Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quid Pro Quo? Corporate Returns to Campaign Contributions

Scholars, pundits, and political reformers have long worried that corporations distort public policy and subvert the will of the electorate by donating to politicians. Well-publicized anecdotes notwithstanding, whether and how much corporations actually benefit from supporting political candidates remains unknown. To systematically address this question, we utilize two complementary empirical approaches that isolate the monetary benefits a company derives from a favored candidate winning office. First, we use a regression discontinuity design exploiting close congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative elections. Second, we leverage within-campaign changes in market beliefs about the outcomes of US Senate races. We find no evidence that corporations benefit from electing candidates supported by their PACs, and we can statistically reject effect sizes greater than 0.3% of firm value. Our results suggest that corporate campaign contributions do not buy significant political favors—at least not on average.
Effects of acute alpha 2-blockade on insulin action and secretion in humans.

We tested whether acute alpha 2-blockade affects insulin secretion, glucose and fat metabolism, thermogenesis, and hemodynamics in humans. During a 5-h epinephrine infusion (50 ng.min-1.kg-1) in five volunteers, deriglidole, a selective alpha 2-receptor inhibitor, led to a more sustained rise in plasma insulin and C-peptide levels (+59 +/- 14 vs. +28 +/- 6, and +273 +/- 18 vs. +53 +/- 14 pM, P < 0.01 vs. placebo) despite a smaller rise in plasma glucose (+0.90 +/- 0.4 vs. +1.5 +/- 0.3 mM, P < 0.01). Another 10 subjects were studied in the postabsorptive state and during a 4-h hyperglycemic (+4 mM) clamp, coupled with the ingestion of 75 g of glucose at 2 h. In the postabsorptive state, hepatic glucose production, resting energy expenditure, and plasma insulin, free fatty acid (FFA), and potassium concentrations were not affected by acute alpha 2-blockade. Hyperglycemia elicited a biphasic rise in plasma insulin (to a peak of 140 +/- 24 pM), C-peptide levels (1,520 +/- 344 pM), and insulin secretion (to 410 +/- 22 pmol/min); superimposed glucose ingestion elicited a further twofold rise in insulin and C-peptide levels, and insulin secretion. However, alpha 2-blockade failed to change these secretory responses. Fasting blood beta-hydroxybutyrate and glycerol and plasma FFA and potassium concentrations all declined with hyperglycemia; time course and extent of these changes were not affected by alpha 2-blockade. Resting energy expenditure (+25 vs. +16%, P < 0.01) and external cardiac work (+28% vs. +19%, P < 0.01) showed larger increments after alpha 2-blockade. We conclude that acute alpha 2-blockade in humans 1) prevents epinephrine-induced inhibition of insulin secretion, 2) does not potentiate basal or intravenous- or oral glucose-induced insulin release, 3) enhances thermogenesis, and 4) increases cardiac work.
A Review of Artificial Lateral Line in Sensor Fabrication and Bionic Applications for Robot Fish

Lateral line is a system of sense organs that can aid fishes to maneuver in a dark environment. Artificial lateral line (ALL) imitates the structure of lateral line in fishes and provides invaluable means for underwater-sensing technology and robot fish control. This paper reviews ALL, including sensor fabrication and applications to robot fish. The biophysics of lateral line are first introduced to enhance the understanding of lateral line structure and function. The design and fabrication of an ALL sensor on the basis of various sensing principles are then presented. ALL systems are collections of sensors that include carrier and control circuit. Their structure and hydrodynamic detection are reviewed. Finally, further research trends and existing problems of ALL are discussed.
Enhanching MLP : Runahead Execution and Related Techniques

The growing memory wall 1 makes speedups increasingly difficult to achieve on applications that exhibit difficultto predict memory access patterns. The problem is that although modern processors provide multiple high-bandwidth execution units, applications that experience frequent ca che misses are only executed with high IPC in the periods between misses. As main memory latencies increase from 200 cycles to1000 cycles and beyond, microarchitects must scramble for new ways to hide as much of this latency as possible. It is now widely understood that one solution lies in maximizing the number of simultaneous outstanding cache misses, known as Memory-Level Parallelism (MLP). Prefetching, long instruction windows, and runahead execution have all been proposed as a means of enhanching MLP. In this paper, we will discuss examples of these three techniques, noting the performance and design complexity of each. We focus in particular on a prefetching/preexecution scheme known as runahead execution , which preexecutes instructions following a cache miss—when the processor would otherwise stall—in hopes of generating useful prefetches. We compare performance and design complexity of several runahead designs with those of alternative solutions. We argue that runahead is a simple, elegant, and effective technique for increasing MLP.
Ultra low-power receiver design for dense optical interconnects

