Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
"`Emergent Structure' in the Abu Ghraib Political Cartoons of Emad Hajjaj in a News Context, or, What do the Images of Abu Ghraib `Want from Us'?"

The Torture scandal of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was exposed in 2004 when 60 Minutes introduced the story by placing on its web site the photo of a hooded prisoner on a box. That particular image, chosen by many cartoonists and scholars as the iconic image to represent torture, is the subject of this study. I apply the theories of “conceptual blending” (Fauconnier and Turner, 2002) to the Abu Ghraib cartoons of the hooded prisoner as well as to the cartoons that draw on that iconic image years later. By tracing the cognitive and visual strategies political cartoonist Emad Hajjaj used to transform that powerful icon into 24 cartoons between 2004-2010, I illustrate how the image continues to be blended into new “emergent structures” that are applied to other news events. I suggest that, over time, the Hajjaj cartoons changed from timely commentary on the mistreatment of prisoners, to icons that encourage “a devotional reading” (Mitchell, 2006) of related and unrelated news events. Those same images have also inspired political “culture jamming,” in which artists turned the iPod into iRaq, and posted mock iRaq posters, extending the life and reach of the image.
Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market the Effect of School Starting Age on Academic Performance in Hungary the Effect of School Starting Age on Academic Performance in Hungary a Beiskolázási Életkor Hatása Az Iskolai Eredményekre Magyarországon

The study estimates the effect of school starting age on academic performance for Hungarian grade four students using the " Progress in International Reading Literacy Study " (PIRLS) and the " Trends in Mathematics and Science Study " (TIMMS). The study uses the control function approach, exploiting the exogenous variation in school starting age driven by the children's month of birth and the cutoff date regulation for enrolment. The results indicate a positive age effect on Reading, Mathematics and Science performance. A tanulmány a beiskolázási életkor hatását elemzi az iskolai eredményekre Magyarországon a negyedik osztályos tanulók körében a " Progress in International Reading Literacy Study " (PIRLS) adatait és a " Trends in Mathematics and Science Study " (TIMMS) adatait felhasználva. Az eredmények azt mutatják, hogy a késöbbi beiskolázási életkornak pozítiv hatása van az iskolai eredményekre, továbbá számos társadalmi-gazdasági tényező, mint például a családi háttér, fontos szerepet játszik az iskolai eredményekben.
Cortical Axon Guidance by the Glial Wedge during the Development of the Corpus Callosum

Growing axons are often guided to their final destination by intermediate targets. In the developing spinal cord and optic nerve, specialized cells at the embryonic midline act as intermediate targets for guiding commissural axons. Here we investigate whether similar intermediate targets may play a role in guiding cortical axons in the developing brain. During the development of the corpus callosum, cortical axons from one cerebral hemisphere cross the midline to reach their targets in the opposite cortical hemisphere. We have identified two early differentiating populations of midline glial cells that may act as intermediate guideposts for callosal axons. The first differentiates directly below the corpus callosum forming a wedge shaped structure (the glial wedge) and the second differentiates directly above the corpus callosum within the indusium griseum. Axons of the corpus callosum avoid both of these populations in vivo. This finding is recapitulated in vitro in three-dimensional collagen gels. In addition, experimental manipulations in organotypic slices show that callosal axons require the presence and correct orientation of these populations to turn toward the midline. We have also identified one possible candidate for this activity because both glial populations express the chemorepellent molecule slit-2, and cortical axons express theslit-2 receptors robo-1 and robo-2. Furthermore, slit-2 repels–suppresses cortical axon growth in three-dimensional collagen gel cocultures.
Social Capital and the Vitality of Community-Based Organizations

This paper examines the extent to which various forms of social capital impact community-level organizational vitality. My hypothesis is that, controlling for other relevant social, political and economic factors, communities with higher levels of social capital should experience more robust organizational and financial growth, and less failure, in their for-profit and nonprofit sectors. I test this hypothesis here in regard to the nonprofit sector, using 2001- year data from three sources—Harvard's Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, the US Census Bureau, and the IRS' "charitable organization" Business Master Files—to measure organizational foundings, organizational failures, total revenues, and financial vulnerability in the nonprofit sectors of 284 US counties. Using a combination of negative binomial event count models and OLS regressions, I find that the different dimensions of social capital do not manifest a uniform effect. Only three core dimensions of social capital—social trust, political engagement, and "bridging" social ties—have a consistent, significant impact on the different facets of county-level nonprofit vitality. The results further demonstrate that the health of a community's not-for-profit sector is dependent on a mix of ecological and environmental factors, especially pre-existing organizational density, median household income, levels of governmental spending, and the proportion of residents aged 65 years and over. Also noteworthy is the finding that those factors that are associated with increases in foundings, failures, organizational growth, and total revenues are generally associated with decreases in financial security, and vice versa. This implies a critical distinction between a sector's general level of fiscal security and its overall level of organizational and financial "activity. "
Brain Reorganization in Patients with Brachial Plexus Injury: A Longitudinal Functional MRI Study

