over the past two decades, even more ideologically distant than their male colleagues. It presents evidence that over the entirety of this period after controlling for other relevant factors, the effect of gender on roll-call ideology was stronger for Republican women than for Democratic women. However, in the 108th and 109th Congresses they were virtually ideologically indistinguishable from their male Republican colleagues. A similar pattern has materialized when the analysis is strictly limited to votes on women's issues.
Themes of Lust and Love in Popular Music Lyrics From 1971 to 2011

We explored themes related to sexual desire (lust) and romantic desire (love) in the lyrics of popular music over the past 40 years. We examined whether there have been changes in the prevalence of lust and love themes and changes in how these themes inter-relate in music lyrics over time. The study sample consisted of the top 40 songs of Billboard Year End Hot 100 single songs for every 5 years from 1971 to 2011 (N = 360). There was a linear decrease over time in the proportion of songs with a love theme and in the proportion of songs with a combination of lust and love themes. In contrast, there was a significant increase in the proportion of songs with a theme focusing on lust in the absence of love. Themes of lust in the absence of love were especially prevalent in hip-hop/rap music, although music genre did not account for the changing themes over time. These shifts in themes found in popular music may both influence cultural norms and reflect a cultural shift toward acceptance of sexuality outside of love relationships.
Positive Individual and Social Behavior among Gang and Nongang African American Male Adolescents

To explore potential bases of positive development among gang youth, attributes of positive individual and social behavior were assessed in individual interviews with 45 African American adolescent male members of inner-city Detroit gangs and 50 African American adolescent males from the same communities but involved in community-based organizations aimed at promoting positive youth development. As anticipated, the groups differed in regard to the majority of interview questions and to positive attribute scores pertaining to parents/family, peer relations, school/education, drug use, sexual activity, religious activities/religiosity, racial/ethnic identity, role models/confidants, and neighborhood/safety. The correlations of attributes scores were more often significant (i.e., coupled) for the gang than for the nongang youth. Consistent with the ideas that all young people have resources pertinent to positive development and that, therefore, gang and nongang youth would have some resource comparability, across the nine attributes, about one quarter of the gang youth had total positive attribute scores that were above the average total positive attribute score for the nongang youth. Implications of these findings for both research and applications to programs seeking to promote positive youth development among diverse youth are discussed.
FEDSM 98-5235 MIXING ENHANCEMENT IN JET EXHAUST USING FLUIDIC ACTUATORS : DIRECT NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS

Direct numerical simulation was used to study the effect of controlled forcing at the jet nozzle on downstream mixing in a Mach 0.8 jet. The jet was forced by small slot jet actuators near the nozzle lip which blew normal to the initial jet shear layer and excited a flapping mode in the jet. The actuator jets and the nozzle itself were not explicitly simulated to spare the expense of including complex geometry wall boundaries in the calculation. Instead, their effects were syntheticly included by putting ‘source’ terms into the equations. It was found that mixing could be substantially increased with relatively small amounts of forcing. The potential core length was reduced by a factor of 2 and the downstream velocity profiles became highly asymmetric. The results agree with similar but lower Mach number experiments of Parekh et al. (1990).
As novas tecnologias reprodutivas: o estatuto do embrião e a noção de pessoa

Amongst the several dilemmas recently emerging with regard to extracorporeal embryos, the one referring to conditions for allowing research with or on them stands out. The issue is still couched in terms of which attributes are necessary - or at what stage in time - personhood can be conferred on the embryo. Focusing on current debate, international recommendations, and pertinent legislation, the article examines the underlying representations of personhood. The central argument is that the lack of consensus over what it means to be a person (and which qualities instate this condition) in a human being is offset by the insistence on identifying Person - in this case, the embryo - as an Individual. The article further suggests that the review of these documents allows one to display the tensions and paradoxes pervading our central category of Individual.
Intra-tumoral Heterogeneity of KRAS and BRAF Mutation Status in Patients with Advanced Colorectal Cancer (aCRC) and Cost-Effectiveness of Multiple Sample Testing

