Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Income Support Policies for Single Parents in Europe and the United States: What Works Best?

Poverty rates among single parents vary considerably across countries, in part reflecting differences in the generosity and design of minimum income protections. We ask what the optimal ways are to target income support to single parents, if the prime objective of policy is to shelter those households from poverty. We map minimum income provisions for working and nonworking single-parent households across Europe and the United States, showing that three things matter for adequate minimum income protection. First, minimum wage levels matter, obviously for working single parents, but also for jobless ones since they effectively set the ‘glass ceiling’ for out-of-work benefits. Second, the overall generosity of the child benefit package is crucial to shelter both working and jobless single parents from poverty. Third, countries that employ a strategy of “targeting within universalism” (that is directing extra support to vulnerable groups such as single parents within the context of a universal benefit program) tend to do best.
Circadian dysregulation and Alzheimer’s disease: A comprehensive review

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the foremost variant of dementia, has been associated with a menagerie of risk factors, many of which are considered to be modifiable. Among these modifiable risk factors is circadian rhythm, the chronobiological system that regulates sleep‐wake cycles, food consumption timing, hydration timing, and immune responses amongst many other necessary physiological processes. Circadian rhythm at the level of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), is tightly regulated in the human body by a host of biomolecular substances, principally the hormones melatonin, cortisol, and serotonin. In addition, photic information projected along afferent pathways to the SCN and peripheral oscillators regulates the synthesis of these hormones and mediates the manner in which they act on the SCN and its substructures. Dysregulation of this cycle, whether induced by environmental changes involving irregular exposure to light, or through endogenous pathology, will have a negative impact on immune system optimization and will heighten the deposition of Aβ and the hyperphosphorylation of the tau protein. Given these correlations, it appears that there is a physiologic association between circadian rhythm dysregulation and AD. This review will explore the physiology of circadian dysregulation in the AD brain, and will propose a basic model for its role in AD‐typical pathology, derived from the literature compiled and referenced throughout.
Advances in the understanding and enhancement of the human cognitive functions of learning and memory

Learning and memory are among the key cognitive functions that drive the human experience. As such, any defective condition associated with these cognitive domains could affect our navigation through everyday life. For years, researchers have been working toward having a clear understanding of how learning and memory work, as well as ways to improve them. Many advances have been made, as well as some challenges that have also been faced in the process. That notwithstanding, there are prospects with regards to the frontier of the enhancement of learning and memory in humans. This review article selectively highlights four broad areas of focus in research into the understanding and enhancement of learning and memory. Brain stimulation, effects of sleep, effects of stress and emotion, and synaptic plasticity are the main focal areas of this review, in terms of some pivotal research works, findings and theories.
Image system for Stokes-flow singularity between two parallel planar walls

Using a recently developed image representation for Stokes flow in a half-space bounded by a planar wall [Cichocki and Jones, Physica A 258, 273 (1998)], the image system is constructed for the flow field produced by a force multipole in the space bounded by two parallel walls. The image singularities are expressed in terms of products of double-reflection matrices, and the expansion is simplified using symmetries of the double-reflection operation. Our analysis yields recurrence relations for the strengths of the image multipoles. The relations are solved explicitly, and a complete image system is obtained for an arbitrary source-force multipole. Applications of our image representation for evaluating the hydrodynamic friction and mobility matrices of particles interacting with two parallel planar walls are indicated.
Tactile pattern recognition and its perturbations

A number of devices developed to present information to the skin, including speech information, have tried to take advantage of the spatial‐temporal processing characteristics of the skin. To study these characteristics, tactile patterns were generated on an array of vibrators (six columns by 24 rows) and presented to subjects' fingerpads. When pairs of patterns, such as letters of the alphabet, were presented in close temporal proximity, considerable masking was produced. There was more interference in recognition when the masking stimulus followed the target (backward masking), than when the masker preceded the target (forward masking). Masking increased as the time between the target and masking stimulus decreased. Masking also increased if the masking stimulus and the target contained similar features. Using tactile stimuli derived from speech information, it was also found that reducing the amount of backward masking, by reducing the duration of the vowel portion of a CV, improved recognition of the .
Isotopic Lithium Abundances in Nine Halo Stars

