Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do Institutions Affect Citizens' Selection into Politics?

Traditional political economy has paid primary attention to the structuring of the principal-agent relationship between citizens and politicians and the role of competition and institutions in disciplining political agents. However, as the electoral control of politicians and the credibility of policy commitments are limited, this perspective needs to be complemented with an economics of political selection that takes into account the quality of those elected to political office. We review the emerging literature which investigates institutional conditions that impact the selection of politicians. We discuss pay in politics, electoral rules, institutions enhancing transparency in politics, and institutions which govern dual office holding in different branches of government. We argue that further comparative analyses are essential in order to gain an improved understanding of the impact that institutions have on political outcomes, not only via the channel of accountability, but also via the channel of selection.
Alcohol expectancies, alcohol use, and risky behavior among college students

"College students' alcohol expectancies, perceptions of risk, alcohol use, and risk behavior were examined. In line with existing research, alcohol expectancies were predicted to explain risky behavior, and risk perceptions were hypothesized to predict alcohol use. Theoretically relevant interactions were also explored. Participants completed questionnaires assessing alcohol use, risky behavior participation, alcohol expectancies, and perceptions of risk. As hypothesized, expectancies predicted alcohol use and risky behavior, but risk perceptions were not significantly related to risky behavior and marginally related to alcohol use. Nevertheless, the relationship between risk perception and alcohol use was stronger for males than females. Implications and future directions for investigation are discussed. "--Abstract from author supplied metadata.
Phase diagrams of Zwanzig models: The effect of polydispersity

The first goal of this article is to study the validity of the Zwanzig model for liquid crystals to predict transitions to inhomogeneous phases (like smectic and columnar) and the way polydispersity affects these transitions. The second goal is to analyze the extension of the Zwanzig model to a binary mixture of rods and plates. The mixture is symmetric in that all particles have equal volume and length-to-breadth ratio, κ. The phase diagram containing the homogeneous phases as well as the spinodals of the transitions to inhomogeneous phases is determined for the cases κ=5 and 15 in order to compare with previous results obtained in the Onsager approximation. We then study the effect of polydispersity on these phase diagrams, emphasizing the enhancement of the stability of the biaxial nematic phase it induces.
SEPARATION OF cARBON DIOXIDE FROM cO 2 / cH 4 BINARY MIXTuRE uSING SILIcONE RuBBER MEMBRANE

The permeability and selectivity of pure carbon dioxide, methane and its binary mixture at various feed pressure, temperature and composition through non-porous silicone rubber membranes was studied. It was observed that the permeability of pure methane and carbon dioxide increases with pressure, whereas such plots for carbon dioxide become convex towards pressure axis at higher pressures (17 bars) due to reduction in free volume of the polymer. The experimental results showed that for binary mixtures of carbon dioxide and methane, permeability depended not only on the feed gas pressure but also on the molar composition of the feed gas. The permeation flux was found to increase with pressure differences, and the enhancement of the proportion of the carbon dioxide in the feed gas. Experimental results showed that the selectivities estimated from pure gas varied slightly with increase in the feed pressure but reached to a maximum value of 11.4. With 20% CO2 in the feed stream, the selectivity was found to be lower by a factor of two to three times than that of pure components over the whole pressure range. High selectivities were obtained at 80% CO2 in the feed stream. An analytical model expressed in terms of pressure and feed composition was derived from permeability behavior of pure carbon dioxide and methane to predict quantitatively the permeability of binary mixtures. It was indicated that the model could be used to evaluate the separation properties and to choose the optimal feed compositions for the membrane separation systems of carbon dioxide and methane.
Advances in nearshore processes research: Four decades of progress

The purpose of this paper is to summarize four decades of progress in nearshore research, the duration of the science career of Dr. Abby Sallenger. This paper is a retrospective foundation and jumping-off point for a companion paper that discusses the priority directions for future research as developed in a recent community meeting and from subsequent discussions. Our review starts with a short discussion of the nature of the nearshore problem, then is divided into four periods, pre-1974, 1974-1989, 1989-2000 and finally 2000-the present. Each section covers the research highlights for fluid and sedimentary processes, key facilitators of progress including instrumentation development and large experiments, and community assessments of priority unsolved problems at the end of each period. from that time to the present. We will close with comments on our strengths and weaknesses. The content may appear slanted toward North American work, a reflection of the attendance of the meet ing rather than a comment on non-U.S. science. THE STRUCTURE OF THE NEARSHORE PROBLEM The world’s coastlines are regions of disproportional societal interest and value due to their importance to recreation, commerce, safety, and defense. Thus, there have been longstanding efforts to better understand and live with the natural variability and hazards associated with the coastal zone. The St. Pete I meeting (in 1989) first laid out the broad goals and structure of nearshore science, defining that the overriding goal of near shore research is to develop a predictive understanding of the dynamics of waves and wave-driven hydrodynamics on a sloping beach, the response of an erodible bottom to those motions, and the interdisciplinary consequences of those physics.
FILTER-INDUCED BIAS IN Lyα EMITTER SURVEYS: A COMPARISON BETWEEN STANDARD AND TUNABLE FILTERS. GRAN TELESCOPIO CANARIAS PRELIMINARY RESULTS

