Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Responding to Climate Change: Governance and Social Action beyond Kyoto

It has become an accepted wisdom within academic circles and policy discourse that climate change is a global problem in need of global solutions. More than a decade after the formation of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol was ratiaed by a sufacient number of states to come into effect in February 2005. Strenuous international negotiations have led to the development of important structures and processes to govern reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Many, however, consider the progress made as grindingly slow and, in the light of scientiac evidence about the rate of change in the global atmosphere and recommendations for the need to reduce emissions by at least 60 percent over the next afty years, inadequate. In the absence of more effective international action, and cognizant of the big task ahead, alternative attempts at climate change governance and social action have emerged. These approaches recognize that international agreements—if implemented—provide only a partial means through which the mitigation of climate change can be directed, and in turn are reliant on actions in a variety of arenas and at different scales to be effectively implemented. They also increasingly recognize the need to respond to and plan for the impacts of climate change, thus opening up new arenas and linkages between science and policy. This special issue of Global Environmental Politics seeks to move beyond the framework of the international political processes within which the climate change issue is frequently discussed to illuminate how climate protection is sought across a myriad of different sites. In seeking to understand responses to climate change, we are interested in “the processes that create the conditions for ordered rule and collective action within the political realm”1—that is those processes which take place within formalized arenas of government/governance
Factor Substitution and Factor-Augmenting Technical Progress in the United States: A Normalized Supply-Side System Approach

Using a normalized CES function with factor-augmenting technical progress, we estimate a supply-side system of the U.S. economy from 1953 to 1998. Avoiding potential estimation biases that may have occurred in earlier studies and putting a high emphasis on data consistency, we obtain robust results not only for the aggregate elasticity of substitution but also for the parameters of labor and capital augmenting technical change. We find that the elasticity of substitution is significantly below unity and that technical progress shows an asymmetrical pattern where the growth of labor-augmenting technical progress is exponential, while that of capital is hyperbolic or logarithmic.
Engines of Creationism? Intelligent Design, Machine Metaphors and Visual Rhetoric

Machine metaphors are ubiquitous in the molecular sciences. In addition to their use by scientists, educators and popularizers of science, they have been promoted intensively by the Intelligent Design (ID) movement in arguments for the necessity of a god-like designer to account for the complexities of life at the molecular level. The authors have investigated the visual rhetoric employed in a movie by ID proponents, with particular emphasis on machine metaphors. The authors provide examples and argue that science communicators could reduce the persuasive impact of ID visual rhetoric based on machine metaphors by emphasizing that self-assembly is fundamental to molecular complexes.
Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb

The central purpose of this article is to challenge conventional wisdom about nuclear proliferation. The author argues that the consensus view, focusing on national security considerations as the cause of proliferation, is dangerously inadequate because nuclear weapons programs also serve other, more parochial and less obvious objectives. Nuclear weapons, like other weapons, are more than tools of national security; they are political objects of considerable importance in domestic debates and internal bureaucratic struggles and can also serve as international normative symbols of modernity and identity. The body of this article examines three alternate theoretical frameworks - called {open_quotes}models{close_quotes} in the very informal sense of the term - about why states decide to build or refrain from developing nuclear weapons: {open_quotes}the security model,{close_quotes} according to which states build nuclear weapons to increase national security against foreign threats, especially nuclear threats; {open_quotes}the domestic politics model,{close_quotes} which envisions nuclear weapons as political tools used to advance parochial domestic and bureaucratic interests; and {open_quotes}the norms model,{close_quotes} under which nuclear weapons decisions are made because weapons acquisition, or restraint in weapons development, provides an important normative symbol of a state`s modernity and identity. Although many of the ideas underlying these models exist in the vastmore » case-study and proliferation-policy literatures, they have not been adequately analyzed, nor placed in a comparative theoretical framework, nor properly evaluated against empirical evidence. Models are compared to their theoretical conceptions of the causes of weapons development, present alternative interpretations of the history of some major proliferation decisions, and contrast the models` implications for nonproliferation policy. 71 refs.« less
How to Make Additional Time Matter: Integrating Individualized Tutorials into an Extended Day

