Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Which color means more? An investigation of color-quantity mapping in data visualization.

Colormaps representing quantities are a standard tool of data visualization (e.g., in correlation matrices, brain activation diagrams, and topographic maps). We investigated people's implicit intuitions about how the extremes of color scales (e.g., dark/light) map onto represented quantities (e.g., large/small, high/low), and whether they are modulated by contrast with the background. Participants were shown fictitious data matrices in which columns represented time, rows represented alien species, and cell color represented how often each species was spotted during each time window. Each participant was shown one colormap and indicated whether there were more animals early or late. Early/late differences were clearly present, but no legend indicated how to interpret the colors. We expected higher-contrast would correspond to larger quantities. In Experiment 1 we tested dark-red/light-orange and dark-blue/light-cyan colormaps on black and white backgrounds. Almost everyone (89%-95%) inferred that darker colors represented larger quantities. Surprisingly, the effect was not modulated by contrast with the background, perhaps because all the colors were relatively high-contrast. In Experiment 2, we used the same colormaps but the background colors were extensions of the scale endpoints (e.g., darker blue or lighter cyan for the dark-blue/light-cyan colormap) so that one endpoint was always low-contrast. We also tested a gray-scale colormap on white and black backgrounds. Against light backgrounds, 90%-98% showed the dark-is-more bias. Against dark backgrounds, significantly fewer participants showed the same bias (53%-74%), but the pattern did not reverse. Therefore, participants have a strong dark-is-more bias, which is diluted, but not reversed, when dark colors are low-contrast. In a systematic survey of colormaps in published visualizations (e.g., in Nature Neuroscience) we found that many violate the dark-is-more bias. Using empirically validated natural intuitions for color-concept associations will help make complex datasets easier to understand. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.
West African Trade

Based on information collected and processed by the Colonial Economic Research Committee between 1949 and 1952, and originally published in 1954, this book examines the key features of the economies of colonial Nigeria and the Gold Coast. Influential economist Peter Bauer assesses the monopolistic tendencies inherent in West African trade structures as well as the repercussions of the colonial government's own, sometimes biased, preferences. This book will be of use to anyone interested in the economic history of West Africa and the economic effects of colonialism.
Cost‐Effective Targeting of Land Retirement to Improve Water Quality with Endogenous Sediment Deposition Coefficients

An integrated framework that combines spatial and biophysical attributes of land with a hydrological model and an economic model is developed to identify cropland for enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. Sediment deposition coefficients are determined endogenously depending on the land-use decisions on other land parcels. Application of this framework to a watershed in Illinois demonstrates that highly sloping land adjacent to water bodies should be selected for retirement. A marginal value rental payment scheme can achieve program goals of 20% sediment abatement at 39% lower cost than a productivity-based rental scheme.
First Measurements of Neutral Atmospheric Cluster and 1–2 nm Particle Number Size Distributions During Nucleation Events

Recent observations throughout the atmosphere have shown that nucleation occurs frequently (Kulmala et al. 2004). Modeling studies and observations have shown that nucleated particles contribute significantly to concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei (Spracklen et al. 2008), thereby affecting climate (IPCC 2007). Size-resolved measurements extending down to molecular dimensions can provide information on processes that lead to nucleation and would enable development and verification of theories for particle nucleation and growth in the atmosphere and other aerosol systems. This article describes measurements of the complete number size distribution, spanning the size range from vapor molecules and molecular clusters to submicrometer particles, during atmospheric nucleation events. The measurements used two new instruments, the cluster chemical ionization mass spectrometer (Cluster CIMS) and the DEG SMPS. The Cluster CIMS measures neutral molecular clusters from 50 to 900 amu. The DEG SMPS is a scanning mobility particle spectrometer (SMPS) equipped with a diethylene glycol (DEG)-based condensation particle counter (CPC) capable of 1.1 nm mobility diameter particle detection, and overlapping the sizes detected by the Cluster CIMS (Iida et al. 2009; Jiang et al. 2011). The Cluster CIMS distinguishes neutral clusters from ions formed by ion-induced clustering by varying the reaction time for ions with themore » sampled air (Zhao et al. 2010). It distinguishes clusters from high molecular weight gases by measuring the incremental signal at a specified mass detected during nucleation events. The clusters that were measured in this study contain sulfuric acid, which is known to participate in atmospheric nucleation (Kuang et al. 2008). « less
The Regional Employment Impacts of Renewable Energy Expenditures : The Case for Modelling

