Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Invasive Species Research to Meet the Needs of Resource Management and Planning

Abstract: As zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) continue to spread among inland lakes of the United States and Canada, there is growing interest from professionals, citizens, and other stakeholders to know which lakes are likely to be colonized by zebra mussels. Thus, we developed a classification of lake suitability for zebra mussels on the basis of measured or estimated concentrations of dissolved calcium in lake water and applied the classification to >11,500 lakes in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The majority of lakes (58%) were classified as unsuitable (<10 mg/L Ca) for survival and reproduction of zebra mussels, 27% were identified as suitable (≥21 mg/L Ca), and 15% were classified as borderline suitable (≥10 and <21 mg/L Ca). Of the 77 inland lakes with confirmed zebra mussel records for which data on dissolved calcium were available, our method classified 74 as suitable and 3 as borderline suitable. To communicate this lake‐specific suitability information and to help prioritize regional efforts to monitor and prevent the expansion of zebra mussels and other invasive species, we developed a web‐based interface (available from http://www.aissmartprevention.wisc.edu/). Although we are still uncertain of how access to suitability information ultimately affects decision making, we believe this is a useful case study of building communication channels among researchers, practitioners, and the public.
National Measures of College Affordability: A Study of the College Affordability Index

ADAMS, AMY M. , Ph.D, June 2007, Higher Education NATIONAL MEASURES OF COLLEGE AFFORDABILITY: A STUDY OF THE COLLEGE AFFORDABILITY INDEX (179 pp.) Director of Dissertation: Valerie Martin Conley Currently the College Affordability Index (CAI) is available to the general public (albeit through the Peer Analysis System versus IPEDS COOL) for the purpose of assisting the decision making process when choosing among institutions. The purpose of this study was to derive a more valid CAI than is currently being proposed within NCES. Two modified versions of the CAI were derived and correlated with two different lowincome indicators. The first modified version included institutional aid and the second included institutional, state and federal aid combined. In addition, the means were tested among three different sectors of institutions: four-year private, four-year public and twoyear public. The findings from this research will help to determine if a more valid index should be utilized. Given the increasing demand from the public to keep colleges affordable, if a more valid index is available, it should be utilized and be made available through IPEDS COOL. Approved: Valerie Martin Conley Associate Professor of Higher Education
Oil and stock markets before and after financial crises: A local Gaussian correlation approach

The effect of financial shocks on the cross-market linkages between oil prices (spot and futures) and stock markets is examined for four major crises. We employ the local Gaussian correlation approach and find that the two markets were regionalized for most of the 1990s and the early 2000s. Flights from stocks to oil occur in all crisis episodes, except the recent global financial crisis. The view that stock and oil markets behave like “a market of one” after the financialization of commodities is further supported by the presence of contagion between US stock markets and all the benchmark oil markets.
Foreign Direct Investment, GDP Growth and Trade Liberalization: Evidence from Pioneering ASEAN Members

This paper revisits the argument on the contentious causality relationship between net FDI inflows and GDP among the pioneering Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN-5) members using data from 1970 till 2013. Although two-way correlations exist between these two variables in these countries, a careful analysis of these relationships using the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) regressions and the Vector Error Correction (VEC) model shows that causality exists only with on Thailand but the relationship is negative. The evidence from Thailand shows that GDP growth drives FDI outflows more than attracting FDI inflows. The results of all other members were not significant.
Submaximal exercise testing may be superior to the 6‐min walk test in assessing pulmonary arterial hypertension disease severity

Submaximal exercise testing (SET) assesses functional exercise capacity in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) patients and provides additional physiologic information compared with the 6‐min walk test (6MWT). The relative correlations of the 6MWT and SET using SHAPE‐HF™ with other markers of PAH severity, particularly echocardiogram (ECHO)‐derived mean pulmonary artery pressure (MPAP), have not been investigated.
Measuring income redistribution: beyond the proportionality standard

Traditional analyses of redistributive effects of the tax-benefit system are rooted in the concepts of relative income inequality and proportionality. This observation also applies to decompositions proposed by Kakwani (1977, 1984) and Lambert (1985) that reveal the vertical and horizontal effects of tax-benefit instruments. This paper generalises those decompositions within the frameworks of the alternative inequality concepts suggested by Ebert (2004) and Bosmans et al. (2014). As expected, the results of the empirical analysis indicate that for different views of inequality, different taxes and benefits play significantly different roles in reducing inequality.
Translation and cultural adaptation of the Penn Shoulder Score to Portuguese Language: PSS-Brazil.

