Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers

In attempting to encourage at-risk students to remain in school, two approaches are.in use: information strategies, which assume that with accurate information students will choose to continue their educations, and incentive strategies, which assume that something has to be done to enhance the value of education if students are to choose to stay in school. Social science research on schooling behavior has not yet provided the knowledge necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of these two approaches, since we do not know how youth form expectations about the returns to schooling and how such expectations influence behavior. This paper diagnoses the shortcomings of present research and prescribes innovations in social science practice that may lead to credible evaluation of information and incentive policies. In it I lay out elements of a new program of research on schooling behavior and expectation formation based on decision-theoretic analysis of subjective data. The methodological issues addressed here are relevant to the evaluation of information and incentive policies in other areas as well, where the unwillingness of economists to exploit subjective data and the failure of social psychologists to formalize their ideas have combined to limit our understanding of human behavior. 1. Introduction Many controversies in social policy boil down to disagreements about the determinants of human behavior, specifically about the effectiveness of different policy instruments in influencing behavior. One such controversy concerns the effectiveness of information and incentive strategies in influencing the schooling behavior of so-called at-risk youth. Although support for measures to improve the human capital of these youth is widespread, there is no consensus about the best way to keep them in school and to improve their performance. INFORMATION STRATEGIES: One line of thinking begins from the premise that remaining in school and performing well are generally in students' own self-interest. It is assumed that youth who drop out of school or who fail to perform up to their abilities misperceive their returns to schooling. It follows that, to influence schooling behavior, we should provide youth with information that convinces them of the value of schooling. We should correct the misperceptions that presently lead youth to make poor schooling decisions. The idea that providing information can influence schooling behavior is reflected in traditional counseling programs. Moreover, it underlies the widespread belief that youth are influenced by the "role models" in their environment. It is often argued that if youth learn about the returns …
Generic Ethics Principles in Social Science Research

The written output of a series of three symposia held in the spring of 2013 on the topic of Generic Ethics Principles in Social Science Research. The format for each symposium was the same: a main speaker introduced a paper that had been circulated in advance and this was followed by two formal discussants and then participation from the floor. Discussion in groups took place in the afternoon and there was then a brief plenary session. The stimulus paper from each event is reproduced in this publication along with papers from discussants and a summary of each discussion.
High precision determination of the atmospheric parameters and abundances of the COROT main targets

Context. One of the main goals of the COROT mission is to get precise photometric observations of selected bright stars in order to allow the modelling of their interior through asteroseismology. However, in order to interpret the asteroseismological data, the effective temperature, surface gravity, and chemical composition of the stars must be known with sufficient accuracy. Aims. To carry out this task, we have developed a spectroscopic method called APASS (Atmospheric Parameters and Abundances from Synthetic Spectra) which allows precise analysis of stars with a moderate to high rotational velocity, which is the case for most primary COROT targets. Methods. Our method is based on synthetic spectra in which individual lines are replaced by analysis units (isolated lines or line blends, depending on the crowding of the spectral region and on the rotational broadening). It works differentially with respect to the Sun and allows the atmospheric parameters and chemical abundances to be determined by considering analysis units with different sensitivities to these various parameters. Results. Using high signal-to-noise spectra and the APASS method, we determined the atmospheric parameters and chemical abundances of 13 primary COROT targets. Our results agree well with those obtained by Bruntt using his software VWA and with those obtained with the software TEMPLOGG. However, in both cases, our error bars are significantly smaller than those of other methods. Our effective temperatures are also in excellent agreement with those obtained with the IR photometry method. For five stars with relatively low rotational velocity, we also performed an analysis with a classical equivalent–width method to test agreement with APASS results. We show that equivalent–width measurements by Gaussian or Voigt profile–fitting are sensitive to the rotational broadening, leading to systematic errors whenever the projected rotation velocity is non–negligible. The APASS method appears superior in all cases and should thus be preferred.
A Faber Schauder dominant blocks based fragile watermarking scheme for image tamper detection

The need of digital content authentication is increasing, due to the easier the digital content modification becomes, that is owing to the technology development. Several fragile watermarking based methods have been proposed to authenticate image. In such methods, a mark is embedded into the digital image to authenticate it. There is a few methods that deal with algorithm complexity, hence it can not be used for the applications that require low complexity such as real-time applications and video processing applications. We propose in this paper, a Faber Schauder dominant blocks based fragile watermarking scheme for image tamper detection. The Watermark was generated by applying Xor operation between a logo's bits and the bits of dominant blocks singular values of the image to authenticate. These dominant blocks are obtained by applying Faber Schauder Discrete Wavelet Transform (FSDWT) to that image. Since the image is characterized by its contours and its around textures which contain an important concentration of dominant coefficients -that form dominant blocks-, any image modification will result in a significant change of the dominant blocks singular values, which lead to detect the authenticity of the image. Furthermore, FSDWT is composed of simple operations, thus the algorithm have a low complexity. Experimental results and analysis demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Glutamatergic Neurons of the Mouse Medial Septum and Diagonal Band of Broca Synaptically Drive Hippocampal Pyramidal Cells: Relevance for Hippocampal Theta Rhythm

