Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Computing the Multinomial Stochastic Complexity in Sub-Linear Time

Stochastic complexity is an objective, information-theoretic criterion for model selection. In this paper we study the stochastic complexity of multinomial variables, which forms an important building block for learning probabilistic graphical models in the discrete data setting. The fastest existing algorithms for computing the multinomial stochastic complexity have the time complexity of O(n), where n is the number of data points, but in this paper we derive sub-linear time algorithms for this task using a finite precision approach. The main idea here is that in practice we do not need exact numbers, but finite floating-point precision is sufficient for typical statistical applications of stochastic complexity. We prove that if we use only finite precision (e.g. double precision) and precomputed sufficient statistics, we can in fact do the computations in sub-linear time with respect to data size and have the overall time complexity of O( √ dn + L), where d is precision in digits and L is the number of values of the multinomial variable. We present two fast algorithms based on our results and discuss how these results can be exploited in the task of learning the structure of a probabilistic graphical model.
Why demotion of older workers is a no-go area for managers

Abstract Demotion – the reduction of an employee’s rank and salary – is often mentioned by managers and policy-makers as a means of increasing the employability of older workers in an ageing labour force. However, so far in practice demotion is rarely applied. This paper is the first empirical investigation of how managers perceive demotion as an instrument of human resource management. By means of a survey and a vignette study among managers in the Netherlands (N = 355), we examine whether managers consider demotion of poorly performing older workers a fair solution. Three contributions stand out. First, based on attribution theory we find support for the hypothesis that managers judge demotion to be fair in those cases where deterioration in task performance is caused by controllable factors (such as work motivation) and unfair when the causes are uncontrollable (such as age). Second, the expectations of managers about the organization-wide consequences of introducing demotion as a human resource policy play a significant role in considering demotion. Most managers perceive negative organizational externalities (e.g. decrease in loyalty and motivation of staff) to arise when introducing demotion and are reluctant to apply demotion in practice. And a third contribution: positive (negative) beliefs of managers about the hard skills – e.g. creativity, willingness to learn, flexibility – of older workers make demotion less (respectively more) likely.
Unleashing the Competitive Advantage of Malaysian Private Housing Developers through Product Analysis

ABSTRACT Malaysian housing developers produce a range of products that has the characteristics of being large, expensive and durable. Nonetheless, the protracted development process exposes the developer to a high level of risk. Previous product development studies had focused on the technical elements of development rather than managerial aspects. This paper examines the contribution of product characteristics to the competitive advantage of Malaysian private housing developers. Using semi-structured snowball interviews, this qualitative study aims to elucidate upon the success factors of private housing developers. Ten successful housing developers were chosen for this research. The findings suggest that successful project management coupled with a product selling price that reflects the location, quality and innovativeness of the product, count toward the developer’s reputation and branding. This paper expands the academic housing development literature by providing specific and in-depth information on housing developer products in Malaysia. Keywords: Product characteristics; private housing developer; competitive advantage; qualitative approach ABSTRAK Pemaju perumahan Malaysia menghasilkan pelbagai produk dengan ciri-ciri seperti besar, mahal dan tahan lama; lebih-lebih lagi, proses pembangunan yang berlarutan mendedahkan pemaju kepada tahap risiko yang tinggi. Kajian pembangunan produk sebelum ini telah memberi tumpuan kepada elemen-elemen teknikal pembangunan produk berbanding dengan aspek pengurusan. Kertas kerja ini mengkaji sumbangan ciri-ciri produk kepada kelebihan bersaing pemaju perumahan swasta Malaysia. Menggunakan kaedah temubual ‘snowball’ separa berstruktur, kajian kualitatif ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan faktor kejayaan pemaju perumahan swasta. Sepuluh pemaju perumahan yang berjaya dipilih untuk menjadi responden kajian ini. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahawa pengurusan projek yang berjaya; ditambah pula dengan harga jualan produk yang mencerminkan lokasi, kualiti dan inovasi produk; menyumbang kepada reputasi dan penjenamaan pemaju. Kertas kerja ini mengembangkan literatur akademik pembangunan perumahan dengan menyediakan maklumat khusus dan mendalam ke atas produk pemaju perumahan di Malaysia. Kata kunci: Ciri-ciri produk; pemaju perumahan swasta; kelebihan daya saing dan pendekatan kualitatif
Solidification Characteristics of Brass in a Direct Chill Caster

