Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Air Pollution on House Values

IT HAS OFTEN BEEN SAID THAT AIR POLLUTION WILL HAVE A DETRIMENTAL EFFECT ON RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY VALUES. THE EVIDENCE, HOWEVER, IS QUITE SKIMPY. URBAN LAND ECONOMISTS AND REAL ESTATE APPRAISERS HAVE FROM TIME TO TIME MADE GENERAL COMMENTS THAT NUISANCES, INCLUDING AIR POLLUTION, MADE A NEIGHBORHOOD A LESS DESIRABLE PLACE IN WHICH TO LIVE. THIS PAPER IS A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF HOW TO MEASURE THE RESULT OF ATTEMPTS TO ESTIMATE THIS IMPACT IN A MORE EXTENSIVE STUDY TO ESTIMATE THE SOCIAL COSTS OF AIR POLLUTION NOT INCURRED BY FIRMS CAUSING THE POLLUTION. IN THE FINAL SECTION OF THE PAPER THE RESULTS OF THE STATISTICAL STUDIES ARE PRESENTED. /AUTHOR/
Comment and Reply Comment on “Domain Reduction Method for Three-Dimensional Earthquake Modeling in Localized Regions, Part I: Theory,” by J. Bielak,

The combination of different methods, analytical and/ or numerical, represents an effective tool for reducing the computational effort required by large-scale 3D numerical wave propagation from a half-space (containing the seismic source) into a localized region containing strong geological or topographical irregularities, such as sedimentary basins. This implies a substructuring of the problem studied, whereby the analysis of the source and wave propagation in the half-space (external region) is separated from that of the irregular region, including site effects or structure interaction. The main challenge of this approach is the coupling of the solutions typically obtained by different methods in the two different domains. One substructuring method, termed Domain Reduction Method (DRM), has been adopted by Bielak et al. (2003) and Yoshimura et al. (2003), who extended to 3D problems an approach proposed by Herrera and Bielak (1977), and subsequently applied in 2D configurations by Bielak and Christiano (1984), Cremonini et al. (1988) and Loukakis (1988). Seismic excitation is directly introduced in the computational domain in the form of effective localized forces obtained from the free-field motion in the external domain, and from the mechanical properties of a fictitious interface that separates the external region and the localized region. The analysis is thus simplified, because wave propagation in the external domain can be calculated with numerical or analytical methods suitable for simplified configurations (e.g., a horizontally-layered half-space), while the complex internal domain can be dealt with using more general approaches, such as finite element (FE) or spectral element (SE) methods. The aim of this comment is to illustrate the implementation of the same DRM approach into a hybrid FE–SE numerical code, and to show the relevant performance that can be reached when coupling the efficiency of SE with DRM. The hybrid FE–SE code, named Advanced Hybrid Numerical Solver for Elastodynamics (AHNSE), implements the spectral method by Faccioli et al. (1997) and the mortar approach for coupling FE and SE domains illustrated by Casadei et al. (2002). Our approach benefits both the two-step procedure of the DRM and the advancements of the SE technique. This achieves greater accuracy with a substantially reduced computational effort with respect to FE, although we still used a sequential code, unlike Yoshimura et al. (2003). In the sequel, after recalling some essential aspects of the approach with reference to Bielak et al. (2003), the first two examples presented in Yoshimura et al. (2003) are illustrated by way of application (i.e., a simple flat-layered system with and without the inclusion of a basin). The performance of the present method is then compared to that of the previous authors.
Firm resources and business performance in the Lao PDR: Implications for SMEs in the LDC context

Purpose – Resource‐based view (RBV) has been a very well‐known theory to explain performance over the past decades. The purpose of this paper is to apply RBV's concept to investigate the resources of firms in Lao PDR that influence its business performance.Design/methodology/approach – Secondary data that are collected by Enterprises Baseline Survey in 2005 from Germany Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) is used. For this purpose, samples of 388 firms in three sectors: manufacturing, trading, and service are used. The resources of firms include human resources (developed through education and training); intangible resources (reputation among customers obtained by investment in marketing and advertising); and tangible resources (physical resources with technology and business finance). By the regression methodology, this paper examines how the resources of the firm affect firm performance in the case of Lao PDR. The ranking of the important critical firm resources and firm performance is also identifie.
Grassmannian locality preserving discriminant analysis to view invariant gait recognition with image sets

