Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do Better Schools Raise Housing Prices ? Evidence from Paris School Zoning

This paper provides empirical evidence on the impact of middle school quality on housing prices in Paris, using comprehensive data on both school zoning and real estate transactions over the period 1997-2003. Because it is closely linked to spatial mobility, the willingness to pay for better schools is a crucial parameter for the calibration of optimal school zoning policy simulations. Building on Black’s (1999) approach, we use a matching framework to carefully compare sales across school attendance district boundaries as a way to deal with the endogeneity of school quality. Our estimates are of the same order of magnitude as those found on US and UK data (Black (1999), Figlio & Lucas (2004), Gibbons & Machin (2003)): we find that a standard deviation increase in school quality raises prices by about 2%, which implies that the fraction of housing price differentials across school zones that can be explained by school quality differential amounts to about 7%. In addition, we test the prediction of general equilibrium models (Nechyba (1999; 2000; 2003)) that the availability of private schools should tend to mitigate the impact of public school quality on residential segregation. In line with this prediction, we find evidence that the presence of private schools in certain Parisian neighborhoods, by offering an outside option to parents, tends to attenuate the capitalization of public school quality in the price of real estate.
Stability of the 4-2 Binary Addition Circuit Cells. Part I

Stability of the 4-2 Binary Addition Circuit Cells. Part I To evaluate our formal verification method on a real-size calculation circuit, in this article, we continue to formalize the concept of the 4-2 Binary Addition Cell primitives (FTAs) to define the structures of calculation units for a very fast multiplication algorithm for VLSI implementation [11]. We define the circuit structure of four-types FTAs, TYPE-0 to TYPE-3, using the series constructions of the Generalized Full Adder Circuits (GFAs) that generalized adder to have for each positive and negative weights to inputs and outputs [15]. We then successfully prove its circuit stability of the calculation outputs after four-steps. The motivation for this research is to establish a technique based on formalized mathematics and its applications for calculation circuits with high reliability. MML identifier: FTACELL1, version: 7.9. 03 4.108. 1028
A Representation of Multiplicative Arithmetic Functions by Symmetric Polynomials

We give a representation of the classical theory of multiplicative arithmetic functions (MF)in the ring of symmetric polynomials. The basis of the ring of symmetric polynomials that we use is the isobaric basis, a basis especially sensitive to the combinatorics of partitions of the integers. The representing elements are recursive sequences of Schur polynomials evaluated at subrings of the complex numbers. The multiplicative arithmetic functions are units in the Dirichlet ring of arithmetic functions, and their properties can be described locally, that is, at each prime number $p$. Our representation is, hence, a local representation. One such representing sequence is the sequence of generalized Fibonacci polynomials. In general the sequences consist of Schur-hook polynomials. This representation enables us to clarify and generalize classical results, e.g., the Busche-Ramanujan identity, as well as to give a richer structural description of the convolution group of multiplicative functions. It is a consequence of the representation that the MF's can be defined in a natural way on the negative powers of the prime $p$.
Quantitative assessment of auditory cortex responses induced by imager acoustic noise

A clustered volume acquisition functional MRI pulse sequence was modified to assess the response to the acoustic noise of echo‐planar imaging in the auditory cortex and to determine whether it is possible to obtain data which is relatively free of acoustic contamination. The spatial location and strength (percent signal change) of cortical responses to the imager noise were examined by introducing extra gradient readouts, without slice excitation, to provide acoustic stimulation immediately prior to acquisition of a cerebral volume. The duration of acoustic stimulation was controlled by varying the number of extra gradient readouts. Slice acquisitions were clustered at the end of the repetition time (TR) period to prevent a response from being induced by the volume acquisition itself (“Intra‐Acquisition Response”). The cerebral volumes were acquired using a long TR in order to limit the integration of the cortical response across volume acquisitions (“Inter‐Acquisition Response”). Cortical responses were observed to be largest and most significant on the medial two‐thirds of Heschl's gyrus, the location of primary auditory cortex. Mean signal changes induced by the imager noise were observed to be as high as 0.95%. A 2 sec delay prior to onset of the BOLD response was empirically determined. These results demonstrate that clustered volume acquisitions may be utilized for up to 2 sec of volume acquisition without inducing an appreciable Intra‐Acquisition Response and can be used, with a sufficiently long TR, to provide data which are similarly free of any Inter‐Acquisition Response. Hum. Brain Mapping 7:79–88, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Classification Rules Mining Based on Intent Reduction