In this study, an industrial-sized slab for a standard brass alloy has been numerically simulated in a vertical and conventional direct chill caster using an in-house 3-D CFD code. The studied caster consists of a hot-top mold which is fitted with a porous filter across the entire cross-section within the hot-top. The BrinkmannForchimier-Extended non-Darcy model for turbulent flow is used to macroscopically model the melt flow through the porous filter. The velocity, and temperature profiles and quantitative values for shell thickness at the exit of the mold, sump depth and mushy thickness are provided for four casting speeds varying from 40 to 100 mm/min. The shell thickness at the exit of the mold is also presented for various metal-mold contact lengths, convective heat transfer coefficients at the metal-mold contact region and Darcy numbers of the porous filter. Important correlations are provided for the aforementioned quantities with casting speed to facilitate the design of such a caster.
Jump & Run Energetics and Mechanics of Explosive and Cyclic Movements Jump and Run Energetics and Mechanics of Explosive and Cyclic Movements Melanie N. Scholz Energetics and Mechanics of Explosive and Cyclic Movements

There are several ways to quantify jumping performance, a common definition being the height gained by the body’s centre of mass (CM) in the airborne phase. Under this definition, jump height is determined by take-off velocity. According to the existing literature on jumping and scaling, take-off velocity, and hence jumping performance is independent of size because the energy that differently sized geometrically scaled jumpers can generate with their muscles is proportional to their mass. In this article it is shown, based on a simple energy balance, that it is incorrect to presume that jump height does not depend on size. Contrary to common belief, size as such has does have an effect on take-off velocity, putting small jumpers at a mechanical advantage, as is shown analytically. To quantify the effect of size on take-off velocity, a generic jumper model was scaled geometrically and evaluated numerically. While a 70-kg jumper took off at 2.65m/s and raised its CM by 0.36m after take-off, a perfectly geometrically similar jumper of 0.7 g reached a take-off velocity of 3.46m/ s and raised its CM by 0.61m. The reason for the better performance of small jumpers is their higher efficacy in transforming the energy generated by the actuators into energy due to vertical velocity of the CM. Considering the ecological and evolutionary relevance of different definitions of jump height, size-dependent efficacy might explain why habitual jumping is especially prominent among small animals such as insects. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The Cost/Benefit Voting Decision: The Influence of the Numbers of Statewide Legislative Referenda and Other Forms of Direct Democracy in the U.S.

This empirical study investigates the potential effects of "direct democracy" on the voter participation rate. Direct democracy is assumed to take three forms: the number of statewide initiatives, the number of statewide popular referenda, and the number of statewide legislative referenda. This study tests the hypothesis that greater numbers of such initiatives and referenda increase voter turnout because they elevate the expected gross benefits of voting by "empowering voters" while not significantly increasing the expected gross costs of voting. Using state-level data for the 2004 Presidential election, and after allowing for a variety of economic and demographic factors, this study finds compelling evidence that greater numbers of such statewide ballot measures act to elevate the voter participation rate in the U.S.
Improved Mutual Information Based on Relative Frequency Factor and Degree of Difference among Classes

By introducing degree of difference among classes, an improved mutual information feature selection method is proposed to effectively improve the accuracy of feature selection, accuracy and efficiency of classification. At the same time, re lative frequency factor is applied to solve the tendency of traditional methods to choose the shortage of low frequency words. The experimental results show that the im proved method can reasonably improve the performance of mutual information feature selection.
Hydrological climate-impact modelling in the Rhine catchment down to Cologne

The annual cycle of temperature and precipitation changes as projected by climate models is of fundamental interest in climate impact studies. Its estimation, however, is impaired by natural variability. Using a simple form of the delta change method, we show that on regional scales relevant for hydrological impact models, the projected changes in the annual cycle are prone to sampling artefacts. For precipitation at station locations, these artefacts may have amplitudes that are comparable to the climate change signal itself. Therefore, the annual cycle of the climate change signal should be filtered when generating climate change scenarios. We test a spectral smoothing method to remove the artificial fluctuations. Comparison against moving monthly averages shows that sampling artefacts in the climate change signal can successfully be removed by spectral smoothing. The method is tested at Swiss climate stations and applied to regional climate model output of the ENSEMBLES project. The spectral method performs well, except in cases with a strong annual cycle and large relative precipitation changes.
Increasing Time Management Skills to Improve Student Athletes’ GPA

Many college athletes find balancing time between academics and athletics difficult; thus, grades often decline during the competitive season. This study incorporated a one-day workshop that emphasized time management for twenty baseball student athletes. A pretest and posttest-design was used to study if the workshop altered student athlete GPA and lower overall stress levels. The results showed that there was not a significant difference between the student athletes’ grades due to the time management workshop. Additionally, there was no difference in overall stress levels. Future research might reexamine the use of frequent time-management workshops with more than one collegiate team and over a longer period of time.
Position Effects of Menu Item Displays in Consumer Choices: Comparisons of Horizontal Versus Vertical Displays