The aim of this study is to assess plastic changes of the sensorimotor cortex (SMC) in patients with traumatic brachial plexus injury (BPI) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Twenty patients with traumatic BPI underwent fMRI using blood oxygen level-dependent technique with echo-planar imaging before the operation. Sixteen patients underwent their second fMRI at approximately one year after injury. The subjects performed two tasks: a flexion-extension task of the affected elbow and a task of the unaffected elbow. After activation, maps were generated, the number of significantly activated voxels in SMC contralateral to the elbow movement in the affected elbow task study (N af) and that in the unaffected task study (N unaf) were counted. An asymmetry index (AI) was calculated, where AI = (N af − N unaf)/(N af + N unaf). Ten healthy volunteers were also included in this fMRI study. The AI of the first fMRI of the patients with BPI was significantly lower than that of the healthy subjects (P = 0.035). The AI of the second fMRI significantly decreased compared with that of the first fMRI (P = 0.045). Brain reorganization associates with peripheral nervous changes after BPI and after operation for functional reconstruction.
Congestion Control and Resource Management in Diverse ATM Environments

Large propagation-bandwidthproducts and diverse traffic characteristics have made traditional network congestion control and bandwidth management schemes less effective in high speed networks such as ATM. Furthermore, heterogeneities in ATM network size and the services offered must be considered in the development of effective congestion and resource control disciplines. New mechanisms for traffic and resource control must necessarily be adopted if high speed networks are to operate in an efficient manner. Various congestion and resource control schemes are surveyed and evaluated from the perspectives of high speed local area and wide area networks. They are also evaluated from a service perspective. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NCR-8907909. This research is also supported in part by the University of California MICRO program, Nippon Steel Information and Communication Systems Inc. (ENICOM), Hitachi Ltd., Hitachi America, and Tokyo Electric Power Company.
Antinociceptive Effect of Najanalgesin from Naja Naja Atra in a Neuropathic Pain Model via Inhibition of c-Jun NH2-terminal Kinase

Background:Najanalgesin, a toxin isolated from the venom of Naja naja atra, has been shown to exert significant analgesic effects in a neuropathic pain model in rats. However, the molecular mechanism underlying this protective effect of najanalgesin is poorly understood. The present study sought to evaluate the intracellular signaling pathways that are involved in the antinociceptive effect of najanalgesin on neuropathic pain. Methods:The antinociceptive properties of najanalgesin were tested in hind paw withdrawal thresholds in response to mechanical stimulation. We analyzed the participation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase p38, extracellular-regulated kinase (ERK), and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) by western blot analysis. This inhibition of JNK was confirmed by immunohistochemistry. Results:The phosphorylation levels of JNK (as well as its downstream molecule c-Jun), p38, and ERK were significantly increased after injury. Najanalgesin only inhibited JNK and c-Jun phosphorylation but had no effect on either ERK or p38. This inhibition of JNK was confirmed by immunohistochemistry, which suggested that the antinociceptive effect of najanalgesin on spinal nerve ligation-induced neuropathic pain in rats is associated with JNK activation in the spinal cord. Conclusion:The antinociceptive effect of najanalgesin functions by inhibiting the JNK in a neuropathic pain model.
Recognizing Verbal Irony in Spontaneous Speech

We explored the differential impact of auditory information and written contextual information on the recognition of verbal irony in spontaneous speech. Based on relevance theory, we predicted that speakers would provide acoustic disambiguation cues when speaking in situations that lack other sources of information, such as a visual channel. We further predicted that listeners would use this information, in addition to context, when interpreting the utterances. People were presented with spontaneously produced ironic and nonironic utterances from radio talk shows in written or auditory form, with or without written contextual information. When the utterances were read without written contextual information, all utterances were rated as equally ironic. But when they were heard as opposed to read, or when they were presented in irony-biasing contexts, originally ironic utterances were rated as more sarcastic than originally nonironic utterances. This evidence suggests both acoustic and contextual information are used when inferring ironic intent in spontaneous speech, and validates previous manipulations of intonation in studies of irony understanding.
Multifeature Analysis in Motor Imagery EEG Classification

