Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The gene encoding phosphoribosylaminoimidazole carboxylase (ADE2) is essential for growth of Cryptococcus neoformans in cerebrospinal fluid

A cryptococcal meningitis model in corticosteroid-treated rabbits was used to assess the requirement for the phosphoribosylaminoimidazole gene (ADE2) for virulence of Cryptococcus neoformans. A wild-type strain (H99), an ade2 auxotroph of H99 (M001), and a randomly selected prototrophic transformant of M001 (M001.1c) which had received the cloned ADE2 cDNA copy were inoculated intrathecally into immunosuppressed rabbits. While M001 was avirulent in the central nervous system model, virulence was completely restored to wild-type pathogenicity in the prototrophic transformant. This study identifies the pathogenic importance of an endogenous adenine pathway in this yeast and confirms that purine biosynthesis is a potential target for antifungal therapy. It also demonstrates that the virulence of C. neoformans can be molecularly changed and detected within a clinically relevant animal model.
Multilingual extension and evaluation of a poetry generator*

Abstract Poetry generation is a specific kind of natural language generation where several sources of knowledge are typically exploited to handle features on different levels, such as syntax, semantics, form or aesthetics. But although this task has been addressed by several researchers, and targeted different languages, all known systems have focused on a limited purpose and a single language. This article describes the effort of adapting the same architecture to generate poetry in three different languages – Portuguese, Spanish and English. An existing architecture is first described and complemented with the adaptations required for each language, including the linguistic resources used for handling morphology, syntax, semantics and metric scansion. An automatic evaluation was designed in such a way that it would be applicable to the target languages. It covered three relevant aspects of the generated poems, namely: the presence of poetic features, the variation of the linguistic structure and the semantic connection to a given topic. The automatic measures applied for the second and third aspect can be seen as novel in the evaluation of poetry. Overall, poems were successfully generated in the three languages addressed. Despite minor differences in different languages or seed words, poems revealed to have a regular metre, frequent rhymes, to exhibit an interesting degree of variation, and to be semantically-associated with the initially given seeds.
Moving in Opposite Directions? Religious Involvement in Welfare Provision in Israel and the Low Countries

How does religious change in society affect welfare organization practices and the religious aspects of the welfare state? Theories of historical institutionalism suggest that welfare organizations are highly stable, but this study finds that individual-level religious trends provoke corresponding welfare-organizational change. Three mechanisms link individual-level change to changes in organizational religiosity: workforce influence, welfare client demands, and political intervention. To demonstrate how these mechanisms connect social to organizational change, the study explores the effect of individual-level secularization in Belgium and the Netherlands on hospitals and welfare agencies. In contrast, a case from Israel evaluates the effect of individual-level sacralization on the same types of organizations. Organizational-level change takes the form of institutional conversion: religious providers discard most of their religious manifestations in a secularized environment but, conversely, public welfare providers adopt religion-conforming practices in an increasingly religious society.
Relative impulse response estimation during doubletalk with an artificial neural network-based step size control

The Normalized Least-Mean Squares (NLMS) algorithm is a widely used method for linear system identification (e.g., for Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC), where the acoustic path between loudspeaker and microphone needs to be estimated). As soon as interferers or background noise are active, step size control becomes a crucial task in order to ensure a fast but stable adaptation. Conventional step size control methods address the case of additive noise contaminating the system output, i.e., microphone signal. When the NLMS algorithm is used for Relative Impulse Response (RIR) estimation, however, both the input signal and the output signal of the unknown system are noisy (since both of them are microphone signals) and a different step size control is required. In this paper, the derivation of a new step size is presented. Since the resulting step size cannot be determined directly, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based estimation of the step size is proposed and its effectiveness is demonstrated.
Sensitivity-Enhanced  $LC$  Pressure Sensor for Wireless Bladder Pressure Monitoring

This paper presents a sensitivity-enhanced wireless passive LC pressure sensor for monitoring bladder pressure, which can be minimally invasive implanted in the bladder or integrated to a commercial urinary catheter and avoid battery lifetime problem. The proposed sensor design and the theoretical model are useful to increase the pressure sensitivity of a typical air-sealed capacitive pressure sensor, particularly having a flexible diaphragm. The test results of an in vitro evaluation of the prototype LC pressure sensor show a pressure sensitivity of 6385 ppm/kPa (a pressure responsivity of 1.215 MHz/kPa) before encapsulation coating in air at room temperature, whereas 4175 ppm/kPa (0.627 MHz/kPa) and 2679 ppm/kPa (0.304 MHz/kPa) after coating with silicone rubber in air and in water operation, respectively. Finally, the feasibility of the developed sensor is investigated through an animal test and confirmed by comparing with the data of conventional cystometry.
Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets

CULTURE, TRADITION, AND OVERT DISCRIMINATION tend to make restrictive the terms by which women may participate in the labor force. These influences combine to generate an unfavorable occupational distribution of female workers vis-a-vis male workers and to create pay differences between males and females within the same occupation. The result is a chronic earnings gap between male and female full-time, year-round workers. Unfortunately, explanations at this level of generality are mainly descriptive. It is the purpose of this paper to estimate the average extent of discrimination against female workers in the United States and to provide a quantitative assessment of the sources of male-female wage differentials.
Accountability, Rhetoric, and Political Interests: Twists and Turns of NHS Performance Measurements

This study draws upon institutional theory to examine the extent to which the political interests of New Labour influenced the application of NHS performance measurements devised for accountability purposes between 1997 and 2007. This study adopts an interpretative perspective and emphasises the ‘ethos’ of New Labour’s policy initiatives to convey its beliefs and moral superiority to the electorate. It argues that the performance measurements constituted by political interests served as a source of power deployed by New Labour to strengthen its credibility as being an accountable person. Where political interests were in play, multi-dimensional performance measurements did not necessarily promote a balanced pursuit of performance improvements but led to various distortions and dysfunctional behaviour which hindered the stated aims of the NHS reforms and undermined the ethos of New Labour.
Detection of Negative-Sense RNA in Packaged Hepatitis E Virions by Use of an Improved Strand-Specific Reverse Transcription-PCR Method

ABSTRACT Current hepatitis E virus (HEV) negative-sense RNA detection assays have the drawback of false positivity. cDNA synthesis using tag-based primer and Superscript RT-III followed by exonuclease I treatment increased the specificity. Assays could detect as few as 10 copies of negative-sense RNA and could be used in detecting low levels of HEV replication in cells. Virus particles in stool samples of hepatitis E patients showed encapsidation of negative-sense RNA along with HEV genomic RNA.
The effects of recall on reporting injury and poisoning episodes in the National Health Interview Survey

Objective: To examine effects of length of time between injury or poisoning and interview on the number of reported injury and poisoning episodes in the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). (Hereinafter, both injuries and poisonings will be referred to as “injuries”.) Design: The NHIS collects data continuously on medically attended injuries occurring to family members during the three months before interview. Time between injury and interview was established by subtracting the reported injury date from the interview date. Values were multiply imputed for the 25% of the episodes for which dates were only partially reported. Main outcome measures: An analysis of mean square error (MSE) was used to quantify the extent of errors in estimated annual numbers of injuries and to compare the contributions of bias and variance to these errors. Results: The lowest estimated MSEs for annualized estimates for all injuries and for less severe injuries were attained when the annualized estimates were based on 3–6 elapsed cumulative weeks between injury and interview. The average weighted number of injuries reported per week per year was 8% lower in later weeks (weeks 6–13) than in earlier weeks (weeks 1–5) for all episodes, and 24% lower in later weeks than in earlier weeks for contusions/superficial injuries, with both differences being statistically significant. For fractures, however, the averages in the two periods were statistically similar. Conclusions: The error associated with the estimated annual number of injuries was large with a three month reference period for all injuries and for less severe injuries. Limiting analysis to episodes with up to five weeks between injury and interview has statistical, intuitive, and analytic appeal for all injuries and for less severe injuries.
Bank business models, capital rules and structural separation policies: An evidence-based critique of current policy trends

Purpose – The study examines the roles of capital rules, macro variables and bank business models in determining the safety of banks as measured by the “distance-to-default” (DTD) with the purpose of drawing implications for regulation of bank capital and business models. Design/methodology/approach – A panel regression study using pre- and post-crisis data for 108 US and European banks is used to explore the issue empirically. A new technique is also used to back out the amount of capital banks would have needed during the crisis to keep the “DTD” in the very safe zone. Findings – The simple leverage ratio has a strong relationship with “DTD”, while the Basel ratio does not. The most important business model features are derivatives and wholesale funding, which have a strong negative relationship with “DTD”. Trading and available-for-sale securities have a positive influence. Calculations show that it is not possible for any reasonable capital rule to compensate for the risks created by business model fe.
Involuntary processing of social dominance cues from bimodal face-voice displays