Consumers typically make choices based on a menu that lists a variety of food items. Prior research has shown that the position of food items within a menu (center vs. edge) can impact choices (e.g., edge preference and edge aversion). This research extends the literature by demonstrating that the display format of a menu (horizontal vs. vertical displays) can determine the relative impact of these influences. Two experiments find that the middle options are preferred when food options are displayed horizontally (vs. vertically), whereas the edge items are preferred under a vertical display (vs. a horizontal display). These differences extend to different types of foods (food vs. beverage), and to even and odd numbers of options (e.g., four vs. five). These findings increase the understanding of how food item displays can influence consumer choices, and provide important implications for practitioners and policymakers, including how to effectively position food items.
Studying Discrimination: Fundamental Challenges and Recent Progress

We discuss research on discrimination against blacks and other racial minorities in labor market outcomes, highlighting fundamental challenges faced by empirical work in this area. Specifically, for work devoted to measuring whether and how much discrimination exists, we discuss how the absence of relevant data, the potential noncomparability of blacks and whites, and various conceptual concerns peculiar to race may frustrate or render impossible the application of empirical methods used in other areas of study. For work seeking to arbitrate empirically between the two main alternative theoretical explanations for such discrimination as it exists, we distinguish between indirect analyses, which do not directly study the variation in prejudice or the variation in information, the mechanisms at the heart of the two types of models we review, and direct analyses, which are more recent and much less common. We highlight problems with both approaches. Throughout, we discuss recent work, which, the various challenges notwithstanding, permits tentative conclusions about discrimination. We conclude by pointing to areas that might be fruitful avenues for future investigation.
Obj 1 Obj 2 Obj 3 Obj 4 Sphere Concept Embeddings

We propose the Neuro-Symbolic Concept Learner (NS-CL), a model that learns visual concepts, words, and semantic parsing of sentences without explicit supervision on any of them; instead, our model learns by simply looking at images and reading paired questions and answers. Our model builds an object-based scene representation and translates sentences into executable, symbolic programs. To bridge the learning of two modules, we use a neuro-symbolic reasoning module that executes these programs on the latent scene representation. Analogical to human concept learning, the perception module learns visual concepts based on the language description of the object being referred to. Meanwhile, the learned visual concepts facilitate learning new words and parsing new sentences. We use curriculum learning to guide the searching over the large compositional space of images and language. Extensive experiments demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of our model on learning visual concepts, word representations, and semantic parsing of sentences. Further, our method allows easy generalization to new object attributes, compositions, language concepts, scenes and questions, and even new program domains. It also empowers applications including visual question answering and bidirectional image-text retrieval.
GTC OSIRIS z-band imaging of Y dwarfs

Aims. The aim of the project is to contribute to the characterisation of the spectral energy distribution of the coolest brown dwarfs discovered to date, the Y dwarfs. Methods. We obtained z-band far-red imaging for six Y dwarfs and a T9+Y0 binary with the OSIRIS (Optical System for Imaging and low Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy) instrument on the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio de Canarias (GTC). Results. We detect five of the seven known Y dwarfs in the z-band, infer their optical-to-infrared colours, and measure their proper motions. We find a higher dispersion in the z − J and z − H colours of Y0 dwarfs than in T dwarfs. This dispersion is found to be correlated with H − w2. The high dispersion in the optical-to-infrared colours of Y dwarfs and the possible turnover towards bluer colours may be a consequence of the presence of sulfide clouds with different thicknesses, the depletion of alcalines, and/or gravity effects.
Educational Expansion and Returns to Education : A Comparative Study on Germany, France, the UK, and Hungary

The paper proposes an empirical examination of the consequences of educational expansion and reform in four European countries in terms of school-leavers labour market chances. The empirical analyses focus on the returns to higher education on the one side and vocational qualification as compared to general education on the other. We concentrate on social class position as a major indicator of labour market related returns to education. Returns to education are measured in two ways: first, in absolute terms by taking the percentage among single educational groups that reaches a specified class position and second, in relative terms by relating the chances of a single educational group to the chances of another group. This is done on the basis of outflow-ratios and odds ratios derived from multinomial logistic regression. The absolute and relative chances are then compared over time and between the countries.
Back to Reality: The Complex Relationship Between Patterns in Immigration News Coverage and Real-World Developments in Dutch and Flemish Newspapers (1999–2015)

Although prior studies investigating immigration news typically documented a dominant focus on negativity and threats, only limited empirical research is available, which scrutinizes the way real-world developments affect these patterns in immigration news. This study aims to fill this void. First, we report results of a large-scale and longitudinal content analysis (N = 4,340,757) of trends in immigration news coverage in two Western European cases, Flanders (the northern, Dutch-speaking, largest region of Belgium) and the Netherlands, from 1999 to 2015. Both the salience of immigration as a news topic on itself and its linkages with three prominent issues (i.e., crime, terrorism, and socioeconomic issues) are explored. Second, this study builds on previous insights by comparing dynamics in immigration news to real-world events and developments. Overall, the results show that the linkage of immigration to issues of crime, terrorism, and the economy in Flemish and Dutch newspapers was considerable throughout the 17-year period under study. Yet there is limited evidence for a close relationship between news and real-life developments; hence, trends in immigration news seem largely unaffected by trends in society.
Bootstrap interval with application in environmental monitoring

