Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
International Organisations and Peace Enforcement: The Politics of International Legitimacy

1. Introduction 2. States, international organisations, and legitimacy: a theoretical framework 3. Peace enforcement through sub-regional organisations: the economic community of West African states and operation liberty in Liberia 4. Peace enforcement through sub-regional organisations: the Southern African development community and operation sovereign legitimacy in the democratic Republic of Congo 5. Peace enforcement through sub-regional organisations: the Southern African development community and operation boleas in Lesotho 6. Peace enforcement through a military alliance: the north atlantic treaty organization and operation allied force in Kosovo 7. Peace enforcement through a global organisation: the United Nations and INTERFET in East Timor Epilogue: UN intervention in Lebanon.
An Unobserved Components Model of the Monetary Transmission Mechanism in a Small Open Economy

This paper develops and estimates an unobserved components model for purposes of monetary policy analysis and inflation targeting in a small open economy. Cyclical components are modeled as a multivariate linear rational expectations model of the monetary transmission mechanism, while trend components are modeled as unobserved components while ensuring the existence of a well defined balanced growth path. Full information maximum likelihood estimation of this unobserved components model, conditional on prior information concerning the values of trend components, provides a quantitative description of the monetary transmission mechanism in a small open economy, yields a mutually consistent set of indicators of inflationary pressure together with confidence intervals, and facilitates the generation of relatively accurate forecasts.
Nerve Growth Factor Contribution via Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 1 to Ectopic Orofacial Pain

It is well known that oral inflammation causes tenderness in temporomandibular joints or masseter muscles. The exact mechanism of such an orofacial ectopic hyperalgesia remains unclear. Here, we investigated the functional significance of interaction of nerve growth factor (NGF) and transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) in relation to heat hyperalgesia in the whisker pad skin caused by complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) injection into the lower lip. CFA injection induced heat hyperalgesia of the ipsilateral whisker pad skin. Moreover, it leads to enhancement of spontaneous activity and heat responses in trigeminal ganglion (TG) neurons that was elicited by heat stimulation of the whisker pad skin. The heat hyperalgesia was dose-dependently reversed by intraperitoneal TRPV1 antagonist administration, also diminished by neutralizing anti-NGF antibody administration into the lower lip and intraganglionic administration of K252a, a tyrosine kinase receptor inhibitor. Nerve fibers in bundle of mandibular nerve and TG neurons that innervates the whisker pad skin and lower lip both expressed labeled NGF, which was administrated into the lower lip. Moreover, the NGF concentrations in ophthalmic-maxillary and mandibular divisions of the TG increased after CFA injection into the lower lip. The number of TRPV1-positive neurons that innervates the whisker pad skin and lower lip was increased after CFA injection into the lower lip, and this increase was annulled by anti-NGF administration. The present findings suggest that inflammation in the lower lip induces release of NGF that regulates TRPV1 expression in TG neurons. This TRPV1 overexpression may underlie ectopic heat hyperalgesia in the whisker pad skin.
Cognitive Disturbances in Sneddon and Antiphospholipid Syndromes

