Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Center for the Study of Industrial Organization Merger Policy with Merger Choice Merger Policy with Merger Choice *

We analyze the optimal policy of an antitrust authority towards horizontal mergers when merger proposals are endogenous and firms choose which of several mutually exclusive mergers to propose. The optimal policy of an antitrust authority that seeks to maximize expected consumer surplus involves discriminating between mergers based on a naive computation of the post-merger Herfindahl index (over and above the apparent effect of the proposed merger on consumer surplus). We show that the antitrust authority optimally imposes a tougher standard on those mergers that raise the index by more.
A Region-Aware Multi-Objective Auto-Tuner for Parallel Programs

Auto-tuning has become increasingly popular for optimizing non-functional parameters of parallel programs. The typically large search space requires sophisticated techniques to find well performing parameter values in a reasonable amount of time. Different parts of a program often perform best with different parameter values. We therefore subdivide programs into several regions, and try to optimize the parameter values for each of those regions separately as opposed to setting the parameter values globally for the entire program. As this enlarges the search space even further, we have to extend existing auto-tuning techniques in order to obtain good results. In this paper we introduce a novelenhancement to the RS-GDE3 algorithm which is used to explore the search space for auto-tuning programs with multiple regions regarding several objectives. We have implemented our auto-tuner using the Insieme compiler and runtime system. In comparison to a non-optimized parallel version of the tested programs, our novel approach achieves up to 7.6, 10.5, and 61.6 fold improvements for three tuned objectives wall time, energy consumption, and resource usage, respectively.
Palestinian Heritage 'to the moment': Archival Memory and the Representation of Heritage in Conflict

Abstract This paper is envisaged as a 'thought piece' that provides a critical introduction to what emerged as the organising motif of the Archaeology in Conflict conference's particular exploration of Palestinian heritage and identity: that of thinking more broadly in terms of the archive — or, more critically still, in terms of archival memory. As such, this paper seeks to uncover the specific operational, conceptual and moral-ethical issues at stake in terms of the repositioning of such archival memory resources in the representation of heritage in conflict. It continues to explore how conflict, trauma, dislocation and violence are the destroyers not only of physical landscapes (homes and heritage) but also of human lives; they are responsible for the death of possible futures, and as such the very capacity to articulate, transmit and re-present such experiences and events. A means to address this traumatic impasse is, however, captured in the late Palestinian academic-activist Edward Said's vision of a 'right to a remembered presence'. This vision also captures another motif central to the theme of heritage and archaeology in conflict — the 'healing mode' of thought and aspiration, that is neither naive or uncritical, but bound up in a belief in the capacity of heritage and certain modes of memory-work to bring comfort, cure, care and healing to situations of conflict, containment, displacement and exile. As such, this paper explores the creation of archival memory resources in order to address this aspect of conflicted heritage and the imperatives of restoring wellbeing. The final contention of the paper is that a further operational model is located in Said's strategy vis-à-vis 'writing to the moment'; the concept and practice of apprehending heritage 'to the moment' therefore requires a certain duty and responsibility towards contextualisation in terms of the 'worldliness' of heritage domains.
Selected SALM (Synaptic Adhesion-Like Molecule) Family Proteins Regulate Synapse Formation

Synaptic cell adhesion molecules regulate various steps of synapse formation. Despite the great diversity of neuronal synapses, relatively few adhesion molecules with synaptogenic activity have been identified. Synaptic adhesion-like molecules (SALMs) are members of a family of cell adhesion molecules known to regulate neurite outgrowth and synapse maturation; however, the role of SALMs in synapse formation remains unknown. We found that expression of the SALM family proteins SALM3 and SALM5 in nonneural and neural cells induces both excitatory and inhibitory presynaptic differentiation in contacting axons. SALM3 and SALM5 proteins are enriched in synaptic fractions, and form strong (SALM3) or weak (SALM5) complexes with postsynaptic density-95 (PSD-95), an abundant postsynaptic scaffolding protein at excitatory synapses. Aggregation of SALM3, but not SALM5, on dendritic surfaces induces clustering of PSD-95. Knockdown of SALM5 reduces the number and function of excitatory and inhibitory synapses. These results suggest that selected SALM family proteins regulate synapse formation, and that SALM3 and SALM5 may promote synapse formation through distinct mechanisms.
General Covariance and the Objectivity of Space-time Point-events

"The last remnant of physical objectivity of space-time" is disclosed, beyond the Leibniz equivalence, in the case of a continuous family of spatially non-compact models of general relativity. The "physical individuation" of point-events is furnished by the intrinsic degrees of freedom of the gravitational field, (viz, the "Dirac observables") that represent - as it were - the "ontic" part of the metric field. The physical role of the "epistemic" part (viz. the "gauge" variables) is likewise clarified. At the end, a peculiar four-dimensional "holistic and structuralist" view of space-time emerges which includes elements common to the tradition of both "substantivalism" and "relationism". The observables of our models undergo real "temporal change" and thereby provide a counter-example to the thesis of the "frozen-time" picture of evolution.
Lack of sugar discrimination by human Pol mu requires a single glycine residue.

