Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adverse Selection in Insurance Markets: Policyholder Evidence from the U.K. Annuity Market

We use a unique data set of annuities in the United Kingdom to test for adverse selection. We find systematic relationships between ex post mortality and annuity characteristics, such as the timing of payments and the possibility of payments to the annuitant's estate. These patterns are consistent with the presence of asymmetric information. However, we find no evidence of substantive mortality differences by annuity size. These results suggest that the absence of selection on one contract dimension does not preclude its presence on others. This highlights the importance of considering detailed features of insurance contracts when testing theoretical models of asymmetric information.
Messaging activity impact on learner's profiling

This paper presents the design of a system that performs a data analysis processes on the students' interaction activity. We aim to find if there is any correlation between student's knowledge level and their messaging activity. In the first phase, we perform a comprehensive literature review such that we obtain an extensive listing of relevant features. Once the features list is obtained and the dataset is built, we can perform several data analysis processes in order to see which machine learning algorithm can perform better on the available data. As application domain we propose the use of Tesys e-Learning platform, which runs at several faculties from University of Craiova.
MicroRNA and Transcription Factor Mediated Regulatory Network Analysis Reveals Critical Regulators and Regulatory Modules in Myocardial Infarction

Myocardial infarction (MI) is a severe coronary artery disease and a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. However, the molecular mechanisms of MI have yet to be fully elucidated. In this study, we compiled MI-related genes, MI-related microRNAs (miRNAs) and known human transcription factors (TFs), and we then identified 1,232 feed-forward loops (FFLs) among these miRNAs, TFs and their co-regulated target genes through integrating target prediction. By merging these FFLs, the first miRNA and TF mediated regulatory network for MI was constructed, from which four regulators (SP1, ESR1, miR-21-5p and miR-155-5p) and three regulatory modules that might play crucial roles in MI were then identified. Furthermore, based on the miRNA and TF mediated regulatory network and literature survey, we proposed a pathway model for miR-21-5p, the miR-29 family and SP1 to demonstrate their potential co-regulatory mechanisms in cardiac fibrosis, apoptosis and angiogenesis. The majority of the regulatory relations in the model were confirmed by previous studies, which demonstrated the reliability and validity of this miRNA and TF mediated regulatory network. Our study will aid in deciphering the complex regulatory mechanisms involved in MI and provide putative therapeutic targets for MI.
Hierarchies in Cytokine Expression Profiles for Acute and Resolving Influenza Virus-Specific CD8+ T Cell Responses: Correlation of Cytokine Profile and TCR Avidity1

The development and resolution phases of influenza-specific CD8+ T cell cytokine responses to epitopes derived from the viral nucleoprotein (DbNP366) and acid polymerase (DbPA224) were characterized in C57BL/6J mice for a range of anatomical compartments in the virus-infected lung and lymphoid tissue. Lymphocyte numbers were measured by IFN-γ expression following stimulation with peptide, while the quality of the response was determined by the intensity of staining and the distribution of CD8+ T cells producing TNF-α and IL-2. Both the levels of expression and the prevalence of TNF-α+ and IL-2+ cells reflected the likely Ag load, with clear differences being identified for populations from the alveolar space vs the lung parenchyma. Irrespective of the site or time of T cell recovery, IL-2+ cells were consistently found to be a subset of the TNF-α+ population which was, in turn, contained within the IFN-γ+ set. The capacity to produce IL-2 may thus be considered to reflect maximum functional differentiation. The hierarchy in cytokine expression throughout the acute phase of the primary and secondary response tended to be DbPA224 > DbNP366. Both elution studies with the cognate tetramers and experiments measuring CD8β coreceptor dependence for peptide stimulation demonstrated the same DbPA224 > DbNP366 profile for TCR avidity. Overall, the quality of any virus-specific CD8+ T cell response appears variously determined by the avidity of the TCR-pMHC interaction, the duration and intensity of Ag stimulation characteristic of the particular tissue environment, and the availability of CD4+ T help.
Intralocus Sexual Conflict Diminishes the Benefits of Sexual Selection

Evolution based on the benefits of acquiring “good genes” in sexual selection is only plausible with the reliable transmission of genetic quality from one generation to the next. Accumulating evidence suggests that sexually antagonistic (SA) genes with opposite effects on Darwinian fitness when expressed in the two different sexes may be common in animals and plants. These SA genes should weaken the potential indirect genetic benefits of sexual selection by reducing the fitness of opposite-sex progeny from high-fitness parents. Here we use hemiclonal analysis in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to directly measure the inheritance of fitness across generations, over the entire genome. We show that any potential genetic benefits of sexual selection in this system are not merely weakened, but completely reversed over one generation because high-fitness males produce low-fitness daughters and high-fitness mothers produce low-fitness sons. Moreover, male fitness was not inherited by sons, consistent with both theory and recent evidence connecting this form of SA variation with the X chromosome. This inheritance pattern may help to explain how genetic variation for fitness is sustained despite strong sexual selection, and why the ZW sex chromosome system found in birds and butterflies appears to foster the evolution of extreme secondary sexual characters in males.
How connected are the major forms of irrationality? An analysis of pseudoscience, science denial, fact resistance and alternative facts