INTRODUCTION/OBJECTIVE To produce the Brazilian version of Penn Shoulder Score (PSS) designated to measure pain, satisfaction, and function of patients with shoulder painful musculoskeletal conditions. PATIENTS AND METHODS The Brazilian version development of PSS questionnaire was based on the protocol proposed by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) and International Quality of Life Assessment (IQOLA). The process consists of translation, synthesis, back-translation, expert Committee review, pretest and evaluation of documents by the Committee and author of the PSS. This pre-final version was administered to a sample of 90 subjects with clinical diagnosis of painful musculoskeletal shoulder, male and females, aged over 18 years. In applications, the patients were inquired about their understanding of each item, and items not understood by 20% or more of patients were analyzed and modified by the Committee, requiring three questionnaire applications (n = 30). RESULTS The application of pre-final versions of the PSS revealed the difficulties encountered by patients, which were resolved by transforming the self-applied questionnaire in an instrument applied through interview. CONCLUSION The translation and cultural adaptation resulted in the final Brazilian version of the PSS questionnaire.
Global inequities between polluters and the polluted: climate change impacts on coral reefs

For many ecosystem services, it remains uncertain whether the impacts of climate change will be mostly negative or positive and how these changes will be geographically distributed. These unknowns hamper the identification of regional winners and losers, which can influence debate over climate policy. Here, we use coral reefs to explore the spatial variability of climate stress by modelling the ecological impacts of rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification, two important coral stressors associated with increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We then combine these results with national per capita emissions to quantify inequities arising from the distribution of cause (CO2 emissions) and effect (stress upon reefs) among coral reef countries. We find pollution and coral stress are spatially decoupled, creating substantial inequity of impacts as a function of emissions. We then consider the implications of such inequity for international climate policy. Targets for GHG reductions are likely to be tied to a country's emissions. Yet within a given level of GHG emissions, our analysis reveals that some countries experience relatively high levels of impact and will likely experience greater financial cost in terms of lost ecosystem productivity and more extensive adaptation measures. We suggest countries so disadvantaged be given access to international adaptation funds proportionate with impacts to their ecosystem. We raise the idea that funds could be more equitably allocated by formally including a metric of equity within a vulnerability framework.
Spanish fiscal decentralization: A successful (but still unfinished) process

Both fiscal and political decentralization have been a worldwide trend in recent decades. Spain is probably the best example of this evolution, insofar as it became one of the most decentralized countries in the world in just over three decades, departing for a highly centralized institutional framework. This paper aims to conduct a detailed analysis of this process, focusing on the fiscal aspects. While we show the successful aspects, we also point out its shortcomings and failures. Those lessons from Spain can be very useful for centralized or low decentralized countries involved in designing institutional reforms to become more decentralized. Our second aim is to review the way in which the Spanish sub-central levels of government have responded to the so-called “Great recession”. Again, Spain is a good laboratory for what actually works and what does not in the area of stability and fiscal sustainability in decentralized states, for two reasons. First, it is by far the country which has suffered the brunt of the economic and financial crisis most acutely among those with a federal structure. And second, subsequent different solutions for tackling the fiscal crisis of sub-central governments have been tested.
The efficacy of Hybrid Hyrax-Mentoplate combination in early Class III treatment: a novel approach and pilot study

Abstract Introduction The aim of the present study was to assess the skeletal, dental and soft tissue effects of a specific treatment protocol in consecutively treated patients who presented with a Class III malocclusion. Treatment involved the use of a Hybrid Hyrax (HH) in the maxilla, a Mentoplate in the mandible and the application of continuous intra-oral Class III elastics. Method The treated group was comprised of seven males and seven females (mean pretreatment age 10.4 ± 1.7 yr, range 7.8 – 12.9 yr). Treatment changes were analysed on lateral cephalograms taken 6–12 months prior to commencing treatment (T1) and at the finish of the orthopaedic phase (T2). Where a normality assumption was met, a parametric paired-sample t-test was used to assess the change differences at T1 and T2. For non-normal data, a non-parametric Wilcoxon sign rank test for related samples was used to assess T1 and T2 differences. The level of statistical significance was set at p < 0.05 (2-tailed). Results The average sagittal changes showed an improved SNA angle of 2.1 ± 2° (p = 0.002), an ANB angle of 1.9 ± 1.8° (p = 0.002), a Wits improvement of 3.4 ± 2.7 mm (p < 0.001) and an overjet reduction of 2.0 ± 2.2 mm (p = 0.005). There were no statistically significant correlations found between the age at T1, age at treatment start and age at T2 and the changes identified in the cephalometric variables (T2-T1). Conclusion The HH-Mentoplate Class III treatment protocol induced a mean Wits improvement of 3.4 mm in the maxillary and mandibular sagittal base relationship at the functional occlusal level. This was primarily achieved by sagittal maxillary skeletal protraction with negligible effects on the mandible, facial vertical dimension and the incisor angulations. A controlled clinical study with larger sample sizes and longer follow-up times is needed.
A proposal for an international retinoblastoma staging system

