Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Est in aqua dulci non invidiosa voluptas in Pure Water There is a Pleasure Begrudged by None: On Ownership, Accountability and Control in a Privatized Utility

Abstract We explore the proposition that the unitary board structure is defective, as a mechanism of effective corporate governance, in its application in the post-privatization British water industry. Specifically we explore the case of Yorkshire Water plc and a serious crisis that it faced as a result of a severe drought in the summer of 1995. Our contention is that whilst the water company continued to meet its commitment to raising shareholder value, it failed to meet the needs of other stakeholders, and not least its customers. Our analysis of this case is grounded in a discussion of the political-economy and critical accounting literatures relating to private versus public provision and privatization. Following this we outline the nature of governance by unitary board and then turn to Yorkshire Water’s crisis, its failure in service provision and its performance. Based upon this we then lay out the precursors to the crisis and review the role that the unitary board model played in its development. We conclude by proposing that the dual board model may be better suited to the management of the production of essential “public" goods, in order to protect the interests of all stakeholders.
Designing a binary controller to enhance end-to-end congestion control

Active queue management (AQM) is proposed to enhance end-to-end congestion control through purposefully dropping packets in the intermediate nodes. In this letter, a novel packet dropping mechanism is developed through designing a binary controller applying the robust control theory. The new mechanism can simplify the manipulation on the AQM router so as to be helpful for implementing the high performance router. The numerical simulation results show that the binary controller can satisfy with the technical requirements for AQM
Comparative Electrophysiologic and Hemodynamic Effects of Several Amide Local Anesthetic Drugs in Anesthetized Dogs

Large and equipotent doses of several local anesthetics were administered in a cardiac electrophysiologic model on closed-chest dogs. Five groups of pentobarbital-anesthetized dogs were each given intravenously 16 mg/kg lidocaine, 12 mg/kg mepivacaine, 4 mg/kg or 8 mg/kg etidocaine, and 4 mg/kg bupivacaine. Lidocaine induced bradycardia, slowing of atrioventricular node conduction (AH), and marked hemodynamic depression, represented by a decrease in mean aortic pressure (MAoP), in the peak of first derivative of left ventricular pressure (LVdP/dtmax) and by an increase in left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP). Atrial pacing at pacing cycle length (PCL) of 298 ms did not enhance the alteration of variables of ventricular conduction (His ventricle [HV] interval and QRS duration). Mepivacaine induced slight alteration of electrophysiologic variables. Atrial pacing at PCL of 312 ms did not enhance the alteration of HV and QRS duration. Mepivacaine induced transient hemodynamic depression. Etidocaine (4 mg/kg) induced electrophysiologic and hemodynamic alterations similar to mepivacaine but artrial pacing at PCL of 330 ms enhanced HV lengthening and QRS widening (P < 0.05). Etidocaine (8 mg/kg) induced marked impairment of PR, HV, QRS, and QTc and dramatic hemodynamic depression represented by a decrease in MAoP from 123.5 +/- 16.2 at baseline to 36.5 +/- 8.3 mm Hg at 1 min (P < 0.001) and of LVdP/dtmax from 1446 +/- 379 to 333 +/- 93 mm Hg/s (P < 0.001). Bupivacaine induced dramatic impairment of electrophysiologic variables. Bupivacaine also decreased LVdP/dtmax (from 1333 +/- 347 to 617 +/- 299, P < 0.001) and increased LVEDP. We conclude that mepivacaine induced moderate cardiotoxicity. In contrast, lidocaine induced dramatic hemodynamic depression while etidocaine and bupivacaine markedly impaired both electrophysiologic and hemodynamic variables. This double impairment could explain the great difficulty in resuscitating patients who have had cardiotoxic accidents induced by etidocaine or bupivacaine. (Anesth Analg 1996;82:648-56)
Linear Transceiver Design in Nonregenerative Relays With Channel State Information

This paper deals with the design of nonregenerative relaying transceivers in cooperative systems where channel state information (CSI) is available at the relay station. The conventional nonregenerative approach is the amplify and forward (A&F) approach, where the signal received at the relay is simply amplified and retransmitted. In this paper, we propose an alternative linear transceiver design for nonregenerative relaying (including pure relaying and the cooperative transmission cases), making proper use of CSI at the relay station. Specifically, we design the optimum linear filtering performed on the data to be forwarded at the relay. As optimization criteria, we have considered the maximization of mutual information (that provides an information rate for which reliable communication is possible) for a given available transmission power at the relay station. Three different levels of CSI can be considered at the relay station: only first hop channel information (between the source and relay); first hop channel and second hop channel (between relay and destination) information, or a third situation where the relay may have complete cooperative channel information including all the links: first and second hop channels and also the direct channel between source and destination. Despite the latter being a more unrealistic situation, since it requires the destination to inform the relay station about the direct channel, it is useful as an upper benchmark. In this paper, we consider the last two cases relating to CSI. We compare the performance so obtained with the performance for the conventional A&F approach, and also with the performance of regenerative relays and direct noncooperative transmission for two particular cases: narrowband multiple-input multiple-output transceivers and wideband single input single output orthogonal frequency division multiplex transmissions
Observation-projet: a professional tool for caregivers. Two experiences in Italian day-care settings