Sneddon’s syndrome is a rare disease defined by generalised livedo racemosa of the skin and recurrent stroke. It was first described in a patient in 1960 by Champion and Rook (Champion and Rook, 1960), and five years later Sneddon IB suggested the association of livedo and stroke in six new cases (Sneddon, 1965). Sneddon’s syndrome may be differentiated according to the presence or absence of circulating antiphospholipid (aPL) antibodies: aPL-positive Sneddon’s syndrome and aPL-negative or seronegative Sneddon’s syndrome (Ulukaya et al, 2008). Approximately 40% of Sneddon’s syndrome patients have aPL antibodies, raising the question of whether Sneddon’s syndrome overlaps with primary antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS) and systemic lupus erythromatosis (SLE) (Geschwind et al, 1995). APS or Hughes syndrome is a systemic autoimmune disease consisting of thrombosis (venous and/or arterial) and/or pregnancy failure in association with persistent production of aPL antibodies (aPL): anticardiolipin antibodies (aCL) of immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgM class, lupus anticoagulant (LA) causing prolongation of activated partial thromboplastin time, and/or B2 glycoprotein I antibodies of IgG and IgM class. Although there are overlapping manifestations between Sneddon’s syndrome and APS, namely livedo and recurrent thrombotic events, their relationship remains controversial (Frances et al, 1999). Some authors consider aPL-positive Sneddon’s syndrome as a primary APS while others support the idea that aPL antibodies are involved in the pathogenesis of Sneddon’s syndrome (Fetoni et al, 2000; Hannon et al, 2010; Kalashnikova et al, 1990; Luvisotto Marinho et al, 2007; Sumi et al, 1999). In this article, we will review the clinical and neuropsychological features of Sneddon’s syndrome and APS and focus on the seronegative Sneddon’s syndrome although the majority of the published data does not make a distinction between seronegative and aPLpositive Sneddon’s syndrome.
A GPS Based IP Dynamic Configuration Approach in Mobile Ad Hoc Network

Address dynamic configuration in the IP-based network is often accomplished by the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP), however, the mobility of mobile ad hoc network (MANET) nodes always involve unpredictable topology changes. Previous works on IP address in ad hoc network assumes that all the address is configured statically by the centralized administration. However, as with the rapid development of wireless network, there are not enough IP addresses available to identify each individual user. DHCP can not be utilized in a mobile ad hoc network due to the lack of any centralized DHCP server in distributed dynamic environment. There are also two typical enhanced solutions for dynamic host configurations, i.e., MANETConf and Quorum approaches. Consider the information of geographical position that from a GPS, we proposed a simplified configuration protocol to reduce controlling overhead and the associate traffic loss during handover period. Extensive environments are implemented comparing the performance of the three approaches. The results shown that the GPS based configuration is more efficient than the traditional methods.
Tight Bounds for Approximate Carathéodory and Beyond

We give a deterministic nearly-linear time algorithm for approximating any point inside a convex polytope with a sparse convex combination of the polytope's vertices. Our result provides a constructive proof for the Approximate Carath\'{e}odory Problem, which states that any point inside a polytope contained in the $\ell_p$ ball of radius $D$ can be approximated to within $\epsilon$ in $\ell_p$ norm by a convex combination of only $O\left(D^2 p/\epsilon^2\right)$ vertices of the polytope for $p \geq 2$. We also show that this bound is tight, using an argument based on anti-concentration for the binomial distribution. Along the way of establishing the upper bound, we develop a technique for minimizing norms over convex sets with complicated geometry; this is achieved by running Mirror Descent on a dual convex function obtained via Sion's Theorem. As simple extensions of our method, we then provide new algorithms for submodular function minimization and SVM training. For submodular function minimization we obtain a simplification and (provable) speed-up over Wolfe's algorithm, the method commonly found to be the fastest in practice. For SVM training, we obtain $O(1/\epsilon^2)$ convergence for arbitrary kernels; each iteration only requires matrix-vector operations involving the kernel matrix, so we overcome the obstacle of having to explicitly store the kernel or compute its Cholesky factorization.
Freeze-out and coagulation in pre-protostellar collapse

