Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
GRACE Hydrological estimates for small basins: Evaluating processing approaches on the High Plains Aquifer, USA

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites provide observations of water storage variation at regional scales. However, when focusing on a region of interest, limited spatial resolution and noise contamination can cause estimation bias and spatial leakage, problems that are exacerbated as the region of interest approaches the GRACE resolution limit of a few hundred km. Reliable estimates of water storage variations in small basins require compromises between competing needs for noise suppression and spatial resolution. The objective of this study was to quantitatively investigate processing methods and their impacts on bias, leakage, GRACE noise reduction, and estimated total error, allowing solution of the trade‐offs. Among the methods tested is a recently developed concentration algorithm called spatiospectral localization, which optimizes the basin shape description, taking into account limited spatial resolution. This method is particularly suited to retrieval of basin‐scale water storage variations and is effective for small basins. To increase confidence in derived methods, water storage variations were calculated for both CSR (Center for Space Research) and GRGS (Groupe de Recherche de Géodésie Spatiale) GRACE products, which employ different processing strategies. The processing techniques were tested on the intensively monitored High Plains Aquifer (450,000 km2 area), where application of the appropriate optimal processing method allowed retrieval of water storage variations over a portion of the aquifer as small as ∼200,000 km2.
Radiopaque Strontium Fluoroapatite Glass-Ceramics

The controlled precipitation of strontium fluoroapatite crystals was studied in four base glass compositions derived from the SiO2–Al2O3–Y2O3–SrO–Na2O–K2O/Rb2O/Cs2O–P2O5–F system. The crystal phase formation of these glasses and the main properties of the glass-ceramics, such as thermal and optical properties and radiopacity were compared with a fifth, a reference glass-ceramic. The reference glass-ceramic was characterized as Ca-fluoroapatite glass-ceramic. The four strontium fluoroapatite glass-ceramics showed the following crystal phases: (a) Sr5(PO4)3F – leucite, KAlSi2O6, (b) Sr5(PO4)3F – leucite, KAlSi2O6, and nano-sized NaSrPO4, (c) Sr5(PO4)3F – pollucite, CsAlSi2O6, and nano-sized NaSrPO4, and (d) Sr5(PO4)3F – Rb-leucite, RbAlSi2O6, and nano-sized NaSrPO4. The proof of crystal phase formation was possible by X-ray diffraction. The microstructures, which were studied using scanning electron microscopy, demonstrated a uniform distribution of the crystals in the glass matrix. The Sr-fluoroapatites were precipitated based on an internal crystallization process, and the crystals demonstrated a needle-like morphology. The study of the crystal growth of needle-like Sr-fluoroapatites gave a clear evidence of an Ostwald ripening mechanism. The formation of leucite, pollucite, and Rb-leucite was based on a surface crystallization mechanism. Therefore, a twofold crystallization mechanism was successfully applied to develop these types of glass-ceramics. The main focus of this study was the controlled development of glass-ceramics exhibiting high radiopacity in comparison to the reference glass-ceramic. This goal could be achieved with all four glass-ceramics with the preferred development of the Sr-fluoroapatite – pollucite-type glass-ceramic. In addition to this main development, it was possible to control the thermal properties. Especially the Rb-leucite containing glass-ceramic showed the highest coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE). These glass-ceramics allow optical properties, especially the translucency and color, to be tailored to the needs of biomaterials for dental applications. The authors conclude that it is possible to use twofold crystallization processes to develop glass-ceramic biomaterials featuring different properties, such as specific radiopacity values, CTEs, and optical characteristics.
Chromatic Illumination Discrimination Ability Reveals that Human Colour Constancy Is Optimised for Blue Daylight Illuminations

The phenomenon of colour constancy in human visual perception keeps surface colours constant, despite changes in their reflected light due to changing illumination. Although colour constancy has evolved under a constrained subset of illuminations, it is unknown whether its underlying mechanisms, thought to involve multiple components from retina to cortex, are optimised for particular environmental variations. Here we demonstrate a new method for investigating colour constancy using illumination matching in real scenes which, unlike previous methods using surface matching and simulated scenes, allows testing of multiple, real illuminations. We use real scenes consisting of solid familiar or unfamiliar objects against uniform or variegated backgrounds and compare discrimination performance for typical illuminations from the daylight chromaticity locus (approximately blue-yellow) and atypical spectra from an orthogonal locus (approximately red-green, at correlated colour temperature 6700 K), all produced in real time by a 10-channel LED illuminator. We find that discrimination of illumination changes is poorer along the daylight locus than the atypical locus, and is poorest particularly for bluer illumination changes, demonstrating conversely that surface colour constancy is best for blue daylight illuminations. Illumination discrimination is also enhanced, and therefore colour constancy diminished, for uniform backgrounds, irrespective of the object type. These results are not explained by statistical properties of the scene signal changes at the retinal level. We conclude that high-level mechanisms of colour constancy are biased for the blue daylight illuminations and variegated backgrounds to which the human visual system has typically been exposed.
Silicon surfaces : STM, theory and experiment