Science is a fact-finding practice, but there are many other fact-finding practices that apply largely the same patterns of reasoning in order to achieve as reliable information as possible in empirical issues. The fact-finding practices form in their turn a subcategory of rational discourse, a wider category that also encompasses argumentation on non-empirical issues. Based on these categories, it is easy to see the relationship between on the one hand pseudoscience, and on the other hand fact resistance, disinformation, and fallacies of reasoning. The flaws in argumentation are similar, and the main difference is whether or not the subject matter falls within or without the realm of science.
Uncomfortable interactions

We argue for deliberately and systematically creating uncomfortable interactions as part of powerful cultural experiences. We identify the potential benefits of uncomfortable interactions under the general headings of entertainment, enlightenment and sociality. We then review artworks and performances that have employed discomfort, including two complementary examples from the worlds of entertainment and performance. From this, we articulate a suite of tactics for designing four primary forms of discomfort referred to as visceral, cultural, control and intimate. We discuss how moments of discomfort need to be embedded into an overall experience which requires a further consideration of the dramatic acts of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement. Finally, we discuss an ethical framework for uncomfortable interactions which leads us to revisit key issues of consent, withdrawal, privacy and risk.
Data integration and consolidation of administrative data from various sources: the case of Germans' employment histories

»Datenintegration und Datenkonsolidierung von administrativen Daten aus unterschiedlichen Quellen am Beispiel von Daten zum deutschen Arbeitsmarkt«. This article introduces the data integration and consolidation process of the research data base of the Institute for Employment Research. The data are process generated data and stem from various, autonomous administrative processes. This fact implies that there are manifold inconsistencies between the data from the different data sources. This opens up the methodological problem of a successful consolidation of inconsistencies. Two contrarian strategies to handle this methodological problem are discussed and the solution in the IAB-data base is presented.
Provably-Efficient Online Adaptive Scheduling of Parallel Jobs Based on Simple Greedy Rules

Scheduling competing jobs on multiprocessors has always been an important issue for parallel and distributed systems. The challenge is to ensure overall system efficiency while offering a level of fairness to user jobs. Although various degrees of successes have been achieved over the past decades, few existing schemes address both efficiency and fairness over a wide range of work loads. Moreover, in order to obtain analytical results, many known results [22, 24, 7, 8, 17, 20, 23, 25, 33] require prior information about jobs such as jobs' release time, amount of work, parallelism profile, etc, which may be difficult to obtain in real applications. This chapter describes a scheduling algorithm GRAD, which offers provable efficiency in terms of makespan and mean response time by allotting each job a fair share of processor resources. Our algorithm is non-clairvoyant [10, 6, 18, 12], i.e. it assumes nothing about the release time, the execution time, and the parallelism profile of jobs. A parallel job can be classified as adaptive or non-adaptive. An adaptively parallel job [34] may change its parallelism, and it allows the number of the allotted processors to vary during its execution. A job is nonadaptive if it runs on a fixed number of processors over its lifetime. With adaptivity, new jobs can enter the system by simply recruiting processors from the already executing jobs. Moreover, in order to improve the system utilization, schedulers can shift processors from jobs that do not require many processors to the jobs in need. However, since the parallelism of adaptively parallel jobs can change during the execution and the future parallelism is usually unknown, how a scheduler decides the processor allotments for jobs is a challenging problem. We describe GRAD that effectively addresses such an adaptive scheduling problem. Scheduling parallel jobs on multiprocessors can be implemented in two levels [14]: a kernellevel job scheduler which allots processors to jobs, and a user-level thread scheduler which maps the threads of a given job to the allotted processors. The processor reallocation occurs periodically between scheduling quanta. The thread scheduler provides parallelism feedback to the job scheduler. The feedback is an estimation of the number of processors that its job can effectively use during the next quantum. The job scheduler follows some processor allocation policy to determine the allotment to the job. It may implement a policy that is either space-sharing, where jobs occupy disjoint processor resources, or time-sharing, where O pe n A cc es s D at ab as e w w w . in te ch w eb . o rg
A novel vision based adaptive transmission power control algorithm for energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks employing mobile robots

