Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sweatshops at Sea: Merchant Seamen in the World's First Globalized Industry, from 1812 to the Present

As the main artery of international commerce, merchant shipping was the world's first globalized industry, often serving as a vanguard for issues touching on labor recruiting, the employment relationship, and regulatory enforcement that crossed national borders. In "Sweatshops at Sea," historian Leon Fink examines the evolution of laws and labor relations governing ordinary seamen over the past two centuries. The merchant marine offers an ideal setting for examining the changing regulatory regimes applied to workers by the United States, Great Britain, and, ultimately, an organized world community. Fink explores both how political and economic ends are reflected in maritime labor regulations and how agents of reform--including governments, trade unions, and global standard-setting authorities--grappled with the problems of applying land-based, national principles and regulations of labor discipline and management to the sea-going labor force. With the rise of powerful nation-states in a global marketplace in the nineteenth century, recruitment and regulation of a mercantile labor force emerged as a high priority and as a vexing problem for Western powers. The history of exploitation, reform, and the evolving international governance of sea labor offers a compelling precedent in an age of more universal globalization of production and services.
Civil Society Organizations in European Union External Relations: A Study of Interorganizational Networks in the Eastern Partnership and the Mediterranean

Abstract Networks of civil society organizations are a feature of the Eastern Partnership and the Union for the Mediterranean, the two strategies of the European Union (EU) for relations with the countries of the Neighborhood. We examine these structures as instances of interorganizational networks. We employ social network analysis and multiple regression to test empirically a number of hypotheses about these networks. Our results show that the networks are highly centralized around EU institutions, but we also find that gradually relations among all participants become more horizontal and cooperative, that EU institutions become less dominant over time, and that organizations from neighboring countries gain centrality. We also find that interorganizational cooperation is stronger in the southern than in the eastern Neighborhood.
Regression Model for Software Effort Estimation Based on the Use Case Point Method

It is very important to conduct software estimation in the early stages of the software life cycle, because it helps managers bid on projects and allocate resources efficiently. This paper presents a novel regression model to estimate the software effort based on the use case point size metric. The use case point model takes use case diagrams as input and gives the software size in use case points as output. The proposed effort equation takes into consideration the non-linear relationship between software size and software effort, as well as the influences of project complexity and productivity. Results show that the software effort estimation accuracy can be improved by 16.5% using PRED(25) and 25% using PRED(35).
Accurate simplification of large symbolic formulae

Simplification techniques for nested symbolic expressions obtained by hierarchical analysis procedures are presented. An algorithm where potential ranges of variation in the symbolic parameter values are considered to perform simplifications is presented. In this approach, the relative significance of each expression at the different nested levels is evaluated prior to performing simplification. Thus, only those terms with little influence on the top expression are eliminated. <<ETX>>
An Anti-PASTA Result for Markovian Systems

PASTA Poisson Arrivals See Time Averages is a term coined by R. Wolff in his well known 1982 paper. In keeping with Wolff's terminology, we use the term anti-PASTA to refer to the following converse of PASTA. Given that arrivals do indeed see time averages, when must the arrival process necessarily be Poisson? We show that anti-PASTA is satisfied in a pure-jump Markov process, provided that the arrival process corresponds to a subset of the Markov process jumps.
VISION-BASED HAZARD DETECTION WITH ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS FOR AUTONOMOUS PLANETARY LANDING

In this paper a hazard detection and landing site selection algorithm, based on a single, visible light, camera acquisition, processed by Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), is presented. The system is sufficiently light to run onboard a spacecraft during the landing phase of a planetary exploration mission. Unsafe terrain items are detected and arranged in a hazard map, exploited to select the best place to land, in terms of safety, guidance constraints and scientific interest. A set of statistical indexes is extracted from the raw frame, progressively at different scales in order to characterize features of different size and depth. Then, a set of feed-forward ANNs interprets these parameters to produce a hazard map, exploited to select a new target landing site. Validation is carried out by the application of the algorithm to images not considered during the training phase. Landing sites maps are compared to ground-truth solution, and performances are assessed in terms of false positives ratio, false negatives ratio and final selected target safety. Results for different scenarios are shown and discussed, in order to highlight the effectiveness of the proposed system.
Androgen-Induced Cell Migration: Role of Androgen Receptor/Filamin A Association