KRAS mutation status is established as a predictive biomarker of benefit from anti-EGFr therapies. Mutations are normally assessed using DNA extracted from one formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor block. We assessed heterogeneity of KRAS and BRAF mutation status intra-tumorally (multiple blocks from the same primary tumor). We also investigated the utility and efficiency of genotyping a ‘DNA cocktail’ prepared from multiple blocks. We studied 68 consenting patients in two randomized clinical trials. DNA was extracted, from ≥2 primary tumor FFPE blocks per patient. DNA was genotyped by pyrosequencing for KRAS codons 12, 13 and 61 and BRAF codon 600. In patients with heterogeneous mutation status, DNA cocktails were prepared and genotyped. Among 69 primary tumors in 68 patients, 7 (10.1%) showed intratumoral heterogeneity; 5 (7.2%) at KRAS codons 12, 13 and 2 (2.9%) at BRAF codon 600. In patients displaying heterogeneity, the relevant KRAS or BRAF mutation was also identified in ‘DNA cocktail’ samples when including DNA from mutant and wild-type blocks. Heterogeneity is uncommon but not insignificant. Testing DNA from a single block will wrongly assign wild-type status to 10% patients. Testing more than one block, or preferably preparation of a ‘DNA cocktail’ from two or more tumor blocks, improves mutation detection at minimal extra cost.
Skewed caches from a low-power perspective

The common approach to reduce cache conflicts is to increase the associativity. From a dynamic power perspective this associativity comes at a high cost. In this paper we present miss ratio performance and a dynamic power comparison for set-associative caches, a skewed cache and also for a new organization proposed,the elbow cache. The elbow cache extends the skewed cache organization with a relocation strategy for conflicting blocks. We show that these skewed designs significantly reduce the conflict problems while consuming p to 56% less dynamic power than a comparably performing 8-way set associative cache. We believe this to be the strongest case in favor of skewed caches presented so far
Paradox and Collaboration in Network Management

Qualitative evidence from action networks is used to answer the research question, How do leaders of successful networks manage collaboration challenges to make things happen? This study of two urban immigration coalitions in the United States found that their leaders developed practices as a response to two paradoxical requirements of network collaboration: managing unity and diversity when doing inward work and confrontation and dialogue when doing outward work. By illuminating how leaders responded to these complex demands inherent in action networks, the authors open up the black box of managing whole networks of organizations and underscore the role of leadership in interorganizational collaboration.
Covariant field equations, gauge fields and conservation laws from Yang-Mills matrix models

The effective geometry and the gravitational coupling of nonabelian gauge and scalar fields on generic NC branes in Yang-Mills matrix models is determined. Covariant field equations are derived from the basic matrix equations of motions, known as Yang-Mills algebra. Remarkably, the equations of motion for the Poisson structure and for the nonabelian gauge fields follow from a matrix Noether theorem, and are therefore protected from quantum corrections. This provides a transparent derivation and generalization of the effective action governing the SU(n) gauge fields obtained in [1], including the would-be topological term. In particular, the IKKT matrix model is capable of describing 4-dimensional NC space-times with a general effective metric. Metric deformations of flat Moyal-Weyl space are briefly discussed.
Determination of Nitromethane in the Air with the use of a Piezoelectric Sensors Set and Pattern Recognition Technique

To increase selectivity and sensitivity of determination of nitromethane in the air a set of piezoelectric gas sensors is proposed. In order to increase the differences between the signals sensor responses have been preliminary processed in accordance with the known algorithms. To determine nitrometane in the air an artificial neural network is applied and its parameters have been investigated.
Personal learning networks with open learning groups - A formal approach

A continuous trend of the past decade has shifted educational responsibility to individuals, while elaborate Internet technologies have fostered easy and open ways to content and communication in a location- and time-independent manner. Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) have emerged as a new paradigm within the context of network-centric learning. While interacting with others interested in the same topic, learners create networks that interrelate elements of information and communication. These networks form a space for exchanging learning content and for collaboration. Our work is centered on learning in Online Social Networks (OSNs), focussing on the core mechanisms to establish group formation and content recommendation. In this paper, we characterize this specific approach to PLNs from a formal perspective and transfer these findings to our eLearning-enabled Online Social Network. The network consists of a multi-entity graph that represents users as well as all relevant eLearning and communication objects. Based on this context-rich graph, we derive a content recommendation algorithm to aid learning groups with relevant content elements.
Online learning for multi-task feature selection

Multi-task feature selection (MTFS) is an important tool to learn the explanatory features across multiple related tasks. Previous MTFS methods fulfill this task in batch-mode training. This makes them inefficient when data come in sequence or when the number of training data is so large that they cannot be loaded into the memory simultaneously. To tackle these problems, we propose the first online learning framework for MTFS. A main advantage of the online algorithms is the efficiency in both time complexity and memory cost due to the closed-form solutions in updating the model weights at each iteration. Experimental results on a real-world dataset attest to the merits of the proposed algorithms.
Towards Dynamic QoS Monitoring in Service Oriented Architectures