The fundamental atomic and electronic behaviour of clean silicon surfaces has been studied within a simple tight-binding picture of bonding in solids. Of the various contributions to the surface binding energy, the lowering in the promotion energy (i.e. rehybridization) which accompanies localized Jahn-Teller distortions has been identified as a major electronic driving force underlying the stability of silicon surfaces. The structure of Si(l 13) has been experimentally determined by the technique of scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM). Despite its high index, the Si(113) surface is found to be highly stable. STM images of both empty and filled states provide strong evidence for a particular structural model with a 3x2 unit cell. The STM results are explained in terms of a general rehybridization principle, suggested by the earlier theoretical study, which accounts for the low surface energy as well as the observed spatial distribution of empty and filled states. In addition, the STM images reveal a high density of domain boundaries which introduce energy states that pin the Fermi level and explain earlier reports of a 3x1 reconstruction for this surface. Voltage-dependent STM image simulations for the Si( 113)3x2 surface have been carried out using a simple tight-binding description of surface electronic structure. Quantitative agreement with experiment is obtained confirming the qualitative rehybridization arguments used previously. The local barrier for tunnelling electrons is shown to have an important effect on the interpretation of STM images. The high stability of clean Si(l 13) is shown by STM to be disrupted by adsorption of submonolayer amounts of atomic hydrogen which saturates dangling bonds. Mass transport of silicon occurs and structural models are proposed for the resultant mixed 2x2 and 2x3 surface. Frontispiece STM images of the Si(l 13)3x2 surface. The upper and lower images are oersDective views of the spatial distribution of occupied (upper) and unoccupied (lower) electronic states of the same 80x45A2 area of surface and were obtained at -2V and +2V respectively.
Monte Carlo Portfolio Optimization for General Investor Risk-Return Objectives and Arbitrary Return Distributions: A Solution for Long-Only Portfolios

We develop the idea of using Monte Carlo sampling of random portfolios to solve portfolio investment problems. In this first paper we explore the need for more general optimization tools, and consider the means by which constrained random portfolios may be generated. A practical scheme for the long-only fully-invested problem is developed and tested for the classic QP application. The advantage of Monte Carlo methods is that they may be extended to risk functions that are more complicated functions of the return distribution, and that the underlying return distribution may be computed without the classical Gaussian limitations. The optimization of quadratic risk-return functions, VaR, CVaR, may be handled in a similar manner to variability ratios such as Sortino and Omega, or mathematical constructions such as expected utility and its behavioural finance extensions. Robustification is also possible. Grid computing technology is an excellent platform for the development of such computations due to the intrinsically parallel nature of the computation, coupled to the requirement to transmit only small packets of data over the grid. We give some examples deploying GridMathematica, in which various investor risk preferences are optimized with differing multivariate distributions. Good comparisons with established results in Mean-Variance and CVaR optimization are obtained when ``edge-vertex-biased'' sampling methods are employed to create random portfolios. We also give an application to Omega optimization.
Neural Substrates Related to Motor Memory with Multiple Timescales in Sensorimotor Adaptation

Recent computational and behavioral studies suggest that motor adaptation results from the update of multiple memories with different timescales. Here, we designed a model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment in which subjects adapted to two opposing visuomotor rotations. A computational model of motor adaptation with multiple memories was fitted to the behavioral data to generate time-varying regressors of brain activity. We identified regional specificity to timescales: in particular, the activity in the inferior parietal region and in the anterior-medial cerebellum was associated with memories for intermediate and long timescales, respectively. A sparse singular value decomposition analysis of variability in specificities to timescales over the brain identified four components, two fast, one middle, and one slow, each associated with different brain networks. Finally, a multivariate decoding analysis showed that activity patterns in the anterior-medial cerebellum progressively represented the two rotations. Our results support the existence of brain regions associated with multiple timescales in adaptation and a role of the cerebellum in storing multiple internal models.
Combined Analysis of Language Tasks in fMRI Improves Assessment of Hemispheric Dominance for Language Functions in Individual Subjects