Classification of EEG signals is core issues on EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI). Typically, such classification has been performed using features extracted from EEG signals. Many features have proved to be unique enough to used in BCI application. However, different features show different discriminative power for different subjects or different trials. In this paper, multifeature was used to improve the system performance.
Disaggregating Real Exchange Rate Dynamics: A Structural Approach

This paper employs a small open economy DSGE model, estimated over 1986- 2009, to decompose the dynamic influence of domestic and international prices on the Canada-US real exchange rate. While the real exchange rate mimics the dynamic behavior of the relative price of non-tradables in terms of tradables in response to a non-tradable sector-specific disturbance, the purely tradable component dominates in the case of other shocks, irrespective of their structural origin. Variance decom- positions reveal that the sources of the movements in the tradable component lie in unsystematic deviations from uncovered interest parity as well as import price mark-up shocks. Consequently, these disturbances are far more potent than internal tradable or non-tradable sector-specific disturbances in driving real exchange rate . fluctuations.
MMAS Based on Grey Prediction and Cloud Association Rules

Aiming at the shortcomings of slow convergence speed and easily trapping in local optimum in ant colony algorithm (ACO), an improved version of basic Max-Min Ant System (MMAS) is proposed. It uses the grey information which is obtained form pheromone matrix each iteration to build grey model to predict and control the maximum and minimum trail limits real-timely. Meanwhile, it also makes some other parameters of algorithm controlled by using cloud association rules. Through both of the improved strategies, the algorithm can avoid effectively the slow convergence caused possibly by implementing the max-min trail limit strategy and the early stagnation of search, and appease the contradiction between the convergent speed and the searching scope dynamically. The simulation result for JSP shows the validity of it. Keywords-MMAS; grey prediction; cloud association rules; JSP
PSMACA: An Automated Protein Structure Prediction Using MACA (Multiple Attractor Cellular Automata)

Predicting the structure of proteins from their amino acid sequences has gained a remarkable attention in recent years. Even though there are some prediction techniques addressing this problem, the approximate accuracy in predicting the protein structure is closely 75%. An automated procedure was evolved with MACA (Multiple Attractor Cellular Automata) for predicting the structure of the protein. Most of the existing approaches are sequential which will classify the input into four major classes and these are designed for similar sequences. PSMACA is designed to identify ten classes from the sequences that share twilight zone similarity and identity with the training sequences. This method also predicts three states (helix, strand, and coil) for the secondary structure. Our comprehensive design considers 10 feature selection methods and 4 classifiers to develop MACA (Multiple Attractor Cellular Automata) based classifiers that are build for each of the ten classes. We have tested the proposed classifier with twilight-zone and 1-high-similarity benchmark datasets with over three dozens of modern competing predictors shows that PSMACA provides the best overall accuracy that ranges between 77% and 88.7% depending on the dataset. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
SIMULATED CONSUMER DECISIONS: AN APPLICATION OF SYNTHETICALLY GENERATED CONSUMER PROFILES

This paper offers a methodology for the construction of a simulation of consumer decisions within the context of the air travel market. The simulation's primary strength is in the provision of individually structured decision making possibilities across many consumers. The methodology enables the synthetic generation of a profile for each individual consumer thereby providing a rich and adaptive consumer base from which to generate a market. By this method, the calculated utility of a product in the market can be shown to be different per individual decision-maker. The methodology is well grounded but commercially successful application depends on the efficacy of the available data.
The underpinnings of land‐use history: three centuries of global gridded land‐use transitions, wood‐harvest activity, and resulting secondary lands

To accurately assess the impacts of human land use on the Earth system, information is needed on the current and historical patterns of land‐use activities. Previous global studies have focused on developing reconstructions of the spatial patterns of agriculture. Here, we provide the first global gridded estimates of the underlying land conversions (land‐use transitions), wood harvesting, and resulting secondary lands annually, for the period 1700–2000. Using data‐based historical cases, our results suggest that 42–68% of the land surface was impacted by land‐use activities (crop, pasture, wood harvest) during this period, some multiple times. Secondary land area increased 10–44 × 106 km2; about half of this was forested. Wood harvest and shifting cultivation generated 70–90% of the secondary land by 2000; permanent abandonment and relocation of agricultural land accounted for the rest. This study provides important new estimates of globally gridded land‐use activities for studies attempting to assess the consequences of anthropogenic changes to the Earth's surface over time.
Risk stratification after myocardial infarction: a new method of determining the neural component of the baroreflex is potentially more discriminative in distinguishing patients at high and low risk for arrhythmias.