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that provides agility to align technical solutions to modular business Web Services (WS) that are well decoupled from their consumers. This agility is established by interconnecting WS family of standards specification protocols (commonly referred to as WS-* (WS-star)) to enable security, ease of service interoperability and orchestration complexities when extending services across organizational boundaries. While orchestrating services or chaining services in varying ways to satisfy different business needs, on highly scalable cloud platforms is undeniably useful, it is increasingly challenging to effectively monitor Quality of Service (QoS), especially, service response time. This is due to a) lack of proper formulation of the WS-star interconnections mechanisms, and b) the transient performance behaviour intrinsic to the heterogeneity of the hardware and shared virtualized network and IO resources built on the cloud platforms. We present an analysis of WS-star standards, classifying and discussing their inter-dependencies to provide a basis for QoS monitoring context on protocol formulation. We then illustrate a practical implementation of a dynamic QoS monitoring mechanism using runtime service instrumentation with Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP). Preliminary evaluations show the efficiency of computing QoS on a transient performance cloud platform.
Characterization of Functional TRPV1 Channels in the Sarcoplasmic Reticulum of Mouse Skeletal Muscle

TRPV1 represents a non-selective cation channel activated by capsaicin, acidosis and high temperature. In the central nervous system where TRPV1 is highly expressed, its physiological role in nociception is clearly identified. In skeletal muscle, TRPV1 appears implicated in energy metabolism and exercise endurance. However, how as a Ca2+ channel, it contributes to intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i) maintenance and muscle contraction remains unknown. Here, as in rats, we report that TRPV1 is functionally expressed in mouse skeletal muscle. In contrast to earlier reports, our analysis show TRPV1 presence only at the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) membrane (preferably at the longitudinal part) in the proximity of SERCA1 pumps. Using intracellular Ca2+ imaging, we directly accessed to the channel functionality in intact FDB mouse fibers. Capsaicin and resiniferatoxin, both agonists as well as high temperature (45°C) elicited an increase in [Ca2+]i. TRPV1-inhibition by capsazepine resulted in a strong inhibition of TRPV1-mediated functional responses and abolished channel activation. Blocking the SR release (with ryanodine or dantrolene) led to a reduced capsaicin-induced Ca2+ elevation suggesting that TRPV1 may participate to a secondary SR Ca2+ liberation of greater amplitude. In conclusion, our experiments point out that TRPV1 is a functional SR Ca2+ leak channel and may crosstalk with RyR1 in adult mouse muscle fibers.
A Self-Reconﬁgurable Camera Array

This paper presents a self-reconﬁgurable camera array system that captures video sequences from an array of mobile cameras, renders novel views on the ﬂy and reconﬁgures the camera positions to achieve better rendering quality. The system is composed of 48 cameras mounted on mobile platforms. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we propose an efﬁcient algorithm that is capable of rendering high-quality novel views from the captured images. The algorithm reconstructs a view-dependent multi-resolution 2D mesh model of the scene geometry on the ﬂy and uses it for rendering. The algorithm combines region of interest (ROI) identiﬁcation, JPEG image decompression, lens distortion correction, scene geometry reconstruction and novel view synthesis seamlessly on a single Intel Xeon 2.4 GHz processor, which is capable of generating novel views at 4–10 frames per second (fps). Second, we present a view-dependent adaptive capturing scheme that moves the cameras in order to show even better rendering results. Such camera reconﬁguration naturally leads to a nonuniform arrangement of the cameras on the camera plane, which is both view-dependent and scene-dependent.
SAT Based Multi Pin Net Detailed Routing for FPGA

Boolean satisfiability based detailed routing is becoming very popular nowadays because of its capability to evaluate all the nets simultaneously. In this approach the geometric FPGA detailed routing problem can be transformed into a single Boolean function. Any satisfying assignment of input Boolean variables in the function denotes that routing is possible. Impossible routing is proved by the absence of any valid satisfying assignment. All the previous SAT based detailed routing solutions executed on two-pin nets. Decomposition is one important job in two-pin net routing as because all the real nets are multi-pin. Working on multi-pin net is more realistic and efficient. Our main concentration is on the question of rout ability of multi-pin net to track assignment formulation by removing the overhead of net decomposition. In this paper we prove the rout ability of MCNC benchmark circuits with multi-pin nets and list the comparison between track-based detailed routing on two-pin nets and track assignment formulation on multi-pin nets.
Partnership Instability and Child Well-Being