Evidence on the effect of extending the school day is decidedly mixed because of the stark differences in how schools use additional time. In this paper, I focus narrowly on the effect of additional time used for individualized tutorials. In 2005, MATCH Charter Public High School integrated two hours of tutorials throughout an extended day. The unanticipated implementation of this initiative and the school's admissions lottery allow me to use two complementary quasi-experimental methods to estimate program effects. I find that providing students with daily tutorials that are integrated into the school day and taught by full-time, recent college graduates increased achievement on tenth-grade English language arts exams by 0.15–0.25 standard deviations per year. I find no average effect in mathematics beyond the large gains students were already achieving, although quantile regression estimates suggest the tutorials raised the lowest end of the achievement distribution in mathematics.
Un enfoque para la detección de anomalías en el tráfico de red usando imágenes y técnicas de computación de alto desempeño

La variedad y la complejidad del tráfico actual en Internet superan lo imaginado por los diseñadores de su arquitectura. Detectar posibles ataques en la red requiere contar con tecnologías para su clasificación, asociando flujos de datos con las aplicaciones que los generan. Uno de los desafíos actuales es trabajar con un conjunto de datos que crece a mayor velocidad que su capacidad de procesamiento. Utilizar y procesar imágenes para representar el tráfico de red a fin de detectar tráfico anómalo, tiene como ventajas no sólo contar con una herramienta de visualización de tráfico, sino también con las propiedades de las imágenes y su procesamiento: técnicas bien conocidas y naturaleza paralela de las computaciones. Este trabajo presenta la arquitectura de una herramienta eficiente para detectar anomalías en el tráfico de una red mediante un trabajo computacional sobre imágenes y aplicando técnicas de computación de alto desempeño, mostrando algunos resultados. Palabras claves: Tráfico de Red. Anomalías. Procesamiento de Imágenes. SIFT. Computación de Alto Desempeño. GPUs.
Productivity Spillovers from FDI in the People's Republic of China: A Nuanced View

Using panel data from the Chinese Industrial Surveys of Medium-sized and Large Firms for 2000–2006, we show that the presence and the magnitude of technological spillovers from FDI in the People's Republic of China are affected by the source of FDI, by the ownership type of a firm in consideration, as well as by industrial and provincial characteristics. Private firms are more likely to benefit from horizontal spillovers than other domestic firms, but are less likely to benefit from vertical ones. Presence of state-owned firms in the industry impedes technological spillovers in a way that is consistent with diversion of linkages from private to state-owned firms. Finally, horizontal spillovers are larger in industries that are more technologically sophisticated.
What are the Consequences of Being Disconnected in a Broadband-Connected World?

Abstract The evolution of the Internet in the past decade — from a slow, stationary, and primarily communications-based technology to a mobile, fast technology that supports a range of communication, participatory, and transactional applications — has made access more valuable, and disconnection more consequential, for individuals. This evolution means that stakeholders should embrace a different framing of the digital divide, focusing on the costs of digital exclusion. These costs can fall on an individual, if the Internet is the only way to carry out some tasks, and on society, if expensive and less-efficient legacy systems must be maintained to serve a shrinking minority without access. Whereas the digital divide debate concerns technology scarcity for certain population segments, addressing the costs of digital exclusion is about developing people's capacity to manage today's abundance of digital resources. This essay offers suggestions on a framework to develop tools that will enable individuals to take advantage of the affordances of broadband.
Gesture and Embodied Interaction: Capturing Motion / Data / Value

Gesture and Embodied Interaction is a five-month practice-led scoping project which explored motion capture development perspectives from artistic, technological and business innovation standpoints. It convened an interdisciplinary community from the arts, sciences and business studies, experienced in practice-driven collaborative research. Effort was focused on two prototyping workshops in Newcastle and Cambridge, bridged by an interim work session to optimize collaboration. A final creative industries seminar in Cambridge allowed debate with a wider stakeholder community. This paper provides an overview of our activities, findings and future directions.
The Principles of Distributed Innovation

Distributed innovation systems are an approach to organizing for innovation that seems to meet the challenge of accessing knowledge that resides outside the boundaries of any one organization. We provide an overview of distributed innovation systems that are achieving success in three different industries. We explore why people participate, the organizing principles of production, and the implications for intellectual property policy. Finally, the potential extensions and limitations of this alternative model of innovation are considered.
The Impact of Social Security Income on Cognitive Function at Older Ages

Prior literature has documented a positive association between income and cognitive function at older ages; however, the extent to which this association represents causal effects is unknown. In this study, we use an exogenous change in Social Security income due to amendments to the Social Security Act in the 1970s to identify the causal impact of Social Security income on cognitive function of elderly individuals. We find that higher benefits led to significant improvements in cognitive function and that these improvements in cognition were clinically meaningful. Our results suggest that interventions even at advanced ages can slow the rate of decline in cognitive function.
Inflation and the Distribution of Price Changes