ABSTRACT Environmental research data usually present high variability because of the presence of outlier values. This study sought to apply the interval bootstrap method, as compared to Chebyshev’s Theorem, for the statistical assessment of environmental data with anomalous values. The results obtained showed that: (a) the bootstrap method is an excellent alternative in the assessment of environmental data with outliers; (b) the method percentile bootstrap (Boot-perc-s) presented the lower interval amplitude to the concentrations of 226Ra, and (c) Chebyshev’s Theorem presented the highest interval amplitude for the concentration of 226Ra.
Policy Note 2 Trade Integration , FDI , and Productivity 89284

Policy attitude towards trade integration and foreign direct investment (FDI) is often a controversial yet popular subject. This note presents evidences from recent policy researches that arguing that engaging in an open trade and investment regime have brought productivity gains which is key factor for sustaining increase in income per-capita. Evidence from Indonesia also suggests that foreign owned plants have become increasingly important, generating a signi cant share of exports and overall output, as well as more productive and more export intensive than domestic plants, and to spend more on R&D and training. FDI also have positive impact on  rms in the same sector, through competition and demonstration effects, and in upstream sectors, as suppliers to foreign-owned plants improve the quality of their own products to meet their clients more exacting needs. Evidence also suggests a positive impact from import competition in improving allocative ef ciency across manufacturing plants which is a key element in driving productivity in manufacturing sector.
Acetoin Production in the Identification of Isolates as Members of Staphylococcus intermedius Hájek

A total of 50 staphylococcal strains of animal origin were identified as members of Staphylococcus intermedius Hajek on the basis that they possessed all of the characteristics originally reported by Hajek for S. intermedius except one, acetoin production. The Barritt method failed to demonstrate acetoin production by these isolates, whereas in the case of a micromethod in which pyruvate was used as substrate, acetoin production was detected. We discuss both the discrepancy observed between the results of the two methods and the taxonomic implications of our findings.
The winter hyperbenthos of the Ria Formosa - a lagoon in southern Portugal - and adjacent waters

L'hyperbenthos hivernal de la Ria Formosa - une lagune du sud Portugal - et des eaux adjacentes. La faune de cette lagune a ete echantillonnee a l'aide d'un traineau manuel pendant l'hiver 1997. La communaute hyperbenthique de la lagune differe de celle de la plage sableuse adjacente, sur l'Atlantique, et de celles de la principale riviere qui se deverse dans la lagune. Les calculs de densite, biomasse et diversite ont revele des valeurs plus elevees pour la communaute de la lagune. La salinite des eaux de la Ria Formosa ne differe pas de celle de l'ocean, mais il y a une difference d'exposition: la plage le long de l'Atlantique est plus exposee aux courants que les plages de la lagune, ce qui est probablement la raison majeure de la difference dans les communautes. Une communaute differente existe aussi dans la partie superieure de la riviere, ceci en relation avec une salinite reduite.
Lithium abundance patterns of late-F stars: an in-depth analysis of the lithium desert

Aims. We address the existence and origin of the lithium (Li) desert, a region in the Li–Teff plane sparsely populated by stars. Here we analyze some of the explanations that have been suggested for this region, including mixing in the late main sequence, a Li dip origin for stars with low Li abundances in the region, and a possible relation with the presence of planets. Methods. To study the Li desert, we measured the atmospheric parameters and Li abundance of 227 late-F dwarfs and subgiants, chosen to be in the Teff range of the desert and without previous Li abundance measurements. Subsequently, we complemented those with literature data to obtain a homogeneous catalog of 2318 stars, for which we compute masses and ages. We characterize stars surrounding the region of the Li desert. Results. We conclude that stars with low Li abundances below the desert are more massive and more evolved than stars above the desert. Given the unexpected presence of low Li abundance stars in this effective temperature range, we concentrate on finding their origin. We conclude that these stars with low Li abundance do not evolve from stars above the desert: at a given mass, stars with low Li (i.e., below the desert) are more metal-poor. Conclusions. Instead, we suggest that stars below the Li desert are consistent with having evolved from the Li dip, discarding the need to invoke additional mixing to explain this feature. Thus, stars below the Li desert are not peculiar and are only distinguished from other subgiants evolved from the Li dip in that their combination of atmospheric parameters locates them in a range of effective temperatures where otherwise only high Li abundance stars would be found (i.e., stars above the desert).