We use data from three waves of the Fragile Families Study (N = 2,111) to examine the prevalence and effects of mothers? partnership changes between birth and age 3 on children? s behavior. We find that children born to unmarried and minority parents experience significantly more partnership changes than children born to parents who are married or White. Each transition is associated with a modest increase in behavioral problems, but a significant number of children experience three or more transitions. The effects of instability do not depend on the mothers? relationship status or race/ethnicity with one exception: instability has a stronger effect on aggression among Hispanic children. The association between instability and behavior is mediated by maternal stress and lower quality mothering.
Global nuclear weapons inventories, 1945–2013

The authors calculate that some 125,000 nuclear warheads have been built since 1945, about 97 percent of them by the United States and the Soviet Union and Russia. The nine nations with nuclear weapons now possess more than 10,000 nuclear warheads in their military stockpiles, the authors estimate, with several thousand additional US and Russian retired warheads in storage, awaiting dismantlement. The nuclear stockpiles of China, as well as Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea, are minuscule in comparison with the US and Russian arsenals, but more difficult to estimate. Still, the authors believe that China’s nuclear weapons stockpile has surpassed Great Britain’s. Although the total number of nuclear warheads in the world is decreasing because of US and Russian reductions, all the nations with nuclear weapons continue to modernize or upgrade their nuclear arsenals.
A Randomization Approach for Stochastic Workflow Scheduling in Clouds

In cloud systems consisting of heterogeneous distributed resources, scheduling plays a key role to obtain good performance when complex applications are run. However, there is unavoidable error in predicting individual task execution times and data transmission times. When this error is being not negligible, deterministic scheduling approaches (i.e., scheduling based on accurate time prediction) may suffer. In this paper, we assume the error in time predictions is modelled in stochastic manner, and a novel randomization approach making use of the properties of random variables is proposed to improve deterministic scheduling. The randomization approach is applied to a classic deterministic scheduling heuristic, but its applicability is not limited to this one heuristic. Evaluation results obtained from extensive simulation show that the randomized scheduling approach can significantly outperform its static counterpart and the extra overhead introduced is not only controllable but also acceptable.
Design of Bookmark-Based Information Space to Support Exploration and Rediscovery

Search is not the only activity in information space users are engaged in. Most of time users rediscover things they used to find in the past, and often they just browse without any specific purpose discovering information space around them or with a particular purpose, such as learning miscellaneous information. We propose an approach for designing exploratory information space that makes use of human-centered power of bookmarking for information selection. The information space is built as a result of a search for something a user intends to discover, and serves as a place for rediscoveries of personal findings, socialization and exploration inside discovery chains of other participants of the proposed prototype system. The most important elements of the proposed information space, main elements of the prototype system to be implemented and used to explore the space, and use scenarios are discussed here.
Road Network Determination by Cellular Automata Traffic Flow Simulation

Braess's Paradox pointed out that, when a new road is added for increasing road capacity, total capacity of whole road network is reduced in any case. It is pointed out by other study that Braess's Paradox disappears at the high traffic density. The aim of this study is to discuss the appearance of Braess's Paradox at the different traffic density. At the different traffic density, the road network is determined so as to maximize the traffic amount by the help of the optimization algorithm and the traffic simulator. The results show that the optimized road network depends on the traffic density.
Theories of Conversion: Understanding and Interpreting Religious Change

The author explores the nature of theory and provides an overview of resources for the study of conversion to Islam. Theory is valuable in so far as it illuminates different aspects of a phenomenon. Various theoretical approaches include some dimensions and exclude others. Scholars of conversion must be aware of theoretical issues and systematically utilize theoretical options with sophistication. Such an approach will expand understanding of conversion and also enhance comparative studies of conversion. Theoretical orientations considered in this paper include: globalization, post-colonial, feminist, cross-cultural, religious/spiritual, intellectualist, narrative, identity, ritual, psychoanalytic, archetypal, attribution, attachment, process/stage, and Islamization theory.
Critical literacy in teaching and research1

This article explains Janks’ (2010) interdependent framework for critical literacy education, how it was developed and how it can be applied. The explanation focuses on each part of the framework: power, identity/diversity, access and design/redesign and it provides an argument for their interdependence. The framework is then applied to three illustrative case studies all of which relate to critical literacy education. The first relates to curriculum, the second to pedagogy and the third to research.