Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
When Do We Really Know What We Think We Know ? Determining Causality

1 Social scientists are often asked to determine whether or not one thing causes another. The answer to this question of causality may have important implications for public policy. However, it is generally difficult to establish that " A causes B " beyond a shadow of a doubt, and researchers often arrive at conflicting conclusions depending on their data sources and methods. This conundrum is of course, not confined to social science. Researchers in the " hard " sciences and medicine often come to conflicting conclusions regarding questions such as what killed the dinosaurs, whether there is global warming, and whether hormone replacement therapy is safe and effective for older women. This chapter considers some of the methods that social scientists working in the area of work and family use to get at the question of causality. It provides a general overview of some of the issues and problems, and then discusses these issues in the context of two specific examples: the effect of maternal employment on child well-being, and the effect of child care quality on children's outcomes. In both cases, studies have arrived at differing conclusions, but in the first case, a range of studies using different data sets and techniques is providing the basis for an emerging consensus, while in the second, the issue of selection has not yet been satisfactorily addressed. I conclude with the reminder that replication is at the heart of science, and findings must be reproducible before they can provide a reliable basis for policy. Moreover, given the ubiquity of the sample selection problem in social science, the issue must be addressed, preferably using a number of techniques. In social science, questions about causality are clouded by the problem of sample selection. For example, mothers who work tend to be healthier and better educated on average than those who do not. Hence, it would not be surprising to find that their children did better than those of non-working mothers on average, even if there were no causal relationship at all between maternal employment and child 2 outcomes. Similarly, children from more advantaged backgrounds are likely to be in better child care, making it difficult to distinguish between the effects of child care quality and the effects of family background.
Location-dependent and Context-Aware Computing

In his seminal paper, Mark Weiser (1991) presented a vision of pervasive computing, in which the users will be surrounded by a ubiquitous computing environment available to them at anytime and anywhere. In this paradigm, computing devices and sensors are seamlessly embedded in the environment and enable the computing system to possess a certain level of intelligence so that the users would give their undivided attention to specific task at hand instead of focusing on resolving technical issues concerning the operation of and interaction with the computing system and devices. For example, a car equipped with a navigation system integrated with the vehicle audio system and equipped with a voice recognition technology could allow the driver to set a destination location while driving using only voice commands; being able to operate the navigation system without having to touch its controls, such a voice-enabled interface would not distract the AbstrAct
Becoming a Football Player: Identity Formation on a Women's Tackle Football Team

People commonly think of only men playing football. Football, however, has also been played by women for many years. Using a feminist interactionist framework, this study examines why women begin to play the game. The research questions that guided this study were: (1) what factors influence women’s decisions to play football? and (2) how do women begin to develop their identities as football players? Data were collected using participant observation over a two-year period and 10 semi-structured interviews. Some of the reasons participants stated for starting to play football were for their love of the sport, a desire to be a part of history, or the physicality of the sport. The women’s abilities and personal characteristics, significant others, and veteran players were crucial in the development of their identities as players. The information obtained could be used to bring more women into the sport.
Real-time navigation in 3D environments based on depth camera data

In this paper, we present an integrated approach for robot localization, obstacle mapping, and path planning in 3D environments based on data of an onboard consumer-level depth camera. We rely on state-of-the-art techniques for environment modeling and localization, which we extend for depth camera data. We thoroughly evaluated our system with a Nao humanoid equipped with an Asus Xtion Pro Live depth camera on top of the humanoid's head and present navigation experiments in a multi-level environment containing static and non-static obstacles. Our approach performs in real-time, maintains a 3D environment representation, and estimates the robot's pose in 6D. As our results demonstrate, the depth camera is well-suited for robust localization and reliable obstacle avoidance in complex indoor environments.
Using in situ management to conserve biodiversity under climate change