Recent advances in functional neuroimaging techniques have prompted an increase in the number of studies investigating lateralization of language functions. One of the problems in relating findings of various studies to one another is the diversity of reported results. This may be due to differences in the tasks that are used to stimulate language processing regions and in the control tasks, as well as differences in the way imaging data are analyzed,in particular the threshold for significance of signal change. We present a simple method to assess language lateralization that allows for some variation of tasks and statistical thresholding, but at the same time yields reliable and reproducible results. Images acquired during a set of word-comprehension and -production tasks are analyzed conjointly. As opposed to the use of any one particular task, this combined task analysis (CTA) approach is geared toward identifying language regions that are involved in generic language functions rather than regions that are involved in functions that are specific to a single task. In two experiments CTA is compared to single-task analysis in healthy right-handed males. In a third experiment left-handed males were examined. Results indicate that CTA: (1) improves detection of language-related brain activity in individual subjects and (2) yields a high language laterality index (LI) in right-handed males with a small variance across subjects. The high LI matches the strong left-hemisphere dominance for language that is typical for these subjects as reported in neuropsychological and clinical tests in other studies. In the left-handed subjects dominance was found either in the left (n = 4) or the right (n = 1) hemisphere or was absent (n = 3). The LI derived from CTA is more consistent across statistical thresholds for significance of signal change in fMRI analysis than in individual-task analysis. Also, the CTA results are very similar to those obtained with conjunction analysis of the same data.
Corporate governance, competition, the new international financial architecture and large corporations in emerging markets

This paper examines from the developing countries perspective important analytical and policy issues arising from: a) the current international discussions about corporate governance in relation to the New International Financial Architecture; b) changes in the international competitive environment being caused by the enormous international merger movement in advanced countries. The background to a) above is the emergence of corporate governance as a key issue in the current G7 proposals for the New International Financial Architecture. The G7 emphasis on corporate governance can be traced back to the thesis that the ‘deeper’ reasons for the Asian crisis lay in the microeconomic behaviour of corporations and businesses in the affected countries. The failings of the corporate governance mechanisms and distortions in the competitive process have received special scrutiny in such analyses. With respect to b) above, the context is that the largest corporations in advanced countries are currently in the process of potentially cartelising the world market place through a spate of cross-border mergers and take-overs. This huge merger movement raises serious policy concerns for developing countries. The paper's main conclusions are: 1. The thesis that the deeper causes of the Asian crisis were the flawed systems of corporate governance and a poor competitive environment in the affected countries is not supported by evidence. 2. The Anglo-Saxon model of widely held corporations with dispersed share ownership is by far the exception in developing countries and in much of continental Europe. Empirical evidence suggests that emerging markets, as well as European countries such as Italy, Sweden or Germany have successful records of fast long-term growth with different governance systems, indeed superior to those of Anglo-Saxon countries. 3. Empirical evidence does not support the view that the Asian crisis 1997 to 1999 was caused by crony capitalism. 4. Corporate financing patterns in emerging markets in the 1990s were broadly similar to those observed in the 1980s. Unlike their counterparts in advanced countries, large developing countries firms continued to rely overwhelmingly on external sources to finance their growth of total assets. 5. The analysis of this paper does not support the claim that developing country conglomerates are inefficient, financially precarious and necessarily create moral hazard. It also indicates that contrary to widely held beliefs, product market competition in emerging countries is no less intense than in advanced economies. Acknowledgements Please do not quote without permission from the authors. Comments are most welcome.
Cre-LoxP Mediated Strong Enhancement of pBIRC5 Promoter Driven Suicide of Cancer Cells with CD/UPRT and Fluorocytosine

Suicide gene therapy (gene-directed enzyme prodrug therapy, GDEPT), based on tumor-specific promoter driven expression of genes encoding an enzyme capable of intracellularly converting a extracellularly administered non- toxic prodrug into a toxin that selectively kills cancer cells, is a promising approach for cancer treatment. An important prerequisite for the practical use of the approach is cancer-specific suicide gene expression. Since many tumor specific promoters used for intratumoral expression of suicide genes are relatively weak, it was suggested to use tumor specific expression of Cre recombinase to enhance the expression of the therapeutic transgene driven by a strong promoter, artifi- cially suppressed with a floxed insertion, but reactivated by the excision of this insertion with Cre. In this report, we demonstrate that the expression level of the chimeric suicide gene (FCU1), encoding a cytosine deaminase (CD)/uracil phosphoribosyltransferase (UPRT) fusion protein, under control of the cancer-specific human pBIRC5-1.5 promoter, as well as its cytotoxicity in the presence of 5-FC in various cell lines, is essentially lower than under control of the strong ubiquitous pCMV promoter. However, the use of the binary system including Cre enzyme expressed under control of the pBIRC5-1.5 promoter and the FCU1 driven by pCMV connected to the gene via a floxed transcriptional stop signal allows to increase the cell specific expression level and cytotoxicity of CD/UPRT up to the values comparable to those achieved with the pCMV promoter immediately adjacent to FCU1. Thus, this combination may be useful for human gene therapy applications.
Travel plans : using good practice to inform future policy