Lyα emitter (LAE) surveys have successfully used the excess in a narrowband filter compared to a nearby broadband image to find candidates. However, the odd spectral energy distribution (SED) of LAEs combined with the instrumental profile has important effects on the properties of the candidate samples extracted from these surveys. We investigate the effect of the bandpass width and the transmission profile of the narrowband filters used for extracting LAE candidates at redshifts z ≃ 6.5 through Monte Carlo simulations, and we present pilot observations to test the performance of tunable filters to find LAEs and other emission-line candidates. We compare the samples obtained using a narrow ideal rectangular filter, the Subaru NB921 narrowband filter, and sweeping across a wavelength range using the ultra-narrow-band tunable filters of the instrument OSIRIS, installed at the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias. We use this instrument for extracting LAE candidates from a small set of real observations. Broadband data from the Subaru, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer databases were used for fitting SEDs to calculate photometric redshifts and to identify interlopers. Narrowband surveys are very efficient in finding LAEs in large sky areas, but the samples obtained are not evenly distributed in redshift along the filter bandpass, and the number of LAEs with equivalent widths <60 Å can be underestimated. These biased results do not appear in samples obtained using ultra-narrow-band tunable filters. However, the field size of tunable filters is restricted because of the variation of the effective wavelength across the image. Thus, narrowband and ultra-narrow-band surveys are complementary strategies to investigate high-redshift LAEs.
HD 108: The mystery deepens with XMM-Newton observations

In 2001, using a large spectroscopic dataset from an extensive monitoring campaign, we discovered that the peculiar Of star HD 108 displayed extreme line variations. This strange behaviour could be attributed to a variety of models, and an investigation of the high energy properties of HD 108 was needed to test the predictions from these models. Our dedicated XMM-Newton observation of HD 108 shows that its spectrum is well represented by a two temperature thermal plasma model with kT1 ∼ 0.2 keV and kT2 ∼ 1.4 keV. In addition, we find that the star does not display any si gnificant short-term changes during the XMM-Newtonexposure. Compared to previous Einstein and ROSAT detections, it also appears that HD 108 does not present long-term flux variations either. While the line variations continue to modify HD 108’s spectrum in the optical domain, t he Xray emission of the star appears thus surprisingly stable: n o simple model is for the moment able to explain such an unexpected behaviour. Thanks to its high sensitivity, the XMM-Newton observatory has also enabled the serendipitous discovery of 57 new X-ray sources in the field of HD 108. Their properties are also discu ssed in this paper.
Herbarium specimens reveal substantial and unexpected variation in phenological sensitivity across the eastern United States

Phenology is a key biological trait that can determine an organism's survival and provides one of the clearest indicators of the effects of recent climatic change. Long time-series observations of plant phenology collected at continental scales could clarify latitudinal and regional patterns of plant responses and illuminate drivers of that variation, but few such datasets exist. Here, we use the web tool CrowdCurio to crowdsource phenological data from over 7000 herbarium specimens representing 30 diverse flowering plant species distributed across the eastern United States. Our results, spanning 120 years and generated from over 2000 crowdsourcers, illustrate numerous aspects of continental-scale plant reproductive phenology. First, they support prior studies that found plant reproductive phenology significantly advances in response to warming, especially for early-flowering species. Second, they reveal that fruiting in populations from warmer, lower latitudes is significantly more phenologically sensitive to temperature than that for populations from colder, higher-latitude regions. Last, we found that variation in phenological sensitivities to climate within species between regions was of similar magnitude to variation between species. Overall, our results suggest that phenological responses to anthropogenic climate change will be heterogeneous within communities and across regions, with large amounts of regional variability driven by local adaptation, phenotypic plasticity and differences in species assemblages. As millions of imaged herbarium specimens become available online, they will play an increasingly critical role in revealing large-scale patterns within assemblages and across continents that ultimately can improve forecasts of the impacts of climatic change on the structure and function of ecosystems. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene’.
Toward Whole-Hand Kinesthetic Feedback: A Survey of Force Feedback Gloves

