Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beyond Free and Fair: Monitoring Elections and Building Democracy

testers act intentionally when they mount successful nonviolent challenges. On the one hand, Schock’s justification for supplementing the political process framework with insights from the nonviolent action literature is couched in terms of the latter’s emphasis on how “power is used strategically by social movements to undermine the state and alter the political context” (36; emphasis added). The South African case, correspondingly, suggests that nonviolent protesters “know what they’re doing” when they design organizations that will withstand repression: The creation of umbrella organizations during the mid-1980s, according to Schock, was “a deliberate response to the opportunities of the political environment” whereby movement organizers learned from their earlier mistakes and “consciously developed a strategy of ‘people power’ ” that was attuned to the forms of protest that would inhibit the state’s ability to repress anti-Apartheid activity (58, 60; emphases added). At the same time, though, the sense that luck rather than know-how guides protesters’ tactical choices is ubiquitous. Schock notes, for example, that “virtually all unarmed insurrections have been improvised” (163). While both the theoretical and case study chapters emphasize that challengers are cognizant of the incentives created by intra-elite conflict and economic crisis and coordinate the timing of mobilization accordingly, their decision as to how protest activity is conducted seems haphazard. It remains unclear, therefore, whether Nepalese and Thai reformers developed effective strategies because they—like those involved in the creation of South Africa’s United Democratic Front—actually understood the implications of network-oriented and diversified mobilization, or whether it was merely coincidence that distinguished these movements from their Burmese and Chinese counterparts and led them to mobilize in a way that would facilitate the achievement of their goals. This criticism aside, the book offers a compelling explanation of the mechanisms that link nonviolent protest activity to regime outcomes in non-democracies. Its political process-nonviolent action synthesis is innovative and suggests a balanced understanding of the interaction between social movements and their political environments that neither undervalues nor inflates the role of popular movements in promoting democratic transitions. As such, Unarmed Insurrections is an important contribution to the literatures on social movements and democratization.
How the First Stars Regulated Local Star Formation. I. Radiative Feedback

We present numerical simulations of how a 120 M☉ primordial star regulates star formation in nearby cosmological halos at z ∼ 20 by photoevaporation. Our models include nine-species primordial chemistry and self-consistent multifrequency conservative transfer of UV photons with all relevant radiative processes. Whether or not new stars form in halos clustered around a Population III star ultimately depends on their core densities and proximity to the star. Diffuse halos with central densities below 2-3 cm−3 are completely ionized and evaporated anywhere in the cluster. Evolved halos with core densities above 2000 cm−3 are impervious to both ionizing and Lyman-Werner flux at most distances from the star and collapse as quickly as they would in its absence. Star formation in halos of intermediate density can be either promoted or suppressed depending on how the ionization front (I-front) remnant shock compresses, deforms, and enriches the core with H2. We find that the 120 M☉ star photodissociates H2 in most halos in the cluster, but that catalysis by H− restores it a few hundred kiloyears after the death of the star, with little effect on star formation. Our models exhibit significant departures from previous one-dimensional, spherically symmetric simulations, which are prone to serious errors due to unphysical geometric focusing effects.
Effective strategies for “Circuit Analysis” course teaching based on cooperation and reseach

“Circuit Analysis” course is a major professional foundation course of electrical information majors. Analyze the traditional “Circuit Analysis” course teaching's deficiencies and problems, the course's teaching is reformed and practiced. The course's teaching is based on cooperation and research. Combining with the specific circumstances of the students, we take a number of effective strategies, such as the combining of large-class teaching and small-class group discussion based on cooperation and research, the combining of knowledge learning and engineering ability training, the reform of the assessment based on teaching methods of “cooperation and research” and so on. Through the implementation of these strategies, we improve the interaction between teaching and learning, and play the autonomy of the students learning. The teaching model of “teaching-based” is changed to the teaching model of “learning-based”. The philosophy of “student-centered, teacher-led teaching method” is firmly established. This method fully mobilizes the enthusiasm of two aspects of teaching and learning, improves teaching efficiency and teaching quality, and forms characteristics of the course.
Asymmetric Dimethylarginine and Cardiovascular Risk: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 22 Prospective Studies