ABSTRACT Social-rank cues communicate social status or social power within and between groups. Information about social-rank is fluently processed in both visual and auditory modalities. So far, the investigation on the processing of social-rank cues has been limited to studies in which information from a single modality was assessed or manipulated. Yet, in everyday communication, multiple information channels are used to express and understand social-rank. We sought to examine the (in)voluntary nature of processing of facial and vocal signals of social-rank using a cross-modal Stroop task. In two experiments, participants were presented with face-voice pairs that were either congruent or incongruent in social-rank (i.e. social dominance). Participants’ task was to label face social dominance while ignoring the voice, or label voice social dominance while ignoring the face. In both experiments, we found that face-voice incongruent stimuli were processed more slowly and less accurately than were the congruent stimuli in the face-attend and the voice-attend tasks, exhibiting classical Stroop-like effects. These findings are consistent with the functioning of a social-rank bio-behavioural system which consistently and automatically monitors one’s social standing in relation to others and uses that information to guide behaviour.
A Poor Life? Chronic Poverty and Downward Mobility in Rural Ethiopia, 1994 to 2004

This edited book analyses what traps people in chronic poverty, and what allows them to escape from it, using long-term panel surveys from six Asian and African countries. The distinguishing feature of these studies, which were commissioned by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, is they span longer periods or have more survey waves than most developing country panels. This allows a detailed account of the maintainers of chronic poverty and drivers of poverty dynamics. Many of the studies (from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nepal, Pakistan, South Africa and Vietnam) are written by leading development economists, and all pay careful attention to the difficult issues of attrition, measurement error and tracking. The book’s comparative perspective highlights the common factors which cause people to fall into chronic poverty and allow them to break-free from it. A number of promising policies and interventions for reducing chronic poverty are identified.
Mixed Signals in the Job Training Partnership Act

The Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 was developed to train the disadvantaged for work or better jobs. The Act that passed targeted the economically disadvantaged but stressed efficiency in the operation of the program. Program performance standards were established, and local Private Industry Councils (PICs) were developed to operate the program and to involve local business in JTPA training. Critics argued that this structure resulted in “creaming” of participants to the exclusion of the most disadvantaged workers. We test the “creaming” hypothesis using data on JTPA participants in Tennessee in 1987 and a sample of disadvantaged workers in Tennessee extracted from the Current Population Surveys. We find that racial and welfare targets are met but that the most able among those groups are chosen for help. We also find some evidence of “channeling. ” The most disadvantaged groups are less likely to receive the most successful type of training — on-the-job training. Finally, we present alternative strategies to encourage PICs to do less “creaming,” and we make predictions about their likely success.
How cyclical do cyclically-adjusted balances remain?: An EU study

Observed budget balances are an imperfect indicator of the fiscal policy stance, because fluctuations in economic activity induce automatic changes in the balance, hence the use of cyclically-adjusted balances (CAB). However, this paper shows that CABs (as measured through one of the two methods currently used by the Commission) tend to be systematically overestimated during downturns and underestimated during expansions. The dominant source of this distortion arises from the filtering of revenues deemed to be cyclical, possibly signalling a problem with the computation of elasticities. The effect of the items which are assumed not to move with the cycle is non significant, but this overall result conceals offseting effects: public investment turns to be significantly procyclical and interest payments and transfers to firms are countercyclical. Classification-JEL : H6, E6.
Annular slot based printed MIMO antenna system design

A 3-element printed MIMO antenna system operating in the 2.45 GHz band is presented. The antenna is made up of three annular slot antenna elements. The antenna shows good isolation characteristics between closely spaced antenna elements. A minimum measured isolation of 11 dB is found between its antenna elements. The antenna has a bandwidth of 100 MHz. It is evaluated for MIMO antenna performance matrices where it shows good performance.
Macroeconomic implications of labor market frictions

Fluctuations in economic activity, business cycles, are a fact of life. An important factor shaping the character of economic fluctuations is the labor market. However, the labor market does not operate smoothly. Neither workers, nor firms are all the same. Therefore, it often requires a substantial amount of time and resources to look for a job or a suitable worker and to agree on the terms of employment. These search and matching frictions are the reason why unemployed workers and vacant jobs coexist. This thesis focuses on business cycles, the welfare costs related to them, and how developments in the labor market impact the overall economy. In particular, it provides a theoretical model showing that fluctuations in economic activity can be very costly for society, because they can decrease the level of output. Moreover, empirical results suggest that increased severity of search and matching frictions can explain up to one fifth of the unemployment run-ups during the most severe recessions. Finally, recent studies have shown that young firms are important for aggregate job creation. Based on a theoretical model, in which firm age is the main driver of a firm’s growth, the thesis shows that government support of business start-ups increases output. On the contrary, subsidizing existing firms reduces aggregate output as the selection process of successful firms is disrupted and average firm productivity declines.
Computationally efficient learning in large-scale games: Sampled fictitious play revisited