In this work, a compact low-power optical receiver that scales well with technology has been designed to explore the potential of optical signaling for future chip-to-chip and on-chip communication. The proposed receiver resolves the problem by employing an integrating RC front-end along with dynamic offset modulation technique that decouple the bandwidth/data-rate and integration/headroom trade-offs.
Silent Atrial Fibrillation—Another Pandora's Box

It was about 100 years ago that Hering, Cushny, and Lewis first discovered various aspects of atrial fibrillation (AF). ^ Since then it has been recognized that AF is the most prevalent cardiac arrhythmia that accounts for substantial morbidity and considerable health care cost. The arrhythmia has a two-fold mortality risk, largely duo to stroke that occurs four to five times more often in the presence of AF, but is also related to aggravation of heart failure due to poor control of the ventricular rate response during AF. ^"^ AF and its complications have increased as a result of an increasing elderly population with underlying heart disease, leading to a remarkably high prevalence of AF [11%-17%) in individuals > 70 years. ̂ •'̂
The European ribosomal RNA database

The European ribosomal RNA database aims to compile all complete or nearly complete ribosomal RNA sequences from both the small (SSU) and large (LSU) ribosomal subunits. All sequences are available in aligned format. Sequence alignment is based on the secondary structure of the molecules, as determined by comparative sequence analysis. Additional information about the sequences, such as taxonomic classification of the organism from which they have been obtained, and literature references are also provided. In order to identify the closest relatives to newly determined sequences, BLAST searches can be performed, after which the best matching sequences are aligned and a phylogenetic tree is inferred. As of 2003, the European ribosomal RNA database is maintained at Ghent University (Belgium). The database can be consulted at http://www.psb. ugent.be/rRNA/.
Molecular cloning of CD44R1 and CD44R2, two novel isoforms of the human CD44 lymphocyte "homing" receptor expressed by hemopoietic cells

In addition to the 85-95 kD CD44 species found on most hemopoietic cell types, the human myelomonocytic cell line KG1a expresses proteins of approximately 115 kD and 130 kD that react with monoclonal antibodies belonging to CD44. The possibility that these higher molecular weight species may represent novel CD44 isoforms containing additional protein sequence was investigated. CD44 cDNA clones were isolated from a plasmid-based expression library prepared from KG1a mRNA. One of the three clones obtained (clone 2.3) was found to encode a CD44 molecule of approximately 130 kD in transfected COS cells. Sequences analysis indicated that the molecule encoded by this cDNA clone, designated CD44R1, was essentially identical to CD44 except for the presence of an additional 132 amino acids inserted into the extracellular domain. This inserted region is rich in serine and threonine residues that may serve as sites of O-linked glycosylation, and contains a potential site of N- linked glycosylation and a potential site of chondroitin sulphate attachment. PCR analysis using primers that flank the inserted region present within CD44R1 identified an additional CD44 isoform, designated CD44R2, that contains only the last 69 amino acids present within the unique region of CD44R1. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells and granulocytes from normal individuals and patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia, polycythemia vera, or acute myelomonocytic leukemia, express both CD44R1 and CD44R2. In contrast, CD44R1 and CD44R2 appear to be differentially expressed in various CD44-positive cell lines. Thus KG1a, and the Epstein-Barr Virus-transformed B cell lines WalkDR4 and Way-1 express both CD44 and the CD44 isoforms CD44R1 and CD44R2, while the myeloid cell lines HL60 and U937 express high levels of CD44, but only very low levels of CD44R1 and CD44R2. The CD44- negative cell lines DHL-4, DHL-10, Jurkat, and K562 are also negative for CD44R1 and CD44R2.
Unobservable Facial Actions and Emotion

Surface electromyographic recordings in humans were first made less than 70 years ago, and the electromyographic study of covert facial actions during affect and emotion has less than a 20-year history. Despite the relative youth of facial electromyography, its use in combination with autonomic measures and comprehensive overt facial action coding systems has provided a sensitive and effective armamentarium for investigating emotion and affect-laden information processing. Research over the past decade has demonstrated that facial electromyographic activity varies as a function of the intensity, valence, and sociality of emotional stimuli and shows that facial electromyographic activity is slightly different in deliberately manipulated and spontaneous expressions of emotion. The multiply determined nature of facial actions and expressions, however, has limited the inferences that can be made about the psychological significance of facial electromyographic responses. These limitations have begun to recede in recent years as a result of advances in the psychometric properties of facial electromyographic measurements, the quantification of electromyographic waveforms and patterns, the conjoint measurement of facial electromyographic and electro-cortical activity, the conceptualization of psychophysiological relations, and the formalization of psychophysiological inference.
¿QUÉ VALORAN LAS PERSONAS MAYORES?: ASPECTOS PSICOPEDAGÓGICOS Y DE INTERVENCIÓN