Summary Successful conservation will increasingly depend on our ability to help species cope with climate change. While there has been much attention on accommodating or assisting range shifts, less has been given to the alternative strategy of helping species survive climate change through in situ management. Here we provide a synthesis of published evidence examining whether habitat management can be used to offset the adverse impacts on biodiversity of changes in temperature, water availability and sea‐level rise. Our focus is on practical methods whereby the local environmental conditions experienced by organisms can be made more suitable. Many studies suggest that manipulating vegetation structure can alter the temperature and moisture conditions experienced by organisms, and several demonstrate that these altered conditions benefit species as regional climatic conditions become unsuitable. The effects of topography on local climatic conditions are even better understood, but the alteration of topography as a climate adaptation tool is not ingrained in conservation practice. Trials of topographic alteration in the field should therefore be a priority for future research. Coastal systems have the natural capacity to keep pace with climate change, but require sufficient sediment supplies and space for landward migration to do so. There is an extensive literature on managed realignment. While the underlying rationale is simple, successful implementation requires careful consideration of elevation and past land use. Even with careful management, restored habitats may not attain the physical and biological attributes of natural habitats. Synthesis and applications. The recent literature provides a compelling case that some of the adverse effects of climate change can be offset by appropriate management. However, much of the evidence for this is indirect and too few studies provide empirical tests of the long‐term effectiveness of these management interventions. It is clear from the existing evidence that some techniques have a higher risk of failure or unexpected outcomes than others and managers will need to make careful choices about which to implement. We have assessed the strength of evidence of these approaches in order to demonstrate to conservation professionals the risks involved.
Pharmacokinetic Comparison of Scutellarin and Paeoniflorin in Sham-Operated and Middle Cerebral Artery Occlusion Ischemia and Reperfusion Injury Rats after Intravenous Administration of Xin-Shao Formula

Xin-Shao formula is a folk remedy widely used in China to prevent and cure stroke. Cerebral ischemic reperfusion (I/R) injury often takes place during the treatment of stroke. Information about the pharmacokinetic behavior of the remedy under cerebral I/R injury conditions is lacking. The present study aimed to compare the pharmacokinetic properties of scutellarin and paeoniflorin, two major bioactive components of Xin-Shao formula, under physiological state in cerebral I/R injury rats. Neurobehavioral dysfunction was evaluated and cerebral infarcted volume was measured in middle cerebral artery occlusion I/R injury (MCAO) rats. Plasma samples were collected at various time points after a single dose (intravenous, i.v.) of Xin-Shao formula. The levels of plasma scutellarin and paeoniflorin at the designed time points were determined by a UPLC-MS/MS method, and drug concentration versus time plots were constructed to estimate pharmacokinetic parameters. Increase in terminal elimination half-life (t1/2z) and mean residence time (MRT(0–t)) of scutellarin as well as elevation in area under the plasma drug concentration-time curve from 0 h to the terminal time point (AUC(0–t)) and maximum plasma drug concentration (Cmax) of paeoniflorin, along with decreased clearance of paeoniflorin and scutellarin as well as reduced apparent volume of distribution (Vz) of paeoniflorin, were observed in MCAO rats, compared with those in sham-operated animals. The elimination of scutellarin and paeoniflorin were reduced in cerebral I/R injury reduced rats.
Constructing Good Partitioning Trees

Partitioning trees, a multi-dimensional generalization of binary search trees, is alone among the principal methods for representing geometry in combining the representation of a set with the geometric search structure required for efficient spatial operations such as set operations and visibility. Since a partitioning tree may be interpreted as specifying a program for exploring the structure induced on a space (e.g. by objects), there are many trees which represent the same spatial structure but provide different searches of the space. The issue of generating a good program to determine spatial relations between sets is then transformed into the issue of constructing good partitioning trees. The metric we choose for characterizing goodness is the expected cost of various elementary operations calculated using simple probability models. However, choosing the optimal from at least n! different trees by enumeration is not viable. Consequently, we employ heuristics that make local decisions based on the expected cost models. In addition to this quantitative methodology, we develop a qualitative understanding of what constitutes a good representation. This leads us to the notion of a good tree as one that provides a sequence or set of approximations, each obtained by various prunings of a
Comparing fMRI data processing methods with respect to possible inaccuracy

We present the comparison of several methods to analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging data with respect to some inaccuracy in subject's response (e.g. missing response to stimuli). Approaches based on general linear model, independent component analysis, and combined methods were used to analyze both simulated and real data with unknown (real data) and known (simulated data) levels of inaccuracy. Our results suggest combined approaches as the best choice for single subject analyses. No significant differences between the methods were observed for group results.
Fault-tolerant schemes for NoC with a network monitor

Global buses in deep-submicron (DSM) system-on-chip designs consume significant amounts of power, have large propagation delays, and are easy to catch transmission errors due to DSM noise. A comprehensive fault-tolerant mechanism for transient and permanent failures is proposed in this paper. Based on the special NoC with a network monitor, a flit level point-to-point error detection scheme is added to routers to handle transient failures on the data links, while a dynamic routing mechanism is produced to deal with permanent link failures as well. In addition, there is some Build-in testing of the monitor to increase the reliability of the architecture. The result of the experiment demonstrates the advantage of the mechanism in terms of throughput and latency, while the consumptions of area and power overheads are acceptable.
Image demosaicing by an improved alternating projections algorithm based on dual-tree complex wavelet transform