We study the changes in physical and chemical conditions during the early stages of collapse of a pre–protostellar core, starting from initial conditions appropriate to a dense molecular cloud and proceeding to the “completely depleted” limit. We allow for molecular desorption from the grain surfaces and follow the evolution of the ionization degree and the ionic composition as functions of time and density. The timescale for collapse is treated as a parameter and taken equal to either the free–fall or the ambipolar diﬀusion time. The processes of freeze–out on to the dust grains and of coagulation of the grains were treated simultaneously with the chemical evolution of the medium in the course of its collapse. When proceeding at close to its maximum rate, coagulation has important consequences for the degree of ionization and the ionic composition of the medium, but its eﬀect on the freeze–out of the neutral species is modest. An innovation of our study is to calculate the grain charge distribution; this is done in parallel with the chemistry and the dynamics. The grain charge distribution is signiﬁcant because H + ions recombine predominantly on the surfaces of negatively charged grains. We have also attempted to reproduce with our models the observational result that nitrogen–containing species, such as NH 3 and N 2 H + , remain in the gas phase at densities for which CO and other C–containing molecules appear to have frozen on to grain surfaces. We conclude that recent measurements of the adsorption energies of N 2 and CO invalidate the interpretation of these observations in terms of the relative volatilities of N 2 and CO. We consider an alternative explanation, in terms of low sticking coeﬃcients for either molecular or atomic N; but this hypothesis requires experimental conﬁrmation. We ﬁnd that, irrespective of the nitrogen chemistry, the main gas phase ion is either H + or H +3 (and its deuterated isotopes) at densities above 10 5 cm − 3 ; whether H + or H +3 predominates depends sensitively on the rate of increase in grain size (decrease in grain surface area per unit volume of gas) during core contraction. Our calculations show that H + will predominate if grain coagulation proceeds at close to its maximum rate, and H + 3 otherwise.
Factors Contributing to Preferential Motor Reinnervation in the Primate Peripheral Nervous System

Functional recovery after nerve lesions in the peripheral nervous system requires the accurate regeneration of axons to their original target end organs. This paper examines axonal regeneration of the primate median nerve lesioned at the wrist over nerve gap distances of up to 50 mm. Nerve gaps were bridged by either a sural nerve graft or a biodegradable collagen nerve guide tube, and recovery was followed for up to 1100 d. Nondestructive physiological methods were used to serially examine the number of regenerated motor units, and binomial statistics were used to compare the observed number of regenerated motor units with that expected if axonal regeneration of motor neurons were random. We found up to twice the number of motor units expected by random regeneration in direct suture and sural cable graft groups but not in nerve guide repairs of 20 or 50 mm. In all repaired nerves, aberrant motor axon collaterals were detected in digital sensory nerve territory. The results support the contention that the aberrant fibers represent collaterals of an α-motor axon, which also innervates muscle. Although the aberrant motor axon collaterals remained in digital sensory nerve territory for long periods, they remained relatively immature compared with their sibling collateral projecting to muscle, or sensory axons within the digital nerve. The number of such aberrant motor axon collaterals decreased over time in some repair groups, suggesting a selective pruning of the inappropriate collateral under certain conditions.
High precision opinion retrieval using sentiment-relevance flows

Opinion retrieval involves the measuring of opinion score of a document about the given topic. We propose a new method, namely sentiment-relevance flow, that naturally unifies the topic relevance and the opinionated nature of a document. Experiments conducted over a large-scaled Web corpus show that the proposed approach improves performance of opinion retrieval in terms of precision at top ranks.
E-002 Incentives in Academics : Collaboration under Weak Complementarities March 31 , 2005

【キーワード】Collaboration; Complementarities; Incentives; Contracts; Peer sanction. 【要約】This paper considers a contracting relationship with multiple agents in a repeated setting under voluntary team formation. In each period, an opportunity to collaborate arrives stochastically but whether this opportunity has arrived is the agents' private information. The principal thus cannot simply tell them when to collaborate; she must instead guide them through incentives. In this situation, there may arise an incentive for the principal to encourage collaboration in the repeated setting as it allows her to exploit the agents' ability to monitor each other. We then argue that low-powered incentives offered for non-collaborative works, as often observed in our profession, can be seen as an important part of optimal incentive schemes in an attempt to endogenously raise the cost of shirking. We also show that this type of compensation scheme is socially inefficient and detrimental to the agents when the discount factor is near unity.
Regression Testing For Grammar-Based Systems

