Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multicultural Personality Dispositions and Trait Emotional Intelligence: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT This study examined the relationship between multicultural personality dispositions and trait emotional intelligence. The sample included 152 graduate education students enrolled at a university in a large northeastern city of the United States. The multicultural personality dispositions of Cultural Empathy and Social Initiative predicted variance in trait emotional intelligence above and beyond the variance accounted for by gender and potential socially desirable responding. Study limitations are highlighted, and suggestions for follow-up quantitative and qualitative research are presented.
Evaluating Treatment Effect and Causal Effect of Fiscal Rules on Procyclicality

This article is the first to renews the old debate of "rules versus. discretion" by introducing propensity score matching methods in macro analysis, such as Tapsoba (2012), and by using instrumental methods, to consider the national stability culture. By taking into account, at the same time, the self-selection problem and the omitted unobserved factor bias, in a sample of 126 countries of all level of development over the period 1985-2010, we provide strong evidence about the positive causal effect of fiscal rules adoption on the reduction of fiscal policy procyclicality. We find an asymmetrical impact, since fiscal rules adoption contributed to upgrade budget balance in periods of expansion, while it doesn't increase budget deficit in periods of recession. Furthermore, we show that the budget balance rules and the debt rules are more effective to dampen procyclicality than expenditure rules. We also provide evidence that the coverage of fiscal rules is not a critical issue to strength against procyclicality. Empirical results also displays the positive impact of the adoption of flexible rules, but also the adoption of fiscal rules combined to improve policy responsiveness. Finally, we find that FRs are effective when taking into account the national stability culture. This positive impact of fiscal rules adoption on fiscal policy cyclicality comes from an improvement of fiscal policy disciplinary, by ensuring a sustainable path of deficit and debt, or by smoothing business cycles.
Imprecise computation fault-tolerant rate-monotonic scheduling

Fault-tolerant real-time scheduling is a hot topic in dependable real-time system research. We combine the FT-RM with imprecise computation to increase the upper bound of resource utilization in the absence of faults. We prove that every task can meet its deadline in a specified interval, no matter whether there is a fault.
The impact of weight classification on safety: timing steps to adapt to external constraints

Objectives: The purpose of the current study was to evaluate how weight classification influences safety by examining adults’ ability to meet a timing constraint: walking to the pace of an audio metronome. Methods: With a cross-sectional design, walking parameters were collected as 55 adults with normal (n=30) and overweight (n=25) body mass index scores walked to slow, normal, and fast audio metronome paces. Results: Between group comparisons showed that at the fast pace, those with overweight body mass index (BMI) had longer double limb support and stance times and slower cadences than the normal weight group (all ps<0.05). Examinations of participants’ ability to meet the metronome paces revealed that participants who were overweight had higher cadences at the slow and fast paces (all ps<0.05). Conclusions: Findings suggest that those with overweight BMI alter their gait to maintain biomechanical stability. Understanding how excess weight influences gait adaptation can inform interventions to improve safety for individuals with obesity.
Arithmetic of influence of debt crisis on economies of visegrad group and challenges ahead

The global financial and economic crisis has fully revealed the risks of over- -indebted countries, whose cause was, inter alia, the maintenance of structural deficits for many years. Economies of the Visegrad Group (V4 Group) conducted even less disciplined fiscal policy than the EU. Nevertheless, the V4 Group has weathered the crisis better than the EU, even though its initial fiscal position was worse. However, in the long term, the fiscal consolidation process will be hindered due to unfavorable demographic trends and the burden on public finances imposed by scarce social security systems. In this respect, the V4 Group is going to experience even greater challenges than the EU. The purpose of this article is to show the arithmetic course and consequences of the sovereign debt crisis on economies of V4 Group as well as the challenges related among others to ageing process its population is going to face in medium and long term.
Energy Consumption Analysis for Sensors in Multi-sink Wireless Sensor Networks

A multi-sink wireless sensor network (WSN) is composed of a large number of sensors deployed in a wide area and there are some special sensors referred as sinks which play the role of data collector. Since sensors located in different positions may bear different communication responsibilities, e.g. forwarding the data generated by some other sensors, the loading of each sensor in network is heterogeneous. In this paper, we evaluate the energy consumption of sensors deployed uniformly in multi-sink WSNs. With the knowledge of load distribution of a network, a sensor deployment strategy by density control is also proposed to balance the loading of sensors in different tiers, prolong the network lifetime, and increase the successful data delivery as possible. Simulation results show that the data delivery and survival rates are significantly improved by the proposed methods.
Sorting within and across establishments: the immigrant-native wage differential in Germany

