Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning from Ambiguous and Misspecified Models

Abstract We model inter-temporal ambiguity as the scenario in which a Bayesian learner holds more than one prior distribution over a set of models and provide sufficient conditions for ambiguity to fade away because of learning. Our conditions apply to most learning environments: iid and non-iid model-classes, well-specified and misspecified model-classes/prior support pairs. We show that ambiguity fades away if the empirical evidence supports a set of models with identical predictions, a condition much weaker than learning the truth.
Dissecting the performance of YouTube video streaming in mobile networks

Video streaming applications constitute a significant portion of the Internet traffic today, with mobile accounting for more than half of the online video views. The high share of video in the current Internet traffic mix has prompted many studies that examine video streaming through measurements. However, streaming performance depends on many different factors at different layers of the TCP/IP stack. For example, browser selection at the application layer or the choice of protocol in transport layer can have significant impact on the video performance. Furthermore, video performance heavily depends on the underlying network conditions (eg, network and link layers). For mobile networks, the conditions vary significantly, since each operator has a different deployment strategy and configuration. In this paper, we focus on YouTube and carry out a comprehensive study investigating the influence of different factors on streaming performance. Leveraging the Measuring Mobile Broadband Networks in Europe (MONROE) test bed that enables experimentation with 13 different network configurations in four countries, we collect more than 1800 measurement samples in operational mobile networks. With this campaign, our goal is to quantify the impact of parameters from different layers on YouTube's streaming quality of experience (QoE). More specifically, we analyze the role of the browser (eg, Firefox and Chrome), the impact of transport protocol (eg, TCP or QUIC), the influence of network bandwidth, and signal coverage on streaming QoE. Our analysis reveals that all these parameters need to be taken into account jointly for network management practices, in order to ensure a high end‐user experience.
Using TAM to examine consumer acceptance of a mobile phone assisted smoking cessation program in Australia

This paper study examines Australian smokers’ perceptions of a potential SMS-assisted smoking cessation program. Using TAM we tested perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and subjective norms on intentions to use this cessation program if it was available. Findings show that perceived usefulness and subjective norms were the significant predictors of intentions to use. Perceived ease of use did not directly influence this outcome instead it has an indirect influence through perceived usefulness. These preliminary findings can be built upon through introducing additional variables to help practitioners better understand consumer acceptance when marketing e-health programs such as this.
Flow toxicity of high‐frequency trading and its impact on price volatility: Evidence from the KOSPI 200 futures market

We examine the relation between high‐frequency trading, flow toxicity, and short‐term volatility during both normal and stressful periods. Using transaction data for the Korea Composite Stock Price Index 200 (KOSPI 200) futures, we find the Volume‐Synchronized Probability of Informed Trading (VPIN) useful in measuring flow toxicity as it predicts short‐term volatility effectively. We further show that high‐frequency trading is negatively related to VPIN and short‐term volatility during normal times but has a positive association during stressful periods. Finally, we advocate the use of bulk‐volume classification (BVC) by presenting evidence that the initiator identified by BVC trades at more favorable prices than the true trade initiator.
Trump, Populism, and American Foreign Policy

Employing a discursive understanding of populism and combing it with insights of poststructuralist international relations theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis, this article examines the conceptual links between foreign policy and populist forms of identity construction, as well as the ideological force that populism can unfold in the realm of foreign policy. It conceptualizes populism and foreign policy as distinct discourses that constitute collective identities by relating Self and Other. Identifying different modes of Othering, the article illustrates its arguments with a case study on the United States under Donald Trump and shows how the Trumpian discourse has used foreign policy as a platform for the (re)production of a populist-nationalist electoral coalition. Unlike common conceptions of populism as an ideology that misrepresents reality, the article argues that the discourse develops its ideological appeal by obscuring the discursive construction of social reality and thereby promising to satisfy the subject's desire for a complete and secure identity.
Is homonationalism influencing public opinion? Experimental and survey evidence from the UK and Romania

Homonationalism is a proposed value configuration that promotes both accepting gay people and prejudice towards immigrants and ethnic minorities. This value configuration contrasts with the widely supported theory that all prejudices are positively related, and are explained by underlying causes such as authoritarianism. Although homonationalism has received attention in qualitative research on mass-media and political discourse, this is the first quantitative exploration of the concept. We used data from a society likely to be high on homonationalism (UK), and one likely to be low (Romania). None of our results were consistent with homonationalism, either in an experiment conducted with students (Study 1, N = 110), or in a secondary analysis of data from the same two countries (Study 2, N = 2638). Ethnic prejudice and homophobia were positively related, while homonationalism was negatively related to homophobia and authoritarianism. Homonationalism has little utility as a construct for understanding public opinion at this point in time, and research investigating it at other levels of analysis may be more fruitful.
Human Emotion Recognition in Video Using Subtraction Pre-Processing