One aspect of the case for policy support for renewable energy developments is the wider economic benefits that are expected to be generated. Within Scotland, as with other regions of the UK, there is a focus on encouraging domestically‐based renewable technologies. In this paper, we use a regional computable general equilibrium framework to model the impact on the Scottish economy of expenditures relating to marine energy installations. The results illustrate the potential for (considerable) ‘legacy’ effects after expenditures cease. In identifying the specific sectoral expenditures with the largest impact on (lifetime) regional employment, this approach offers important policy guidance.
Equalizing Differences in the Labor Market

The theory of equalizing differences asserts that workers receive compensating wage premiums when they accept jobs with undesirable nonwage characteristics, holding the worker's characteristics constant. Previous research provides only inconsistent support for the theory, with wrong-signed or insignificant estimates of these wage premiums fairly common. An oft-cited reason for these anomalies is that important characteristics of the worker remain unmeasured, biasing the estimates. In this paper, longitudinal data are used to test this conjecture. Although such data improve the control for worker characteristics, the plausibility of the estimates is not markedly improved. Alternative explanations for these results are considered. "It's indoor work and no heavy lifting. " —Senator Robert Dole, explaining why he wanted to be Vice President.
Correlation of chest computed tomography findings with dyspnea and lung functions in post-tubercular sequelae

Aims: To study the correlation between dyspnea, radiological findings, and pulmonary function tests (PFTs) in patients with sequelae of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). Materials and Methods: Clinical history, chest computed tomography (CT), and PFT of patients with post-TB sequelae were recorded. Dyspnea was graded according to the Modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) scale. CT scans were analyzed for fibrosis, cavitation, bronchiectasis, consolidation, nodules, and aspergilloma. Semi-quantitative analysis was done for these abnormalities. Scores were added to obtain a total morphological score (TMS). The lungs were also divided into three zones and scores added to obtain the total lung score (TLS). Spirometry was done for forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), and FEV1/FVC. Results: Dyspnea was present in 58/101 patients. A total of 22/58 patients had mMRC Grade 1, and 17/58 patients had Grades 2 and 3 dyspnea each. There was a significant difference in median fibrosis, bronchiectasis, nodules (P < 0.01) scores, TMS, and TLS (P < 0.0001) between dyspnea and nondyspnea groups. Significant correlations were obtained between grades of dyspnea and fibrosis (r = 0.34, P = 0.006), bronchiectasis (r = 0.35, P = 0.004), nodule (r = 0.24, P = 0.016) scores, TMS (r = 0.398, P = 0.000), and TLS (r = 0.35, P = 0.0003). PFTs were impaired in 78/101 (77.2%) patients. Restrictive defect was most common in 39.6% followed by mixed in 34.7%. There was a negative but statistically insignificant trend between PFT and fibrosis, bronchiectasis, nodule scores, TMS, and TLS. However, there were significant differences in median fibrosis, cavitation, and bronchiectasis scores in patients with normal, mild to moderate, and severe respiratory defects. No difference was seen in TMS and TLS according to the severity of the respiratory defect. Conclusion: Both fibrosis and bronchiectasis correlated with dyspnea and with PFT. However, this correlation was not linear. The overall extent of radiological abnormalities correlated only with dyspnea but not with PFT.
Development and Efficiency of the Banking Sector in a Transitional Economy: Hungarian Experience

The paper analyzes the experiences and developments of Hungarian banking sector during the transitional process from a centralized economy to a market-oriented system.The paper identifies that early reorganization initiatives, flexible approaches to privatization, and liberal policies towards foreign banks involvement with the domestic institutions helped to build a relatively strong and increasingly efficient banking system.Banks with higher foreign bank ownership involvement were associated with lower inefficiency.
Heat-shock protein 90 (hsp90) binds in vitro to tubulin dimer and inhibits microtubule formation.