AIMS We hypothesize that the neural component (NC) of the baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) is a better risk stratifier for ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation (VT/VF) than conventional BRS itself, because it is both independent of vessel wall stiffness and can be measured non-invasively. METHODS AND RESULTS NC was determined by correlating spontaneous carotid artery diameter variations with R-R interval variations using spectral analyses. In consecutive outpatient populations with chronic coronary artery disease the ability of the NC to distinguish post-myocardial infarction (MI) patients at risk for VT/VF (post-MI(HIGH RISK)) from post-MI less prone to arrhythmias (post-MI(LOW RISK)) was compared with the pressure-derived BRS(phenyl) and BRS(spectral) method. Ninety-six patients, i.e. 28 post-MI(LOW RISK), 28 post-MI(HIGH RISK) [a LVEF(left ventricular ejection fraction) <30% and/or history of VT/VF] and 40 healthy controls were enrolled. With NC, rather than with BRS methods, median values for post-MI(HIGH RISK) were smaller than for post-MI(LOW RISK) patients (NC, P = 0.03; BRS(spectral), P = 0.35; BRS(phenyl), P = 0.63). Variability of R-R interval (LF = 0.04-0.15 Hz) was significantly larger in the control group than in the post-MI(HIGH RISK) and post-MI(LOW RISK) group (P < 0.01 and P < 0.01). To separate post-MI(HIGH RISK) from post-MI(LOW RISK) patients, a linear combination of age and the logarithm of the NC measurement was constructed as a risk index. By optimizing the intercept of this line, an optimal sensitivity and specificity pair was determined. The sum of optimal specificity and sensitivity was higher for NC (155) than for BRS(spectral) (133) and BRS(phenyl) method (132). With all methods, values for post-MI patients were significantly smaller than for controls. CONCLUSION NC may be superior to conventional BRS measures in identifying post-MI patients at high risk for VT/VF.
A path-finding based method for concept discovery in graphs

In the multi-relational data mining, concept discovery is the problem of inducing definitions of a relation in terms of other relations provided. In this paper, we present a method that combines graph-based and association rule mining-based methods for concept discovery in graphs. The proposed method is related to graphs as the data, which is initially stored in a relational database, is represented as a graph and concept descriptors are the paths that connect certain vertices; and it is related to association rule mining as it uses methods of association rule mining to prune the search space and evaluate the quality of the concept descriptors. The method is evaluated on several data sets, and the experimental results show that it is compatible with the state-of-the art methods in terms of accuracy and coverage of the induced concept descriptors and the running time of the application.
Carbon limitation in trees

1 The ongoing enrichment of the atmosphere with CO2 raises the question of whether growth of forest trees, which represent close to 90% of the global biomass carbon, is still carbon limited at current concentrations of close to 370 p.p.m. As photosynthesis of C3 plants is not CO2‐saturated at such concentrations, enhanced ‘source activity’ of leaves could stimulate ‘sink activity’ (i.e. growth) of plants, provided other resources and developmental controls permit. I explore current levels of non‐structural carbon in trees in natural forests in order to estimate the potential for a carbon‐driven stimulation of growth. 2 The concentration of non‐structural carbohydrates (NSC) in tree tissues is considered a measure of carbon shortage or surplus for growth. A periodic reduction of NSC pools indicates either that carbon demand exceeds con‐current supply, or that both source and sink activity are low. A steady, very high NSC concentration is likely to indicate that photosynthesis fully meets, or even exeeds, that needed for growth (surplus assimilates accumulate). 3 The analysis presented here considers data for mature trees in four climatic zones: the high elevation treeline (in Mexico, the Alps and Northern Sweden), a temperate lowland forest of central Europe, Mediterranean sclerophyllous woodland and a semideciduous tropical forest in Panama. 4 In all four climatic regions, periods of reduced or zero growth show maximum C‐loading of trees (source activity exceeding demand), except for dry midsummer in the Mediterranean. NSC pools are generally high throughout the year, and are not significantly affected by mass fruiting episodes. 5 It is concluded that, irrespective of the reason for its periodic cessation, growth does not seem to be limited by carbon supply. Instead, in all the cases examined, sink activity and its direct control by the environment or developmental constraints, restricts biomass production of trees under current ambient CO2 concentrations. 6 The current carbohydrate charging of mature wild trees from the tropics to the cold limit of tree growth suggests that little (if any) leeway exists for further CO2‐fertilization effects on growth.