Background Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) inhibits the production of nitric oxide, a key regulator of the vascular tone, and may be important in the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Our aim was to reliably quantify the association of ADMA and its isomer symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) with the risk of CVD outcomes in long-term cohort studies. Methods and Results Data were collated from 22 prospective studies involving a total of 19 842 participants, which have recorded 2339 CVD, 997 coronary heart disease, and 467 stroke outcomes during a mean follow-up of 7.1 years. In a comparison of individuals in the top with those in the bottom third of baseline ADMA values, the combined risk ratios were 1.42 (95% confidence interval: 1.29 to 1.56) for CVD, 1.39 for coronary heart disease (1.19 to 1.62), and 1.60 for stroke (1.33 to 1.91). Broadly similar results were observed according to participants’ baseline disease status (risk ratios for CVD: 1.35 [1.18 to 1.54] in general populations; 1.47 [1.16 to 1.87] in individuals with pre-existing CVD; and 1.52 [1.26 to 1.84] in individuals with pre-existing kidney disease) and by different study characteristics, including geographical location, sample type, assay method, number of incident outcomes, and level of statistical adjustment (all P values>0.05). In contrast, in 8 prospective studies involving 9070 participants and 848 outcomes, the corresponding estimate for SDMA concentration was 1.32 (0.92 to 1.90) for CVD. Conclusions Available prospective studies suggest associations between circulating ADMA concentration and CVD outcomes under a broad range of circumstances. Further research is needed to better clarify these associations, particularly in large general population studies.
Common Movement of the Emerging Market Currencies

The aim of this study is to show that there exists a common movement among the currencies of emerging market economies that implemented the exible exchange rate regime after 2000. Also, we examine if this common movement is closely related to financial markets and some macroeconomic fundamentals commonly referred to as possible driving forces of exchange rates in economics literature. This common movement, which has been derived using a dynamic factor model, is introduced as a composite index of these currencies. Our findings suggest that the currencies of the emerging market economies have a common movement which can be explained to a great extent with the help of financial variables. On the other hand, macroeconomic fundamentals have limited explanatory power for apprehending the common dynamics of currencies. Also, both financial variables and macroeconomic fundamentals are analyzed together, within a nonlinear estimation framework, to see if the explanatory power of macroeconomic fundamentals improves. However, we could not observe a significant improvement. Specifically, the results underline the importance of bond market variables, stock market variables and risk indices in understanding the (common) dynamics of the emerging market currencies after 2000.
A novel method for stereo matching using Gabor Feature Image and Confidence Mask

In this paper, we present a novel local-based algorithm for stereo matching using Gabor-Feature-Image and Confidence-Mask. Various local-based schemes have been proposed in recent years, most of them mainly use color difference as evaluation criterion when constructing the initial cost volume, however, color channel is highly sensitive to noise, illumination changes, etc. Therefore, we develop a new cost function based on Gabor-Feature-Image for obtaining a more accurate matching cost volume. Furthermore, in order to eliminate the matching ambiguities brought by the winnertakes-all method, an effective disparity refinement strategy using Confidence-Mask is implemented to select and refine the less reliable pixels. The proposed algorithm ranks 23th out of over 150 (global-based and local-based) methods on Middlebury data sets, both quantitative and qualitative evaluation show that it is comparable to state-of-the-art local-based stereo matching algorithms.
Resolving the fairness issues in bus-based optical access networks

Packet-based optical access ring is becoming a promising solution in metropolitan networks. Its performance depends mainly on how optical resource sharing takes place among the different competing access nodes. This network architecture has mostly been explored with regard to synchronous transmission, i.e., slotted wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) ring. However, in this paper, we focus on the performance of asynchronous transmission-based networks with variable packet sizes. Analytical models are presented in an attempt to provide explicit formulas that express the mean access delay of each node of the bus-based optical access network. We prove that in such a network, fairness problems are likely to arise between upstream and downstream nodes sharing a common data channel. Furthermore, we show that sharing the channel's available bandwidth fairly but arbitrarily between access nodes, as in slotted WDM rings, does not resolve the fairness problem in asynchronous system. In this regard, we exhibit the inherent limitations of the token bucket access rate-based algorithm once applied to asynchronous transmission bus-based networks. To alleviate the aforementioned problem, we device a new strategy called traffic control architecture using remote descriptors. The proposed solution is based on a preventive mechanism to grant access to the shared resource. As illustrated in this paper, the proposed solution alleviates the performance degradation and the resource underutilization, while achieving fairness among bus nodes.
Comparing News on National Elections

How the media cover national election campaigns is both an important and popular object of study. While most research is still focused on singular countries, comparative research has become more common. A comprehensive framework for both investigating and explaining the media coverage of national election campaigns is however largely missing from the literature. This chapter reviews the most important independent and dependent variables as well as the most prominent frameworks used in comparative research on national election news coverage, and seeks to advance research in this area by outlining a theory-based, multilevel framework for investigating and comparing national election news coverage across political and media systems.
Effects of obstructive sleep apnoea on heart rhythm