Background Androgen receptor (AR) controls male morphogenesis, gametogenesis and prostate growth as well as development of prostate cancer. These findings support a role for AR in cell migration and invasiveness. However, the molecular mechanism involved in AR-mediated cell migration still remains elusive. Methodology/Principal Findings Mouse embryo NIH3T3 fibroblasts and highly metastatic human fibrosarcoma HT1080 cells harbor low levels of transcriptionally incompetent AR. We now report that, through extra nuclear action, AR triggers migration of both cell types upon stimulation with physiological concentrations of the androgen R1881. We analyzed the initial events leading to androgen-induced cell migration and observed that challenging NIH3T3 cells with 10 nM R1881 rapidly induces interaction of AR with filamin A (FlnA) at cytoskeleton. AR/FlnA complex recruits integrin beta 1, thus activating its dependent cascade. Silencing of AR, FlnA and integrin beta 1 shows that this ternary complex controls focal adhesion kinase (FAK), paxillin and Rac, thereby driving cell migration. FAK-null fibroblasts migrate poorly and Rac inhibition by EHT impairs motility of androgen-treated NIH3T3 cells. Interestingly, FAK and Rac activation by androgens are independent of each other. Findings in human fibrosarcoma HT1080 cells strengthen the role of Rac in androgen signaling. The Rac inhibitor significantly impairs androgen-induced migration in these cells. A mutant AR, deleted of the sequence interacting with FlnA, fails to mediate FAK activation and paxillin tyrosine phosphorylation in androgen-stimulated cells, further reinforcing the role of AR/FlnA interaction in androgen-mediated motility. Conclusions/Significance The present report, for the first time, indicates that the extra nuclear AR/FlnA/integrin beta 1 complex is the key by which androgen activates signaling leading to cell migration. Assembly of this ternary complex may control organ development and prostate cancer metastasis.
Cross-Border Investing with Tax Arbitrage: The Case of German Dividend Tax Credits

German dividends typically carry a tax credit which makes the dividend worth 42.86% more to a taxable German shareholder than to a tax-exempt or foreign shareholder. This results in a penalty for foreign investors who buy and hold German dividend-paying stocks. I document that, as a result of the credit, the ex-day drop exceeds the dividend by more than one-half of the tax credit, and show that futures and option prices embed more than one-half of the tax credit. The existence of the credit creates opportunities for cross-border tax arbitrage--in which foreign holders of German stock transfer the dividend to German shareholders--and implies that it is tax efficient for foreign investors to hold derivatives rather than investing directly in German stocks. The empirical findings are consistent with costly tax arbitrage activity by German investors, who face tax risk due to antiarbitrage rules. Since dividend tax credits exist in many other countries, the findings are potentially of broad interest. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.
TESTING FOR MONOPSONY POWER IN MULTIPLE INPUT MARKETS: A NONPARAMETRIC APPROACH WITH APPLICATION TO CIGARETTE MANUFACTURING

Monopsony power by cigarette manufacturers in procuring domestic and imported tobacco is investigated using a nonparametric method previously developed by Love and Shumway. Their test is extended to assess monopsony market power in multiple input markets. Results indicate that cigarette manufacturers exert significant monopsony power in the domestic tobacco market and exert little monopsony power in the international tobacco market.
The Origins of Aesthetics: A Neurobiological Basis for Affective Feelings and Aesthetics

In this chapter a theory of the origins of aesthetics is described. This has its roots in emotion, in which what is pleasant or unpleasant, a reward or punisher, is the result of an evolutionary process in which genes define the (pleasant or unpleasant) goals for action (Rolls 2005b). It is argued that combinations of multiple such factors provide part of the basis for aesthetics. To this is added the operation of the reasoning, syntactic, brain system which evolved to help solve difficult, multistep, problems, and the use of which is encouraged by pleasant feelings when elegant, simple, and hence aesthetic solutions are found that are advantageous because they are parsimonious, and follow Occam’s Razor. The combination of these two systems, and the interactions between them, provides an approach to understanding aesthetics that is rooted in evolution and its effects on brain design and function. I start by considering how affective value is generated in the brain as a solution to the problem of how genes can specify useful goals for actions. This is more efficient and produces more flexible behaviour than by specifying the actions themselves. Then, in Sections 5 and 6, I develop this theory further into a theory of the origins of aesthetics.
A simple and effective semi-supervised learning framework for hyperspectral image classification

