Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the Effects of Ranking by Unemployment Duration

We propose a theory based on the firm’s hiring behavior that rationalizes the observed significant decline of callback rates for an interview and exit rates from unemployment and the mild decline of reemployment wages over unemployment duration. We build a directed search model with symmetric incomplete information on worker types and non-sequential search by firms. Sorting due to firms’ testing of applicants in the past makes expected productivity fall with duration, which induces firms to rank applicants by duration. In equilibrium callback and exit rates both fall with unemployment duration. In our numerical exercise using U.S. data we show that our model can replicate quite well the observed falling patterns, with the firm’s ranking decision accounting for a sizable part.
Probius: Automated Approach for VNF and Service Chain Analysis in Software-Defined NFV

As the complexity of modern networks increases, virtualization techniques, such as software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV), get highlighted to achieve various network management and operating requirements. However, those virtualization techniques (specifically, NFV) have a critical issue that the performance of virtualized network functions (VNFs) is easily affected by diverse environmental factors (e.g., various workloads, resource contentions among VNFs), so resulting in unexpected performance degradations - performance uncertainty. Unfortunately, existing approaches mostly provide limited information about a single VNF or the underlying infrastructure (e.g., Xen, KVM), which is deficient in reasoning why the performance uncertainties occur. For such reasons, we first deeply investigate the behaviors of multiple VNFs along service chains in NFV environments, and define a set of critical performance features for each layer in the NFV hierarchical stack. Based on our investigations and findings, we introduce an automated analysis system, Probius, providing the comprehensive view of VNFs and their service chains on the basis of NFV architectural characteristics. Probius collects most possible NFV performance related features efficiently, analyzes the behaviors of NFV, and finally detects abnormal behaviors of NFV - possible reasons of performance uncertainties. To show the effectiveness of Probius, we have deployed 7 open-source VNFs and found 5 interesting performance issues caused by environmental factors.
Human Resource Management in Multinational Companies

Globalisation has provoked some interesting speculation on the part of enthusiasts about a ‘globalised economy’ in which distinct national economies are subsumed into region-states and companies follow the same set of ‘best practices’, adopt a convergent model of organisation that leads to a process of homogenisation in their behaviour and a deterioration of national management models (Rowley & Benson 2002; Bartlett & Goshal 1989). On the other hand, nationalists point out that, for the time being, the world economy is still fundamentally characterised by exchanges between relatively distinct national economies, in which many outcomes, such as the competitive performance of firms and sectors, are substantially determined by processes occurring at the national level (Harzing & Noorderhaven 2009; Rowley & Benson 2002). Far from being stateless, evidence suggests that MNCs remain primarily rooted to their country-of-origin’s national business system (Ferner & Quintanilla 1998). Companies are under pressure to maximise the benefits of global co-ordination, while maintaining responsiveness to differences at a local, national or regional level. As a result, MNCs are faced with a ‘think global’, ‘act local’ paradox (Harzing & Noorderhaven 2009; Rowley & Benson 2002; Smale 2008).
Fast initialization method for monocular SLAM based on indoor model

The visual SLAM has been approved that it is extremely useful to obtain robust positions of camera for AR system. However, the traditional initialization of vSLAM will stop it being popular in AR system because the initialization approaches are too complex and inefficiently. For alleviating this limitation, we present a novel initializing method for monocular vSLAM system based on indoor model. In contrast to existing methods, the proposed method can even instantaneously initialize the vSLAM 3D map at the first frame. Given a single frame of the indoor image, the lines and vanishing points can be compiled, as well as the orientation map and a set of indoor model hypothesis, and the best fitting 3D indoor model can be estimated further. We use the indoor model to reliably initialize the vSLAM system. The experimental result on some public dataset proves the robustness and quickness of our initialization approach.
Obfuscation At-Source

By effectively reaching out to and engaging larger population of mobile users, mobile crowd-sourcing has become a strategy to perform large amount of urban tasks. The recent empirical studies have shown that compared to the pull-based approach, which expects the users to browse through the list of tasks to perform, the push-based approach that actively recommends tasks can greatly improve the overall system performance. As the efficiency of the push-based approach is achieved by incorporating worker's mobility traces, privacy is naturally a concern. In this paper, we propose a novel, 2-stage and user-controlled obfuscation technique that provides a trade off-amenable framework that caters to multi-attribute privacy measures (considering the per-user sensitivity and global uniqueness of locations). We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by testing it using the real-world data collected from the well-established TA$Ker platform. More specifically, we show that one can increase its location entropy by 23% with only modest changes to the real trajectories while imposing an additional 24% (< 1 min) of detour overhead on average. Finally, we present insights derived by carefully inspecting various parameters that control the whole obfuscation process.
Three novel GJB2 (connexin 26) variants associated with autosomal dominant syndromic and nonsyndromic hearing loss