In complex grammars, even small changes may have an unforeseeable impact on overall system performance. As grammar based systems are increasingly deployed for industrial and other large-scale applications, it is imperative to have systematic regression testing in place. Systematic testing in grammar-based systems serves several purposes. It helps developers to track progress, and to recognize and correct shortcomings in linguistics rules sets. It is also an essential tool for assessing overall system status in terms of task and runtime performance. This paper describes best practices in two closely related regression testing frameworks used in grammar-based systems: MedSLT, a spoken language translation system based on the Regulus platform, and a search and question answering system based on PARC’s XLE syntax-semantics parser.
Design and application of condition monitoring system for wind turbines

Condition monitoring system is pivotal for a wind farm to maximize the availability and economic efficiency of its wind turbines. This paper offers state-of-the-art condition monitoring systems to observe the current status of a wind turbine and to send out embryonic alarm signals before its fault. The developed system is mainly made up of four components: a data acquisition system, a signal processing system, a server PC with a user program and a variety of sensors. This system was installed in Yeung-Heung wind farm test bed, Korea last summer. This system is also expected to be applied into offshore wind turbines in the future.
Unequal Pay or Unequal Employment? A Cross‐Country Analysis of Gender Gaps

We analyze gender wage gaps correcting for sample selection induced by nonemployment. We recover wages for the nonemployed using alternative imputation techniques, simply requiring assumptions on the position of imputed wages with respect to the median. We obtain higher median wage gaps on imputed rather than actual wage distributions for several OECD countries. However, this difference is small in the United States, the United Kingdom, and most central and northern EU countries and becomes sizable in southern EU countries, where gender employment gaps are high. Selection correction explains nearly half of the observed negative correlation between wage and employment gaps.
Texture Synthesis Based on Terrain Feature Recognition

This paper presents a fast texture synthesis method for the terrain model based on recognition of the terrain features. In this method, two algorithms have been proposed. One is the extraction algorithm of terrain profile feature based on a hierarchical structure. The advantage is that the feature lines of terrain can be presented directly into a tree structure. Other is the synthesis algorithm of texture based on feature mask. According to the profile feature, a texture feature mask can be produced so as to map directly the synthesized texture on the 3D terrain model. Finally, some experiments have been conducted on the various benchmark data, which shows that our method is very efficient, and the synthesized texture is integrated well with the real time terrain model.
Improved duration modeling of English phonemes using a root sinusoidal transformation

Over the past few years, the \sums-of-products" approach has emerged as one of the most promising avenues to account for contextual inﬂuences on phoneme duration. This approach is generally applied after log-transforming the durations. This paper presents empirical and theoretical evidence which suggests that this transformation is not optimal. A promising alternative solution is proposed, based on a root sinusoidal function. Preliminary experimental re-sults obtained on over 50,000 phonemes in varied prosodic contexts show that this transformation reduces the unexplained deviations in the data by 32.2%
Supply chain management and Learning Organization: a merging of literatures

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the potential of applying the concept of the Learning Organization to the understanding of, and potentially the assessment of, an organization's supply chain collaboration capability. Collaborative supply chain management (SCM) literature was transposed against that of the literature of the Learning Organization to investigate overlapping themes to explore benefits of applying the framework of the Learning Organization to SCM. Design/methodology/approach – The author conducted an in-depth review of the collaborative SCM and Learning Organization literature. This allowed for a comparative analysis of the literature and identification of the extent of common themes. Themes were identified, future research questions were posed and implications were delineated. Findings – Findings indicate multiple themes in common between collaborative SCM and the Learning Organization. This serves as support for the suggestion to approach SCM with the framework of the Learning Organizati.
Nonlinear decoding based on perturbation codebook for precoded spatial multiplexing MIMO OFDM systems