This paper reconsiders the empirical evidence connecting inflation to its higher-order moments. In particular, we examine the statistical properties of the observed positive correlation between the sample mean and the sample cross-sectional skewness of price changes. This correlation has attracted substantial attention over the years and has recently been the focal point of a debate among macroeconomists. We show that the sample mean-skewness correlation suffers from a small-sample bias that accounts for the entirety of the observed correlation. In other words, we establish that one of the stylized facts in the literature on aggregate price behavior need not be a fact at all.
POP-Java : Parallélisme et distribution orienté objet

Cet article presente l'integration du modele de programmation POP pour "Parallel Object Programming", dans le langage de programmation Java. Le modele POP permet de creer des objets dans un environnement distribue et de les acceder d'une maniere parallele et transparente pour le programmeur. Ce travail se base sur les travaux deja faits dans POP-C++, une implementation du modele POP en C++. A travers un exemple concret, les performances et fonctionnalites de POP-Java sont presentees et validees.
Statewide Transfer Policies and Community College Student Success

One way administrators and policy makers have responded to the complexity of the community college transfer process has been to create articulation agreements between two-year and four-year colleges in a state or region. Our study examines the effects of one such statewide articulation and transfer policy, the Ohio transfer module (TM). This agreement is intended to allow individuals who successfully complete the TM at one institution to transfer all of these credits to a receiving institution. We find that students who complete the TM are more likely to transfer to a four-year institution and earn associate's degrees than observationally similar peers who did not complete a TM. We also find suggestive evidence that students who complete the TM are able to bring more credits with them when they transfer. However, students who complete the TM also take slightly longer to complete their bachelor's degrees. Thus, although the TM may improve the probability that students will transfer, it may be inefficient for students, leading them to spend more time enrolled in college. Moreover, because only a small number of students complete the TM, this policy may not be far-reaching enough to dramatically improve Ohio's community college transfer rate.
The Maker Movement

word “inventor”—most people just don’t identify themselves that way. “Maker,” on the other hand, describes each one of us, no matter how we live our lives or what our goals might be. We all are makers: as cooks preparing food for our families, as gardeners, as knitters. Although this view may not be part of mainstream thought, there once was a time when most Americans commonly thought of themselves as tinkerers. Tinkering used to be a basic skill, and you could get a little bit more out of life than the average person if you had good tinkering skills—if you could fix your own car, for example, or improve your home or make your own clothes. I think we lost some of that over the decades, but I also think it is coming back, for a lot of reasons. While people today may not treasure this ability out of the same sense of necessity as they once did, they are finding their lives enriched by creating something new and learning new skills. Make magazine, which I founded in 2005, harkens back to the magazines that hit their peak in the mid-20th century, like Popular Mechanics, which had the attitude, if it’s fun, why not do it? Such publications often helped people to start a hobby and learn new skills. Moreover, they helped the new hobbyist find a community of likeminded tinkerers to talk with about it. Maker Faire, which started in the Bay Area in 2006, a year after the magazine, expanded this idea of learning and community and created a space where readers of the magazine could get together to extend the conversation. At the Faire, a maker could put an object they created up on a table and have people ask them about it. Having that kind of conversation with a range of people is the essence of the magazine, of the Faires—and perhaps of the whole movement. The excitement of making things extends to kids as well. Many begin at a young age to explore and develop things they really care about, so we have made the Faires a family-oriented event that features many exhibits by younger makers. We also hold workshops and competitions for people of all ages. Since the first Maker Faire held in San Mateo, California, we have held Faires in Austin, Texas; Detroit, Michigan; and New York City. The most recent New York City event, the World Maker Faire, attracted over 100,000 attendees. In response to requests from fans, we have begun to hold mini-Maker Faires in cities around North America.
The Great Mexican Emigration

In this paper, we examine net emigration from Mexico over the period 1960 to 2000. The data are consistent with labor supply shocks having made a substantial contribution to Mexican emigration, accounting for two-fifths of Mexican labor flows to the United States over the last two decades of the twentieth century. Net emigration rates by Mexican state birth year cohort display a strong positive correlation with the initial size of the Mexican cohort relative to the corresponding U.S. cohort. In states with long histories of emigration, the effects of cohort size on emigration are relatively strong, consistent with the existence of preexisting networks.
Assessing the Costs of Adequacy in California Public Schools: A Cost Function Approach