In this paper, we describe a new image pre-processing method, which can show features or important information clearly. Deep learning methods have grown rapidly in the last ten years and have better performance than the traditional machine learning methods in many domains. Deep learning shows its powerful ability particular in difficult multi-classes classification challenges. Video Facial expression recognition is one of the most popular classification topics and will become essential in robotics and auto-motion fields. The new system presented is a combination of new video pre-processing and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The new pre-processing method is proposed because we believe individual emotions are dynamic, which means the change of the face is the key feature. RAVDESS is the video set used, to train and test the neural network. From RAVDESS dataset the video songs without audio are taken for focusing on video frames differences. The chosen video set has six different classes of emotions. Each video presents a sentence in a melodious way. Based on the chosen video set, the new system with a new pre-processing method has been designed and trained. Later, the classification result of the new method has been compared with others in which the same dataset for video emotion recognition was used.
Doença de Alzheimer: revisão da epidemiologia e diagnóstico

JUSTIFICATIVA E OBJETIVOS: A doenca de Alzheimer e um problema de saude publica em razao do envelhecimento populacional. Ha diversos fatores de risco e protecao para a doenca de Alzheimer com estudos recentes relevantes. A etapa principal do diagnostico dessa forma de demencia e o exame clinico associado a testes de rastreio cognitivo. Apesar disso, aproximadamente 50% dos clinicos nao fazem diagnostico de demencia em estagio inicial. Esta revisao narrativa abrangente pretende atualizar a epidemiologia, fatores de risco e protecao para a doenca e como fazer seu diagnostico. CONTEUDO: Foram revisadas as informacoes mais relevantes na epidemiologia e diagnostico da doenca de Alzheimer presentes em consensos e estudos originais encontrados nos bancos de dados da PubMed e LILACS. CONCLUSAO: O diagnostico clinico ainda e o ponto chave para o diagnostico dessa forma de demencia, excluindo seus diagnosticos diferenciais. Testes de rastreio cognitivo como o Mini-Exame do Estado Mental e o Teste do desenho do relogio sao muito importantes para o diagnostico de pacientes em estado inicial. BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Alzheimeris disease is a public health problem because of population ageing. There are many risk and protective factors for Alzheimeris disease with important recent studies. The main issue of the diagnosis of this kind of dementia is the clinical examination with cognitive screening tests. Although almost 50% of clinicians miss the diagnosis of dementia in its initial stage. This broad narrative review objective is to up-to-date epidemiology, risk and protective factors for the disease and how to diagnose it. CONTENTS: We review the most relevant information in epidemiology and diagnosis of Alzheimeris disease based on guidelines and original studies found on PubMed and LILACS databases. CONCLUSION: Clinical diagnosis is the key stone for the diagnosis of this form of dementia, excluding the differential diagnosis. Screening tests like the Mini-Mental State and the Clock Drawing test are very important to diagnose initial stage patients.
Scholarship as a Corporate Philanthropy, "A Half Blood Philanthropy" Strategy to Sustain

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept that continues to grow yet does not own approved definition or a set of specific criteria fully recognized by parties involved in it. This study aimed to reveal the meaning of Scholarship as corporate philanthropy, which is part of the CSR program. Qualitative case study method with interpretive paradigms was used to find the meaning of "philanthropy". Data was collected from PKT sustainability report and interview sessions with program manager and scholarship recipients. This study revealed that the corporate philanthropy is "half-blood philanthropy" because they interpret the provision of scholarship as social expenditure and not as social investment.
Comments on Slavin: Synthesizing Evidence From Impact Evaluations in Education to Inform Action

Traditional methods for preparing systematic reviews and syntheses of effectiveness studies rely on a limited set of methodological criteria to include studies that measure and report effects too narrowly to forward the mission of evidence-based practice. This article discusses why and how the criteria for study selection, evidence screening, and synthesis need to be broadened when education programs are investigated for effects.
New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research