Considering the problem of feedback cost and performance loss for precoded spatial multiplexing MIMO OFDM with limited feedback, an improved nonlinear detection method based on perturbation codebook with limited feedback for precoded vblast is proposed, the corresponding criteria is used for select optimal codeword from the Grassmannian codebook at the receiving according to the channel state information, selecting optimal perturbation codeword, and feedback the Grassmannian precoding word index and perturbation codeword to the transmitter, thereby forming the equivalent channel. At the receiving, recycle and successive mapping from the entire space of constellation points as the first the underlying detection signals at the receiver, in order to maximize the performance of first detection layer, and then using the traditional detection algorithm for the remaining received signal, and determine a set of the optimal detection signal as decoding result based on the maximum likelihood criterion. Simulation results show that the proposed method to ensure system throughput, the cost of the feedback link and BER performance are improved some extent.
Neutralization of Osteopontin Inhibits Obesity-Induced Inflammation and Insulin Resistance

OBJECTIVE Obesity is associated with a state of chronic low-grade inflammation mediated by immune cells that are primarily located to adipose tissue and liver. The chronic inflammatory response appears to underlie obesity-induced metabolic deterioration including insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Osteopontin (OPN) is an inflammatory cytokine, the expression of which is strongly upregulated in adipose tissue and liver upon obesity. Here, we studied OPN effects in obesity-induced inflammation and insulin resistance by targeting OPN action in vivo. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS C57BL/6J mice were fed a high-fat diet to induce obesity and were then intravenously treated with an OPN-neutralizing or control antibody. Insulin sensitivity and inflammatory alterations in adipose tissue and liver were assessed. RESULTS Interference with OPN action by a neutralizing antibody for 5 days significantly improved insulin sensitivity in diet-induced obese mice. Anti-OPN treatment attenuated liver and adipose tissue macrophage infiltration and inflammatory gene expression by increasing macrophage apoptosis and significantly reducing c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase activation. Moreover, we report OPN as a novel negative regulator for the activation of hepatic signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), which is essential for glucose homeostasis and insulin sensitivity. Consequently, OPN neutralization decreased expression of hepatic gluconeogenic markers, which are targets of STAT3-mediated downregulation. CONCLUSIONS These findings demonstrate that antibody-mediated neutralization of OPN action significantly reduces insulin resistance in obesity. OPN neutralization partially decreases obesity-associated inflammation in adipose tissue and liver and reverses signal transduction related to insulin resistance and glucose homeostasis. Hence, targeting OPN could provide a novel approach for the treatment of obesity-related metabolic disorders.
On the trail of the `new head' in Les Treilles

The vertebrate brain develops in association with neighboring tissues: neural crest, placodes, mesoderm and endoderm. The molecular and evolutionary relationships between the forming nervous system and the other craniofacial structures were at the focus of a recent meeting at the Fondation des Treilles in France. Entitled `Relationships between Craniofacial and Neural Development', the meeting brought together researchers working on diverse species, the findings of whom provide clues as to the origin and diversity of the brain and facial regions that are involved in forming the `new head' of vertebrates.
Solving Pseudomonotone Variational Inequalities and Pseudoconvex Optimization Problems Using the Projection Neural Network

In recent years, a recurrent neural network called projection neural network was proposed for solving monotone variational inequalities and related convex optimization problems. In this paper, we show that the projection neural network can also be used to solve pseudomonotone variational inequalities and related pseudoconvex optimization problems. Under various pseudomonotonicity conditions and other conditions, the projection neural network is proved to be stable in the sense of Lyapunov and globally convergent, globally asymptotically stable, and globally exponentially stable. Since monotonicity is a special case of pseudomononicity, the projection neural network can be applied to solve a broader class of constrained optimization problems related to variational inequalities. Moreover, a new concept, called componentwise pseudomononicity, different from pseudomononicity in general, is introduced. Under this new concept, two stability results of the projection neural network for solving variational inequalities are also obtained. Finally, numerical examples show the effectiveness and performance of the projection neural network