Most digital cameras acquire image information as an incomplete down-sampled representation of the three basic color components, such that one color value is sampled per pixel location. Image demosaicing is the process of retrieving the missing two color components in each pixel. Demosaicing by alternating projections (AP) is one of the most successful demosaicing approaches. The contribution of this paper is developing enhancements to the existing AP algorithm by proposing the dual tree complex wavelet transform as a framework for the algorithm, strengthened with wavelet-based denoising to achieve better color channel reconstruction. The proposed enhancements result in an average 0.27 dB PSNR improvement as tested over the Kodak Photo CD set. Visual experimentations also verify this PSNR raise. The enhanced AP algorithm is also shown to perform comparably to the leading demosaicing techniques.
Title : Endogenous modulation of low frequency oscillations by temporal 6 expectations 7 8 Abbreviated title : Low Frequency Oscillations and Temporal Expectations 9 10 11

34 Recent studies have associated increasing temporal expectations with synchronisation 35 of higher frequency oscillations and suppression of lower frequencies. In this experiment, we 36 explore a proposal that low-frequency oscillations provide a mechanism for regulating 37 temporal expectations. We used a speeded go/no-go task, and manipulated temporal 38 expectations by changing the probability of target presentation after certain intervals. Across 39 two conditions, the temporal conditional probability of target events differed substantially at 40 the first of three possible intervals. We found that reactions times (RT) differed significantly 41 at this first interval across conditions, decreasing with higher temporal expectations. 42 Interestingly, the power of theta activity (4-8Hz), distributed over central midline sites, also 43 differed significantly across conditions at this first interval. Furthermore, we found a transient 44 coupling between theta phase and beta power after the first interval in the condition with high 45 temporal expectation for targets at this time point. Our results suggest that the adjustments in 46 theta power and the phase-power coupling between theta and beta contribute to a central 47 mechanism for controlling neural excitability according to temporal expectations. 48
A General Algorithm for Interference Alignment and Cancellation in Wireless Networks

Physical layer techniques have come a long way and can achieve very close to Shannon capacity for point-to-pint links. It is apparent that, to further improve network capacity significantly, we have to resort to concurrent transmissions. Many concurrent transmission techniques (e.g., zero forcing, interference alignment and distributed MIMO) are proposed in which multiple senders jointly encode signals to multiple receivers so that interference is aligned and each receiver is able to decode its desired information. In this paper, we investigate the constraints and challenges of using interference alignment. Our main contribution is conducting the first systematic investigation on the key issue of identifying opportunities for interference alignment. We identify diverse, novel scenarios for using interference alignment. We show that identifying opportunities for interference alignment in the general case is computational challenging. However, we also present a promising, distributed algorithm for identifying a wide range of opportunities for interference alignment using a unifying framework based on the degree of freedom. Our second contribution is evaluating key practical implementation issues.
Design of U-Doc: a research vehicle for hyper document retrieval on the Internet

In this article we present the UDOC architecture, which describes a thematic mirror based on the filtering of composite documents on the Internet or on others large networks. The main innovations of the paper concern the integration of filtering methods for images, sounds and videos, the research by concepts independent of the media, the concept of thematic mirror and the placement in tertiary memory. The disposition of new technical means for multimedia document indexation will allow a more massive utilization of these documents, which is currently limited on large networks. Our approach will be validated by a true magnitude experimentation. Prototyping is currently under way.
Support Policy Strategy for Avian Influenza Emergency Recovery and Rehabilitation of the Poultry Sector in Vietnam

The Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is currently elaborating the implementation of the Avian Influenza Emergency Recovery Project. In order to perform this task, the Government of Vietnam is supported by the International Development Association in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Bank (WB) and the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF). National compensation strategy study is a component of the project. The objective of the study is to prepare a strategy study report for a National Compensation Policy for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza to strengthen the policy now in place. The methodology used by the FAO and national consultants for the rapid appraisal of the support strategy for Avian Influenza was based on: (1) Qualitative interviews at three different administrative levels (central, province and district levels) as well as with farmers. (2) Quantitative data analysis on financing activities related to the Avian Influenza support strategy and (3) Economic impact assessment based on statistical data obtained from the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance and General Statistics Office. The work was carried out from September 2004 to March 2005. Recommendations for the support policy strategy for Avian Influenza were elaborated. The policy will share part of the risk for farmer, support farmers to rehabilitate the poultry production, encourage farmers to declare the disease and to cull the poultry to avoid illegal selling to the market and prevent a public health threat.
Relationship between blood and bronchial submucosal eosinophilia and reticular basement membrane thickening in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