Concept lattice is accurate and complete in knowledge representation and is an effective tool for data analysis and knowledge discovery. This paper focuses on classifcation rules mining based on concept lattices. By modifying incremental computation of intent reduction of concepts, it develops a method to mine affirmative classification rules and approximate classification rules using intent reduction.
Stressful environments can indirectly select for increased longevity

Longevity is modulated by a range of conserved genes in eukaryotes, but it is unclear how variation in these genes contributes to the evolution of longevity in nature. Mutations that increase life span in model organisms typically induce trade-offs which lead to a net reduction in fitness, suggesting that such mutations are unlikely to become established in natural populations. However, the fitness consequences of manipulating longevity have rarely been assessed in heterogeneous environments, in which stressful conditions are encountered. Using laboratory selection experiments, we demonstrate that long-lived, stress-resistant Caenorhabditis elegans age-1(hx546) mutants have higher fitness than the wild-type genotype if mixed genotype populations are periodically exposed to high temperatures when food is not limited. We further establish, using stochastic population projection models, that the age-1(hx546) mutant allele can confer a selective advantage if temperature stress is encountered when food availability also varies over time. Our results indicate that heterogeneity in environmental stress may lead to altered allele frequencies over ecological timescales and indirectly drive the evolution of longevity. This has important implications for understanding the evolution of life-history strategies.
A STATE-OF-THE-ART APPROACH TO SCHOOL FINANCE ADEQUACY IN KENTUCKY

An objective lens actuator drives an objective lens in a radial direction of a disklike recording medium parallel to a face of the recording medium and in a direction of an optical axis vertical to the face of the recording medium such that information can be optically written on or read from the recording medium. The objective lens actuator includes a substantially U-shaped lens holder at an approximately central portion of which the objective lens is supported, a pair of drive members for driving the lens holder, which are provided at opposite end portions of the lens holder, respectively, a base member, and four rodlike elastic members supporting the lens holder. Each of the elastic members has one end fixed to the base member. The other end of each of two of the elastic members is fixed to a distal portion of a first leg of the lens holder adjacent the base member. The other end of each of the other two elastic members is fixed to a proximal portion of a second leg of the lens holder remote from the base member.
Toward improved P300 speller performance in outdoor environment using polarizer

P300, which is usually evoked by visual stimulus, is widely used in electroencephalography (EEG) based brain computer interface (BCI) studies. As an application-oriented BCI study, the P300 speller would inevitably be used in outdoor environments. However, the visual stimulation effect might be interfered by the reflections in outdoor environment. This paper attempted to improve the outdoor P300 speller performance by using polarizer. Six subjects participated our two experiments, each experiment was conducted three times under three different conditions. The results demonstrated that a suitable polarizer can indeed improve the performance of outdoor P300 speller.
MICROTEACHING UNDERUTILIZATION: A MISSED KALEIDOSCOPIC OPPORTUNITY FOR OPTIMIZING THE MERGING OF THEORETICAL EPISTEMOLOGIES TO PRAGMATIC PEDAGOGY IN TEACHER EDUCATION

Well planned and strategized microteaching could be an effective component in cultivating and grooming a competent, reflective and skilful teacher who has a kaleidoscopic perception and critical thought about pedagogy. Even though important, microteaching blueprint and all its comprehensive components in most microteaching exercises are not compulsively given adequate emphasis and action, leading to insufficient apprehension. Through inductive and deductive analysis of gathered data from published literature complemented by microteaching exercise observations the study found out four major challenges which hamper effective planning, implementation and management of competent based microteaching. These challenges include lack of dedication and inadequacies of time allocated to microteaching and deficits of applying blueprint microteaching pedagogical knowledge, limited subject content knowledge and deliberate application of theoretical concepts in practical teaching. Qualitative research methodologies, mainly the historical-pedagogical-philosophical anthropology criteria of analysing documents content gathered through purposive and snowball selection from internet and libraries, were used to find out microteaching challenges. Reviewed, analysed and synthesized literature revealed that most trainee teachers who undergo an extensive microteaching exercise display skilful and effective teaching practices. However, observations revealed that whilst micro-teaching was relevant, it was undermined, underutilised, given limited time, resources, inadequately prepared for whilst its mark did not contribute to the final teaching practice summative grade. In some cases it was observed that student teachers are not critically and sequentially exposed to all microteaching blueprint cycles. The study concluded that even though taken for granted microteaching was a pivotal strategy for making student teachers appreciate the historical development of pedagogical theory and practice, criticism, reflection, self-examination, peer-review, the discourse relation of merging theoretical epistemologies to pragmatic pedagogy and above all to be exposed to classroom realties as well as gain confidence. The study therefore, recommended adherence to microteaching cycles and adequate time allocation for unhurried microteaching practice. Article visualizations:
Curcumin-induced mitotic arrest is characterized by spindle abnormalities, defects in chromosomal congression and DNA damage