Semisupervised learning (SSL) is often used when the number of labeled samples is very small compared to the number of unlabeled samples. It permits the exploitation of structure within unlabeled samples during the learning task. Like many other applications, remote sensing images suffer from the limited number of ground-truth samples and therefore semisupervised techniques may be used to overcome this limitation. In this paper, a semisupervised framework is proposed for classification of hyperspectral images with scarce labeled samples. Our method, which we call SSL-CC, utilizes fuzzy spectral clustering to label spatially neighboring samples. SSL-CC is implemented and tested on two benchmark hyperspectral datasets. Fuzzy clustering is compared to traditional crisp clustering (k-means) and the obtained results indicate that fuzzy clustering can significantly improve classification accuracy. SSL-CC achieves on average 60% improvement over a baseline SVM classifier.
A reduced order electrolyte enhanced single particle lithium ion cell model for hybrid vehicle applications

Low order, explicit models of lithium ion cells are critical for real-time battery management system (BMS) applications. This paper presents a linearized 7th order, electrolyte enhanced single particle model (ESPM) in an explicit impedance transfer function format with electrolyte diffusion effect. The impedance transfer function coefficients are explicit in terms of the model parameters, simplifying the implementation of temperature dependence in the ESPM (ESPM-T). The models are compared with a commercially available finite volume based model and results show accurate matching of pulse responses over a wide range of temperature and C-rates.
Investigating Self-Timed Circuits for the Time-Triggered Protocol

While asynchronous logic has many potential advantages compared to traditional synchronous designs, one of the major drawbacks is its unpredictability with respect to temporal behavior. Without having a high-precision oscillator, a self-timed circuit’s execution speed is heavily dependent on temperature and supply voltage. Small fluctuations of these parameters already result in noticeable changes of the design’s throughput and performance. This indeterminism or jitter makes the use of asynchronous logic hardly feasible for real-time applications. Based on our previous work we investigate the temporal characteristics of self-timed circuits regarding their usage in the Time-Triggered Protocol (TTP). We propose a self-adapting circuit which shall derive a suitable notion of time for both bit transmission and protocol execution. We further introduce and analyze our jitter compensation concept, which is a three-fold mechanism to keep the asynchronous circuit’s notion of time tightly synchronized to the remaining communication participants. To demonstrate the robustness of our solution, we will perform temperature and voltage tests, and investigate their impact on jitter and frequency stability.
The sentiments, attitudes and concerns of educators when working under the conditions of inclusion

This research is part of the international research project SACIE (Sentiments, Attitudes & Concerns about Inclusive Education). The international research team is formed of Dr. Ch. Forlin – Institute of Education Hong Kong, dr. T. Loreman and Dr. Ch. Earle – Concordia University College of Alberta, Canada, Dr. U. Sharma, Monash University, Victoria, Australia, and the author of this article. The research was focused on the field of sentiments, attitudes and concerns of educators when working with people with intellectual disabilities. This study aimed at discovering whether the above stated parameters change after qualification was achieved in special education. The results of research, encompassing a period of three years, aimed at describing a group of 794 educators from a developmental perspective of their attitudes, opinions and concerns focused on the process of inclusion. The research was divided into two phases – the 1st phase before commencement of the university (Bachelor’s) specialized study of special needs education, and the 2nd phase conducted a month before termination of this three-year study programme.
Duality and Topological Quantum Field Theory

We present a summary of the applications of duality to Donaldson-Witten theory and its generalizations. Special emphasis is made on the computation of Donaldson invariants in terms of Seiberg-Witten invariants using recent results in N=2 supersymmetric gauge theory. A brief account on the invariants obtained in the theory of non-abelian monopoles is also presented.
HIV/AIDS prevention policy processes in faith-based non-governmental organizations in Tanzania