Connexin 26 (Cx26), encoded by the GJB2 gene, is a key protein involved in the formation of gap junctions in epithelial organs including the inner ear and palmoplantar epidermis. Pathogenic variants in GJB2 are responsible for approximately 50% of inherited sensorineural deafness. The majority of these variants are associated with autosomal recessive inheritance; however, rare reports of dominantly co‐segregating variants have been published. Since we began offering GJB2 testing in 2003, only about 2% of detected GJB2 variants from our laboratory have been classified as dominant. Here we report three novel dominant GJB2 variants (p.Thr55Ala, p.Gln57_Pro58delinsHisSer, and p.Trp44Gly); two associated with syndromic sensorineural hearing loss and one with nonsyndromic hearing loss. In the kindred with the p.Thr55Ala variant, the proband and his father present with only leukonychia as a cutaneous finding of their syndromic hearing loss. This phenotype has been previously documented in conjunction with palmoplantar hyperkeratosis, but isolated leukonychia is a novel finding likely associated with the unique threonine to alanine change at codon 55 (other variants at this codon have been reported in cases of nonsyndromic hearing loss). This report contributes to the short list of GJB2 variants associated with autosomal dominant hearing loss, highlights the variability of skin and nail findings associated with such cases, and illustrates the occurrence of both syndromic and nonsyndromic presentations with changes in the same gene.
Erosive wear of carbon fabric reinforced polyetherimide composites: Role of amount of fabric and processing technique

Plain weave carbon fabric (CF) reinforced Polyetherimide (PEI) composites, hereafter referred to as CF-PEI composites, containing 40, 55, 65, 75, and 85 vol% of CF were developed using impregnation technique and compression moulding. An additional CF-PEI composite containing 52 vol% of CF was also fabricated using film technique and compression moulding. These composites were developed in order to explore the effect of fabric content and processing technique on strength properties and erosive wear performance of PEI. These six composites along with unfilled PEI were evaluated for their physical and mechanical properties. The erosive wear performance of these materials was evaluated using angular silica particles as erodent at an impingement angle of 30°. It was observed that fabric content strongly influenced the strength properties as well as erosion resistance. Strength performance, however, did not linearly increase with increase in fabric content. Lowest (40%) and highest (85%) amount of fabric proved least effective in this regard. Similar observations were observed in the case of wear resistance (WR). CF in the range of 55–75 vol% proved optimum for strength properties and wear performance barring PEI, which showed highest WR. Between the two processing techniques, impregnation technique (I) proved far superior to the film technique (F) in both strength and wear performance. A fairly good correlation was observed between erosion resistance and a product of interlaminar shear strength, resilience, and elongation. SEM studies on worn surfaces supported the wear behavior. POLYM. COMPOS. , 2008. © 2008 Society of Plastics Engineers
A TRADE-OFF BETWEEN ROBUSTNESS AND OVERGENERATION IN MORPHOLOGY

This paper describes a multilevel method in lexical-morphological analysis which offers robustness and avoids overgeneration. The proposed levels are three: the analysis of standard forms, the analysis of linguistic variants, and the analysis without lexicon. This method can be seen as a variant of constraint relaxation used in syntax. This solution is being used in two different applications: a spelling corrector and a general purpose lemmatizer/tagger.
Isolation and characterization of Streptococcus cremoris Wg2-specific promoters

By cloning MboI fragments in the promoter selection vector pGKV210, which replicates in Streptococcus lactis, Bacillus subtilis, and Escherichia coli and carries a promoterless chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene, we obtained a number of fragments endowed with promoter activity, partly by direct selection for chloramphenicol resistance in S. lactis IL1403 and partly by selection in B. subtilis. Five fragments were sequenced, and the promoters were mapped with S1 nuclease. The promoters agreed with the E. coli promoter consensus and the B. subtilis vegetative sigma 43 promoter consensus. The promoters were preceded by an A + T-rich region (ranging from 64 to 78% A + T). S1 nuclease mapping data showed that the transcriptional start point in three of the fragments was at a TAG sequence 5 to 9 nucleotides downstream from the promoter. Three fragments carried an open reading frame preceded by a ribosome-binding site which can be recognized by E. coli, B. subtilis, and S. lactis ribosomes.
An Empirical Study on Academic Commentary and Its Implications on Reading and Writing

The relationship between reading and writing (RRW) is one of the major themes in learning science. One of its obstacles is that it is difficult to define or measure the latent background knowledge of the individual. However, in an academic research setting, scholars are required to explicitly list their background knowledge in the citation sections of their manuscripts. This unique opportunity was taken advantage of to observe RRW, especially in the published academic commentary scenario. RRW was visualized under a proposed topic process model by using a state of the art version of latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA). The empirical study showed that the academic commentary is modulated both by its target paper and the author's background knowledge. Although this conclusion was obtained in a unique environment, we suggest its implications can also shed light on other similar interesting areas, such as dialog and conversation, group discussion, and social media.
The effect of age, sex and clinical features on the volume of Corpus Callosum in pre‐schoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder: a case–control study