The chemopreventive agent curcumin has anti-proliferative effects in many tumour types, but characterization of cell cycle arrest, particularly with physiologically relevant concentrations, is still incomplete. Following oral ingestion, the highest concentrations of curcumin are achievable in the gut. Although it has been established that curcumin induces arrest at the G2/M stage of the cell cycle in colorectal cancer lines, it is not clear whether arrest occurs at the G2/M transition or in mitosis. To elucidate the precise stage of arrest, we performed a direct comparison of the levels of curcumin-induced G2/M boundary and mitotic arrest in eight colorectal cancer lines (Caco-2, DLD-1, HCA-7, HCT116p53+/+, HCT116p53–/–, HCT116p21–/–, HT-29 and SW480). Flow cytometry confirmed that these lines underwent G2/M arrest following treatment for 12h with clinically relevant concentrations of curcumin (5–10 μM). In all eight lines, the majority of this arrest occurred at the G2/M transition, with a proportion of cells arresting in mitosis. Examination of the mitotic index using fluorescence microscopy showed that the HCT116 and Caco-2 lines exhibited the highest levels of curcumin-induced mitotic arrest. Image analysis revealed impaired mitotic progression in all lines, exemplified by mitotic spindle abnormalities and defects in chromosomal congression. Pre-treatment with inhibitors of the DNA damage signalling pathway abrogated curcumin-induced mitotic arrest, but had little effect at the G2/M boundary. Moreover, pH2A.X staining seen in mitotic, but not interphase, cells suggests that this aberrant mitosis results in DNA damage.
Assessing the quality of model-comparison tools: a method and a benchmark data set

Model comparison is an important aspect of model driven software engineering. In particular, exploring the evolution of a model would be impossible without means for comparing different versions of that model. However, the techniques and tools for model comparison are still being perfected for practical application. Moreover, there exist no systematic methods and no controlled benchmarks that could be used for assessing the quality of tools for model comparison. In this paper, we describe a systematic method for assessing the quality of model-comparison tools, and we present a data set to be used for controlled assessment experiments. Additionally, we use our method, and the specified data, to asses the quality of two model-comparison tools, namely EMFCompare and RCVDiff. The results of the experiments show that, in generic cases, both tools exhibit similar performance, and that both tools are of similar quality, though there are some notable difference in the details. The defined method, the selected dataset, and the results obtained by assessing the two mentioned tools, constitute a benchmark for model-comparison tools.
A Ranking Algorithm for News Data Streams

With the advent of internet, print media such as newspapers and magazines have been moving themselves to websites providing news on the go. Also some people prefer news on the net more as pictures along with video is available in it, also we can search a particular topic. In this paper we suggest a ranking algorithm that exploits the dependency between the rank of news article, topic and source by the help of a virtual graph model. We also add the imitating or copying of new articles to revise the ranking of a source or article. Our complexity is linear and for starters we have just added the national news channels in our algorithm. To validate our algorithm we use huge manual data collecting news from national news websites.
Metrics for Phylogenetic Networks I: Generalizations of the Robinson-Foulds Metric

The assessment of phylogenetic network reconstruction methods requires the ability to compare phylogenetic networks. This is the first in a series of papers devoted to the analysis and comparison of metrics for tree-child time-consistent phylogenetic networks on the same set of taxa. In this paper, we study three metrics that have already been introduced in the literature: the Robinson-Foulds distance, the tripartition distance, and the mu-distance. They generalize to networks the classical Robinson-Foulds or partition distance for phylogenetic trees. We analyze the behavior of these metrics by studying their least and largest values and when they achieve them. As a by-product of this study, we obtain tight bounds on the size of a tree-child time-consistent phylogenetic network.
A practical method for numerical evaluation of solutions of partial differential equations of the heat-conduction type

This paper is concerned with methods of evaluating numerical solutions of the non-linear partial differential equation where subject to the boundary conditions A, k, q are known constants. Equation (1) is of the type which arises in problems of heat flow when there is an internal generation of heat within the medium; if the heat is due to a chemical reaction proceeding at each point at a rate depending upon the local temperature, the rate of heat generation is often defined by an equation such as (2).
In search of an analytical evaluation framework to meet the needs of governance