In studies to date, gait recognition across appearance changes has been a challenging task. In this paper, we present a gait recognition method that models the gait image sets as subspaces on the Grassmannian manifold. This formulation provides a convenient way to represent the subspaces as points on the manifold. By using a suitable Grassmannian kernel, the non-linear manifold can be treated as if it were a Euclidean space. This implies that conventional data analysis tool like LDA can be used on this manifold. To this end, we apply a graph based locality preserving discriminant analysis method on the Grassmannian manifold. Experiment results suggest that the proposed method can tolerate variations in appearance for gait identification.
Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia

Preface Prologue: The Martyrs 1. Fighting History 2. Desert Fox 3. The Master Plan 4. Guerrilla Politics 5. Black Vladimir 6. Too Much Tic 7. The 'Disposable Ones' 8. A Moral Victory 9. The Return of 'Black Vladimir' 10. The Perestroikas 11. 'The House of Castano' 12. The 'Suiso' 13. FARC-landia 14. Justice as a Memory 15. The Great Escape 16. Shades of Jaime 17. Leftovers
Correlation between SNPs in CDH1 and gastric cancer in Chinese population

Abstract Background. Many recent studies revealed that the single nucleotide polymorphisms have considerable effects on the susceptibility of cancer, such as prostate cancer, lung cancer and gastric cancer. The E-cadherin, a calcium-dependent transmembrane glycoprotein encoded by CDH1 gene, is critical for epithelial construction, intercellular adhesion and cell migration. Some associations have been reported between single nucleotide polymorphisms and gastric cancer in the Chinese population. Objective. To investigate whether the single nucleotide polymorphism in CDH1 gene is associated with the susceptibility of gastric cancer in the Chinese population. Material and methods. The genotypes of 5 known single nucleotide polymorphisms (rs33935154, rs121964871, rs121964874, rs121964875, rs121964876) were determined in 359 gastric cancer patients and 368 healthy controls. High resolution melting curve detection and sequencing analysis were used in the present study. Results. There is a statistical significance in the rs121964871 C>G polymorphism between gastric cancer patients and healthy controls (OR=1.769, 95%CI: 1.051-2.976). Elderly male individuals (>50 years of age) carrying this risk factor may be more susceptible to gastric cancer. Conclusions. The results indicated that the rs121964871 C>G polymorphism is associated with the susceptibility of gastric cancer in the Chinese population, with some age and sex-dependent tendencies observed.
A new method for deducing the effective collision frequency profile in the D-region

A method based on linear regularization is presented for the deduction of the effective collision frequency profile in the D-region using an incoherent scatter radar and a colocated riometer. The deduced collision frequency above EISCAT, Tromso, for the period 09 November 2004 to 13 November 2004 matches very well with that calculated using neutral densities and temperatures from the NRLMSISe-00 atmospheric model between 68 km and 95 km during active (ap > 50) and quiet (ap < 50) conditions. We also confirm the validity of using the Appleton-Hartree equation with effective collision frequencies when calculating the ionospheric absorption at high frequencies.
Financial sector consolidation and competition in Malaysia: An application of the Panzar‐Rosse method

Purpose – The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of consolidation on Malaysian banking sector's market structure and competition. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs the Panzar-Rosse (P-R) method to compute the H-statistics of the Malaysian banking sector. Findings – The results from the P-R method indicate positive H-statistics ranging from 0.680-0.747 under the TREV estimation and 0.547-0.714 under the TINT estimation. The Wald ? 2 test statistics seem to reject the market structure of monopoly or perfect competition hypothesis. The results clearly indicate monopolistic competition behavior in the Malaysian banking sector. During the period under study, the paper finds evidence of greater competition in the overall market segment, which is comprised of operating income from fee and commission based products compared to the traditional interest-based market. Research limitations/implications – The empirical findings from this study clearly indicate that competitive behaviour of banks may be explained by factors other than the number of banks operating in the banking sector and their levels of concentration. However, the results need to be interpreted with caution since the liberalization and deregulation of the Malaysian banking sector remains an ongoing process. Originality/value – Despite substantial studies performed to examine the impact of consolidation on banks' competitive behaviour, these studies have concentrated mainly on the banking sectors of the western and developed countries. On the other hand, empirical evidence on the developing countries banking sectors is relatively scarce.
Equivalent Servants over P 2 P Networks