Symptomatic obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) has been proven to be a risk factor for hypertension and vascular dysfunction, and has been proposed to be causally related with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Searches of bibliographical databases revealed that several mechanisms seem to underpin the association between OSA and cardiac arrhythmias: intermittent hypoxia associated with autonomic nervous system activation and increased oxidative stress, which may lead to cardiac cellular damage and alteration in myocardial excitability; recurrent arousals, resulting in sympathetic activation and coronary vasoconstriction; and increased negative intrathoracic pressure which may mechanically stretch the myocardial walls and, thus, promote acute changes in myocardial excitability as well as structural remodelling of the myocardium. Findings from cross-sectional studies suggest a high prevalence of cardiac arrhythmias in patients with OSA and a high prevalence of OSA in those with cardiac arrhythmias. Preliminary evidence from uncontrolled interventional studies suggests that treatment of OSA may prevent cardiac arrhythmias. In conclusion, there is preliminary evidence that OSA is associated with the development of cardiac arrhythmias. Data from randomised controlled studies are needed to definitively clarify the role of OSA in arrhythmogenesis.
Asymptotic normality and optimalities in estimation of large Gaussian graphical models

The Gaussian graphical model, a popular paradigm for studying relationship among variables in a wide range of applications, has attracted great attention in recent years. This paper considers a fundamental question: When is it possible to estimate low-dimensional parameters at parametric square-root rate in a large Gaussian graphical model? A novel regression approach is proposed to obtain asymptotically efficient estimation of each entry of a precision matrix under a sparseness condition relative to the sample size. When the precision matrix is not sufficiently sparse, or equivalently the sample size is not sufficiently large, a lower bound is established to show that it is no longer possible to achieve the parametric rate in the estimation of each entry. This lower bound result, which provides an answer to the delicate sample size question, is established with a novel construction of a subset of sparse precision matrices in an application of Le Cam's lemma. Moreover, the proposed estimator is proven to have optimal convergence rate when the parametric rate cannot be achieved, under a minimal sample requirement. The proposed estimator is applied to test the presence of an edge in the Gaussian graphical model or to recover the support of the entire model, to obtain adaptive rate-optimal estimation of the entire precision matrix as measured by the matrix $\ell_q$ operator norm and to make inference in latent variables in the graphical model. All of this is achieved under a sparsity condition on the precision matrix and a side condition on the range of its spectrum. This significantly relaxes the commonly imposed uniform signal strength condition on the precision matrix, irrepresentability condition on the Hessian tensor operator of the covariance matrix or the $\ell_1$ constraint on the precision matrix. Numerical results confirm our theoretical findings. The ROC curve of the proposed algorithm, Asymptotic Normal Thresholding (ANT), for support recovery significantly outperforms that of the popular GLasso algorithm.
The Effect of Surface Topography and Surface Albedo Variation on the Radiation Environment of Palmer Station , Antarctic

Radiative Transfer Model We present results from a 3-D radiative transfer simulation of The SAMCRT code treats surface-radiation processes in fine the radiation environment of Palmer Station, Antarctica. The detail, at the expense of somewhat simplified atmospheric model results for several wavelength bands in the SW indicate treatment, at least as compared with state-of-the-art that plane-parallel models of either top of the atmosphere atmospheric Monte Carlo RT models. The main physical (TOA) radiance or surface irradiance may produce significant mechanisms treated by SAMCRT are described below. errors when applied to regions of high surface albedo heterogeneity. Since high-latitude clouds tend to show little vertical
Coordination of multiple PSSs using multi-objective genetic algorithm

A multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOCA) used for the coordination of power system stabilizers to deal with the damping of multi-mode oscillations in large-scale power systems is presented in this paper. The selection of the PSS parameters for large power system is formulated as a multiobjective optimization problem, in which the system response is optimized by minimizing several system-behavior measure criterions. Design of the multi-objective optimization aims to find out the Pareto optimal solution, which is a set of possible optimal solutions for parameters of the PSSs. The simulation results show that the proposed MOGA method is effective. It enables the PSSs to provide effective damping for power system multi-mode oscillations and satisfactory control performance can be obtained.
Effects of reverse gate-drain breakdown on gradual degradation of power PHEMTs