Force feedback gloves have found many applications in fields such as teleoperation and virtual reality. In order to enhance the immersive feeling of interaction with remote or virtual environments, glove-like haptic devices are used, which enable users to touch and manipulate virtual objects in a more intuitive and direct way via the dexterous manipulation and sensitive perception capabilities of human hands. In this survey, we aim to identify the gaps between existing force feedback gloves and the desired ones that can provide robust and realistic sensation of the interaction with diverse virtual environments. By examining existing force feedback gloves, the pros and cons of existing design solutions to the major sub-systems including sensing, actuation, control, transmission and structure are discussed. Future research topics are put forward with design challenges being elaborated. Innovative design solutions are needed to enable the utility of wearable haptic gloves in the upcoming virtual reality era.
Adipocyte Glucocorticoid Receptor Deficiency Promotes Adipose Tissue Expandability and Improves the Metabolic Profile Under Corticosterone Exposure

Widely used for their anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive properties, glucocorticoids are nonetheless responsible for the development of diabetes and lipodystrophy. Despite an increasing number of studies focused on the adipocyte glucocorticoid receptor (GR), its precise role in the molecular mechanisms of these complications has not been elucidated. In keeping with this goal, we generated a conditional adipocyte-specific murine model of GR invalidation (AdipoGR knockout [KO] mice). Interestingly, when administered a corticosterone treatment to mimic hypercorticism conditions, AdipoGR-KO mice exhibited an improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity. This was related to the adipose-specific activation of the insulin-signaling pathway, which contributed to fat mass expansion, as well as a shift toward an anti-inflammatory macrophage polarization in adipose tissue of AdipoGR-KO animals. Moreover, these mice were protected against ectopic lipid accumulation in the liver and displayed an improved lipid profile, contributing to their overall healthier phenotype. Altogether, our results indicate that adipocyte GR is a key factor of adipose tissue expansion and glucose and lipid metabolism control, which should be taken into account in the further design of adipocyte GR-selective modulators.
OpenMIC-2018: An Open Data-set for Multiple Instrument Recognition

Identiﬁcation of instruments in polyphonic recordings is a challenging, but fundamental problem in music information retrieval. While there has been signiﬁcant progress in developing predictive models for this and related classiﬁ-cation tasks, we as a community lack a common data-set which is large, freely available, diverse, and representative of naturally occurring recordings. This limits our ability to measure the efﬁcacy of computational models. This article describes the construction of a new, open data-set for multi-instrument recognition. The dataset contains 20,000 examples of Creative Commons-licensed music available on the Free Music Archive. Each example is a 10-second excerpt which has been partially labeled for the presence or absence of 20 instrument classes by annotators on a crowd-sourcing platform. We describe in detail how the instrument taxonomy was constructed, how the data-set was sampled and annotated, and compare its characteristics to similar, previous data-sets. Finally, we present experimental results and baseline model performance to motivate future work.
High Performance Anti-Corrosion Coatings of Poly (Vinyl Butyral) Composites with Poly N-(vinyl)pyrrole and Carbon Black Nanoparticles

Zinc is widely used in battery negative electrodes and steel coatings for automotive industries. The anti-corrosion property of zinc is the most important factor determining the performance and lifetime of the products. In this paper, both size-controlled poly N-(vinyl)pyrrole (PNVPY) nanoparticles and carbon black (CB) nanoparticles were compounded with poly (vinyl butyral) (PVB) binder developing a series of composite coatings covered on the zinc substrates using a spin-coating technique. The morphologies of the surface and cross section of the PNVPY/CB/PVB coatings indicate that the PNVPY and CB nanoparticles are uniformly distributed in the matrix. The corrosion resistance of the composite coatings was tested by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization in a 3.5% NaCl solution. It is found that the coating with 1.9 wt. % PNVPY and 2.3 wt. % CB nanoparticles shows a remarkably high resistance value (Rc) and corrosion protection efficiency (99.99%). Meanwhile, the immersion results also reveal its superior corrosion resistance. It is considered that the nanoscale dispersion of PNVPY and carbon in PVB matrix and the strong interface action between the nanoparticles and PVB result in the uniform microstructure of the composites which endues the superior corrosion properties of the coatings.
Genetic models reveal origin, persistence and non-redundant functions of IL-17–producing γδ T cells

&ggr;&dgr; T cells are highly conserved in jawed vertebrates, suggesting an essential role in the immune system. However, &ggr;&dgr; T cell–deficient Tcrd−/− mice display surprisingly mild phenotypes. We hypothesized that the lack of &ggr;&dgr; T cells in constitutive Tcrd−/− mice is functionally compensated by other lymphocytes taking over genuine &ggr;&dgr; T cell functions. To test this, we generated a knock-in model for diphtheria toxin–mediated conditional &ggr;&dgr; T cell depletion. In contrast to IFN-&ggr;–producing &ggr;&dgr; T cells, IL-17–producing &ggr;&dgr; T cells (T&ggr;&dgr;17 cells) recovered inefficiently after depletion, and their niches were filled by expanding Th17 cells and ILC3s. Complementary genetic fate mapping further demonstrated that T&ggr;&dgr;17 cells are long-lived and persisting lymphocytes. Investigating the function of &ggr;&dgr; T cells, conditional depletion but not constitutive deficiency protected from imiquimod-induced psoriasis. Together, we clarify that fetal thymus-derived T&ggr;&dgr;17 cells are nonredundant local effector cells in IL-17–driven skin pathology.
Disseminated Spiroplasma apis Infection in Patient with Agammaglobulinemia, France