Although intra‐retinal tumor has long been staged presurgically according to the Reese–Ellsworth (R–E) system, retinoblastoma differs from other pediatric neoplasms in never having had a widely accepted classification system that encompasses the entire spectrum of the disease. Comparisons among studies that consider disease extension, risk factors for extra‐ocular relapse, and response to therapy require a universally accepted staging system for extra‐ocular disease.
Using self-persuasion to change public service motivation and policy alienation: lessons from a survey experiment

Self-persuasion interventions have been successfully used in psychological research to effectuate individual attitude change. This article examines the application of low intensity self-persuasion interventions in public administration by using it to influence public service motivation (PSM) and the policy alienation dimension societal meaninglessness. Our first hypothesis is that pro-referent low intensity self-persuasion treatments will increase reported levels of public service motivation. Hypothesis 2a considers that counter-attitudinal low intensity self-persuasion will decrease levels of reported societal meaninglessness. Hypothesis 2b refers to pro-attitudinal low intensity self-persuasion will increase levels of reported societal meaninglessness. Hypothesis 3 considers that proand counter-attitudinal self-persuasion is more effective when compliance is high. We test our hypotheses using two survey experiments amongst 680 health care professionals. Our results show that concept specific self-persuasion changes reported levels of PSM and policy alienation. Specifically, this research indicates that PSM can be made more salient by low intensity self-persuasion, although effects are short lasting. Regarding policy alienation, counter-attitudinal self-persuasion lowers levels of societal meaninglessness, but in situations of no compliance, it can backfire and heighten societal meaninglessness instead. In general, our findings suggest that self-persuasion can be used in public administration research provided that researchers take into account the nature of the targeted variables and the compliance methods necessary and possible.
Ambidextrous work in smart city project alliances: unpacking the role of human resource management systems

Abstract Organizations that are competing in dynamic global markets are increasingly adopting ambidextrous strategies where exploration and exploitation capabilities are combined simultaneously. However, ambidextrous work raises new challenges for human resource management (HRM). Based on 21 interviews with managers in seven multinational firms in Europe, we investigate how ambidextrous work in smart city work is supported through HRM systems. Our findings suggest a complex mix of three different HRM systems (one at corporate and two at project levels) designed to support ambidextrous exploratory and exploitation work. Specifically, corporate HRM systems focused on incentives and development of dual capabilities for smart city managers (SCMs). At project levels, interconnected explorative and exploitative HRM systems offered tailored managerial tools to support social integration and knowledge management between internal and external employees. Theoretical contributions, future research paths, and practical implications are addressed.
Oncogenic Remodeling of the Three-Dimensional Organization of the Interphase Nucleus: c-Myc Induces Telomeric Aggregates Whose Formation Precedes Chromosomal Rearrangements

The three-dimensional (3D) organization of the normal interphase nucleus permits the regulated completion of transcription and replication and assures proper chromosome organization. Aberrations from the normal 3D structural order of the nucleus are found in tumor cells. When examining the 3D organization of telomeres in nuclei of normal and tumor cells, we found that telomeres of normal nuclei do not overlap, while telomeres of tumor cells form aggregates of various numbers and sizes. To understand how such changes occur and what their implications are we have recently examined the role of the oncoprotein c-Myc in inducing changes in the 3D nuclear organization of telomeres. We found that c-Myc remodels the organization of telomeres and chromosomes in the interphase nucleus. It induces the formation of telomeric aggregates and fusions that are followed by breakage-bridge fusion cycles, and lead to the onset of chromosomal rearrangements that are typical of tumor cells.
A Simulation-based Approach on Robust Airline Job Pairing

Job paring, i.e. the composition of duty rosters from single activities, is an important part of the airline operations planning process. With labor costs being a major factor in an airline's cost structure, such personnel schedules have to ensure efficiency to be of practical relevance. At the same time they have to improve customer acceptance by offering best possible robustness, keeping inevitable local delays from spreading through the airline's
Enhancement of Spectral Resolution for Remotely Sensed Multispectral Image