In Europe, Travel Plans have been known by many other different names including: ‘Site-based Mobility Management’, ‘Green Transport Plans’, ‘Green Travel Plans’, ‘Green Commuting’, ‘Company Mobility Plans’, and ‘Employer Transport Plans’, while in the USA they are covered by the term TDM (Transportation Demand Management) (Ieromonachou, 2004). UK Government guidance A Travel Plan Resource Pack for Employers (Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme, 2001) defines a Travel Plan as being: ‘a general term for a package of measures tailored to meet the needs of individual sites and aimed at promoting greener, cleaner travel choices and reducing reliance on the car. It involves the development of a set of mechanisms, initiatives and targets that together can enable an organisation to reduce the impact of travel and transport on the environment, whilst also bringing a number of other benefits to the organisation as an employer and to staff. ’ A second definition is that: ‘A formal travel plan is simply a package of measures that aims to reduce an organisation’s over dependence on the car’. Howland (2003) The idea behind travel plans actually started in the USA – particularly on the West Coast - as a quick and easy response to the fuel crises during the 1970s, but was fairly slow to permeate across the Atlantic. Indeed, in the UK the first Travel Plans only first began to appear during the early 1990s, with the first official policy record being made in the 1998 Transport White Paper – A new deal for transport: Better for everyone (DETR, 1998). In brief, the attractions of travel plans to Governments and local authorities are that they are reasonably quick to introduce, relatively cheap and importantly are usually politically acceptable. In short, they are an ‘easy win’. This is in marked contrast to most other transport improvement schemes which often require high levels of investment over a long period of time and can carry a high political risk – especially in the short term as conditions frequently deteriorate while improvements are being carried out .
Perception of contradictory speech by normal and disturbed children at various age levels.

Recordings were made of female teachers reciting congruent and contradictory messages. In the congruent condition, the verbal and tonal elements of the communication were consistent. With the contradictory speech, however, the tone of voice was incongruent with the words spoken. All the congruent and contradictory vocal expressions were arranged in random order on a single tape and played to "normal" and "disturbed" boys of different ages (i.e., grade levels 2, 4, and 6). Significant effects were found for type of speech and age: Subjects reacted more negatively to contradictory than to congruent speech, and younger children responded more negatively to contradiction than did older ones. As well, contradictory speech seemed to have more of an impact on the disturbed boys— they reacted significantly more negatively to contradictory messages than the normal youngsters.
New Economic Geography: The Role of Transport Costs

The chapter surveys the main contributions of new economic geography from the point of view of transport analysis. It shows that decreasing transport costs is likely to exacerbate regional disparities. However, very low transport costs should foster a more balanced distribution for economic activities across space. Thus, the spatial curve of development, which relates the degree of spatial concentration to the level of transport costs, would be bell-shaped. The paper also provides a detailed discussion of the main determinants of transport costs, which remain fairly large in most countries. It concludes with a discussion of some policy implications. Key-words: economic geography, transport costs, regional disparities JEL classification: L91, R12, R58 * We gratefully acknowledge Andre de Palma, Robin Lindsey and Kenneth Small for insightful comments.
Immigration and productivity: a Spanish tale

This paper analyses the extent to which changes in labour composition may affect variation in productivity in Spain. With an original and novel database, we track recently recorded changes in productivity to investigate how the entry of immigrants into the domestic labour market affects productivity. In a few specific situations, our results show that immigrants play the role of environment builders, who bring expertise necessary to fostering productivity and encouraging further improvements in productivity.
The Effects of GluA1 Deletion on the Hippocampal Population Code for Position

The GluA1 subunit of AMPA receptors (AMPARs) is critical for hippocampal synaptic transmission and plasticity. Here, we measured the activity of single units from the CA1 region of the hippocampus while GluA1 knock-out (GluA1−/−) and wild-type (WT) mice traversed a linear track. Although overall firing rates were similar, GluA1−/− neurons were more likely to spike in bursts, but at lower burst frequencies, compared with WT neurons. GluA1−/− neurons showed large reductions in all measures of spatial and directional selectivity compared with WT neurons. Consistent with these alterations of single-neuron properties, the accuracy of the population code for position was substantially reduced in GluA1−/−, yet it is predicted to approach the accuracy of WT with increasing population size. The absolute representation of space, independent of movement direction, was greatly diminished in GluA1−/− mice and is predicted to remain reduced even for larger populations. Finally, we found that the rate maps of GluA1−/− neurons showed increased trial-by-trial variability but reduced experiential plasticity compared with the WT. These results reveal the critical contribution of GluA1-containing AMPARs to individual place cells and the hippocampal population code for space, which could explain the selective behavioral impairments observed in these mice.