We think that the knowledge and the description of values and the topics raised by senior citizens are relevant for advance in the field of evolutionary psychology and as a proposal for an adequate relationship with these people. The Life-span theory is taken as a starting point to explain this. Research done with 25 elderly people, aged between 65 and 90, belonging to a village located in the upper Aragon Pyrenees in Huesca is presented in this article. PALABRAS CLAVE Valores, Tematicas, Tercera Edad, Teoria del ciclo vital.
Long‐term results of hyperfractionated radiation and high‐dose intraarterial cisplatin for unresectable oropharyngeal carcinoma

In this report, the authors present the results from a study of patients with unresectable oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas who were treated on a protocol of hyperfractionated radiation and high‐dose intraarterial cisplatin (HYPERRADPLAT) at the University of Kentucky.
Service evaluation of an autism diagnostic clinic for children.

AIM To examine parents' personal experiences of a diagnostic clinic for children suspected of having autistic spectrum disorder, and to evaluate parental satisfaction with the multidisciplinary assessment team at the clinic. METHOD A structured interview schedule was designed to obtain information from parents. The questionnaire consisted of set questions divided into four sections using closed and open-ended questions. Interviews were conducted in the parents' homes over a period of one hour. RESULTS All families whose child had been diagnosed by the clinic were contacted and invited to take part in the study. Of a total of 24 families, parents from 11 families were interviewed. Responses indicated that although many parents were dissatisfied with the clinic, they would continue to attend appointments and recommend the clinic to others requiring this service. CONCLUSION The findings of this small-scale study highlight the need for improved services for parents and families of children with autistic spectrum disorder attending the clinic. Better collaboration between members of the multidisciplinary team and parents is required to address the needs of this group of people.
The Genesis of an ‘Interesting’ and Important Social and Environmental Accounting Conversation: Celebrating the Contribution of Professor David Owen to Social and Environmental Accounting and Auditing (SEAA) Research and Practice

This paper reflects on the nature of ‘interesting’ research in the context of the contributions Professor David Owen has made to the social and environmental accounting and auditing (SEAA) research field over his academic career. The paper reviews some of Professor Owen's key research themes and research papers related to the topic of (corporate) social accountability as examples of ‘interesting’ and important research in order to celebrate the outstanding contribution he has made to the development of this research area. The paper also acknowledges the extensive contributions Professor Owen has made to the SEAA research community outside his academic work.
Isolation and characterization of nine polymorphic microsatellite loci in the rock carp, Procypris rabaudi (Tchang)

Nine highly polymorphic microsatellite loci were isolated from AC‐ and GATA‐repeat microsatellite enrichment DNA libraries in the rock carp, Procypris rabaudi (Tchang). The number of alleles for these loci ranged from eight to 18 in tested individuals. Polymorphism information content ranged from 0.712 to 0.908 with an average of 0.837. Average observed and expected heterozygosities were 0.719 and 0.870, respectively. These molecular markers will be useful for the assessment of genetic diversity and analysis of population structure in wild rock carp.
Secure multifactor authentication payment system using NFC

The latest trend of making financial transactions is done by the use of cards or internet banking. A person may have multiple bank accounts across several banks which makes it difficult for him/her to manage the transactions i.e. he/she either has to carry several cards or use a bunch of bank websites for accomplishing his/her transaction purposes. This situation demands the need of a simple, secure and hi-tech system for achieving the purposes of making transactions. We propose such a system that uses the latest technologies like NFC and multifactor authentication which can be used on any NFC enabled Smartphone. The multi factor authentication system uses a 4-digit PIN as the knowledge factor, an NFC enabled Smartphone, instead of cards, as the possession factor and the face of the user as the inherence factor for the purpose of authentication. The proposed system which can be implemented as cross-platform mobile application, not only allows the user to make secure transactions, but also allows him/her to make transactions from his/her multiple accounts.
A Method for Interfacing Lumped-Circuit Models and Transmission-Line System Models With Application to Railways

