Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alcohol Consumption and Political Ideology: What's Party Got to Do with It?*

Abstract Recent research in psychology and sociology has established a connection between political beliefs and unhealthy behaviors such as excessive alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drug consumption. In this study, we estimate the relationship between political ideology and the demand for beer, wine, and spirits using a longitudinal panel of fifty U.S. states from 1952 to 2010. Controlling for various socioeconomic factors and unobserved heterogeneity, we find that when a state becomes more liberal politically, its consumption of beer and spirits rises, while its consumption of wine may fall. Our findings suggest that political beliefs are correlated with the demand for alcohol. (JEL Classifications: D3, D12, I1)
DDSoR: A Dependency Aware Dynamic Service Replication Strategy for Efficient Execution of Service-Oriented Applications in the Cloud

With the attractive features of service oriented architecture (SOA), such as the high re-usability, the fast development and the reduced cost, many large scale distributed applications are currently delivered within cloud data centers following the SOA style (namely service-oriented applications). A service-oriented application is composed of a set of reusable services, each of which may be used concurrently by multiple applications. A key challenge in this context is how to guarantee an efficient execution of these applications to quickly and effectively respond to the ever-increasing incoming requests. Service replication has been touted as an efficient technique that supports the non-functional requirement of services, specified in Service- Level-Agreement (SLA) between cloud service providers and consumers, such as availability, reliability and response time, through providing multiple replicas of a given service. Several service replication strategies for cloud computing context were proposed in the literature. The major shortcoming of these attempts is their neglect of service dependencies. In view of this, we propose a Dependency aware Dynamic Service Replication Strategy called DDSoR. The main goal of the proposed strategy is to minimize execution time of distributed service oriented applications by clustering dependent services and replicating them in the same server. The service replica cluster placement problem is taken as a three dimensional multiple knapsack problem.
MagPad: A Near Surface Augmented Reading System for Physical Paper and Smartphone Coupling

In this paper, we present a novel near surface augmented reading system that brings digital content to physical papers. Our system allows a collocated mobile phone to provide augmented content based on its position on top of paper. Our system utilizes built-in magnetometer of a smartphone together with six constantly spinning magnets that generate designed patterns of magnetic flux, to detect 2D location of phone and render dynamic interactive content on the smartphone screen. The proposed technique could be implemented on most of mobile platforms without external sensing hardware.
Mother or Market? Effects of Maternal Employment on the Intellectual Ability of 4-Year-Old Children

This article uses the 1986 Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data set to investigate the impact of maternal employment on children's intellectual ability, as measured at the age of 4 by using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT). Results from multivariate regression analysis show a statistically significant adverse effect of mother's employment on children's intellectual ability, but only for boys in higher income families. Furthermore, the negative impact was related to the timing of maternal employment: employment during the boys' infancy had a statistically significant negative effect on PPVT scores at the age of 4. This pattern was not found for girls, for children in low-income families, or for families in which mothers resumed their employment after the child's first year of life. The impact of other demographic trends in recent years—declining fertility and rising marital instability—are also investigated. The results show an adverse effect of the presence of other siblings on children's PPVT scores; but holding family income constant, the effect of the parents' marital status on children's intellectual ability is not statistically significant. In addition, several family background factors are highly correlated with children's test scores.
Sensorless control technology of Brushless DC Motor for Air-conditioner in FCV

The paper proposed a new sensorless operation for Brushless DC Motor. In this paper, analysis of the new position detection method is completed, and also a special startup method is proposed and as well as a special control mode switch scheme. Through this method, the brushless DC motor can start from standstill smoothly, the experiment based on the motor for the Air-conditioner used in fuel-cell vehicle is carried out, which proves the proposed method.
Modelling Concurrent Computations: from Contextual Petri Nets to Graph Grammars