Neurons of the medial septum and diagonal band of Broca (MS-DBB) provide an important input to the hippocampus and are critically involved in learning and memory. Although cholinergic and GABAergic MS-DBB neurons are known to modulate hippocampal activity, the role of recently described glutamatergic MS-DBB neurons is unknown. Here, we examined the electrophysiological properties of glutamatergic MS-DBB neurons and tested whether they provide a functional synaptic input to the hippocampus. To visualize the glutamatergic neurons, we used MS-DBB slices from transgenic mice in which the green fluorescent protein is expressed specifically by vesicular glutamate transporter 2-positive neurons and characterized their properties using whole-cell patch-clamp technique. For assessing the function of the glutamatergic projection, we used an in vitro septohippocampal preparation, electrically stimulated the fornix or chemically activated the MS-DBB using NMDA microinfusions and recorded postsynaptic responses in CA3 pyramidal cells. We found that glutamatergic MS-DBB neurons as a population display a highly heterogeneous set of firing patterns including fast-, cluster-, burst-, and slow-firing. Remarkably, a significant proportion exhibited fast-firing properties, prominent Ih, and rhythmic spontaneous firing at theta frequencies similar to those found in GABAergic MS-DBB neurons. Activation of the MS-DBB led to fast, AMPA receptor-mediated glutamatergic responses in CA3 pyramidal cells. These results describe for the first time the electrophysiological signatures of glutamatergic MS-DBB neurons, their rhythmic firing properties, and their capacity to drive hippocampal principal neurons. Our findings suggest that the glutamatergic septohippocampal pathway may play an important role in hippocampal theta oscillations and relevant cognitive functions.
Bridging Jeffrey's Rule, AGM Revision and Dempster Conditioning in the Theory of Evidence

Belief revision characterizes the process of revising an agent's beliefs when receiving new evidence. In the field of artificial intelligence, revision strategies have been extensively studied in the context of logic-based formalisms and probability kinematics. However, so far there is not much literature on this topic in evidence theory. In contrast, combination rules proposed so far in the theory of evidence, especially Dempster rule, are symmetric. They rely on a basic assumption, that is, pieces of evidence being combined are considered to be on a par, i.e. play the same role. When one source of evidence is less reliable than another, it is possible to discount it and then a symmetric combination operation is still used. In the case of revision, the idea is to let prior knowledge of an agent be altered by some input information. The change problem is thus intrinsically asymmetric. Assuming the input information is reliable, it should be retained whilst the prior information should be changed minimally to that effect. To deal with this issue, this paper defines the notion of revision for the theory of evidence in such a way as to bring together probabilistic and logical views. Several revision rules previously proposed are reviewed and we advocate one of them as better corresponding to the idea of revision. It is extended to cope with inconsistency between prior and input information. It reduces to Dempster rule of combination, just like revision in the sense of Alchourron, Gardenfors, and Makinson (AGM) reduces to expansion, when the input is strongly consistent with the prior belief function. Properties of this revision rule are also investigated and it is shown to generalize Jeffrey's rule of updating, Dempster rule of conditioning and a form of AGM revision.
LP-based algorithm for optimization in multiservice IP networks

The network design problem considered in this paper provides the basis for the solution of many interesting and practical engineering problems, of which one notable example is the link capacity expansion problem of existing communication networks. We are particularly interested in the possibility of using this problem as a subproblem when solving the planning and design problem of multiservice IP networks (e.g., DiffServ/MPLS). After discussing its application as part of a solution method for multiservice IP network planning problem, an integer multicommodity optimization problem is formulated. For its solution an LP-based algorithm was developed, that uses the optimization tool ILOG CPLEX7.1LP for finding the exact optimal solution of the considered problem. Computational tests on problems of various sizes lead to the conclusion that the algorithm is quite powerful both with respect to problem size and solution time.
Mathematical models and a constructive heuristic for finding minimum fundamental cycle bases