The second big success story is the application of well-established parent management training programs to child welfare populations. Many of these programs have been found not only to improve behavior problems caused by child abuse and neglect but also to impact child welfare outcomes such as reabuse and rereferral. The most pressing remaining questions relate to how these interventions can be taken to scale in the mental health and service settings where abused and neglected children receive their care. These questions about implementation and sustainability are not specific to interventions in child abuse and neglect. Questions specific to child welfare relate more to service planning and to how many of what types of interventions should be readily available or ordered for families in the child welfare system. The current approach is to order a single, limited intervention for each problem, which often results in a long list of services that families must complete as part of their child welfare case plan (Society for Prevention Research, 2004). As demonstrated by Chaffin and colleagues (2004), a single evidence-based intervention may actually be more effective for both child and system outcomes than multiple services designed to address the many different problems families may have.
Marketing graduate employability: understanding the tensions between institutional practice and external messaging

ABSTRACT Do the narratives of employability constructed by higher education institutions for marketing purposes differ from the conceptualisation and/or the realisation of employability within those institutions? The study reported here drew on interviews with 16 senior academic and student support staff who were tasked with developing student employability at one of nine institutions in Australia, Canada and the UK. We employed Holmes’ conceptions of employability as possessional, positional or processual to analyse how the interviewees conceptualised employability and the presentation of employability on the institutional websites. We found that most institutions’ employability marketing narratives were inconsistent with the institutional practice reported by staff. We explain this tension in the context of two competing characterisations of higher education: a university-student transaction view; and a learning view. We emphasise the need for internal and external narratives to align and advocate the need for engagement in a constructive and critical dialogue involving all stakeholders.
Elective affinity between guanxi favouritism and market rationality: guanxi circles as governance structure in China’s private firms

ABSTRACT This study presents three case studies intended to examine Chinese private firms’ reliance on guanxi-oriented governance structure under different degrees of market rationality. Our findings show that regardless of their profitability goal, employment size, and organizational complexity, the three companies under study rely rather equally on their central players’ guanxi circle as the governance structure. Furthermore, when someone is permitted to enter this guanxi circle and exercise a certain degree of managerial authority, both job competence and personal trust of this person are simultaneously evaluated. We interpret these findings not as evidence of conflict between market rationality and guanxi favouritism, but as evidence for Weberian elective affinity between the two seemingly conflicting principles.
Tecnología de la información y comunicación y el desarrollo de la competencia comunicativa en inglés de los futuros docentes de lengua extranjera de Ecuador: propuesta de intervención educativa.

Esta tesis doctoral tiene como objetivo analizar el desarrollo de la competencia comunicativa en idioma ingles de los estudiantes pertenecientes a dos programas de formacion docente de universidades publicas de Ecuador. Los participantes son 135 estudiantes y 10 profesores quienes toman parte de un proceso que aplica una fusion de los metodos cualitativo y cuantitativo para administrar los instrumentos entrevista semi estructurada: Flexibilidad, Pertinencia y Aspectos motivacionales de Intervenciones Educativas que hacen uso de las TIC en la Ensenanza Aprendizaje del ingles; y el cuestionario tipo Likert: Actitudes de los Docentes en Formacion para Practicar ingles Mediante TIC. Para el monitoreo de las destrezas de comunicacion en ingles se aplican las pruebas estandarizadas de Cambridge Press. Entre los resultados se presenta una propuesta de innovacion educativa para la practica del ingles que articula las Redes Sociales Facebook, WhatsApp y YouTube con el metodo Aprendizaje Integral de Contenido y Lenguaje en coherencia con la politica educativa de Ecuador. Se concluye que es posible potenciar la competencia comunicativa en ingles de manera significativa en los docentes en formacion mediante las practicas idiomaticas apoyadas en las TIC y el metodo AICLE.
The job diagnostic survey: A functional tool for South African managers

Current literature on manpower problems in South Africa has hardly focused on what should be done to improve jobs in order to create job experiences that will fulfil employee goals and organizational goals simultaneously. While the focus has been on the environmental (economic, social, political) and organizational (human resources policies, e.g. affirmative action) components of human resources management, in this article the authors provide guidelines to facilitate a process through which South African managers can practically achieve the optimal fit between current employees and their jobs. A theory that specifies when workers will display motivation, satisfaction and productive behaviour is reviewed. The accompanying diagnostic instrument is presented with South African norms for use by managers of change. Where remedial action is required, guidelines are proposed to assist managers in planning for an enriched work-place. The authors conclude that this approach represents a powerful strategy that can help organizations achieve their goals as well as meeting the needs of contemporary employees for a more meaningful work experience. This approach ensures that changes in the workplace are brought about on the basis of relevant information regarding the characteristics of jobs and the needs of workers, which is, in turn, based upon fundamental psychological rules and buttressed by South African findings that the theory is empirically sound.
Spatial–Temporal Characteristics and Determinants of Digital Divide in China: A Multivariate Spatial Analysis