Graph grammars (or graph transformation systems), originally introduced as a generalization of string grammars, can be seen as a powerful formalism for the specification of concurrent and distributed systems, which properly extends Petri nets. The idea is that the state of a distributed system can be naturally represented (at a suitable level of abstraction) as a graph and local state transformations can be expressed as production applications. With the aim of consolidating the foundations of the concurrency theory for graph transformation systems, the thesis extends to this more general setting some fundamental approaches to the semantics coming from Petri net theory. More specifically, focusing on the so-called double pushout (dpo) algebraic approach to graph rewriting, the thesis provides graph transformation systems with truly concurrent semantics based on (concatenable) processes and on a Winskel’s style unfolding construction, as well as with more abstract semantics based on event structures and domains. The first part of the thesis studies two generalizations of Petri nets, already known in the literature, which reveal a close relationship with graph transformation systems, namely contextual nets (also called nets with read, activator or test arcs) and inhibitor nets (or nets with inhibitor arcs). Extending Winskel’s seminal work on safe nets, the truly concurrent semantics of contextual nets is given via a chain of coreflections leading from the category of contextual nets to the category of finitary coherent prime algebraic domains. A basic role is played by asymmetric event structures, which generalize prime event structures by allowing a non-symmetric conflict relation. The work is then generalized to inhibitor nets, where, due to the non-monotonicity of the enabling, the causal structure of computations is far more complex, and a new, very general, notion of event structure, called inhibitor event structure, is needed to faithfully describe them. The second part of the thesis, relying on the conceptual basis drawn in the first part, focuses on graph grammars. Inhibitor event structures turn out to be expressive enough to model graph grammar computations, and the theory developed for contextual and inhibitor nets, comprising the unfolding and the (concatenable) process semantics, can be lifted to graph grammars. The developed semantics is shown to to be consistent also with the classical theory of concurrency for dpo graph grammars relying on shift-equivalence.
Atypical work in the European experience

The persistent employment crisis that dogged all of the countries of the European Community, with the exception of Luxembourg, throughout the 1980s has led to the spread of all sorts of jobs which cannot be compared with full-time, life-time work: part-time employment; temporary employment; jobs created by the public authorities; and work experience schemes for young people, as well as jobs with varied or unusual schedules. The present study follows the evolution of the principal forms of atypical employment during three periods (1983–1985, 1985–1990 and 1990–1994), revealing the constants and the variations, as well as the national divergences in the development of the methods of flexibility and of organisation of working time. The first part looks at divergences and convergences, whilst a second highlights the localisation of the types of atypical employment in certain segments of the labour market La persistance, durant le début des années quatre-vingt, d'une crise de l'emploi dans tous les pays de la Communauté européenne, à l'exception du Luxembourg, a favorisé la prolifération qualitative et quantitative d'emplois qui ne peuvent être comparés à des emplois à temps plein el à durée indéterminée: l'emploi à mi-temps, l'emploi temporaire, les emplois créés par les autorités publiques, et les stages en entreprise, ainsi que les emplois à horaires variés et anormaux. L'étude présentée ici suit l'évolution des principales formes de travail atypique durant trois périodes (1983–1985, 1985–1990 et 1990–1994), soulignant les constantes et les variations, de même que les divergences nationales dans le développement des méthodes de flexibilité et d'organisation de l'horaire de travail. La première partie de l'étude est consacrée aux divergences et convergences et la seconde met en évidence la localisation des différents types d'emploi atypique dans certains segments du marché du travail. Die anhaltende Beschäftigungskrise seit Anfang der 80er Jahre in allen Ländern der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, mit Ausnahme von Luxemburg, hat sowohl qualitativ als auch quantitativ zu finer Ausweitung von Arbeitsplätzen geführt, die nicht mit unbefristeten Vollzeitarbeitsplätzen verglichen werden können: Teilzeitbeschäftigung, Zeitverträge, Arbeitsplätze im zweiten Arbeitsmarkt, Ausbildungplätze für Jugendliche sowie Arbeitsplätze zu unterschiedlichen oder unüblichen Bedingungen. Die vorliegende Studie verfolgt die Entwicklung der wichtigsten Formen atypischer Beschäftigung im Verlauf von drei Zeiträumen (1983–1985, 1985–1990 und 1990–1994) und legt die Grundzüge und die Veränderungen dar sowie die nationalen Abweichungen bei der Entwicklung der Flexibilitätsformen und der Arbeitsorganisation. Der erste Teil ist den Abweichungen und den Übereinstimmungen gewidmet, während der zweite Teil die Ansiedlung der atypischen Beschäftigungsformen in bestimmten Bereichen des Arbeitsmarktes beleuchtet.
Managing for quality in the USA and Japan: differences between the MBNQA, DP and JQA

Japanese and US organizations, in their strivings to achieve organizational and quality excellence, differ significantly in various aspects of management and work culture. Spiritual teachings, such as Shintoism and Buddhism, have shaped the Japanese people’s concept of human relations and management philosophy. The West, on the other hand, highly advocates freedom and creative thinking, and has created competitiveness through fostering a culture of entrepreneurship. The US Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the Japanese Deming Prize, and the Japan Quality Award, contain in their frameworks several total quality management (TQM) concepts, including: leadership and social responsibilities, strategies and plans, customer focus/relations, human resource development, information management, processes, quality, suppliers, and overall results. This article compares the distinctive differences and overlapping concepts between the US and Japanese approach to TQM, with regard to the countries’ quality award frameworks and criteria.
Expected Returns, Expected Dividend Growth Rates, and the Price-Dividend Ratio: Implications of Structural Breaks