The problem of finding a fundamental cycle basis with minimum total cost in a graph arises in many application fields. In this paper we present some integer linear programming formulations and we compare their performances, in terms of instance size, CPU time required for the solution, and quality of the associated lower bound derived by solving the corresponding continuous relaxations. Since only very small instances can be solved to optimality with these formulations and very large instances occur in a number of applications, we present a new constructive heuristic and compare it with alternative heuristics.
Creating networks for survival and mobility: social capital among African-American and Latin-American low-income mothers

In this article, we examine the social networks of low-income mothers, using a conceptual framework that differentiates social networks that offer support from those that yield leverage. This ethnographic analysis pays particular attention to how respondents generate social capital to obtain resources for survival and social mobility. Respondents identified at least three issues beyond resource constraints that work alone or in combination to positively or negatively influence their use of family as sources of social support: physical proximity, reciprocity, and family tensions. We also explore the conditions under which respondents generate social support through friendships and nonprofit institutions. We find that social capital that improves opportunities for upward mobility can be obtained from relationships that provide advice, contacts, and encouragement to get ahead. We also find that social support and social leverage networks can work in tandem or in tension to allow (or preclude) day-to-day survival and mobility. Social support networks can inhibit social mobility by enforcing time consuming and professionally limiting expectations on women. The size and heterogeneity of the network becomes important in such instances.
miR-9 functions as a tumor inhibitor of cell proliferation in epithelial ovarian cancer through targeting the SDF-1/CXCR4 pathway

The current study aimed to investigate the potential role of miR-9 in the inhibition of ovarian cancer progression through the stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1)/ C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) pathway and to provide a theoretical basis for the diagnosis and treatment of ovarian cancer. Human ovarian cancer OVCAR-3 cells were transfected with miR-9 short hairpin RNA (shRNA). The effect of miR-9 on the mRNA expression levels of CXCR4 were analyzed using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The effects of miR-9 on OVCAR-3 cell proliferation, invasion and apoptotic ability were detected using a 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide assay, Matrigel method, and Annexin V-fluorescein isothiocyanate flow cytometry, respectively. In addition, expression levels of SDF-1/CXCR4 pathway associated proteins were determined by western blot analysis. mRNA expression levels of CXCR4 in OVCAR-3 cells transfected with miR-9 shRNA was significantly downregulated compared with the blank and control groups (P<0.05). Furthermore, compared with the two control groups, the current results revealed that miR-9 inhibited cell proliferation, suppressed invasive ability and induced cell apoptosis in OVCAR-3 cells (P<0.05). Finally, it was observed that miR-9 functioned as a tumor inhibitor through the SDF-1/CXCR4 pathway by suppressing the expression levels of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1 (ERK1), ERK2 and matrix metalloproteinase-9 proteins. The present study suggested that miR-9 may function as a promising tumor inhibitor for ovarian cancer through targeting the SDF-1/CXCR4 pathway.
An E ¢ cient Dynamic Mechanism

This paper constructs an e¢ cient, budget-balanced, Bayesian incentive-compatible mechanism for a general dynamic environment in which agents observe private information and decisions are made over countably many periods. Agentspayo¤s are quasilinear in monetary transfers. First, under the assumption of private values (other agents private information does not directly a¤ect an agents payo¤s) we construct an e¢ cient, ex post incentive-compatible mechanism, which is not budget balanced. Second, under the assumption of independent types (the distribution of each agents private information is not directly a¤ected by other agentsprivate information), we show how the budget can be balanced without compromising agents incentives. Finally, we show that the mechanism can be made self-enforcing when agents are su¢ ciently patient and the induced stochastic process is an ergodic nite Markov chain. We are grateful to a co-editor, three anonymous referees, Eric Maskin, Andy Postlewaite, and participants at the fall 2004 Stanford-Berkeley theory fest, the 2007 winter meetings of the AEA, and IDEI Toulouse for helpful comments, and to the National Science Foundation for generous nancial support through grants SES-0351500 (Athey) and SES-0318447 (Segal). yProfessor of Economics, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 zRoy and Betty Anderson Professor in the Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, Department of Economics, 579 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305-6072.
Automatic Video Content Analysis and Management