DNA polymerase mu (Pol mu) is a novel family X DNA polymerase that has been suggested to play a role in micro-homology mediated joining and repair of double strand breaks. We show here that human Pol mu is not able to discriminate against the 2'-OH group of the sugar moiety. It inserts rNTPs with an efficiency that is <10-fold lower than that of dNTPs, in sharp contrast with the >1000-fold discrimination characteristic of most DNA-dependent DNA polymerases. The lack of sugar discrimination by Pol mu is demonstrated by its ability to add rNTPs to both DNA and RNA primer strands, and to insert both deoxy- and ribonucleotides on growing nucleic acid chains. 3D-modelling of human Pol mu based on the available Pol beta and TdT structural information allowed us to predict candidate residues involved in sugar discrimination. Thus, a single amino acid substitution in which Gly433 residue of Pol mu was mutated to the consensus tyrosine present in Pol beta, produced a strong increase in the discrimination against ribonucleotides. The unusual capacity to insert both rNTPs and dNTPs will be discussed in the context of the predicted roles of Pol mu in DNA repair.
Secure Naming for a Network of Information

Several projects propose an information-centric approach to the network of the future. Such an approach makes efficient content distribution possible by making information retrieval host-independent and integrating into the network storage for caching information. Requests for particular content can, thus, be satisfied by any host or server holding a copy. The current security model based on host authentication is not applicable in this context. Basic security functionality must instead be attached directly to the data and its naming scheme. A naming scheme to name content and other objects that enables verification of data integrity as well as owner authentication and identification is here presented. The naming scheme is designed for flexibility and extensibility, e.g., to integrate other security properties like access control. At the same time, the naming scheme offers persistent IDs even though the content, content owner and/or owner's organizational structure, or location change. The requirements for the naming scheme and an analysis showing how the proposed scheme fulfills them are presented. Experience with prototyping the naming scheme is also discussed. The naming scheme builds the foundation for a secure information-centric network infrastructure that can also solve some of the main security problems of today's Internet.
An Automatic Wavelet-Based Approach for Lung Segmentation and Density Analysis in Dynamic CT

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) can occur in people with or without previous lung disease. Analysis of aeration in artificial ventilation for ARDS is one of the major applications of computed tomography (CT) lung density examination. A movie of an affected rabbit lung over the respiratory cycle was produced by dynamic CT with a cine loop technique. This technique can produce thousands of CT images for analysis with a single experiment. A fully automated algorithm based on the capability of wavelet transformation to detect edges in the image is proposed. This method accurately and consistently segments the lung in pulmonary CT images. The speed and accuracy of this technique allows it to outperform other methods when dealing with the large number of images created by dynamic computed tomography
PCDiff : Attacking the Fragile Pointcut Problem

Aspect oriented programming has been proposed as a way to improve modularity of software systems by allowing encapsulation of cross-cutting concerns. To do so, aspects specifywherenew functionality should apply using pointcuts. Unfortunately todays mainstream aspect oriented languages suffer from pointcut languages where pointcut declarations result in a high coupling between aspect and base system. Additionally, these pointcuts are fragile, as non-local changes easily may break pointcut semantics. These properties are a major obstacle for program evolution of aspect oriented software. This paper introduces a pointcut delta analysis to deal with this problem.
The impact of connectives on the memory for expository texts

Three experiments investigated the influence of connectives on memory for expository text. Subjects in Experiments 1 and 2 read and later recalled passages with either no connectives, temporal connectives (before/and then), causal connectives (which caused/which enabled), or intentional connectives (in order that/so that)
The NIC Is the Hypervisor: Bare-Metal Guests in IaaS Clouds

Cloud computing does not inherently require the use of virtual machines, and some cloud customers prefer or even require "bare metal" systems, where no hypervisor separates the guest operating system from the CPU. Even for bare-metal nodes, the cloud provider must find a means to isolate the guest system from other cloud resources, and to manage the instantiation and removal of guests. We argue that an enhanced NIC, together with standard features of modern servers, can provide all of the functions for which a hypervisor would normally be required.
Improving transcriptome de novo assembly by using a reference genome of a related species: Translational genomics from oil palm to coconut