We report a disseminated infection caused by Spiroplasma apis, a honeybee pathogen, in a patient in France who had X-linked agammaglobulinemia. Identification was challenging because initial bacterial cultures and direct examination by Gram staining were negative. Unexplained sepsis in patients with agammaglobulinemia warrants specific investigation to identify fastidious bacteria such as Spiroplasma spp.
A Novel Microfluidic Point-of-Care Biosensor System on Printed Circuit Board for Cytokine Detection

Point of Care (PoC) diagnostics have been the subject of considerable research over the last few decades driven by the pressure to detect diseases quickly and effectively and reduce healthcare costs. Herein, we demonstrate a novel, fully integrated, microfluidic amperometric enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) prototype using a commercial interferon gamma release assay (IGRA) as a model antibody binding system. Microfluidic assay chemistry was engineered to take place on Au-plated electrodes within an assay cell on a printed circuit board (PCB)-based biosensor system. The assay cell is linked to an electrochemical reporter cell comprising microfluidic architecture, Au working and counter electrodes and a Ag/AgCl reference electrode, all manufactured exclusively via standard commercial PCB fabrication processes. Assay chemistry has been optimised for microfluidic diffusion kinetics to function under continual flow. We characterised the electrode integrity of the developed platforms with reference to biological sampling and buffer composition and subsequently we demonstrated concentration-dependent measurements of H2O2 depletion as resolved by existing FDA-validated ELISA kits. Finally, we validated the assay technology in both buffer and serum and demonstrate limits of detection comparable to high-end commercial systems with the addition of full microfluidic assay architecture capable of returning diagnostic analyses in approximately eight minutes.
Association of Stress and Musculoskeletal Pain With Poor Sleep: Cross-Sectional Study Among 3,600 Hospital Workers

Background: While acute stress and pain are part of our inherent survival mechanisms, persistent stress and pain can negatively impact health and well-being. This may also lead to poor sleep and thus a lack of recovery. This study investigated the influence of stress and musculoskeletal pain on sleep quality. Methods: A total of 3,593 Danish hospital workers replied to a questionnaire about work and health. Pain intensity was evaluated using subjective values as an average of 9 body parts. Stress was assessed using the full version of Cohen's Perceived Stress scale. Sleep quality was rated using 3 questions on sleep characteristics. Associations between stress and pain (mutually adjusted predictors) and sleep (outcome) were modeled using binary logistic regression controlling for gender, age, education, BMI and smoking. Results: The risk ratio of moderate stress (compared to no/low stress) on poor sleep was 1.27 (CI 1.26–1.29), whereas the risk ratio of high stress on poor sleep was 1.87 (CI 1.83–1.91). Similarly, for pain, the risk ratio of moderate pain (compared to no/low pain) on poor sleep was 1.18 (95% CI 1.16–1.19), whereas the risk ratio of a high pain score on poor sleep was 1.48 (95% CI 1.44–1.52). Conclusion: This study demonstrates that both stress and musculoskeletal pain are associated with poor sleep among hospital workers. Hospital management should consider implementing strategies for preventing stress and musculoskeletal pain to improve the overall health and workability among hospital workers.
Visual Simultaneity Judgments Activate a Bilateral Frontoparietal Timing System

Abstract In everyday life, we often make judgments regarding the sequence of events, for example, deciding whether a baseball runner's foot hit the plate before or after the ball hit the glove. Numerous studies have examined the functional correlates of temporal processing using variations of the temporal order judgment and simultaneity judgment (SJ) tasks. To perform temporal order judgment tasks, observers must bind temporal information with identity and/or spatial information relevant to the task itself. SJs, on the other hand, require observers to detect stimulus asynchrony but not the order of stimulus presentation and represent a purer measure of temporal processing. Some previous studies suggest that these temporal decisions rely primarily on right-hemisphere parietal structures, whereas others provide evidence that temporal perception depends on bilateral TPJ or inferior frontal regions (inferior frontal gyrus). Here, we report brain activity elicited by a visual SJ task. Our methods are unique given our use of two orthogonal control conditions, discrimination of spatial orientation and color, which were used to control for brain activation associated with the classic dorsal (“where/how”) and ventral (“what”) visual pathways. Our neuroimaging experiment shows that performing the SJ task selectively activated a bilateral network in the parietal (TPJ) and frontal (inferior frontal gyrus) cortices. We argue that SJ tasks are a purer measure of temporal perception because they do not require observers to process either identity or spatial information, both of which may activate separate cognitive networks.