Hyperspectral (HS) remote sensing has an important role in a wide variety of fields. However, its rapid progress has been constrained due to the narrow swath of HS images. This paper proposes a spectral resolution enhancement method (SREM) for remotely sensed multispectral (MS) image, to generate wide swath HS images using auxiliary multi/hyper-spectral data. Firstly, a set number of spectra of different materials are extracted from both the MS and HS data. Secondly, the approach makes use of the linear relationships between multi and hyper-spectra of specific materials to generate a set of transformation matrices. Then, a spectral angle weighted minimum distance (SAWMD) matching method is used to select a suitable matrix to create HS vectors from the original MS image, pixel by pixel. The final result image data has the same spectral resolution as the original HS data that used and the spatial resolution and swath were also the same as for the original MS data. The derived transformation matrices can also be used to generate multitemporal HS data from MS data for different periods. The approach was tested with three image datasets, and the spectra-enhanced and real HS data were compared by visual interpretation, statistical analysis, and classification to evaluate the performance. The experimental results demonstrated that SREM produces good image data, which will not only greatly improve the range of applications for HS data but also encourage more utilization of MS data.
Speech emotion recognition based on kernel reduced-rank regression

Emotion recognition from Speech has been a very active research topic in pattern recognition. In this paper, we investigate the use of kernel reduced-rank regression (KRRR) model to address the emotion recognition problem from speech. KRRR is a nonlinear extension of the linear reduced-rank regression (RRR) model via the kernel trick, in which a kernel mapping is used for the multivariable of RRR. To find the optimal kernel for KRRR, a kernel optimization algorithm is also proposed in the paper. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, we conduct extensive experiments on the Berlin emotional database. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Comparison of native and non‐native ubiquitin oligomers reveals analogous structures and reactivities

Ubiquitin (Ub) chains regulate a wide range of biological processes, and Ub chain connectivity is a critical determinant of the many regulatory roles that this post‐translational modification plays in cells. To understand how distinct Ub chains orchestrate different biochemical events, we and other investigators have developed enzymatic and non‐enzymatic methods to synthesize Ub chains of well‐defined length and connectivity. A number of chemical approaches have been used to generate Ub oligomers connected by non‐native linkages; however, few studies have examined the extent to which non‐native linkages recapitulate the structural and functional properties associated with native isopeptide bonds. Here, we compare the structure and function of Ub dimers bearing native and non‐native linkages. Using small‐angle X‐ray scattering (SAXS) analysis, we show that scattering profiles for the two types of dimers are similar. Moreover, using an experimental structural library and atomistic simulations to fit the experimental SAXS profiles, we find that the two types of Ub dimers can be matched to analogous structures. An important application of non‐native Ub oligomers is to probe the activity and selectivity of deubiquitinases. Through steady‐state kinetic analyses, we demonstrate that different families of deubiquitinases hydrolyze native and non‐native isopeptide linkages with comparable efficiency and selectivity. Considering the significant challenges associated with building topologically diverse native Ub chains, our results illustrate that chains harboring non‐native linkages can serve as surrogate substrates for explorations of Ub function.
Economic and social consequences of temporary employment

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Solubilization and purification of the MotA/MotB complex of Escherichia coli.

Bacterial flagella are driven at their base by a rotary motor fueled by the membrane gradient of protons or sodium ions. The stator of the flagellar motor is formed from the membrane proteins MotA and MotB, which function together to conduct ions across the membrane and couple ion flow to rotation. An invariant aspartate residue in MotB (Asp32 in the protein of E. coli) is essential for rotation and appears to have a direct role in proton conduction. A recent study showed that changes at Asp32 in MotB cause a conformational change in the complex, as evidenced by altered patterns of protease susceptibility of MotA [Kojima, S. , and Blair, D. F. (2001) Biochemistry 40 (43), 13041-13050]. It was proposed that protonation/deprotonation of Asp32 might regulate a conformational change in the stator that acts as the powerstroke to drive rotation of the rotor. Biochemical studies of the MotA/MotB complex have been hampered by the absence of a suitable assay for its integrity in detergent solution. Here, we have studied the behavior of the MotA/MotB complex in a variety of detergents, making use of the protease-susceptibility assay to monitor its integrity. Among about 25 detergents tested, a few were found to solubilize the proteins effectively while preserving certain conformational properties characteristic of an intact complex. The detergent dodecylphosphocholine, or DPC, proved especially effective. MotA/MotB complexes purified in DPC migrate with an apparent size of approximately 300 kDa in gel-filtration columns, and retain the Asp32-modulated conformational differences seen in membranes. (35)S-radiolabeling showed that MotA and MotB are present in a 2:1 ratio in the complex. Purified MotA/MotB complexes should enable in vitro study of the proton-induced conformational change and other aspects of stator function.