High-resolution echelle spectra of the 6707.8 Å Li I absorption line in spectra of metal-poor halo dwarfs and subgiants are analyzed for the isotopic fractions of 6Li and 7Li. Positive detections of 6Li are reported for two stars, HD 84937 and BD +26° 3578, and tight upper limits to the 6Li fraction are obtained for an additional seven stars. Two stars, HD 116064 and BD +26° 2606, were found to be double-lined spectroscopic binaries and were rejected from the analysis. Elemental Li abundances were also derived for the nine program stars: the Li abundance is identical across the sample (excluding the spectroscopic binaries) to within ±0.04 dex in log ϵ(Li). Two processes involving high-energy particles (cosmic rays) are considered as origins of the 6Li: spallation reactions (e.g., O + p →6Li) and α-α fusion reactions. The contribution of spallation reactions may be assessed empirically using the published Be and B abundances. The observed 6Li/Be ratio is significantly in excess of that expected from spallation. In view of the fact that the surface 6Li abundance has almost certainly been somewhat depleted by exposure to warm protons, the conclusion is that α-α reactions produced most of the observed 6Li. Consequences of this conclusion are sketched.
Building Fluorescence Lifetime Maps Photon-by-photon by Leveraging Spatial Correlations

Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) has become a standard tool in the quantitative analysis of sub-cellular environments. However, quantitative FLIM analyses face several challenges. First, spatial correlations between pixels are often ignored as signal from individual pixels is analyzed independently thereby limiting spatial resolution. Second, existing methods deduce photon ratios instead of absolute lifetime maps. Next, the number of lifetime components contributing to the signal is unknown, while excited state lifetimes with <1 ns difference are difficult to discriminate. Finally, existing analyses require high photon budgets, and often cannot rigorously propagate experimental uncertainty into values over lifetime maps and number of components involved. To overcome all of these challenges simultaneously and self-consistently at once, we propose the first doubly nonparametric framework. That is, we learn the number of fluorescent species (through beta-Bernoulli process priors) and absolute lifetime maps of these species (through Gaussian process priors) by leveraging information from pulses not leading to observed photon. We benchmark our algorithm using a broad range of synthetic and experimental data and demonstrate its robustness across a number of scenarios including cases where we recover lifetime differences between components as small as 0.3 ns with merely 1000 photons.
A Constructive Solution to a Tournament Problem

By a tournament Tn on n vertices, we shall mean a directed graph on n vertices for which every pair of distinct vertices form the endpoints of exactly one directed edge (e.g., see [5]). If x and y are vertices of Tn we say that x dominates y if the edge between x and y is directed from x to y. In 1962, K. Schütte [2] raised the following question: Given k > 0, is there a tournament Tn(k) such that for any set S of k vertices of Tn(k) there is a vertex y which dominates all k elements of S. (Such a tournament will be said to have property Pk .)
How many ecological niches are defined by the superabundant marine microbe Prochlorococcus?

Determining the identities, frequencies, and memberships of ecotypes in Prochlorococcus and other superabundant microbes (SAMs) is essential to studies of their evolution and ecology. This is challenging, however, because the extremely large population sizes of SAMs likely cause violations of foundational assumptions made by standard methods used in molecular evolution and phylogenetics. Here we present a tree-free likelihood method to identify ecotypes, which we define as populations with genome sequences whose high similarity is maintained by purifying selection. We applied the method to 96 genomes of the superabundant marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus and find that this sample is comprised of about 24 ecotypes, substantially more than the five major ecotypes that are generally recognized. The method presented here may prove useful with other superabundant microbes.
Genome-wide circadian gating of a cold temperature response in bread wheat