Many faith-based organizations (FBOs) are providing valuable care and support to people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. The overall response of FBOs, however, has been controversial, particularly in regards to HIV/AIDS prevention and FBO’s rejection of condom use and promotion. This response has negatively influenced national HIV/AIDS prevention response efforts. The aim of this thesis is to explore the factors influencing the HIV/AIDS prevention policy process within faith-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of different faiths, and in particular how faith is reflected in and interacts with this process. These processes were examined within three faith-based NGOs in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – a Catholic, Anglican and Muslim organization. The research used an exploratory, qualitative case-study approach. It employed a health policy analysis framework, examining the context, actor, and process factors and how they interact to form content in terms of policy and practice within each organization. Three key factors were found to influence faith-based NGOs’ HIV/AIDS prevention policy process in terms of both policy development and implementation: 1) the faith structure in which the organizations are a part, 2) the presence or absence of organizational policy, and 3) the professional nature of the organizations and its actors. The interaction between these factors, and how actors negotiate between them, was found to shape an organization’s HIV/AIDS prevention policy process. By understanding the factors and processes that influence faith-based NGOs’ HIV/AIDS prevention policy process, and how this conflicts with the national policy response, more appropriate policies can be developed and implemented within faith-based NGOs. Furthermore, the government may be better able to identify how best to intervene and/or work with faith-based NGOs in order to meet their HIV/AIDS prevention targets, and achieve a more uniform and evidence-based approach to HIV/AIDS prevention.
ForestPMPlot: A Flexible Tool for Visualizing Heterogeneity Between Studies in Meta-analysis

Meta-analysis has become a popular tool for genetic association studies to combine different genetic studies. A key challenge in meta-analysis is heterogeneity, or the differences in effect sizes between studies. Heterogeneity complicates the interpretation of meta-analyses. In this paper, we describe ForestPMPlot, a flexible visualization tool for analyzing studies included in a meta-analysis. The main feature of the tool is visualizing the differences in the effect sizes of the studies to understand why the studies exhibit heterogeneity for a particular phenotype and locus pair under different conditions. We show the application of this tool to interpret a meta-analysis of 17 mouse studies, and to interpret a multi-tissue eQTL study.
Research of Automatic Recognition Algorithm of Chinese-sensible Code

For the collected barcode image, an image processing method with the ability of locating, segmenting, correcting and recognizing the Chinese-sensible code is introduced. In order to meet the real-time demands and obtain the optimal thresholding under various lighting conditions, we proposed the improved adaptive thresholding algorithm, which is proved both high efficiency and high stability. The ratios of each module in the finder pattern are used to obtain the functional information and determine the structure of barcode. For the distorted barcode images, the relative locations of finder patterns, alignment patterns and auxiliary alignment patterns are taken advantage of to divide the barcode image into several sub-regions. And then, the affine transformation is employed to correct sub-regions into normal. The results showed that this method can correct the distortion of symbols effectively.
PARAMETER ESTIMATION FOR CRYSTALLIZATION PROCESSES USING TAYLOR METHOD

Crystallization is a key unit operation that finds extensive applications in pharmaceutical, food and fine chemicals industries . The operating conditions of the crystallization process have a direct effect on the purity, size distribution, shape and polymorphic form of the crystals. These properties in turn affect the efficiencies of the downstream operations such as filtration, drying and formulating, and product effectiveness such as dissolution rate, bio-availability and toxicity . Therefore, batchto-batch uniformity of the crystal properties is important from a consumer and regulatory point of view .
More Women Can Run: Gender and Pathways to the State Legislatures

List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgments Chapter 1 Rethinking Candidate Emergence Chapter 2 Can More Women Run? Reevaluating Pathways to Office Chapter 3 Gender and the Decision to Run for Office Chapter 4 Republican Women State Legislators: Falling Behind Chapter 5 Democratic Women State Legislators: On the Rise Chapter 6 The Future of Women's Officeholding Appendix Bibliography Index
Shape-Similarity Comparison of Polygon-soup Models Using 3 D Alpha Shapes