Hsp90 interacts with steroid hormone receptors, protein kinases, and cytoskeletal proteins. The mode of action of hsp90 on microtubules and tubulin has not been investigated. Using isolated purified hsp90 and isolated tubulin, we demonstrated in vitro by difference absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy that hsp90 bound to tubulin with an apparent affinity constant of 5 x 10(5) M-1, assuming an apparent stoichiometry of 1 at 25 degrees C. Using microcalorimetry, we found a delta H of -9.8 +/- 0.8 kJ.mol-1. The binding of hsp90 to tubulin was confirmed by a sedimentation assay. Moreover, we showed that hsp90 inhibited tubulin polymerisation.
Patients' Attitudes About Gifts To Physicians From Pharmaceutical Companies

Background: Little is known about patients' awareness of and attitudes about gifts to physicians from pharmaceutical companies. Methods: During a 7-week period in summer 1994, we surveyed adults (18 years of age and older) in the waiting rooms of two family practice centers in central Missouri. Four-hundred eighty-six adults (83 percent participation rate) responded to a self-administered questionnaire that assessed awareness of and attitudes about representative gifts. Results: Rates of awareness of specific gifts were 87.0 percent for free drug samples, 55.3 percent for ballpoint pens, 34.6 percent for medical books, 28.6 percent for baby formula, 22.4 percent for dinner at a restaurant, and 13.8 percent for a coffee maker. Of the 486 respondents, the following percentages were reported that “it is not all right” for physicians to accept specific gifts: dinner at a restaurant, 48.4 percent; baby formula, 44.2 percent; coffee maker, 40.7 percent; ballpoint pens, 17.5 percent; medical books, 16.9 percent; drug samples, 7.6 percent. In addition, 32.5 percent did not approve of their physicians accepting payment by a pharmaceutical company of medical conference expenses and from 28.0 percent to 43.4 percent disapproved of their physicians attending specific social events sponsored by pharmaceutical companies at a medical conference. Seventy percent of the subjects believed that gifts sometimes or frequently influence a physician's prescribing of medication; 64.0 percent believed that gifts to physicians increase the cost of medication. Beliefs that gifts influence prescribing behavior and beliefs that gifts increase medication costs were strongly associated with disapproval of each gift except for drug samples. Conclusions: Respondents distinguished between particular gifts; approval rates were high for gifts generally considered to be trivial or that have potential value to patient care; disapproval rates were relatively high for gifts that have some monetary value but have little or no benefit for patients. Opinions about gifts were related to perceptions of their effects on prescribing behavior and costs.
The prevalence of age-related eye diseases and visual impairment in aging: current estimates.

PURPOSE To examine prevalence of five age-related eye conditions (age-related cataract, AMD, open-angle glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy [DR], and visual impairment) in the United States. METHODS Review of published scientific articles and unpublished research findings. RESULTS Cataract, AMD, open-angle glaucoma, DR, and visual impairment prevalences are high in four different studies of these conditions, especially in people over 75 years of age. There are disparities among racial/ethnic groups with higher age-specific prevalence of DR, open-angle glaucoma, and visual impairment in Hispanics and blacks compared with whites, higher prevalence of age-related cataract in whites compared with blacks, and higher prevalence of late AMD in whites compared with Hispanics and blacks. The estimates are based on old data and do not reflect recent changes in the distribution of age and race/ethnicity in the United States population. There are no epidemiologic estimates of prevalence for many visually-impairing conditions. CONCLUSIONS Ongoing prevalence surveys designed to provide reliable estimates of visual impairment, AMD, age-related cataract, open-angle glaucoma, and DR are needed. It is important to collect objective data on these and other conditions that affect vision and quality of life in order to plan for health care needs and identify areas for further research.
Personalized Hotlink Assignment using Social Networks