This article provides the rationale for the importance of evaluation as a research tool for the public sector to be accountable for improving better democratic governance outcomes in terms of its policies, interventions, projects and programmes. The article covers the historical background of evaluation and introduces a classification of democracy models and the type of evaluation needed. It explains the relationship between the needs of democratic societies with different evaluation paradigms as well as the different methods and values of evaluation approaches. It explains the development of a classification system to meet the needs of democratic society to improve good governance. The article addresses the question of whether improved governance outcomes can be achieved by way of developing a new evaluation paradigm and innovative methods and techniques that could focus the evaluation efforts of government more clearly. To meet the complexities of governance, it is necessary to develop enhanced evaluation designs that will be responsive to the changing needs of stakeholders. This is especially true for system change reform and comprehensive community initiatives which many evaluators are now attempting to implement.
Specification and Verification of GPGPU Programs using Permission-Based Separation Logic

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are increasingly used for general-purpose applications because of their low price, energy efficiency and enormous computing power. Considering the importance of GPU applications, it is vital that the behaviour of GPU programs can be specified and proven correct formally. This paper presents our ideas how to verify GPU programs written in OpenCL, a platform-independent low-level programming language. Our verification approach is modular, based on permission-based separation logic. We first present the main ingredients of our logic, and then illustrate its use on several example kernels. We show in particular how the logic is used to prove data-race- freedom and functional correctness of GPU applications.
Aspirin resistance in patients with type II diabetes mellitus

Abstract Background. Diabetic patients exhibit platelet hyperreactivity, which renders them resistant to antithrombotic treatments. We aimed to investigate the prevalence and predictors of aspirin resistance in diabetic patients. Material and methods. A total of 93 diabetic and 37 non-diabetic participants were included into the study. Aspirin resistance was measured with a whole-blood desktop platelet function analyzer (PFA-100) with an epinephrine agonist. Results. Altogether 41.9% patients with DM were aspirin non-responders. Aspirin resistance was observed in 43.2% of non-diabetic patients (p = 0.89). Presence of diabetes mellitus had no effect on aspirin response (RR 0.95 (95% CI 0.44–2.05), p = 0.89) in the whole study population. Hypercholesterolemia was the only predictor of aspirin resistance in multivariate analysis in diabetic patients (RR 3.09 (95% CI 1.17–8.16), p = 0.023). Conclusion. The prevalence of aspirin resistance is comparable in diabetic and non-diabetic patients. Hypercholesterolemia is the only independent predictor of aspirin resistance in diabetic patients.
Novel Cavity Disinfectants Containing Quaternary Ammonium Monomer Dimethylaminododecyl Methacrylate

This study was set to assess the possible benefits of novel cavity disinfectants with 5% dimethylaminododecyl methacrylate (DMADDM); and compare the effectiveness of saliva microbial-aging method with water-aging in measuring the changing of resin–dentin bond strength. Three cavity disinfectants were tested: 0.2% Chlorhexidine (CHX); 5% DMADDM; and 5% DMADDM + 0.2% CHX. Microtensile bond strength (μTBS) test was performed after microbial-aging with saliva microbial or water aging for one month. Hydroxyproline (HYP), the production of collagen degradation, was measured spectrophotometrically. Additionally, the antibacterial effects of each reagent were evaluated. The 5% DMADDM exerted the least percentage of resin–dentin bond strength loss after one month microbial-aging (p < 0.05). There were no statistically significant differences of bond strength decrease after one month water aging among the tested groups (p > 0.05). Microbial-aging method yield more drop of bond strength than water aging in all groups except 5% DMADDM (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, 5% DMADDM had the same matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) inhibitory effects as the other two agents (p > 0.05), but much stronger antibacterial capability than 0.2% CHX (p < 0.05). This indicated that a cavity disinfectant with 5% DMADDM is promising for improving the stability of resin–dentin bonds in appearance of saliva biofilm; and the saliva microbial-aging method is more promising for studying the durability of resin–dentin bonds than water aging.
Switchable Quad-Band Antennas for Cognitive Radio Base Station Applications

A novel antenna configuration for quad-band operation is presented. The quad-band antenna has a directional radiation pattern in four frequency bands, i.e., B1 (800-900 MHz), B2 (1.7-2.5 GHz), B3 (3.3-3.6 GHz), and B4 (5.1-5.9 GHz), covering all spectrums for existing wireless applications, such as GSM, PCS, WCDMA, WiFi, and WiMax. The operating frequency of the quad-band antenna can be adjusted by the use of a MEMS switch, making it suitable for cognitive radio applications. First a switchable quad-band antenna element is introduced. Then a two-element antenna array is developed to increase the antenna gain for base station applications featuring a gain value of about 9-11 dBi over all four frequency bands.