A growing body of literature has identified volume alterations of the corpus callosum (CC) in subjects with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, to date very few investigations have been conducted on pre‐school‐age ASD children. This study aims to compare the volume of CC and its sub‐regions between pre‐schoolers with ASD and controls (CON) and to examine their relationship to demographic and clinical variables (sex, age, non‐verbal IQ ‐NVIQ‐, expressive non‐echolalic language, emotional and behavioural problems, and autism severity). The volume of CC of 40 pre‐schoolers with ASD (20 males and 20 females; mean age: 49 ± 12 months; mean NVIQ: 73 ± 22) and 40 sex‐, age‐, and NVIQ‐matched CON subjects (20 M and 20 F; mean age: 49 ± 14 months; mean NVIQ: 73 ± 23) were quantified applying the FreeSurfer automated parcellation software on Magnetic Resonance images. No significant volumetric differences in CC total volume and in its sub‐regions between ASD and CON were found using total brain volume as a covariate. Analogously, absence of CC volumetric differences was evident when boys and girls with ASD were compared with their matched controls. The CC total volume of younger ASD male subjects was found significantly larger with respect to matched CON, which is consistent with the atypical growth trajectory widely reported in these young children. The CC total volume was negatively correlated with autism severity, whereas no association between CC volume and other clinical variables was detected. If replicated, the indirect relationship between CC volume and autism severity suggests the involvement of CC in core ASD symptoms.
One-class Selective Transfer Machine for Personalized Anomalous Facial Expression Detection

An anomalous facial expression is a facial expression which scarcely occurs in daily life and coveys cues about an anomalous physical or mental condition. In this paper, we propose a one-class transfer learning method for detecting the anomalous facial expressions. In facial expression detection, most articles propose generic models which predict the classes of the samples for all persons. However, people vary in facial morphology, e.g., thick versus thin eyebrows, and such individual differences often cause prediction errors. While a possible solution would be to learn a single-task classifier from samples of the target person only, it will often overfit due to the small sample size of the target person in real applications. To handle individual differences in anomaly detection, we extend Selective Transfer Machine (STM) (Chu et al., 2013), which learns a personalized multi-class classifier by re-weighting samples based on their proximity to the target samples. In contrast to related methods for personalized models on facial expressions, including STM, our method learns a one-class classifier which requires only one-class target and source samples, i.e., normal samples, and thus there is no need to collect anomalous samples which scarcely occur. Experiments on a public dataset show that our method outperforms generic and single-task models using one-class SVM, and a state-of-the-art multi-task learning method.
Opportunistic Two-Way Full-Duplex Relay Selection in Underlay Cognitive Networks

The performance of secondary user in underlay cognitive networks is analyzed by considering opportunistic selection of two-way full-duplex (FD)-based amplify-and-forward (AF) relays. The closed-form expressions for the distribution of end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are first derived, with independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Rayleigh fading channels assumed in each wireless link. After that, the theoretical closed-form expressions for various performance metrics, including the outage probability of each link, lower bounds of both the derived outage probability and the symbol error probability (SEP), and upper bound of the average/outage channel capacity, are derived. Numerical results show that the performance of the secondary users can be substantially influenced by parameters such as the number of relays, the average SNR, the primary user’s tolerable interference threshold <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda$</tex-math></inline-formula>, and the power of residual self-interference in the FD relays after performance self-interference cancellation, etc. Furthermore, in the presence of multiple candidate relays, an optimum relay selection in terms of the outage probability, the SEP, the average channel capacity, and/or the outage capacity can always be attained as long as the average SNR of each relaying link approaches <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda$</tex-math></inline-formula>.
Modulation of the Akt Pathway Reveals a Novel Link with PERK/eIF2α, which Is Relevant during Hypoxia

The unfolded protein response (UPR) and the Akt signaling pathway share several regulatory functions and have the capacity to determine cell outcome under specific conditions. However, both pathways have largely been studied independently. Here, we asked whether the Akt pathway regulates the UPR. To this end, we used a series of chemical compounds that modulate PI3K/Akt pathway and monitored the activity of the three UPR branches: PERK, IRE1 and ATF6. The antiproliferative and antiviral drug Akt-IV strongly and persistently activated all three branches of the UPR. We present evidence that activation of PERK/eIF2α requires Akt and that PERK is a direct Akt target. Chemical activation of this novel Akt/PERK pathway by Akt-IV leads to cell death, which was largely dependent on the presence of PERK and IRE1. Finally, we show that hypoxia-induced activation of eIF2α requires Akt, providing a physiologically relevant condition for the interaction between Akt and the PERK branch of the UPR. These data suggest the UPR and the Akt pathway signal to one another as a means of controlling cell fate.
Children concurrently wasted and stunted: A meta‐analysis of prevalence data of children 6–59 months from 84 countries