We have previously published a multiresolution approach for the shape similarity comparison of polygon soup 3D models. The approach combined a single-resolution shape feature with a multiresolution representation produced by using the 3D alpha shapes algorithm of Edelsbrunner for the shape similarity comparison. The study evaluated the efficacy of the multiresolution shape comparison approach by using only one shape feature and only one database. This paper attempts a more comprehensive evaluation of the efficacy of the multiresolution approach by using four different single-resolution shape features and two different databases. Experiments showed that (1) the multiresolution approach does improve the performance of all the four shape features tested, and (2) the combination of the Surflet Pair Relation Histogram with the multiresolution approach performed the best among the tested. Keyword Geometric modeling, multimedia information retrieval, content-based search, multiresolution analysis. 1. はじめに 近年,ゲームや映画などのエンタテインメントから,自動車 などの機械部品の設計まで,様々な分野で 3 次元モデルが 利用されるようになり,その数も増加してきた. それに伴い,欲 する形状に類似した 3 次元モデルをデータベース中から検索 する手法の必要性が高まってきた. 3 次元モデルの形状表現は,しっかりと立体をなすソリッド モデルから,面積 0 の面や非連結要素を含むポリゴンスープ モデルまで様々である. 中でもポリゴンスープを扱うのが難し く,ソリッドや多様体曲面と違い体積や曲率を求めることがで きず,適応できる形状解析手法が少ない. 我々は以前,3 次元アルファシェイプ[1]を用いて 3 次元ポ リゴンスープモデルから多重解像度表現を生成し,それをもと に形状類似比較を行うアプローチを提案した[2]. このアプロ ーチでは,まず 3 次元ポリゴンスープモデルから点群表現を 生成し,点群表現から有限個の 3 次元アルファシェイプを求 め る こ と で , 我 々 が α MRR(Alpha Multi-Resolution Representation)と呼ぶ有限個のレベルからなる多重解像度 表現を生成する. 次に,αMRR の各レベルから何らかの(単 一解像度用の)特徴量を計算して多重解像度の特徴量を求 め,形状類似比較を行う. 実験の結果,αMRR を用いた形 状類似比較は,従来の単一解像度の特徴量を用いた手法よ りも性能が高いことを報告した. しかし,我々の以前の報告では,αMRR を用いた多重解 画像電子学会 第 208 回研究会 発表 予稿 (2004 年 3 月 12 日 早稲田大学) 像度アプローチによる形状比較の有効性の評価を, (a)α MRR とただ 1 つの(単一解像度)特徴量 ADD [3]と組み合わ せ,(b)ただ 1 つのデータベースを用いた実験,で行った. そ のため,以前の報告ではαMRR を用いるアプローチの一般 性の主張が弱かった. 本論文の目的は,(1)我々が提案した,アルファシェイプを 用いた多重解像度表現による形状比較のアプローチが,より 一般的な状況でも有効かどうかを検証すること,及び,(2)より 性能の高い(多重解像度)特徴量を見つけること,である. そ の結果, (1) 4 つの単一解像度特徴量と 2 つの 3 次元モデルデー タベースを用いた実験で,アルファシェイプを用いた 多重解像度アプローチによる形状類似比較の有効 性を示した. (2) アルファシェイプを用いた多重解像度表現を Wahl ら の SPRH [4]と組み合わせた場合が,より高い検索性 能を示すことが分かった. 以下,本論文の構成は次の通りである. 2 章で 3 次元モデ ルの類似検索の課題について述べる. 3 章で本手法の詳し い説明を行う. 4 章で実験と結果について,5 章でまとめと今 後の課題を述べる. 2. 3 次元モデルの形状類似検索の課題 3 次元モデルの類似検索の一般的な枠組みを図 1 に示す. まず,前処理として,データベース中のモデルの特徴量を計 算する. 検索システムは検索利用者(ユーザ)からの検索要求 を受け,検索要求の特徴量を計算する. 次にシステムは,検 索要求の特徴量とデータベース中のモデルの特徴量との相 違度を計算し,相違度の小さいモデルから順に検索結果とし てユーザに提示する. 3 次元モデルの類似検索には,次の 6 つの課題がある. 1. 検索要求の提示 2. 3 次元モデルの形状表現の多様性 3. 特徴量計算 4. 相違度計算 5. 検索の効率化 6. 検索性能の評価 検索要求の提示: まず解決すべき課題は,欲する形状のモ デルを検索するために,検索要求としてどのような情報を用 いるかである. 考えられる方法には,テキストや 2 次元スケッチ に基づく検索,3 次元形状そのものに基づく検索がある. テキ スト情報(モデル名,後から付加したモデルの説明など)を利 用した検索では,言葉で表現できない形状を持つモデルを 検索できない. また,モデル作成者や情報付加者の使用言 語,文化,好みの違いで,上手く検索できない場合もある. 2 次元スケッチによる検索では,3 次元形状の内部構造の表現 (中が空洞の球など)が困難な場合がある. また, 3 次元形状 をどの方向から見た場合の外形をユーザが描くか分からず, データベース中のモデルとの比較が困難である. このように, テキスト,2 次元スケッチによる検索だけでは不十分であり,3 次元形状そのものに基づく類似検索が必要である.