Circadian rhythms coordinate the responses of organisms to their daily fluctuating environments, by establishing a temporal program of gene expression. This schedules aspects of metabolism, physiology, development and behaviour according to the time of day. Circadian regulation in plants is extremely pervasive, and is important because it underpins both productivity and seasonal reproduction. Circadian regulation extends to the control of environmental responses through a regulatory process known as circadian gating. Circadian gating is the process whereby the circadian clock regulates the response to an environmental cue, such that the magnitude of response to an identical cue varies according to the time of day of the cue. Here, we show that there is genome-wide circadian gating of responses to cold temperatures in plants. By using bread wheat as an experimental model, we establish that circadian gating is crucial to the programs of gene expression that underlie the environmental responses of a crop of major socioeconomic importance. Furthermore, we identify that circadian gating of cold temperature responses are distributed unevenly across the three wheat subgenomes, which might reflect the geographical origins of the ancestors of modern wheat. One-sentence summary There is genome-wide circadian gating of a response to low temperatures in a crop of major socioeconomic importance.
Host genetic variation in feeding rate mediates a fecundity cost of parasite resistance in a Daphnia-parasite system

Organisms face numerous challenges over their lifetimes, including from competitors and parasites, and experience selection to maximise their fitness in the face of these various pressures. However, selection can rarely maximise individual ability to cope with all challenges, and trade-offs therefore emerge. One such trade-off is the cost of resisting parasitic infection, whereby hosts that have a high intrinsic capacity to resist parasitic infection have comparatively low fitness in the absence of the parasite, and spatio-temporal variation in the relative strength of parasite- and non parasite-mediated selection is thought to maintain diversity in host resistance. Here, we test for, and find, a simple cost of resistance in the freshwater host Daphnia magna and its sterilising bacterial parasite, Pasteuria ramosa that is shaped by ecology as opposed to immunity. We uncovered significant genetic variation in Daphnia feeding rate, and show that rapid-feeding Daphnia genotypes have high fecundity in the absence of the parasite, but are more likely to go on to suffer sterilising infection when exposed to the parasite. This feeding rate-mediated cost of resistance can explain the persistence of parasite-susceptible genotypes. Further, we found evidence of infection induced anorexia in Pasteuria-infected hosts. It follows that reduced feeding in infected hosts means that high parasite prevalence could result in greater host food availability; this could reduce intra-specific competition and mask the cost of resistance in nature. Summary statement Costs of Daphnia immunity to a sterilising bacterial parasite are mediated by feeding ecology and not immunity, and infection-induced anorexia can further alter the relative strength of parasitism and host-host competition.
Mincle-GSDMD-mediated release of IL-1β containing small extracellular vesicles contributes to ethanol-induced liver injury

Background & Aims Macrophage inducible C-type lectin (Mincle) is expressed on Kupffer cells and senses ethanol-induced danger signals released from dying hepatocytes and promotes IL-1β production. However, it remains unclear what and how ethanol-induced Mincle ligands activate downstream signaling events to mediate IL-1β release and contribute to alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD). In this study, we investigated the association of circulating β-glucosylceramide (β-GluCer), an endogenous Mincle ligand, with severity of ALD and examined the mechanism by which β-GluCer engages Mincle on Kupffer cells to release IL-1β in the absence of cell death and exacerbates ALD. Approach and Results Concentrations of β-GluCer were increased in serum of patients with severe AH and correlated with disease severity. Challenge of Kupffer cells with LPS and β-GluCer induced formation of a Mincle and Gsdmd-dependent secretory complex containing chaperoned full-length GSDMD (Hsp90-CDC37-NEDD4) with polyubiquitinated pro-IL-1β and components of the Casp8-NLRP3 inflammasome loaded as cargo in small extracellular vesicles (sEV). Gao-binge ethanol exposure to wild-type, but not Mincle-/- and Gsdmd-/-, mice increased release of IL-1β containing sEVs from liver explant cultures. Myeloid-specific deletion of Gsdmd similarly decreased the formation of sEVs by liver explant cultures and protected mice from ethanol-induced liver injury. sEVs collected from ethanol-fed wild-type, but not Gsdmd-/-, mice promoted injury of cultured hepatocytes and, when injected into wild-type mice, aggravated Gao-binge ethanol-induced liver injury. Conclusion β-GluCer functions as a DAMP activating Mincle-dependent GSDMD-mediated formation and release of IL-1β-containing sEVs, which in turn exacerbate hepatocyte cell death and contribute to the pathogenesis of ALD.
CO excitation and H2 masses of infrared-luminous galaxies