The gradual degradation effects of reverse gate-drain breakdown which often occurs in high-efficiency operation of power PHEMTs were studied. Similar to MESFETs, PHEMTs were founded to be susceptible to breakdown-induced trap formation in the silicon-nitride surface passivation, the figure of merit against such degradation being approximately two orders of magnitude lower for PHEMTs than for MESFETs. Thus, even if a PHEMT has the same breakdown voltage as a MESFET, the former cannot be driven with as high a drain voltage as the latter. In addition, unlike MESFETs, PHEMTs can undergo an initial power expansion before power slump, due to breakdown-induced donor activation. Therefore, care must be taken to stress PHEMTs sufficiently in order to ascertain their stability against degradation.
The European Commission and the Integration of Europe: Images of Governance

of defensiveness on the continued value of theories of hegemonial stability (chap. 4), Gilpin does a good job of defending his views. The author does an excellent job of surveying recent work in economics without resorting to jargon. There are outstanding treatments of topics like the continued relevance of Heckscher-Ohlin trade theory, strategic trade, endogenous growth theory, and the new economic geography. The discussion of the globalization of international finance in Chapter 10 emphasizes the need to take into account the “increased interdependence of trade, monetary, and other aspects of the international economy” that results from “movement toward a single, globally integrated market for corporation ownership” (277). Chapter 11 provides a state-of-the-art discussion of the role of multinational corporations in the world economy. Chapter 12 does a fine job of discussing the likely future of theories of the developmental state in light of the Asian crises of the late 1990s. The final chapter lays out three major scenarios for governance of the world economy, informed as always by the author’s realist views. This book is long and dense. There are few wasted or unnecessary words. It is not easy to read. However, it could be used for graduate seminars or upper division undergraduate courses in international political economy in conjunction with texts that are more empirical or descriptive in their treatment of international political economy. Global Political Economy is an excellent book. It represents a major and successful updating of The Political Economy of International Relations. Any person interested in international political economy can profit from reading it.
The Stabilization of the U.S. Economy Evidence from the Stock Market

Until recently, economists widely believed that economic activity had become less variable in the United States following the end of World War II. Challenging this belief, new research suggests that key historical time series are spuriously volatile, a finding that is highly controversial. Data from the stock market may provide a vehicle for resolving the controversy. Economic theory relates stock prices to real activity; empirical tests also show a strong link between stock prices and activity. Financial data are accurately measured over long spans of time and hence are free of most of the measurement problems in other time series. Measures of stock prices show no stabilization in the post-World War II period relative to the pre-World War I or pre-Depression periods. These stock market data thus support the hypothesis that real activity has not been stabilized.
Scale-Space Mutual Information for Textural-Patterns Characterization

The essence of image texture is typically understood by two aspects. First, within a texture-pattern there is a significant variation in intensity values between nearby pixels. Second, texture is a homogeneous property at some spatial scale larger than the spatial resolution of the image. Motivated by the essential aspects of image texture, this paper proposes a novel methodology that combines the use of scale-space and mutual information to characterize textural-patterns. Scale-space offers the mechanism for a multi-scale representation of the image, which will be used to address the scale aspect of texture. On the other hand, mutual information provides a measure to quantify the dependency relationship across the scale-space. It has been found that the proposed methodology has the potential to capture different properties of texture such as periodicity, scale, fineness, coarseness, and spatial extent or size. Practical examples are provided to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology.
A wide-scan phased array antenna for a small Active Electronically Scanned Array: A review

Phased arrays when mounted on aircraft and missiles will be capable of allowing only the desired signals to be received and simultaneously suppress all other unwanted ones incident from hostile sources. This in turn will make them invisible for the radars at the enemy base or on their aircraft. The paper discusses about the Phased array antenna, Mechanically Steered Planar Array, Passive Electronically Scanned Array, Active Electronically Scanned Array, Wide angle scanning phased array, Mutual coupling effects in phased array and MEMS Electronically steerable antennas. The main aim is analysis of antenna elements suitable for wide-angle scanning array antennas which are useful in airborne radar applications and considers problems related to the design and the analysis of wide-angle scanning phased arrays. The antenna aperture consists many radiating elements used for beam-forming and hence through the adjustment of elemental phases steer the beam efficiently. Moreover, they are capable of rejecting all the unwanted components of the received signals while maintaining at the same time sufficient pattern gain in the desired directions. These characteristics can be implemented for stealth applications.
Time-averaging within the excited state of the nitrogen-vacancy centre in diamond

The emission intensity of diamond samples containing negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy centres are measured as a function of magnetic field along the ⟨111⟩ direction for various temperatures. At low temperatures the responses are sample and stress dependent and can be modelled in terms of the previous understanding of the 3E excited state fine structure which is strain dependent. At room temperature the responses are largely sample and stress independent, and modelling involves invoking a strain independent excited state with a single zero field spin-level splitting of 1.42 GHz. The change in behaviour is attributed to a temperature dependent averaging process over the components of the excited state orbital doublet. It decouples orbit and spin and at high temperature the spin levels become independent of any orbit splitting. One significant implication of this averaging is that it simplifies the development of room temperature applications.