Abstract Children can be stunted and wasted at the same time. Having both deficits greatly elevates risk of mortality. The analysis aimed to estimate the prevalence and burden of children aged 6–59 months concurrently wasted and stunted. Data from demographic and health survey and Multi‐indicator Cluster Surveys datasets from 84 countries were analysed. Overall prevalence for being wasted, stunted, and concurrently wasted and stunted among children 6 to 59 months was calculated. A pooled prevalence of concurrence was estimated and reported by gender, age, United Nations regions, and contextual categories. Burden was calculated using population figures from the global joint estimates database. The pooled prevalence of concurrence in the 84 countries was 3.0%, 95% CI [2.97, 3.06], ranging from 0% to 8.0%. Nine countries reported a concurrence prevalence greater than 5%. The estimated burden was 5,963,940 children. Prevalence of concurrence was highest in the 12‐ to 24‐month age group 4.2%, 95% CI [4.1, 4.3], and was significantly higher among boys 3.54%, 95% CI [3.47, 3.61], compared to girls; 2.46%, 95% CI [2.41, 2.52]. Fragile and conflict‐affected states reported significantly higher concurrence 3.6%, 95% CI [3.5, 3.6], than those defined as stable 2.24%, 95% CI [2.18, 2.30]. This analysis represents the first multiple country estimation of the prevalence and burden of children concurrently wasted and stunted. Given the high risk of mortality associated with concurrence, the findings indicate a need to report on this condition as well as investigate whether these children are being reached through existing programmes.
RABIF/MSS4 is a Rab-stabilizing holdase chaperone required for GLUT4 exocytosis

Significance Rab GTPases are central regulators of vesicle-mediated cargo transport. They are switched from the GDP-bound inactive conformation to the GTP-bound active state by guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs). Rab-interacting factor (RABIF)/mammalian suppressor of Sec4 (MSS4) and its yeast homolog DSS4 are the first putative GEFs isolated for Rabs, but their biological function and molecular mechanism remained unclear. In this work, we demonstrate that RABIF plays a crucial role in exocytosis. Unexpectedly, we discovered that RABIF does not function as a GEF, as previously assumed. Instead, RABIF is a Rab-stabilizing holdase chaperone, a previously unrecognized mode of Rab regulation independent of its GDP-releasing activity. We suggest that a requirement for holdase chaperones is likely a general feature of Rab GTPases. Rab GTPases are switched from their GDP-bound inactive conformation to a GTP-bound active state by guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs). The first putative GEFs isolated for Rabs are RABIF (Rab-interacting factor)/MSS4 (mammalian suppressor of Sec4) and its yeast homolog DSS4 (dominant suppressor of Sec4). However, the biological function and molecular mechanism of these molecules remained unclear. In a genome-wide CRISPR genetic screen, we isolated RABIF as a positive regulator of exocytosis. Knockout of RABIF severely impaired insulin-stimulated GLUT4 exocytosis in adipocytes. Unexpectedly, we discovered that RABIF does not function as a GEF, as previously assumed. Instead, RABIF promotes the stability of Rab10, a key Rab in GLUT4 exocytosis. In the absence of RABIF, Rab10 can be efficiently synthesized but is rapidly degraded by the proteasome, leading to exocytosis defects. Strikingly, restoration of Rab10 expression rescues exocytosis defects, bypassing the requirement for RABIF. These findings reveal a crucial role of RABIF in vesicle transport and establish RABIF as a Rab-stabilizing holdase chaperone, a previously unrecognized mode of Rab regulation independent of its GDP-releasing activity. Besides Rab10, RABIF also regulates the stability of two other Rab GTPases, Rab8 and Rab13, suggesting that the requirement of holdase chaperones is likely a general feature of Rab GTPases.
Shallow Text Analysis and Machine Learning for Authorship Attribtion

Current advances in shallow parsing and machine learning allow us to use results from these fields in a methodology for Authorship Attribution. We report on experiments with a corpus that consists of newspaper articles about national current affairs by different journalists from the Belgian newspaper De Standaard. Because the documents are in a similar genre, register, and range of topics, token-based (e.g., sentence length) and lexical features (e.g., vocabulary richness) can be kept roughly constant over the different authors. This allows us to focus on the use of syntax-based features as possible predictors for an author’s style, as well as on those token-based features that are predictive to author style more than to topic or register. These style characteristics are not under the author’s conscious control and therefore good clues for Authorship Attribution. Machine Learning methods (TiMBL and the WEKA software package) are used to select informative combinations of syntactic, token-based and lexical features and to predict authorship of unseen documents. The combination of these features can be considered an implicit profile that characterizes the style of an author.