The CO(2-1) and CO(1-0) emission from four infrared-luminous galaxies, Arp 193, Arp 220, Mrk 231, and VII Zw 31, was mapped with the IRAM 30 m telescope. These maps show the molecular gas is concentrated in the central regions. The CO(2-1)/CO(1-0) brightness temperature ratio for these galaxies is low, 0.6-0.75, indicating the CO is subthermally excited in regions of moderate H2 density, roughly 400/cu cm. The intrinsic CO(1-0) brightness temperatures are inferred to be between 6 and 13 K, even if the gas kinetic temperatures are much higher. For these galaxies, the H2 mass-to-CO luminosity ratio is similar to that measured for giant molecular clouds in the Milky Way molecular ring. 20 refs.
General techniques for interpolation reconstruction and morphing of polyhedral surfaces

1 1 Overview 3 1.1 Background . 3 1.1.1 Reconstruction from cross-sections . 3 1.2 Discrete Shape Correspondence . 6 1.3 Preliminaries . 7 1.3.1 Two-Dimensional Straight skeletons . 7 1.3.2 Discrete Multiscale Heat Kernels . 9 1.4 Structure of the Dissertation . 11 2 The Three-Dimensional Straight Skeleton 13 2.1 Definition . 13 2.2 Ambiguity of the Definition . 15 2.3 Properties of the Straight Skeleton . 15 2.4 Constructing the Straight Skeleton . 19 2.4.1 Data Structures . 21 2.4.2 The Algorithm . 22 2.4.3 Collecting Events . 22 2.4.4 Memoryless Propagation . 26 2.5 Complexity . 26 2.5.1 A Combinatorial Lower Bound for General Polyhedra . 26 2.5.2 Time Complexity . 31 2.6 Degeneracies . 31 2.7 Experimental Results . 31 i T ec hn io n C om pu te r Sc ie nc e D ep ar tm en t P h. D . T he si s P H D -2 01 106 2 01 1 3 Reconstruction of multi-label domains from partial planar cross-sections 35 3.1 Overview of our Method . 35 3.2 An Arrangement of Partial Cross-Sections . 38 3.3 Using Straight Skeletons of Nonconvex Cells . 39 3.4 Projecting Images onto Skeletal Faces . 40 3.4.1 Projection from Degenerate Edges . 43 3.5 Mesh Reconstruction . 44 3.5.1 Image Overlay . 44 3.5.2 Mesh Creation . 44 3.5.3 Correctness . 45 3.6 Optional Improvements . 46 3.6. 1 Mesh Refinement . 46 3.6. 2 User-Guided Reconstruction . 46 3.7 Experimental Results . 46 3.8 Conclusion . 52 4 A Multi-Resolution Approach to Heat Kernels on Discrete Surfaces 53 4.1 Previous Work . 54 4.1.1 Multi-Resolution . 54 4.1.2 Matrix Exponential Approximations . 54 4.2 Overview of the Algorithm . 56 4.3 Multi-Resolution Heat Kernels . 57 4.4 Sparse Heat Kernels . 63 4.4.1 Sparse Scale and Square . 64 4.4.2 Binomial Approximation . 66 4.5 Results and Applications . 72 4.6 Conclusions and Discussion . 77 5 Conclusions and Future Work 81 5.1 Summary . 81 5.2 The Straight Skeleton . 81 5.3 Multi-labeled Reconstruction . 82 5.4 Heat Kernels . 82 ii T ec hn io n C om pu te r Sc ie nc e D ep ar tm en t P h. D . T he si s P H D -2 01 106 2 01 1
Isometry-invariant surface matching: numerical algorithms and applications