ABSTRACT Ability to reflect on practice is a key element of early childhood professionalism and is positively associated with the quality of educational services. Observation-Projet (Fontaine 2008, 2011b) is a method designed to support practitioners’ reflection through the observational process. The method adapts the required scientific procedures to the concrete demands faced by practitioners in their everyday activities. The article presents the results of two projects developed to teach the practitioners the use of Observation-Projet. The principal aim of Study 1 was to explore how the space was currently used by the children and to intervene on adults’ position to enhance children's use of space. In Study 2, the caregivers chose to focus on the organisation of afternoon activities, a time of the day identified as difficult to manage, reducing the number of children per play group and better organising the type of activities offered to children. The results confirm both the intervention efficacy and the Observation-Projet effectiveness as an instrument for reflecting and intervening on educational contexts.
1‐Density operators and algebraic version of the Hohenberg–Kohn theorem

Interrelation of the Coleman's representabilty theory for 1-density operators and abstract algebraic form of the Hohenberg–Kohn (HK) theorem is studied in detail. Convenient realization of the HK set of classes of 1-electron operators and the Coleman's set of ensemble representable 1-density operators is presented. Dependence of the HK class structure on the boundary properties of the ground-state 1-density operator is established and is illustrated on concrete simple examples. An algorithm of restoration of many electron determinant ensembles from a given 1-density diagonal is described. A complete description of the combinatorial structure of Coleman's polyhedrons is obtained. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2007
When are elections with few candidates hard to manipulate?

In multiagent settings where the agents have different preferences, preference aggregation is a central issue. Voting is a general method for preference aggregation, but seminal results have shown that all general voting protocols are manipulable. One could try to avoid manipulation by using protocols where determining a beneficial manipulation is hard. Especially among computational agents, it is reasonable to measure this hardness by computational complexity. Some earlier work has been done in this area, but it was assumed that the number of voters and candidates is unbounded. Such hardness results lose relevance when the number of candidates is small, because manipulation algorithms that are exponential only in the number of candidates (and only slightly so) might be available. We give such an algorithm for an individual agent to manipulate the Single Transferable Vote (STV) protocol, which has been shown hard to manipulate in the above sense. This motivates the core of this article, which derives hardness results for realistic elections where the number of candidates is a small constant (but the number of voters can be large). The main manipulation question we study is that of coalitional manipulation by weighted voters. (We show that for simpler manipulation problems, manipulation cannot be hard with few candidates.) We study both constructive manipulation (making a given candidate win) and destructive manipulation (making a given candidate not win). We characterize the exact number of candidates for which manipulation becomes hard for the plurality, Borda, STV, Copeland, maximin, veto, plurality with runoff, regular cup, and randomized cup protocols. We also show that hardness of manipulation in this setting implies hardness of manipulation by an individual in unweighted settings when there is uncertainty about the others' votes (but not vice-versa). To our knowledge, these are the first results on the hardness of manipulation when there is uncertainty about the others' votes.
Personalização de Notícias - Uma edição de jornal para cada leitor

A recomendacao de noticias, segundo o interesse e as preferencias de cada leitor, pode ser uma importante vantagem competitiva para as empresas de comunicacao. Este artigo tem por objetivo demonstrar a importância da personalizacao de noticias, bem como fazer uma introducao aos sistemas de recomendacao, utilizados por empresas inovadoras para apresentar produtos e servicos que melhor se adaptam ao perfil individual de seus consumidores e/ou usuarios
Higher Order Logic Mechanization of the CSP Failure-Divergence Semantics

concurrency, formal verification, higher orderlogic,process algebra, theorem prover Reasoning using process algebra often involves doing complex proofs and computer-based support to facilitate the task is therefore desirable. In this paper we show how a general purpose theorem prover based on higher order logic provides a natural framework for mechanizing the process algebra CSP. This is done by defining the semantics of the CSP operators in the logic and proving the high-level algebraic laws from the definitions as theorems. We mechanize a variation on the failure-divergence semantics. Our approach abstracts further from the explicit use of alphabets by modeling them as type variables. The result is a mechanized theory for a polymorphic formalization of CSP.
Land system mapping using landsat multispectral scanner imagery in the Willandra lakes region of western New South Wales