"Using new and unique linked employer-employee data from Germany, I examine the extent to which immigrants sort into worse-paying establishments and worse job positions within establishments. The results demonstrate that recent immigrants are particularly likely to work at low-paying workplaces. Similarly, when examining job positions within establishments, I find that immigrants are employed in lower hierarchical positions. Both the non-random sorting across establishments and the hierarchical sorting within establishments explain much of the immigrant-native wage differential. Policy measures designed to address the wage differential should therefore address immigrants' access to well-paying workplaces and job positions. With respect to career development, immigrant participation in performance assessments is low, and immigrants feel disadvantaged in personnel decisions, which in turn might be relevant channels that explain immigrants' under-representation in well-paid positions. " (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))
Direction field diffusion on cortical surface via graph cuts

The direction field on cortical surface conveys important information. Diffusion of direction field, which aims to smooth noise and meanwhile preserve major geometric structures and inherent discontinuity in the direction field, is useful for cortical surface analysis. In this paper, we propose a novel method for tangential direction field diffusion on cortical surface, which is formulated as an energy minimization problem. To minimize the energy function, we first convert it to a discrete labeling problem, in which the space of solution is represented using a set of labels corresponding to a set of predefined diffused directions. Then we solve the labeling problem efficiently by the graph cuts method. At last, we project the labeled diffused directions to the tangential spaces of the cortical surface and normalize them in order to obtain the final diffused direction field. We validate the proposed direction field diffusion method on both synthesized surfaces and real cortical surfaces, and obtain promising results.
An improved mechanical technique for assisted hatching.

BACKGROUND Varied clinical outcomes of assisted hatching (AH) have been reported. We attempt to investigate whether the size of the zona opening created by AH is adequate for blastocyst hatching, and, if not, set up a new method to improve it. METHODS A new AH technique, long zona dissection (LZD), was established, and experiments were performed to compare the effects of different sizes of zona opening on complete hatching of blastocysts in mouse and human embryos in vitro. RESULTS The LZD technique can create a long zona slit on early embryos, even blastocysts, with the slit size beyond two-thirds of zona diameter. Compared with three-dimensional partial zona dissection, LZD can significantly enhance the hatching speed and the rate of complete hatching of mouse blastocysts (93.9%). All (100%) human blastocysts completely hatched following LZD; however, when the slit size after AH was about two-fifths of zona diameter, more of the larger inner cell masses (ICM) became trapped by the zona opening during hatching than the smaller ICM (53.3 versus 12.5%, P = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS Zona opening of moderate size following AH is inadequate for the completion of blastocyst hatching in vitro; in some cases, however, it can be significantly improved by LZD.
Electrophysiology of isolated hippocampal pyramidal dendrites

In order to study the electrical properties of dendritic membranes independent of the effects of somatic potentials, intracellular recordings in guinea pig hippocampal slices were obtained from the dendrites of CA1 pyramidal neurons (HPCs) which had been isolated from their somata by cuts made through the proximal stratum radiatum. Spikes and subthreshold membrane responses to intracellular current pulses were compared in intact and isolated dendrites and in the residual portions of neurons whose apical dendrites had been severed (“isolated somata”). Isolated dendrites generated both fast, QX-314-sensitive, sodium-mediated spikes, and slow higher threshold spikes which were QX- 314-resistant and presumably mediated by Ca2+. Depolarization of “isolated somata” ordinarily evoked only fast (Na+) spikes, but presumed Ca2+ spikes could be elicited after exposure to QX-314 (a local anesthetic). Anomalous inward rectification was depressed by QX- 314 in somata but not in dendrites, suggesting that the ionic basis for subthreshold as well as regenerative conductances was different at different sites on the neuron. The dendritic membrane in CA2 HPCs thus generates both Na+- and CA2+-mediated spike potentials and a subthreshold response which probably is mediated primarily by CA2+. Attempts to describe the integrative functions of these neurons must take into account the variety of conductances which are activated nonuniformly in somata and dendrites by changes in membrane potential.
Are Investors Ever Rational?