In a sensor network, there are scenarios when the distance between the transmitting node and the receiving node is not fixed, but varies with time. Such scenarios can arise, for example, when both the transmitting node and receiving node are mounted on mobile robots. Such scenarios could also arise when the transmitting node is fixed (for example, mounted on the ceiling), and the receiving node is mounted on a mobile robot. In such scenarios, it is difficult to predict the appropriate transmission power for successful packet exchanges. A simple strategy is to transmit packets at maximum available power level to ensure successfully transmission, all the time. However, such a strategy would result in a waste of power. We propose a new vision based adaptive transmission power control algorithm for power efficiency in cases when the distance between the transmitter and the receiver varies with time. The proposed algorithm estimates the distance between the transmitter and the receiver by image processing, and accordingly adjusts the transmitting power levels. We tested the algorithm in both noise-free and noisy (when there are obstructions, for ex. people, between the transmitter and the receiver) conditions of the environment on mobile robots using nRF24L01+ transceiver module. We found the algorithm to be robust and able to adjust the transmission power, in real time, to save energy.
A Strong Containment Problem for Queries in Conjunctive Form with Negation

In this paper we define a new notion of containment for two queries, called strong containment. The strong containment implies the classical containment. A necessary and sufficient condition for the strong containment relation between two queries is given. The time complexity of the decision problem for two queries to be in strong containment relation is a linear function of the containment mappings number corresponding to the queries
Ontogeny and functional adaptation of trabecular bone in the human foot

This PhD would not have been possible without generous financial support from numerous Dutch and British funding bodies and charities. The Arts and Humanities Research Council (award 1503975) VSB Fonds Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Hendrik Muller Vaderlandsch Fonds Fundatie van Renswoude. Downing College, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge The School of the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Cambridge. Richard Stapley Trust Oon Khye Beng Ch'hia Tsio Scholarship Treherne Biological Sciences Scholarship Lundgren Fund
Civic Responsibility and Higher Education

Anderson, J. D. (1988). The education of blacks in the South, 1860-1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Eisenmann, L. (1999, Fall). Reclaiming religion: New historiographic challenges in the relationship of religion and American higher education. History of Education Quarterly, 39, 295-306. Furner M. O. (1975). Advocacy and objectivity: A crisis in the professionalization of American social science, 1865-1905. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Gleason, P. (1995). Contending with modernity: Catholic higher education in the twentieth century. New York: Oxford University Press. Herbst, J. (1976, August). From religion to politics: Debates and confrontations over American college governance in mid-eighteenth century America. Harvard Education Review, 46, 397-424. Hofstadter, R. , & Metzger, W. P. (1955). The development of academic freedom in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press. Mahoney, K. A. (1996). The rise of the university and the secularization of the academy: The role of liberal Protestantism. History ofHigher Education Annual, 16, 117-131. Marsden, G. (1993). The soul of the university: From Protestant establishment to established Nonbelief New York: Oxford University Press. Power, E. J. (1958). A history of Catholic higher education in the United States. Milwaukee: Bruce. Power, E. J. (1972). Catholic higher education in America: A history. New York: Meredith. Ritterband, P., & Wechsler, H. S. (1994). The Jewish learning in American universities: The first century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Solomon, B. (1985). In the company ofeducated women: A history ofwomen and higher education in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Veysey, L. (1965). The emergence of the American university. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
The Use of Feedback in Multiprocessors and Its Application to Tree Saturation Control

Using feedback control schemes in multiprocessor systems is proposed. In a multiprocessor, individual processors do not have complete control over, nor information about, the overall state of the system. The potential exists, then, for the processors to unknowingly interact in such a way as to degrade the performance of the system. An example of this is the problem of tree saturation caused by hot-spot accesses in multiprocessors using multistage interconnection networks. Tree saturation degrades the performance of all processors in the system, including those not participating in the hot spot activity. Feedback schemes can be used to control tree saturation, reducing degradation to memory request that are not to the hot spot, thereby increasing overall system performance. As a companion to feedback schemes, damping schemes are also considered. Simulation studies show that feedback schemes can improve overall system performance significantly and with relatively little hardware cost in many cases. Damping schemes in conjunction with feedback are shown to further improve. >
A Nanocomplex System as Targeted Contrast Agent Delivery Vehicle for MRI Dynamic Contrast Enhancement Study