Previous studies have noted that the sharp run-up of stock prices during the 1990s resulted in a break in the mean of the price-dividend ratio. We have extended the state-space representation of the present value model to incorporate this break in the price-dividend ratio. Our extension enables us to consider explicitly which factor, between a decrease in expected stock returns and an increase in expected dividend growth rate, actually precipitated the break in the price-dividend ratio. Our results suggest that probably a change in the average expected returns has caused the upward shift in the price-dividend ratio. Additionally, the estimated persistence of expected returns from our extended model is high, but much lower than that from the model with no-break; this warrants reconsideration of the persistence in the expected stock returns. Variance decompositions state that the variation in expected returns is the most important factor in understanding the variation in the price-dividend ratio and the variation in unexpected stock returns. Finally, our extended model substantially improves stock return predictability by virtue of the in-sample relation and the out-of-sample relation as well.
Market Evidence on the Effective Maturity of Bank Assets and Liabilities

THE RECENT YEARS' increase in interest rate volatility has intensified concern over the exposure of commercial banks to interest rate or "funding" risk. Since the effect of interest rate changes on the equity value of a bank depends on the maturity or duration of the bank's assets and liabilities, assessing an individual bank's interest rate risk exposure requires information about the maturity composition of its portfolio. It is difficult, however, to assess a bank's risk exposure from balance sheet data because several important asset and liability items have theoretically ambiguous effective maturities. In a frictionless market, a security's effective maturity will equal its stated maturity (or time to repricing). With market imperfections (e.g., depositors' transaction or information costs), however, the equilibrium cost of some deposit items may respond sluggishly or incompletely to market rate changes (see Hester and Pierce 1975 or Flannery 1982). Such liabilities' market values (discounted at market rates) would therefore fluctuate with the level of interest rates. These liabilities are sometimes called "core deposits," which manifest "sticky" responses to market rate changes. We define an asset or liability's "effective maturity" as the maturity of a fixed rate, perfectly elastically supplied security with the same market-value elasticity as the bank balance sheet item under consideration. Naturally, a balance sheet item's effective maturity is the relevant determinant of its contribution to the bank's overall interest rate risk sensitivity.
Influence of Azadirachtin and Methoxyfenozide on Life Parameters of Spodoptera littoralis (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

ABSTRACT Effects on adult longevity, fecundity and fertility, as well as long-term effects on progeny were determined through oral exposure of Spodoptera littoralis (Boisduval) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) adults to azadirachtin and methoxyfenozide. Both compounds reduced adult longevity by 2.3 d at the higher concentrations tested, but no significant differences were observed between sexes. Fecundity and fertility were significantly affected for both insecticides, although this effect was only dose-dependent for azadirachtin. The progeny from adults treated with azadirachtin or methoxyfenozide were only affected in percentage of pupation of eggs that successfully hatched, but no effects were observed in adult emergence of individuals that successfully pupated for either insecticide. In the second part of this study, each sex was exposed separately to methoxyfenozide by topical application or ingestion. Adult fecundity was more affected when moths were treated by ingestion than when treated topically, with a mean number eggs laid per female of 343 ± 89 and 932 ± 79, respectively. Finally, azadirachtin applied to pepper plants showed a significant oviposition deterrence activity on S. littoralis adults. However, when fecundity was scored for one additional day in females that had been previously exposed to pepper, Capsicum annum L. , plants treated with this insecticide, the number of eggs laid per female did not differ significantly from that of controls. The effects of azadirachtin and methoxyfenozide on S. littoralis suggest changes in population dynamics of this pest in crops treated with these insecticides.
Crabs in a bucket: the politics of health care reform in California.