Behavioral biases like disposition effect and over-confidence have received much attention as a potential driver of numerous anomalies observed in the markets. Also, it has been argued that information uncertainty tends to exacerbate these biases and induce stronger irrational behavior among investors. Using a unique investor-level database, this paper examines whether and how pertinent information impacts behavioral biases. We document that disposition effect in stocks is lower following high-degree of private information based trading during days preceding quarterly earnings announcements. Also, consistent with theoretical predictions, we find price discovery to be faster in stocks with lower disposition effect. Finally, we find that higher pre-announcement information asymmetry and disclosure noise increases disposition effect in the post-announcement period.
Mining Subspace Clusters : Enhanced Models , Efficient Algorithms and an Objective Evaluation Study

In the knowledge discovery process, clustering is an established technique for grouping objects based on mutual similarity. However, in today’s applications for each object very many attributes are provided in large and high dimensional databases. As multiple concepts described by different attributes are mixed in the same data set, clusters are hidden in subspace projections and do not appear in all dimensions. Subspace clustering aims at detecting such clusters in any projection of the database. This work presents an overview of my dissertation on subspace clustering models, efficient processing schemes for these models and an objective evaluation study on subspace clustering techniques. This work highlights several open challenges and our research work with which we tackled these challenges. Furthermore, as a general contribution to the community, the benefits of our evaluation study and our open source evaluation framework are described. Both provide an important basis for future research and ensure comparability and repeatability of experiment results.
A multicenter study of oral malignant tumors from Thailand

Background: Oral malignant tumors in Thailand have not been extensively studied. Hence the following study was conducted. Aims: To determine the prevalence and clinicopathologic data of the oral malignant tumors from Thailand. Subjects and Methods: Biopsy records of the Oral Pathology Department, Chulalongkorn University; Department of Oral Biology and Diagnostic Sciences, Chiang Mai University; Department of Oral Diagnosis, Khon Kaen University and Department of Stomatology, Prince of Songkla University, were reviewed for lesions diagnosed in the category of oral malignant tumors from 2005–2014. Demographic data and site of the lesions were collected. Statistical Analysis Used: Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics using SPSS software version 17.0. Results: Of the 22,639 accessioned cases, 1411 cases (6.23%) were diagnosed as oral malignant tumors. The mean age of the patients was 59.13 ± 17.32 years. A total of 651 cases (46.14%) were diagnosed in males, whereas 759 cases (53.79%) were diagnosed in females. The male-to-female ratio was 0.86:1. The sites of predilection for oral malignant tumors were the gingiva, followed by tongue and alveolar mucosa. The three most common oral malignant tumors in the descending order of frequency were squamous cell carcinoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and mucoepidermoid carcinoma. Conclusions: This study provides extensive data on the oral malignant tumors from several university biopsy services located in virtually all parts of Thailand. The data from the present study show some similarities with previous studies; however, differences such as gender and site of predilection still exist.
Consumer Willingness to Pay for Livestock Credence Attribute Claim Verification

A choice experiment was used to determine consumer value for verification of livestock production process attributes. Willingness to pay for verification of production process attributes varied for both milk and pork chops across attributes and verifying entity. Statistically significant evidence of social desirability bias was found by comparing estimates of consumer preferences solicited using direct and indirect questioning. Indirect questioning may yield more accurate representations of consumer value than direct questioning, and therefore more accurate estimates for agribusiness decision making.
Perceptions of positive and negative factors influencing the attractiveness of PPP/PFI procurement for construction projects in the UK: Findings from a questionnaire survey

Purpose – The paper aims to report the findings of research into perceptions of what makes the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) attractive or unattractive as a procurement system for projects in the UK.Design/methodology/approach – The research uses a postal survey questionnaire technique for primary data collection. Literature review is used to identify relevant factors, which are then incorporated into the design of the survey instrument. Survey response data is subjected to descriptive statistical analysis and subsequently to rotated factor analysis.Findings – Public/private partnerships (PPP)/PFI project procurement is perceived as most attractive in terms of positive factors relating to better project technology and economy, greater public benefit, public sector avoidance of regulatory and financial constraints, and public sector saving in transaction costs. Negative aspects, relating to factors such as the inexperience of the participants, the over‐commercialisation of projects, and high participati.
Distributed Genetic Algorithm to Big Data Clustering A Novel Distributed Encoding Techniques

Clustering algorithms have emerged as a powerful learning tool to accurately analyze the massive amount of data generated by current applications and smart technologies. Precisely, their main objective is to categorize data into clusters such that objects are grouped in the same cluster when they are similar according to specific metrics. There is a wide and diverse body of knowledge in the area of clustering and there has been attempts apply these algorithms and scale it to adopt todays data. However, one major challenge in using clustering algorithms is scalability of such algorithms in a way that faces the challenges and computational cost of clustering big data. In this paper, we are describing a mapping between graph clustering problem and data clustering. Using genetic algorithms and multi-objective optimization as well as distributed graph stores, the proposed algorithm (1) transform big data into Distributed RDF graphs. With (2) a novel distributed encoding techniques. The algorithm (3) scales to deal with big RDF graphs to (4) produce clusters by maximizing graph modularity as a main objective. The results on LUBM generated big data shows the (5) ability to deal with the challenges provided such data and (6) produce comparative results compared to other peers of clustering algorithms
An object proxy service for P2P file sharing in mobile computing