In this paper, we introduce a novel methodology for personalized website reconstruction. We combine context and popularity of the web pages and the information of user’s interest from social media. We present an efficient automatic web restructure placing suitable hotlinks between nodes of the generated website’s graph using information of social media contrary to previous studies. In addition, our methodology includes an innovative personalization scheme using a topic modeling approach to texts of users of social media to create a graph of categories. We evaluate our approach counting user’s feedback about the ordering and relevance of
Hybrid digital-analog video multicast scheme based on H.264/AVC and SoftCast

Wireless video multicast has become one of the key technologies to wireless applications. But the main challenge of wireless video multicast, i.e. the “cliff effect”, remains to be solved. SoftCast is a novel video coding and transmission scheme which allocates power to different coefficient chunks and transmits analog signals directly without quantization and entropy coding. It can solve the “cliff effect” effectively. And when it sends one video to multiply receivers, all the receivers can decode video performances fit to their channel qualities. However, reconstruction performance of SoftCast is not good when it comes to some bad channels. In this paper, a hybrid digital-analog video multicast scheme which transmits the super-position signal of H.264/AVC stream and H.264/AVC quantization residuals is proposed. With effective power allocation algorithm and appropriate parameter settings, gains provided by residuals signal are maximized. Simulation shows that the proposed scheme can achieve high performance gains based on SoftCast analog transmission and power allocation, and it outperforms the other hybrid digital-analog video multicast schemes by more than 4dB, e.g. the WSVC scheme.
Modifications de comportement précédant la défaillance d’entreprise: l’impact des cessions d’actifs sur la relation de crédit

Le processus de défaillance d’une entreprise, lorsqu’il résulte d’une dégradation de ses performances économiques, est affecté par les règles de partage qui prendront place en cas de liquidation. Il existe notamment, en cas de dégradation continue des résultats, des incitations conduisant l’entreprise à réduire son potentiel de croissance, par cession prématurée des actifs, afin de préserver la confiance de ses partenaires. Ce type de comportement, en retardant le défaut de paiement, risque d’accroître l’insuffisance d’actif et, par voie de conséquence, réduire le taux de recouvrement des créances. Néanmoins, en cas de difficultés temporaires, la politique de cession prématurée des actifs peut constituer un outil stratégique efficace contre le refus de prèt. Les résultats d’une enquète menée auprès du Tribunal de Commerce de Paris entre 1993 et 1995 (données de 1991) confirment l’existence de telles cessions d’actifs : en retardant le déclenchement de la procédure collective, elles constituent un obstacle au redressement des entreprises.
Comparing Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell DNA and Circulating Plasma viral RNA pol Genotypes of Subtype C HIV-1.