In 1982 the state of California adopted a package of legislation collectively known as "the Medi-Cal reform. " This article examines the background of this reform, the process through which it was adopted by the state legislature, and its effects on the various interests involved. In particular, the article focuses on the alteration of power relationships occasioned by the emergence of business interests as an active force in the formulation of health policy.
Prediction of Organ Toxicity Endpoints by QSAR Modeling Based on Precise Chemical‐Histopathology Annotations

The ability to accurately predict the toxicity of drug candidates from their chemical structure is critical for guiding experimental drug discovery toward safer medicines. Under the guidance of the MetaTox consortium (Thomson Reuters, CA, USA), which comprised toxicologists from the pharmaceutical industry and government agencies, we created a comprehensive ontology of toxic pathologies for 19 organs, classifying pathology terms by pathology type and functional organ substructure. By manual annotation of full‐text research articles, the ontology was populated with chemical compounds causing specific histopathologies. Annotated compound‐toxicity associations defined histologically from rat and mouse experiments were used to build quantitative structure–activity relationship models predicting subcategories of liver and kidney toxicity: liver necrosis, liver relative weight gain, liver lipid accumulation, nephron injury, kidney relative weight gain, and kidney necrosis. All models were validated using two independent test sets and demonstrated overall good performance: initial validation showed 0.80–0.96 sensitivity (correctly predicted toxic compounds) and 0.85–1.00 specificity (correctly predicted non‐toxic compounds). Later validation against a test set of compounds newly added to the database in the 2 years following initial model generation showed 75–87% sensitivity and 60–78% specificity. General hepatotoxicity and nephrotoxicity models were less accurate, as expected for more complex endpoints.
Big City Difference? Another Look at Factors Driving House Prices

The purpose of this paper is to re‐examine the issue of whether inter‐urban housing markets can be modelled using a set of common economic fundamentals (such as economic growth, employment and the like). This is a timely analysis in view of the current widespread interest in housing markets as a result of the fall‐out from the housing sub‐prime crisis in the United States. House prices and economic fundamentals within each city are tested for cointegration and, in the event of a cointegrating relationship being found, restriction tests are applied to ascertain whether particular economic fundamentals can be excluded from the long‐run equilibrium house price model for that city, and whether the given fundamental contributes to speed of adjustment back to equilibrium once a disturbance has taken place. This allows a test of whether the given factor/s can be considered a long‐run driver/s of house prices in each city. The main finding is that there are clear differences across Australian state capitals in long‐run driving factors for house prices.
Cerebral Palsy After Perinatal Arterial Ischemic Stroke

The frequency of cerebral palsy, degree of disability, and predictors of disability were assessed in children in a perinatal arterial stroke database. Risk factors were assessed at the univariate level using the Pearson χ2 and Fisher exact test and at the multivariate level using logistic regression analysis. Seventy-six of 111 children with perinatal stroke (68%) had cerebral palsy, most commonly hemiplegic (66/76; 87%). Multivariate analysis of the entire cohort showed both delayed presentation (OR,9.96; 95% CI, 3.10-32.02) and male sex (OR, 2.55; 95% CI, 1.03-6.32) were associated with cerebral palsy. In subgroup multivariate analyses: in children with neonatal presentation, bilateral infarcts were associated with triplegia or quadriplegia (OR, 5.33; 95% CI, 1.28-22.27); in children with unilateral middle cerebral artery infarcts, delayed presentation (OR, 10.60; 95% CI, 2.28-72.92) and large-branch infarction (OR, 8.78; 95% CI, 2.18-43.67) were associated with cerebral palsy. These data will aid physicians in planning long-term rehabilitative care for children with perinatal stroke.
Extreme values in the dock

On 9th September 1980 the bulk carrier M. V. Derbyshire sank in the Pacific Ocean, around 350 miles south‐east of Japan, when she was caught in Typhoon Orchid while transporting iron ore from Canada to Japan. All 44 people on board died. Janet Heffernan and Jonathan Tawn describe their involvement as statistical expert witnesses in the Investigation of the sinking and their experience of giving evidence in court, outlining their statistical analysis which provided new insight into the circumstances surrounding the loss of the ship.
Market Rate Expectations and Forward Rates

ANTTI ILMANGN is a vice president at Salomon Brothers in fucedincome research in London, England. I hree main forces determine the term structure of forward rates: the market’s rate expectations; required bond risk premiums; and the convexity bias. Many market observers believe that the first force is the dominant one. This article focuses on the impact of the market’s rate expectations on the yield curve shape but emphasizes the consequences of ignoring the two other forces. The impact of rate expectations on today’s yield
INTERNATIONAL ELECTION SUPPORT: HELPING OR HINDERING DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS?

Simply put, electoral fraud does not only happen on election day. This article explores whether current methods of providing electoral support, employed by international donors, are effective in promoting democracy. The article presents several key limitations in today's international election observation missions, which may, if not rectified, undermine parts of the rationale for utilising observers. In addition, this paper identifies five types of technical assistance with different mandates that will impact how an Election Commission designs, plans and implements various components of the electoral process. The study highlights several risks, challenges and solutions associated with technical assistance.