Similarity is one of the most important abstract concepts in the human perception of the world. For example, we encounter it every day during our interaction with other people whose faces we recognize. In computer vision and pattern recognition, shape similarity is one of the most fundamental and largely open problem. With slight exaggeration, we can say that all pattern recognition problems boil down to giving a quantitative interpretation of similarity between objects. The definition of similarity is, to a large extent, a semantic question. For example, judging the similarity of faces, one may say that two human faces are similar if they have a common skin tone, while someone else would require the identity of the geometric structure of facial features like the eyes, the nose, and the mouth. Since there is no unique definition of similarity, every class of objects and every problem require a specific, problem-dependent similarity criterion. This thesis is dedicated to the question of similarity of non-rigid shapes. Such shapes appear at all scales in Nature – from our body organs to its microscopic components like protein molecules. In pattern recognition and computer vision, non-rigid shapes are often encountered in many important applications. The richness of the possible deformations and a large number of degrees of freedom of non-rigid shapes makes their analysis a great challenge. Deformations of many natural objects can be modeled as isometries, preserving the intrinsic geometric properties of the shapes. For example, deformations of human and animal bodies, our face, body tissues and organs can be approximated by isometries. 1 T ec hn io n C om pu te r Sc ie nc e D ep ar tm en t P h. D . T he si s P H D -2 00 704 2 00 7
Improving Expert Estimation of Software Development Effort in Agile Contexts

Background: Expert judgment is the most frequently practiced approach to estimate software development effort. In Agile Software Development (ASD), effort is typically estimated by teams using expert judgment based approaches. Expert effort estimation, being lightweight and practitioner/team-centric, aligns well with ASD contexts. However, in the absence of explicit guidelines, expert effort estimation can be ad-hoc with inconsistent results. Further, due to the lack of emphasis on documentation in ASD, important estimation experience is also likely to be lost. Objective: This thesis has two main objectives: First, to identify and organize evidence from both literature and industry on effort estimation in ASD contexts. Second, using the identified and organized knowledge, to develop and evolve checklists to support and improve the expert effort estimation processes of agile teams. Method: In this thesis we conducted a combination of primary (one industrial survey, one industrial case study involving one company and one multi-case study involving three companies) and secondary studies (one systematic literature review and one systematic mapping study). Results: The systematic literature review and survey showed that most agile teams estimate software development effort using expert estimation approaches. Further, teamrelated cost drivers, such as a team’s skill level, are considered most important. The results showed that organizing the knowledge on effort estimation in agile contexts as a taxonomy was helpful in characterizing the effort estimation cases from the literature and industry. Furthermore, the idea of using estimation checklists improved the expert estimation processes in agile contexts by increasing the accuracies of the effort estimates and decreasing the underestimation bias. The study participants from the case companies observed that the use of the checklist during estimation improved task understandability, reduced the likelihood of missing tasks and factors, increased the confidence in effort estimates and lead to more objectivity in the effort estimation process. Conclusions: This thesis proposes an effort estimation taxonomy that can be used as a guideline for reporting effort estimation studies in ASD to facilitate aggregation and analysis of evidence. This thesis also proposes a process for developing and evolving customized estimation checklists and demonstrated its application in three software companies. The thesis empirically validated the usefulness of the checklists in improving expert effort estimation processes of three companies. In two case companies, the checklists have become part of their regular estimation processes. In the third case company, the project manager continues to use the checklist factors to prioritize the product backlog.