The palms are a family of tropical origin and one of the main constituents of the ecosystems of these regions around the world. The two main species of palm represent different challenges: coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) is a source of multiple goods and services in tropical communities, while oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq) is the main protagonist of the oil market. In this study, we present a workflow that exploits the comparative genomics between a target species (coconut) and a reference species (oil palm) to improve the transcriptomic data, providing a proteome useful to answer functional or evolutionary questions. This workflow reduces redundancy and fragmentation, two inherent problems of transcriptomic data, while preserving the functional representation of the target species. Our approach was validated in Arabidopsis thaliana using Arabidopsis lyrata and Capsella rubella as references species. This analysis showed the high sensitivity and specificity of our strategy, relatively independent of the reference proteome. The workflow increased the length of proteins products in A. thaliana by 13%, allowing, often, to recover 100% of the protein sequence length. In addition redundancy was reduced by a factor greater than 3. In coconut, the approach generated 29,366 proteins, 1,246 of these proteins deriving from new contigs obtained with the BRANCH software. The coconut proteome presented a functional profile similar to that observed in rice and an important number of metabolic pathways related to secondary metabolism. The new sequences found with BRANCH software were enriched in functions related to biotic stress. Our strategy can be used as a complementary step to de novo transcriptome assembly to get a representative proteome of a target species. The results of the current analysis are available on the website PalmComparomics (http://palm-comparomics.southgreen.fr/).
Trade Reforms, Labor Regulations, and Labor-Demand Elasticities: Empirical Evidence from India

Using industry-level data disaggregated by states, this paper finds a positive impact of trade liberalization on (the absolute values of) labor demand elasticities in the Indian manufacturing sector. The magnitudes of these elasticities turn out to be negatively related to protection levels that vary across industries and over time. Furthermore, we find that these elasticities are not only larger in size for Indian states with more flexible labor regulations, they are also impacted there to a larger degree by trade reforms. Finally, we find that the reforms have led to a reduction in the share of labor in total output and value added, possibly due to the reduction in the bargaining power of workers.
Social Cognitive Semantic Conflicts and Social Cognitive Reaction Conflicts: Mechanism of Self-Control

The aims of this study were to investigate the differences in responses for varied self-control experiment paradigms, and to explain these differences on the basis of social cognitive semantic conflicts and social cognitive reaction conflicts. Using two mixed experimental designs, the study incorporated the stop signal and single-attribute implicit association test paradigms into a self-control experiment paradigm to investigate self constructs. Social cognitive semantic conflicts and social cognitive reaction conflicts were significant at 250 - 300 ms post-stimulus. According to different genders, self-control mechanism has universal significance.
A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Children's Theories of Mind and Social Interaction.

This study incorporated two cross‐cultural dimensions using both Singaporean and UK subjects as well as expert raters from both cultures to investigate links between children's “theories of minds” (ToM) and their social interactive behaviour. This trian‐gulation procedure examined 12 dyads paired on equal and unequal ToM status and were videotaped at social pretend play. The two‐fold aim of this procedure was (a) to obtain observers' judgements of the dyads at play and check for agreement of views, and (b) to predict the theory of mind status of the dyads from these judgements. Videotaped segments of the 12 dyads were rated independently by 6 Singaporean and 5 UK pre‐school teachers. These ratings produced three sets of measures of facilitation, shared meaning and thematic maintenance of interactive play. Agreement among raters and group differences between these scores were analysed using non‐parametric statistics. Results indicated a link between theory of mind ability and quality of social interaction.
Product rating using sentiment analysis

Customer feedbacks are the mile stones for the success functionality for the companies. A producer will get the correct result of his product from the customer feedback. He can make necessary changes to his product according to the feedback. But most users always fail to give their feedbacks. To avoid the difficulty of providing feedback, this paper focus on the technique of providing automatic feedback on the basis of data collected from Twitter. These data streams are filtered and analyzed and feedback is obtained through opinion mining. Here we mainly analyze the data for mobile phones. The experiments have shown 80% accuracy in the sentimental analysis. Our framework is able to provide fast, valuable feedbacks to companies.
Development of an LC-MS/MS method for quantification of two pairs of isomeric flavonoid glycosides and other ones in rat plasma: Application to pharmacokinetic studies.

A liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for simultaneous determination of six flavonoid glycosides - isoorientin (1), orientin (2), 2″-O-β-d-xylopyranosyl isoorientin (3), 2″-O-β-d-xylopyranosyl isovitexin (4), 6-C-l-α-arabipyranosyl vitexin (5) and vitexin (6) - in rat plasma using isoquercitrin as the internal standard (IS). Plasma samples were prepared by a one-step protein precipitation with acetonitrile. Chromatographic analysis was carried out on a 25 cm C18 column with a gradient mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 0.1% aqueous formic acid. Six analytes and IS were detected through electrospray ionization in negative-ion selection reaction monitoring mode. The mass transitions were as follows: m/z 447.2 → 327.0 for 1, m/z 447.2 → 327.0 for 2, m/z 579.3 → 458.9 for 3, m/z 563.0 → 293.1 for 4, m/z 563.0 → 353.0 for 5, m/z 431.1 → 311.1 for 6, and m/z 463.1 → 300.2 for IS. Calibration curves exhibited good linearity (r2 > 0.9908) over a wide concentration range for all compounds. Intra- and inter-day precision (RSD, %) at four different levels were both <14.2% and the accuracy (RE, %) ranged from -11.9 to 12.0%. The extraction recoveries of the six components ranged from 88.2 to 103.6%. The validated assay was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic studies of the six components in male rat plasma after intravenous administration of total flavonoids of Scorzonera austriaca Wild.
An SVM Based Analysis of US Dollar Strength

The basic aim of this project is to provide a machine learning model to explain the strength of US Dollar. Support vector machine (SVM) is a promising method for the analysis of financial time series which we employ. Macroeconomic factors of fundamental analysis are selected as the features of the model. The learning results and out-of-sample test show that SVM provides a good performance to US Dollar Index analysis while the Gaussian kernel is the best through the cross validation process. Furthermore, feature selection is discussed, while CPI and PMI are the most significant features in assumption of Gaussian kernel.
Art and Socialism

Considering the actual way we live, we cannot help wondering if our vaunted achievements are in any way consistent with those ideals and aspirations which have from time immemorial inspired man in his search for ultimate fulfillment. Admittedly we want more and more of the good things of life-but do we really want more and more of what we are getting? As we look back upon the great cultural epochs of the past, those periods in which we all too eagerly admit that art flourished, do we not secretly regret our apparent abandonment of many of their objectives, and in the bottom of our hearts envy some of the very needs they so superbly filled? In spite of the wonders of our age and the incredible resources science has put at our disposal have we not, perhaps, lost something during the search for increasing abundance which counteracts to a great extent the success of our accomplishment? This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.
Planning in probabilistic domains using a deterministic numeric planner

In the probabilistic track of the IPC5 - the last International planning competitions - a probabilistic planner based on combining deterministic planning with replanning - FF-REPLAN - out performed the other competitors. This probabilistic planning paradigm discarded the probabilistic information of the domain, just considering for each action its nominal effect as a deterministic effect.
The relationship between proficiency and self-efficacy beliefs of the University of Botswana students learning ESL

A body of literature exists that shows that self-efficacy beliefs are important in learning. Moreover, this literature contains findings from research conducted in a number of disciplines and places which indicate that there is a relationship between proficiency, gender and self-efficacy beliefs. Despite these important findings, little self-efficacy research has been conducted in the English as a second language (ESL) area. Moreover, to my knowledge, self-efficacy research has not been extensively done in Botswana particularly in the ESL area of learning. Self-efficacy beliefs have been found to influence learning by social cognitive psychology research. For instance, individuals have been found to develop certain beliefs about how they can cope with certain tasks in specific situations (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1989a, 1989b; Bandura & Schunk, 1981). According to Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory, the manner in which individuals judge their capability to perform tasks, or their self-efficacy beliefs, foretell their potential to accomplish such tasks. Bandura (1986: 391) defines self-efficacy beliefs as “people’s judgement of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances”. A study of self-efficacy beliefs in language learning is essential in Botswana because its findings can be utilized to assist students particularly at the University of Botswana (UB) where the research reported in this article took place. UB students have been found to perform badly in English language learning. According to Chimbganda (2000) the first year students he investigated at UB were not able to perform even basic writing skills in English, especially in Science. In fact, he went on to suggest that first year students lack a ‘general education’ that gives them the necessary preparation to enable them to read and write in English at an acceptable level. Consequently, in an attempt to tackle these English language problems the Communication and Study Skills Unit (CSSU) was established at UB in 2000 in order to offer and co-ordinate English for Academic Purpose (EAP) and English for Specific Purpose (ESP) courses in a more organized manner. In addition, optional Communication and Study Skills courses began to be