Peer-to-peer (P2P) paradigm is the trend toward present Internet communication. However, the massive traffic of P2P file sharing has a deep and negative impact on mobile computing. Frequent and repeated file transmissions for different peers congest the wireless network. Request bursts may consume a mobile device's computation power, energy, and other resources while certain of them may become ineffectual requests to waste the network bandwidth because of failing to find the wanted data in the target mobile device. In the paper, we propose the object proxy service (OPS) for P2P file sharing in mobile computing. The OPS can cache data and serve requests on behalf of mobile devices to conserve wireless network bandwidth and mobile devices' computation power, energy, and other resources. We implement the OPS on the Java applications' packet eavesdropper (JAPE) proposed previously. Besides, we develop a general P2P protocol to emulate the behaviors of current P2P file sharing and test it with the OPS. The experiments show that the OPS with linear scalability can serve requests on behalf of mobile devices to avoid the P2P traffic from being propagated over the wireless network. We are convinced that the OPS is suitable to work in a P2P community to conserve wireless network bandwidth and resources on mobile devices.
Mediterranean Journal of Hematology and Infectious Diseases Immunoglobulin Gene Repertoire I Antigen Selection and Microenvironmental Interactions

Immunogenetic analysis of the B cell receptors (for unraveling the pathogenesis of hu gene repertoire is seen as evidence for selection of CLL progenitor cells by antigen. Additional corroborative evidence is provided by the differential prognosis of cases with distinct mutational status of the clonotypic BCRs. However, perha importance of interactions with microenvironment in driving CLL development and evolution the existence of subsets of patients with quasi for a remarkable one-third of the entire cohort. These observations have been instrumental in shaping the notion that CLL ontogeny is functionally driven and dynamic, rather than a simple stochastic process. From a clinical perspec information can be used for the biologically and clinically rational categorization of CLL, with important potential implications for basic, translational and clinical research.
Proximity mobile services: Neural network based connection admission controller and other issues

Proximity aware mobile service is a wireless application for mobile users to interact with services offered by service providers present in the user's environment. Many issues are still prevalent in this area which includes context modeling, sensors integration, proximity resolution and service management. One important aspect in service management is congestion control which plays a key part in providing proximity aware services in a wireless networking environment. This paper investigates the feasibility of neural network based connection admission controllers by comparing simulated Back-Propagation and Learning Vector Quantization Neural Networks. It is found that the Back-propagation Neural Network has higher performance.
Are neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio and platelet/lymphocyte ratio reliable parameters as prognostic indicators in malignant mesothelioma?

Background Malignant mesothelioma (MM) is an aggressive asbestos-related pleural tumor. The incidence is increasing with intensive use of asbestos in developing countries. We need an easily accessible, inexpensive, and reliable method for determining the low survival time prognosis of this tumor. The aim of our study was to investigate the viability of neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR) as prognostic indicators in MM. Patients and methods Thirty-six patients with MM, whose histopathologic diagnosis and follow-up were performed by our clinic and whose complete archive data were accessible, were included in this retrospective study. The patients’ histopathologic disease types and stages, complete blood count parameters at diagnosis, and survival were recorded. Results Eighteen of the patients with MM were male and the remaining 18 of them were female; the average follow-up period was 24.83±3.61 months. The PLR levels of the patients were statistically significant (P<0.05). The NLR and PLR area under the receiver operating characteristic curve values were 0.559 and 0.749, respectively (P=0.631 and P=0.044, respectively). Conclusion PLR was a significant prognostic indicator of MM at diagnosis on complete blood count parameters; however, NLR was not a significant prognostic indicator. A large number of prospective studies are needed to prove the reliability of the parameters.
Cost Optimization in Crowdsourcing Translation: Low cost translations made even cheaper

Crowdsourcing makes it possible to create translations at much lower cost than hiring professional translators. However, it is still expensive to obtain the millions of translations that are needed to train statistical machine translation systems. We propose two mechanisms to reduce the cost of crowdsourcing while maintaining high translation quality. First, we develop a method to reduce redundant translations. We train a linear model to evaluate the translation quality on a sentenceby-sentence basis, and fit a threshold between acceptable and unacceptable translations. Unlike past work, which always paid for a fixed number of translations for each source sentence and then chose the best from them, we can stop earlier and pay less when we receive a translation that is good enough. Second, we introduce a method to reduce the pool of translators by quickly identifying bad translators after they have translated only a few sentences. This also allows us to rank translators, so that we re-hire only good translators to reduce cost.