A sputum eosinophilia is observed in 10–40% of COPD subjects. The blood eosinophil count is a biomarker of sputum eosinophilia, but whether it is associated with bronchial submucosal eosinophils is unclear. In 20 COPD subjects and 21 controls we assessed the number of bronchial submucosal eosinophils and reticular basement membrane thickening and found these were positively correlated with the blood eosinophil percentage. In COPD, blood eosinophils are a good biomarker of bronchial eosinophilia and remodelling.
An Evaluation of Multispectral Imaging Techniques for Camera Characterization

One approach to camera characterization is to attempt to recover the spectral properties of the surfaces in a scene and then compute the tristimulus values from these estimated reflectances. This paper addresses the question of whether such spectral-based characterization methods can outperform traditional characterization methods. In this paper we have evaluated three different techniques for camera characterization that employ multispectral methods. The Imai and Berns method and the Hardeberg method are based on the use of a linear model of reflectance with three basis functions whereas the Shi and Healey method allows the use of a higher dimensional linear model. The characterization performance (median ∆E) of the techniques using the full set training samples was found to be 3.69, 4.26 and 3.55 respectively for the Imai and Berns method, the Hardeberg method and the Shi and Healey method. In a previous study we found that polynomial and neural-network methods are able to perform characterization on the same data with a median ∆E of 2.02 and 2.01 respectively. We find no evidence, therefore, that multispectral imaging techniques provide any advantage over traditional characterization methods for a three-channel camera imaging under a single illuminant. Further work is required to evaluate multispectral techniques for multiple imaging under more than one light source and for cameras with more than three color channels.
Scenario-free stochastic programming with polynomial decision rules

Multi-stage stochastic programming provides a versatile framework for optimal decision making under uncertainty, but it gives rise to hard functional optimization problems since the adaptive recourse decisions must be modeled as functions of some or all uncertain parameters. We propose to approximate these recourse decisions by polynomial decision rules and show that the best polynomial decision rule of a fixed degree can be computed efficiently. We also show that the suboptimality of the best polynomial decision rule can be estimated efficiently by solving a dual version of the stochastic program in polynomial decision rules.
Principal Advisor

Surveillance and Incursion Investigation-Plants and Environment Christchurch or Auckland based Looking for a challenge? Keen to make a real difference? We are seeking a committed and enthusiastic scientist to join the Surveillance and Incursion Investigation Group-assisting the Ministry for Primary Industries to grow and protect New Zealand. The Principal Advisor-Surveillance and Incursion Investigation (Plants and Environment) will provide intellectual and technical leadership and liaison for surveillance and the incursion investigation of high priority pests and diseases in the plants and environment sectors in New Zealand. This role is one of our most senior technical positions and has significant responsibility to provide thought leadership and mentoring and coaching for other members of the group. Responsibilities: *Contribute to the achievement of MPI's strategic outcomes by ensuring that the team is supported to deliver surveillance and priority investigation, response and preparedness programmes via provision of sound advice, strategic and technical leadership, analysis and recommendations *Enhance MPI's surveillance and investigation ability to high priority risks in the Plant and Environment sectors by increasing MPI's knowledge of new science, technologies and innovations through developing and maintaining relationships with key science and technology providers *Work effectively in the role assigned in Response Management Framework to support the efficient management of high priority risks in New Zealand *In conjunction with the leadership team and others with subject matter expertise, the Principal Advisor will support the delivery of programmes that promote knowledge transfer and information sharing across MPI *Credibly represent MPI in appropriate international fora as required *Provide coaching, mentoring and advice to colleagues to ensure their success *Receive and manage reports of pests and diseases, plan and conduct investigations including risk assessment, options analysis, field activities and urgent measures for containment and control in accordance with procedures. Requirements: *Relevant tertiary qualification (Masters or PhD, or equivalent) in the plant and environment disciplines *Ideally a minimum of 10 years of relevant experience as a scientist or in a strongly similar working environment with a focus on pests and diseases of the plant and environment sectors *Previous experience in the design and implementation of surveillance programmes *Previous experience in establishing and effectively maintaining collaborative relationships with industry, science stakeholders, Maori and Government (central and regional) agencies *Specialist knowledge and experience in the plant and environment sectors, both science and industry *Experience in delivery of cross agency collaborative projects. To apply please visit the careers section at www.mpi. govt.nz to view …