The principal goal of this proposal is to design an automatic video processing architecture that will enable us to design and develop efficient multimedia applications such as summarization, indexing, retrieval and others. While there are many research projects in this area, many, if not all, rely on MPEG-7 for high-level semantic retrieval. The proposed architecture is compatible with MPEG-7 in that the proposed architecture can be annotated using the MPEG-7 standard, but we emphasize on user relevance feedback in the high-level semantic retrieval task. The proposed research is built upon a substantial body of preliminary work that serves as proof of concept for the proposed architecture and other techniques. The preliminary work includes the development of automatic clustering technique using Delaunay Triangulation, automatic video summary generation and automatic shot boundary detection. We address the problem of automatic video indexing and organization and video information retrieval through user interaction at multiple levels. Our work focuses on the following three important areas: (1) temporal video segmentation; (2) construction of automatic and flexible computational methods that group frames/shots into clusters for semantic analysis and retrieval; (3) integration of relevance feedback in high-level semantic video retrieval and browsing. In particular, we propose the following: (1) a novel automatic temporal segmentation method; (2) a new cluster-based framework for hierarchical video representation; (3) a novel automatic video summarization method for quick user browsing; (4) a new method to answer user's high-level semantic query using user relevance feedback. The proposed algorithms will implement the components of a 3 complete visual content management system and will provide such key functionalities as browsing, visual summarization, content-based retrieval and indexing. We first develop a fully automatic algorithm to group video frames into different clusters without the need for threshold selection. These clusters can be manually annotated based on MPEG-7 standard and can then be used by applications that are compliant with the MPEG-7 specifications. A key-frame based video summarization can be automatically generated from these clusters. A new shot boundary detection based on the clustering algorithm is also presented. The clusters are assigned various labels or descriptors to describe the contents and other attributes of the frames in the cluster like duration, number of frames, representative color histogram, representative motion or objects etc. These clusters are subsequently utilized as part of a SVM (Support Vector Machine) algorithm (or other Machine Learning algorithms) to determine and extract the optimum and non-redundant …
Named Entity Discovery in Multilingual Comparable Corpora

The EPA Cluster Rules for cellulose pulp mills are complied with by first collecting foul condensate including hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), such as methanol, at a temperature of between about 140-180° F. , and passing the foul condensate into direct contact with heated vapor at a plurality of series connected stations to gradually heat the foul condensate to a temperature desirable for steam stripping. Then the heated foul condensate is steam stripped to produce a high temperature (e.g. about 250-350° F., preferably about 300°) clean condensate. Then the high temperature clean condensate is flashed in a plurality of flash stations to produce a heated vapor in a lower temperature clean condensate, and the heated vapor is used to heat the foul condensate in each of the direct contact heat exchangers. Typically the highest temperature is used to heat the highest temperature foul condensate, with progressively lower temperature vapors used to heat progressively lower temperature condensate stations. A vapor is produced during steam stripping, and using low pressure steam the vapor is reboiled to produce a discharge containing the majority of HAPs, and the HAPs in the discharge are destroyed in a conventional thermal destruct unit or in another conventional manner.
DNA Damage: From Chronic Inflammation to Age-Related Deterioration

To lessen the “wear and tear” of existence, cells have evolved mechanisms that continuously sense DNA lesions, repair DNA damage and restore the compromised genome back to its native form. Besides genome maintenance pathways, multicellular organisms may also employ adaptive and innate immune mechanisms to guard themselves against bacteria or viruses. Recent evidence points to reciprocal interactions between DNA repair, DNA damage responses and aspects of immunity; both self-maintenance and defense responses share a battery of common players and signaling pathways aimed at safeguarding our bodily functions over time. In the short-term, this functional interplay would allow injured cells to restore damaged DNA templates or communicate their compromised state to the microenvironment. In the long-term, however, it may result in the (premature) onset of age-related degeneration, including cancer. Here, we discuss the beneficial and unrewarding outcomes of DNA damage-driven inflammation in the context of tissue-specific pathology and disease progression.
The rice leaf microbiome has a conserved community structure controlled by complex host-microbe interactions

Understanding the factors that influence the outcome of crop interactions with microbes is key to managing crop diseases and improving yield. While the composition, structure and functional profile of crop microbial communities are shaped by complex interactions between the host, microbes and the environment, the relative contribution of each of these factors is mostly unknown. Here, we profiled the community composition of bacteria across leaves of 3,024 rice (Oryza sativa) accessions from field trials in China and the Philippines using metagenomics. Despite significant differences in diversity between environments, the structure and metabolic profiles of the microbiome appear to be conserved, suggesting that microbiomes converge onto core functions. Furthermore, co-occurrence analysis identified microbial hubs that regulate the network structure of the microbiome. We identified rice genomic regions controlling the abundance of these hubs, enriched for processes involved in stress responses and carbohydrate metabolism. We functionally validated the importance of these processes, finding that abundance of hub taxa was different in rice mutants with altered cellulose and salicylate accumulation, two major metabolites at the host-microbe interactions interface. By identifying key host genomic regions, host traits and hub microbes that govern microbiome composition, our study opens the door to designing future cropping systems.