SUMMARY Satellite imagery provides a cost effective method of mapping distinctive assemblages of landforms, soils and vegetation over large areas, especially where access is poor. This study reports on an evaluation of supervised and unsupervised techniques of classifying Landsat reflectance information in the Wiilandra Lakes World Heritage region. The accuracy of mapping derived from Landsat information compares very favourably with land systems mapping on the ground.
Moment method analysis of probe-fed rectangular dielectric resonator antennas with a rigorous source modeling and finite ground plane

A probe-fed rectangular dielectric resonator antenna on a finite ground plane using method of moment is analyzed in this work. The exact structure of coaxial cable as a source for the antenna is modeled. The antenna, coaxial cable and ground plane are modeled as surface electric currents, but the dielectric resonator and internal dielectric of coaxial cable are modeled as volume polarization currents. The dielectric resonator (DR) is treated as a set of combined field integral equations. The associated coupling is then formulated with sets of mixed potential integral equations (MPIE). The coupled integral equations are solved by the method of moments (MoM) in the spatial domain. The effects of probe length and some other parameters on resonance frequency, input impedance and current of each object are investigated. Finally, we demonstrate some important conceptual issues in analyzing RDRAs. Our methods and results obtained from the MoM have a close agreement with measurements and are more accurate and faster than simulated results using other existing softwares such as HFSS.
Bundling Processes Between Private and Public Organizations: A Qualitative Study

Businesses are aching under the burdens entailed by public reporting duties while public administrations are faced with rising cost pressures. Fostered by the diffusion and maturation of information technology, businesses put forth growing demands in regard to the quality, integration and usability of public services. An effective means of meeting these challenges is through the identification and bundling of processes caused by reporting duties. Incorporating corresponding concepts from the business sector, to the authors develop an approach for process bundling tailored to public organizations. The authors demonstrate the approach on waste management reporting duties. This paper provides guidance for practitioners striving to optimize information flows and reduce redundancies within B2G contacts. As a result, both public administrations and businesses benefit from a more straightforward and cost-efficient provision of public services.
Toward a Theory of Relational Accountability: An Invitational Approach to Living Narrative Ethics in Couple Relationships

Thomas Stone Carlson is a professor and program coordinator in the Couple and Family Therapy Doctoral Program at North Dakota State University. He has been applying narrative ideas in his therapy and teaching for many years and particularly enjoys exploring new and creative ways to apply narrative ideas in his therapy and supervision practices. Amanda Haire is in private practice in Fargo, ND, USA and is an instructor in the Couple and Family Therapy Program at North Dakota State University. Amanda regularly uses narrative philosophy, ethics and ideas in her work with the people who consult her. She especially enjoys situating all of her teaching and supervision in a narrative ethics regardless of the course content.
Phonation differences and the phonetic content of the tense-lax contrast in Utah English

ABSTRACT This article presents data bearing on the question of what happens at the phonetic level during a sound change of the type which Labov, Yaeger, and Steiner (1972) labeled an “apparent merger. ” Our production data come from three generations of native Utahns who participated in the Intermountain Language Survey (ImLS) and four New Yorkers who served as control subjects. The phonetic subject of our study is the ongoing change in the tense-lax pairs /i-I, e-ε, u-υ/ before tautosyllabic dark [†] in Utah English. Previous studies reported that the resultant vowels are usually, but not always, perceived by both transcribers and speakers as lax. Acoustic analysis, self-categorization data, and perception data demonstrate that, after the usual F1/F2 contrast has been lost, contrasts between these and lax vowels may persist in phonation differences and that these phonation differences may be available to hearers.
CIST System for CL-SciSumm 2016 Shared Task

This paper introduces the methods and experiments applied in CIST system participating in the CL-SciSumm 2016 Shared Task at BIRNDL 2016. We have participated in the TAC 2014 Biomedical Summarization Track, so we develop the system based on previous work. This time the domain is Computational Linguistics (CL). The training corpus contains 20 topics from Training-Set-2016 and Development-Set-Apr8 published by CL-SciSumm 2016. As to Task 1A and 1B, we mainly use rule-based methods with various features of lexicons and similarities; meanwhile we also have tried the machine learning method of SVM. As to Task 2, hLDA topic model is adopted for content modeling, which provides us knowledge about sentence clustering (subtopic) and word distributions (abstractiveness) for summarization. We then combine hLDA knowledge with several other classical features using different weights and proportions to evaluate the sentences in the Reference Paper from its cited text spans. Finally we extract the representative sentences to generate a summary within 250 words.
Effects of a cooling collar on affect, ratings of perceived exertion, and running performance in the heat