In this study, a cost function is used to estimate the costs for California districts to meet the achievement goals set out for them by the state. I calculate estimates of base costs (i.e., per pupil costs in a district with relatively low levels of student need) and marginal costs (i.e., the additional costs associated with specific student characteristics) for poverty, English learners, and special education and then compare these estimates with the findings from cost studies in other states, which have used a variety of methods, and with other cost studies in California. Because of institutional constraints in California, the cost function estimate of total costs to achieve adequacy (which relies critically on the estimated relationship between spending and outcomes) may be quite imprecise. Nevertheless, the cost function estimates of base and marginal costs are not inconsistent with other studies, though they fall on the low end of the spectrum.
The Future of an Idea: 9 eveningsForty Years Later

Art and science are inextricably connected. Changing views of the manner in which nature operates bring about corresponding changes in art. If I imagine myself then as a composer in a situation where anything can be done, I imagine making a music a little different from the concerts of ambient sounds we nowadays hear wherever we are when we listen. I imagine this music as technically like my experience: wireless. I imagine all distinctions between art and life removed. Art would then have to do with the opening of ourselves to the world in which we live. From a typed letter from John Cage to Billy Kluver, dated June 31, 1965, and exhibited in 9 evenings reconsidered: art, theatre, and engineering, 1966
Affective Audio

ABSTRACT The authors discuss their interdisciplinary research, which investigates the use of affective computing technologies in the context of music, audiovisual artworks and video games. One current project involves the expansion of mobile sound walk apps through incorporating environmental and emotional factors, forming new sonic landscapes. What type of music could reflect driving through a hot desert landscape at midday or walking through a snowy cityscape at dawn? Through a discussion of their collective work in this area, the authors aim to elicit a vision of the computer-based musical experiences of the future.
Engage People, Retire Things

causes. If it is caused by carbon build-up, our first thought is to cut or offset greenhouse gas emissions. Our thinking then glides logically on to finding ways of doing so, especially adopting new energy technologies and launching carbon trading markets (which are key to stimulating innovative solutions, to lowering the costs of abatement, to helping end the north-south impasse). All this is essential. But it is not enough. Safeguarding the environment requires other levers, levers that are simple, fast, potentially adept, highly powerful. This power can only come from shifting the balance of forces in the larger society, balances beyond the limited circle of the problem’s immediate constituents. The most basic balance, the first tradeoff society makes, is between the two primary factors of production. Should we use more labor or more natural resources (energy, materials, and land)? For decades, we have been tilting the scale ever more steeply in favor of using things, not people. We define “productivity” in terms of how little labor we can use in production, rather than thinking about how we can maximize value by finding whatever mix of inputs will do so. In the U.S., more or less by accident, we have sent a giant “use things, not people” price signal as payroll taxes have increased from 1% to almost 40% of federal revenues over the last several generations. And now, in some of the current proposals to finance health care reform, we are considering further increases. This tilt is even worse in most other countries. As a result of this incentive drift towards using things more and people less, the global system is consuming natural resources very aggressively. Therefore, acceler-
What Is the True Loss Due to Piracy? Evidence from Microsoft Office in Hong Kong

Abstract Using a unique conjoint data set drawn from 281 college students in Hong Kong, I estimate a random-coefficient discrete choice demand system for Microsoft Office from legal and various illegal sources. Counterfactual results show two things. First, most students would switch to Internet piracy even if the government eradicated street piracy. This explains why software piracy in Hong Kong remains well above 40% despite the government's successful measures to bring down street piracy. Second, the true gain from shutting off all sources of piracy is HK$48.6 (US$6) per person, only 15% of the Business Software Alliance's estimated cost of piracy.
The Institutional Blind Spot in Environmental Economics

Economic approaches are expected to achieve environmental goals at less cost than traditional regulations, but they have yet to find widespread application. One reason is the way these tools interact with existing institutions. The federalist nature of governmental authority assigns to subnational governments much of the implementation of environmental policy and primary authority for planning the infrastructure that affects environmental outcomes. The federalist structure also interacts with the choice of economic instruments; a national emissions cap erodes the additionality of actions by subnational governments. Even the flagship application of sulfur dioxide emissions trading has been outperformed by the venerable Clean Air Act, and greenhouse gas emissions in the United States are on course to be less than they would have been if Congress had frozen emissions with a cap in 2009. The widespread application of economic tools requires a stronger political theory of how they interact with governing institutions.