We have developed and tested a liposomal nanocomplex system, which contains Gd-DTPA as a payload and transferrin on the surface, as a tumor specific targeting MRI contrast agent for studying prostate cancer tumors in mice. In vivo, the probe significantly enhanced the MRI signal. The image contrast between the peripheral region of the tumor and the non-involved muscle was nearly 50% higher two hours after administration of the nanocomplex. The liposomal nanocomplex increased the amount of Gd accumulated in tumors by factor 2.8 compared to that accumulated by using Magnevist alone. Moreover, the heterogeneous MRI image features correlate well with the tumor pathology. The image enhancement patterns can be used for cancer prognosis and non-invasive monitoring of the response to therapy.
Prevent CSI Spoofing in Uplink MU-MIMO Transmission

A Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO) Access Point (AP) can obtain a capacity gain by simultaneously transmitting for multiple clients. In order to select concurrent uplink (UL) users with strong channel orthogonality and thus high total capacity, channel state information (CSI) feedback from users is required. However, the inaccurate CSI feedback can seriously influence the efficiency of data transmission. Moreover, due to spontaneous uplink traffic, uplink user s- election cannot rely on the access point central assignment and needs a distributed realization instead, which makes the problem even more challenging. In this paper, we propose a CSI validation algorithm, called CVU, to detect the CSI spoofing of uplink users. CVU requires CSI at transmitting AP to set antenna gains and phases to enable simultaneous verification code distribution through beamforming. Only accurate CSI feedback can user accurately obtains its verification code. AP selects the users with accurate verification codes to obtain their data using a nonlinear equalizer. Our simulation results show that CVU significantly outperforms state-of-the-art user selection methods under CSI spoofing attack.
Graph Embeddings and Laplacian Eigenvalues

Graph embeddings are useful in bounding the smallest nontrivial eigenvalues of Laplacian matrices from below. For an n × n Laplacian, these embedding methods can be characterized as follows: The lower bound is based on a clique embedding into the underlying graph of the Laplacian. An embedding can be represented by a matrix $\Gamma$; the best possible bound based on this embedding is $n/\lambda_{\max} (\Gamma^T \Gamma)$, where $\lambda_{\max}$ indicates the largest eigenvalue of the specified matrix. However, the best bounds produced by embedding techniques are not tight; they can be off by a factor proportional to log2 n for some Laplacians. We show that this gap is a result of the representation of the embedding: By including edge directions in the embedding matrix representation $\Gamma$, it is possible to find an embedding such that $\Gamma^T \Gamma$ has eigenvalues that can be put into a one-to-one correspondence with the eigenvalues of the Laplacian. Specifically, if $\lambda$ is a nonzero eigenvalue of either matrix, then $n / \lambda$ is an eigenvalue of the other. Simple transformations map the corresponding eigenvectors to each other. The embedding that produces these correspondences has a simple description in electrical terms if the underlying graph of the Laplacian is viewed as a resistive circuit. We also show that a similar technique works for star embeddings when the Laplacian has a zero Dirichlet boundary condition, though the related eigenvalues in this case are reciprocals of each other. In the zero Dirichlet boundary case, the embedding matrix $\Gamma$ can be used to construct the inverse of the Laplacian. Finally, we connect our results with previous techniques for producing bounds and provide an example.
Potential Clinical Implications of the Urotensin II Receptor Antagonists

Urotensin II (UII) binds to its receptor, UT, playing an important role in the heart, kidneys, pancreas, adrenal gland, and central nervous system. In the vasculature, it acts as a potent endothelium-independent vasoconstrictor and endothelium-dependent vasodilator. In disease states, however, this constriction–dilation equilibrium is disrupted. There is an upregulation of the UII system in heart disease, metabolic syndrome, and kidney failure. The increase in UII release and UT expression suggest that UII system may be implicated in the pathology and pathogenesis of these diseases by causing an increase in acyl-coenzyme A:cholesterol acyltransferase-1 (ACAT-1) activity leading to smooth muscle cell proliferation and foam cell infiltration, insulin resistance (DMII), as well as inflammation, high blood pressure, and plaque formation. Recently, UT antagonists such as SB-611812, palosuran, and most recently a piperazino-isoindolinone based antagonist have been developed in the hope of better understanding the UII system and treating its associated diseases.
A Niche Based Genetic Algorithm for Image Registration

Image registration aims to find the unknown set of transformations able to r educe two or more images to a common reference frame. Image registration can be regarded as an optimization problem, where the goal is to maximize a measure of image similarity. The measure of similarity on the over all image can be computationally expensive, leading to measure the similarity of smaller subimages. How ever, the reduction of subimage size results into a higher multi-modality for the optimizing function. Recent inve stigations have shown that genetic algorithms can address this problem. However, the simple scheme of genetic algorithms can still fall in local optima. In this paper, we explore the application of niche-oriented g enetic algorithms, showing their strengths in providing a more effective image registration algorithm.