Abstract During prolonged exercise, ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) and affect (pleasure; activation) play an important role in performance, especially in hot conditions. Although various mechanisms have been tried to manage the effects of heat (e.g. cooling jackets), the purpose of the current research was to assess the effect of a cooling collar on RPE, affect, thermal sensation, and running performance in the heat. Participants (n =8) wore a cold collar, uncooled collar or no collar as they completed three 90-min preloaded treadmill time-trials in the heat (30.5±0.1°C), which included 75 min at ∼60% [Vdot]O2max followed by a 15-min time-trial. Affect, RPE, and thermal sensation were measured throughout. Performance during the time-trial was significantly improved in the cold collar compared with the uncooled collar and no-collar trials; however, pleasure and activation ratings were highest for the no-collar trial. Findings suggest that a cooling collar may improve performance, but not necessarily “feel good”. Practically, it seems necessary to ensure sufficient education about the benefits, on balance, of the cold collar, while the performance improvements outweighed the reported discomfort of athletes in this study. In addition, the cold collar may prove quite beneficial for individuals who work in hot climates and or conditions, as it may be effective in minimizing discomfort associated with heat for other groups as well.
Tumor hypoxia and reoxygenation: the yin and yang for radiotherapy

Tumor hypoxia, a common feature occurring in nearly all human solid tumors is a major contributing factor for failures of anticancer therapies. Because ionizing radiation depends heavily on the presence of molecular oxygen to produce cytotoxic effect, the negative impact of tumor hypoxia had long been recognized. In this review, we will highlight some of the past attempts to overcome tumor hypoxia including hypoxic radiosensitizers and hypoxia-selective cytotoxin. Although they were (still are) a very clever idea, they lacked clinical efficacy largely because of ‘reoxygenation’ phenomenon occurring in the conventional low dose hyperfractionation radiotherapy prevented proper activation of these compounds. Recent meta-analysis and imaging studies do however indicate that there may be a significant clinical benefit in lowering the locoregional failures by using these compounds. Latest technological advancement in radiotherapy has allowed to deliver high doses of radiation conformally to the tumor volume. Although this technology has brought superb clinical responses for many types of cancer, recent modeling studies have predicted that tumor hypoxia is even more serious because ‘reoxygenation’ is low thereby leaving a large portion of hypoxic tumor cells behind. Wouldn’t it be then reasonable to combine hypoxic radiosensitizers and/or hypoxia-selective cytotoxin with the latest radiotherapy? We will provide some preclinical and clinical evidence to support this idea hoping to revamp an enthusiasm for hypoxic radiosensitizers or hypoxia-selective cytotoxins as an adjunct therapy for radiotherapy.
The effect of changes in hospital reimbursement on nurse staffing decisions at safety net and nonsafety net hospitals.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE The financial savings from the Balanced Budget Act (BBA) are attractive to policy makers, but such savings come at a cost. We measure changes in nurse staffing at hospitals related to potential declines in reimbursement through the BBA. STUDY DESIGN Following Hadley, Zuckerman, and Feder (1989), we define a fiscal pressure index (FPI) to measure the differential effect of the BBA. We estimate the effect of the FPI on the number of full-time equivalent registered nurses (RN) and licensed practical nurses (LPN) per adjusted patient day using American Hospital Association (AHA) data of a panel of hospitals from 1996 to 2001. The AHA data are combined with the Area Resource Files and health maintenance organizations penetration data. We control for hospital heterogeneity using fixed effects. POPULATION STUDIED All urban short-term general hospitals that responded to the staffing and uncompensated care questions in the AHA survey between 1996 and 2001. We define safety net hospitals as those with a high ratio of uncompensated costs to total hospital expenses (see, e.g., Zuckerman et al. 2001). PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We find that the nonsafety net hospitals that were most susceptible to the provisions of the BBA experienced a decline in RN staffing ratios about twice the rate of the nonsafety net hospitals that were least susceptible to the BBA. We are unable to detect an effect of the BBA on staffing at safety net hospitals. CONCLUSIONS RN and LPN staffing levels per adjusted patient day declined, on average, between 1996 and 2001. Within the context of the general decline, we find that RN staffing per adjusted patient day declined even more at nonsafety net hospitals that were most susceptible to lower reimbursement related to the BBA. Thus, there was a small but statistically significant incremental effect of potential BBA losses on RN staffing at hospitals that were expected to be affected most. This incremental decline represented about a 6 percent increase in nurse workload that in isolation might not affect quality. Nevertheless, the BBA contributed to the contemporaneous trends toward higher nurse workloads that could have deleterious effects on quality. In contrast, safety net hospitals did not respond to the provisions of the BBA by reducing staffing ratios. This conclusion is tempered by the fact that we have few safety net hospitals in the sample.