The digital divide has loomed as a sustainable development issue for over two decades and there has been much research in terms of efforts to measure the digital divide from different dimensions and scales. Drawing on spatial agglomeration analysis and multiple linear regression, this paper aims to reveal the spatiotemporal pattern of the prefectural digital divide in China and its determinants. The results show that there is a significant prefectural digital divide in China that is characterized by a decline of ICT development index (IDI) values from the east to the west as well as from core cities to more peripheral ones. Cities with high IDI values are mainly concentrated in large metropolitan areas in eastern China, whereas cities with low values tend to concentrate in poverty stricken regions in central and western China. However, the digital divide has been characterized by a reduction from 2001 to 2015. The results also show that both economic and educational factors have significant influences on the prefectural digital divide in China. During the early stages, the percentage of university students, urban residential income, and the urbanization rate were key factors. However, after 2010, the adult literacy rate and rural residential income determined the digital divide.
Encryption Protocol for Resource-Constrained Devices in Fog-Based IoT Using One-Time Pads

Fog computing allows data to be processed on the network edge without reaching the cloud infrastructure to reduce latency and network bandwidth. However, it is not without its security challenges as existing security protocols, implemented in the fog, do not fully cater for the mobility and heterogeneity of the fog, especially on resource-constrained fog nodes. As such, this increases latency and overhead on those nodes which also affects the fog. This paper investigates the possibility of creating a one-time pad (OTP)-based encryption protocol with no packet loss; lesser time and energy overheads as compared to protocols that have been proposed by existing research. The protocol will be tested on wireless sensor nodes, which are resource constrained, and the outcome monitored. The OTPs will be generated using a random number generator within the nodes. Outcomes are positive and can be implemented on resource-constrained fog nodes.
The premium on acquisition in South African mergers: An empirical evaluation

In this paper both the premium paid on acquisition during a merger as well as the method by which the target companies stockholders are paid for their holding are examined. The results indicate that in the South African (S.A.) context the average premium paid on acquisition is of the order of 30-40% which is approximately the same as that paid on other major exchanges. Efforts to determine those accounting and market-related variables which were highly correlated with the premium on acquisition were relatively unsuccessful with only the price/ earnings ratio (and, to a lesser extent relative size) being significantly correlated with the premium. In both cases, the correlations were positive, indicating that a higher P/E ratio in the target company and/or a target company which is large relative to the acquirer will result in a higher premium on acquisition. Finally, the results indicate that a cash payment remains the most popular method of payment in South African mergers, followed by an equity swap. These results appear to be time independent.
Lane-Level Road Network Generation Techniques for Lane-Level Maps of Autonomous Vehicles: A Survey

Autonomous driving is experiencing rapid development. A lane-level map is essential for autonomous driving, and a lane-level road network is a fundamental part of a lane-level map. A large amount of research has been performed on lane-level road network generation based on various on-board systems. However, there is a lack of analysis and summaries with regards to previous work. This paper presents an overview of lane-level road network generation techniques for the lane-level maps of autonomous vehicles with on-board systems, including the representation and generation of lane-level road networks. First, sensors for lane-level road network data collection are discussed. Then, an overview of the lane-level road geometry extraction methods and mathematical modeling of a lane-level road network is presented. The methodologies, advantages, limitations, and summaries of the two parts are analyzed individually. Next, the classic logic formats of a lane-level road network are discussed. Finally, the survey summarizes the results of the review.
Are Business Start-Ups Liquidity Constrained? Evidence from a Quasi-Experimental Allocation of Housing Wealth in East Germany

Are entrepreneurs liquidity constraint? Using quasi-random housing wealth variation resulting from communist era decisions, we argue yes, as we find that wealthier East Germans are more likely to become self-employed after reunification. In the literature, no such strong relationship was found using regional house price changes the US and UK. In these economies, our results suggest, the effects of liquidity constraints are masked by anticipatory savings of the would be self-employed, which was impossible for the East Germans in our sample due to communism.