Transient analysis of lossy multiconductor transmission lines (MTLs) has been studied using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method with lumped loads/devices connected at line terminations. In electrified railway networks, series and shunt devices (whose circuit models are derived either from experiments/borrowed off the shelf), e.g., transformers, converters, switchgear, signal equipments, etc., are found distributed along the MTL system. To simulate such railway systems involving both transmission lines (TLs) and lumped circuits, an interface technique between TL systems, which is solved using FDTD, and all the lumped circuits, which are solved using alternative transients program/electromagnetic transients program software (circuit solver), is proposed. This sufficiently accurate method is simple to apply as only instantaneous voltages and currents are transmitted between the stand-alone FDTD routine and circuit solver. Moreover, the user avoids coding complex circuit models within the FDTD, while at the same time, efficiently uses the potential of accurate frequency-dependent loss models (nonexistent in circuit software) coded in FDTD. The technique is applied on typical electrified railway systems to demonstrate how traction transformers, track circuits, and line interconnections affect the propagating voltages and currents. The method could be beneficial for transient protection and insulation coordination studies in electrified railway systems.
Autophagic Fungal Cell Death Is Necessary for Infection by the Rice Blast Fungus

Rice blast is caused by the fungus Magnaporthe grisea, which elaborates specialized infection cells called appressoria to penetrate the tough outer cuticle of the rice plant Oryza sativa. We found that the formation of an appressorium required, sequentially, the completion of mitosis, nuclear migration, and death of the conidium (fungal spore) from which the infection originated. Genetic intervention during mitosis prevented both appressorium development and conidium death. Impairment of autophagy, by the targeted mutation of the MgATG8 gene, arrested conidial cell death but rendered the fungus nonpathogenic. Thus, the initiation of rice blast requires autophagic cell death of the conidium.
The Impact of Work Interferences on Family Caregiver Outcomes

Most research into caregiver employment and outcomes conceives of employment as a dichotomous variable—employed or not. This study examines the relationship between work interferences and caregiver burden, well-being, and self-esteem within a modified stress process model. Regression models are employed using a population-based random sample of caregivers. Employment status effects on outcomes for the total sample are estimated, followed by estimations of the effects of work interferences on the same outcomes for the employed subsample. Employment status is unrelated to outcomes in the total sample. In the employed subsample, a 13-item work interferences scale is related to burden but unrelated to well-being and self-esteem. Of the 13 items, only “performance at work was affected because of caring for a care recipient” is associated with all three caregiver outcomes. These findings suggest that subjective assessment of work interferences may play a more important role than does employment status.
Deep brain stimulation: Neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric issues

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor, cognitive, neuropsychiatric, autonomic, and other nonmotor symptoms. The efficacy of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for the motor symptoms of advanced PD is well established. However, the effects of DBS on the cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms are less clear. The neuropsychiatric aspects of DBS for PD have recently been of considerable clinical and pathophysiological interest. As a companion to the preoperative and postoperative sections of the DBS consensus articles, this article reviews the published literature on the cognitive and neuropsychiatric aspects of DBS for PD. The majority of the observed neuropsychiatric symptoms are transient, treatable, and potentially preventable. Outcome studies, methodological issues, pathophysiology, and preoperative and postoperative management of the cognitive and neuropsychiatric aspects and complications of DBS for PD are discussed. © 2006 Movement Disorder Society
Metropolis Algorithms for Representative Subgraph Sampling

While data mining in chemoinformatics studied graph data with dozens of nodes, systems biology and the Internet are now generating graph data with thousands and millions of nodes. Hence data mining faces the algorithmic challenge of coping with this significant increase in graph size: Classic algorithms for data analysis are often too expensive and too slow on large graphs. While one strategy to overcome this problem is to design novel efficient algorithms, the other is to 'reduce' the size of the large graph by sampling. This is the scope of this paper: We will present novel Metropolis algorithms for sampling a 'representative' small subgraph from the original large graph, with 'representative' describing the requirement that the sample shall preserve crucial graph properties of the original graph. In our experiments, we improve over the pioneering work of Leskovec and Faloutsos (KDD 2006), by producing representative subgraph samples that are both smaller and of higher quality than those produced by other methods from the literature.
Recognising Current Competencies of Volunteers in Emergency Service Organisations.

Purpose – The paper seeks to show the relationship between organisational structure and flexibility of training has not been well researched. Focusing on the role of recognition of current competencies, this study provides evidence of the effects of the former on the latter.Design/methodology/approach – In this paper evidence was obtained by comparing six emergency service organisations using comparative case study. Data were collected through individual and group interviews and from document searches. Organisations were categorised as organistic or mechanistic based on volunteer experiences and published organisational structures. The flexibility of curriculum, delivery of training, and recognition of current competence were assessed and compared with organisational structure.Findings – The paper finds that mechanistic organisations had high levels of insular trust and relied on training as a means of socialising new volunteers into the norms and practices of the organisation. They required all recruits .