INTRODUCTION: Drug resistance mutations (DRM) in viral RNA are important in defining to provide effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) in HIV-1 infected patients. Detection of DRM in peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) DNA is another source of information, although the clinical significance of DRMs in proviral DNA is less clear. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From 25 patients receiving ART at a center in Zimbabwe, 32 blood samples were collected. Dideoxy-sequencing of gag-pol identified subtype and resistance mutations from plasma viral RNA and proviral DNA. Drug resistance was estimated using the calibrated population resistance tool on www.hivdb. stanford.edu database. Numerical resistance scores were calculated for all antiretroviral drugs and for the subjects' reported regimen. Phylogenetic analysis as maximum likelihood was performed to determine the evolutionary distance between sequences. RESULTS: Of the 25 patients, 4 patients (2 of which had given 2 blood samples) were not known to be on ART (NA) and had exclusively wild-type virus, 17 had received Protease inhibitors (PI), 18, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI) and 19, two or more nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI). Of the 17 with history of PI, 10 had PI mutations, 5 had minor differences between mutations in RNA and DNA. Eighteen samples had NNRTI mutations, six of which demonstrated some discordance between DNA and RNA mutations. Although NRTI resistance mutations were frequently different between analyses, mutations resulted in very similar estimated phenotypes as measured by resistance scores. The numerical resistance scores from RNA and DNA for PIs differed between 2/10, for NNRTIs between 8/18, and for NRTIs between 17/32 pairs. When calculated resistance scores were collapsed, 3 pairs showed discordance between RNA and DNA for at least one PI, 6 were discordant for at least one NNRTI and 11 for at least one NRTI. Regarding phylogenetic evolutionary analysis, all RNA and DNA sequence pairs clustered closely in a maximum likelihood tree. CONCLUSION: PBMC DNA could be useful for testing drug resistance in conjunction with plasma RNA where the results of each yielded complementary information about drug resistance. Identification of DRM, archived in proviral DNA, could be used to provide for sustainable public health surveillance among subtype C infected patients.
Effect of proposed CO2 emission reduction scenarios on capital expenditure

The International Maritime Organisation is currently working on establishing regulations for international shipping regarding greenhouse gas emissions, and a cost-effectiveness approach has been suggested as one method for determining the necessary reductions in emissions from shipping. Previous studies have investigated the CO2 emission reduction potential for the world shipping fleet up to 2030 and the associated marginal abatement cost levels. To analyse the cost implications of different emission reduction scenarios, this study has calculated the emission reduction potential and additional capital expenditure for 25 CO2 emission reduction measures applied to 59 ship segments. The expected fleet development over time, keeping track of new ships built from 2010 to 2030 and Existing ships built prior to 2010 and still in operation by 2030, have been modelled. Two alternative approaches to find the cost-effective potential in the world shipping fleet have been applied. One approach is to implement only measures which in themselves are cost-effective (measure-by-measure), and another approach is to implement measures as long as the net savings from cost-effective measures balance the costs of non-cost-effective measures (set of measures). The results demonstrate that by 2030, the majority (93%) of the reduction potential will be related to new ships. Our results show that the measure-by-measure approach would decrease the CO2 emissions by 30% for new ships while the set-of-measures approach with 53% (of the 2030 baseline emissions of 1316 Mt). The implication of achieving such emission reduction is an increase in the capital expenditure on New ships by 6% (USD 183 billion) and 27% (USD 761 billion), respectively, in the period 2010 to 2030 compared to a business-as-usual scenario. The measure-by-measure approach yields a 5% decrease in CO2 emission per 1% increase in capital expenditure, while the set-of-measures approach yields a 2% decrease per 1% increase. This is due to the significant variation in capital intensity of the different measures, ranging from almost zero to USD 200 per tonne of CO2 averted. The results of this study are useful for the shipping industry to assess the economic burden that must be shouldered in order to implement abatement measures under different CO2 emission reduction scenarios.
The Financial Crisis of 2007–9 and the British Experience

This paper traces the course of the international financial crisis from its outbreak in mid 2007 to the easing of financial turmoil in May 2009, based on the British experience. The crisis resulted from excessive risk-taking following a prolonged period of macroeconomic stability, combined with financial innovation. Problems arose initially with rising defaults in the US market for subprime mortgages, which induced a breakdown in the market for asset backed securities in mid-2007. The drying up of the money market threatened the liquidity of several UK banks, notably Northern Rock, while falling asset prices undermined their solvency. A critical point was reached when Lehman Brothers failed in September 2008. This event confirmed that the world faced a systemic financial crisis. Fortunately monetary and fiscal authorities took vigorous action to stem the crisis and as a result some confidence has been restored in ailing banks. This has not prevented a sharp decline in economic activity and a persistent shortage of credit.