Fictitious Play (FP) is a popular algorithm known to achieve Nash equilibrium learning in certain large-scale games. However, for games with many players, the computational demands of the FP algorithm can be prohibitive. Sampled FP (SFP) is a variant of FP that mitigates computational demands via a Monte Carlo approach. While SFP does mitigate the complexity of FP, it can be shown that SFP still uses information in an inefficient manner. The paper generalizes the SFP convergence result and studies a stochastic-approximation-based variant that significantly reduces the complexity of SFP.
A Spatial Model for Legislative Roll Call Analysis

A general nonlinear logit model is used to analyze political choice data. The model assumes probabilistic voting based on a spatial utility function. The parameters of the utility function and the spatial coordinates of the choices and the choosers can all be estimated on the basis of observed choices. Ordinary Guttman scaling is a degenerate case of this model. Estimation of the model is implemented in the NOMINATE program for one dimensional analysis of two alternative choices with no nonvoting. The robustness and face validity of the program outputs are evaluated on the basis of roll call voting data for the U.S. House and Senate.
Associations among estimated glomerular filtration rate, proteinuria, and adverse cardiovascular outcomes.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Most studies of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and outcomes focus on mortality and ESRD, with limited data on other adverse outcomes. This study examined the associations among proteinuria, eGFR, and adverse cardiovascular (CV) events. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS This was a population-based longitudinal study with patients identified from province-wide laboratory data from Alberta, Canada, between 2002 and 2007. Selected for this study from a total of 1,526,437 patients were 920,985 (60.3%) patients with at least one urine dipstick measurement and 102,701 patients (6.7%) with at least one albumin-creatinine ratio (ACR) measurement. Time to hospitalization was considered for one of four indications: congestive heart failure (CHF), coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), peripheral vascular disease (PVD), and stroke/transient ischemic attacks [TIAs] (cerebrovascular accident [CVA]/TIA). RESULTS After a median follow-up of 35 months, in fully adjusted models and compared with patients with estimated GFR (eGFR) of 45 to 59 ml/min per 1.73 m(2) and no proteinuria, patients with heavy proteinuria by dipstick and eGFR ≥ 60 ml/min per 1.73 m(2) had higher rates of CABG/PCI and CVA/TIA. Similar results were obtained in patients with proteinuria measured by ACR. CONCLUSIONS Risks of major CV events at a given level of eGFR increased with higher levels of proteinuria. The findings extend current data on risk of mortality and ESRD. Measurement of proteinuria is of incremental prognostic benefit at every level of eGFR. The data support use of proteinuria measurement with eGFR for definition and risk stratification in CKD.
A control strategy for multi-functional converter to improve grid power quality

The extensive use of converter-interfacing distributed energy resources (DER), combined with a large amount of nonlinear and unbalanced loads connected to the distribution power system, has led to power quality problem. This paper proposes a control strategy for a three-phase four-leg multi-functional converter which can compensate reactive power, harmonic currents, unbalance, and neutral current simultaneously under distorted voltage conditions, besides the active power exchange. The capacity of the converter is taken into account. The proposed control strategy based on synchronous reference frame (SRF) for multi-functional converter is described. Simulation and hardware in the loop real time test results carried on a three-phase four-wire distributed generation system illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.
A Future Without Chronic Pain: Neuroscience and Clinical Research

Editor’s note: Chronic pain affects 1.5 billion people worldwide, an estimated 100 million of whom live in the United States. Yet we currently have no effective treatment options. Fortunately, writes David Borsook, director of the Pain and Imaging Neuroscience Group at Children’s Hospital Boston, Massachusetts General Hospital, and McLean Hospital, research advances have determined some of the ways in which chronic pain changes the brain, and several promising research areas could lead to better treatment approaches. Dr. Borsook recommends steps to facilitate these new treatments, including the establishment of integrated clinical neuroscience centers bridging the gap between bench and bedside.
The Non-linearity of the Relationship between Human Capital and Exports in Brazil â€“ evidences of regional differences

The study of Brazilian export determinants is a very important issue to policy-markers, principally when the export determinants are different among the Brazilian states or regions. Human capital (measured by the average level of employee formal schooling) has been one of these determinants and this paper, basing on Dixit and Woodland (1982) model, aims to evaluate the role played by human capital in the evolution of Brazilian states exports from 1995 to 2006, highlighting the differences among Brazilian states and/or regions. The empirical analysis is implemented by running regression of the data organized into a panel and considering the fixed effects (i.e., the amenities) among the 27 Brazilian states. The findings are consistent with the selected theoretical model and suggest that human capital has a non-linear effect on exports. The latter suggests the continuous improvement in the worker skill should not be neglected by public policies aimed at increasing the foreign trade of Brazilian states, but the unique characteristics of these states must be taken into account.