While peer-to-peer networks are mainly used to locate unique resources across the Internet, new interesting deployment scenarios are emerging. Particularly, some applications (e.g., VoIP) are proposing the creation of overlays for the localization of services based on equivalent servants (e.g., voice relays). This paper explores the possible overlay architectures that can be adopted to provide such services, showing how an unstructured solution based on a scale-free overlay topology is an effective option to deploy in this context. Consequently, we propose EQUATOR (EQUivalent servAnt locaTOR), an unstructured overlay implementing the above mentioned operating principles, based on an overlay construction algorithm that well approximates an ideal scale-free construction model. We present both analytical and simulation results which support our overlay topology selection and validate the proposed architecture.
Morphology of Europan bands at high resolution: A mid‐ocean ridge‐type rift mechanism

[1] We utilize imaging data from the Galileo spacecraft to investigate band formation on one of Jupiter's moons, Europa. Bands are polygonal features first observed in Voyager data close to Europa's anti-Jovian point and represent areas where preexisting terrain has been pulled apart, allowing new material to move up into the gap. We examine the detailed morphology of several bands imaged at different resolutions and lighting geometries. We identify several distinct morphological characteristics, including central troughs, hummocky textures, and ridge and trough terrains, some of which are common among the bands studied. In many cases, bands have initiated along segments of one or more preexisting double ridges, ubiquitous within Europa's ridged plains. Distinctive morphological features and high standing topography imply that the bands formed from compositionally or thermally buoyant ice, rather than liquid water. Comparisons between Europan band morphologies and features found on terrestrial mid-ocean ridges reveal several similarities, including axial troughs, subcircular hummocks, normal faults, and indications of symmetrical spreading. We conclude that terrestrial mid-ocean ridge rifting is a good analogy for Europan band formation. If a terrestrial seafloor-spreading model is applicable to Europan bands, we speculate that band morphologies might be related to the relative rate of spreading of each band. Bands may have contributed significantly to the resurfacing of Europa. Europan bands we examine predate (but do not postdate) lenticulae and related features, implying that the style of resurfacing on Europa has changed over recent geological time in these regions.
Credit, Housing Collateral and Consumption: Evidence from the UK, Japan and the US

The consumption behaviour of UK, US and Japanese households is examined and compared using a modern Ando-Modigliani style consumption function. The models incorporate income growth expectations, income uncertainty, housing collateral and other credit effects. These models therefore capture important parts of the financial accelerator. The evidence is that credit availability for UK and US but not Japanese households has undergone large shifts since 1980. The average consumption-to-income ratio shifted up in the UK and US as mortgage down-payment constraints eased and as the collateral role of housing wealth was enhanced by financial innovations, such as home equity loans. The estimated housing collateral effect is roughly similar in the US and UK, while land prices in Japan still have a negative effect on consumer spending. Together with evidence for negative real interest rate effects in the UK and US and positive ones in Japan, this suggests important differences in the transmission of monetary and credit shocks between Japan and the US, UK and other credit-liberalized economies.
Autonomic Resource Management for Optimized Power and Performance in Multi-tenant Clouds

We present an autonomic resource management framework that takes advantage of both virtual machine resizing (CPU and memory) and physical CPU frequency scaling to reduce the power consumption of servers while meeting performance requirements of colocated applications. We design online performance and power model estimators that capture the complex relationships between applications' performance and server power (respectively), and resource utilization. Based on these models, we devise two optimization strategies to determine the most power efficient configuration. We also show that an operator can tune the tradeoff between power and performance. Our evaluation using a set of cloud benchmarks compares the proposed solution in power savings against the Linux ondemand and performance CPU governors. The results show that our solution achieves power savings between 12% to 20% compared to the baseline performance governor, while still meeting applications' performance goals.
Board of directors' independence and executive compensation disclosure transparency: Canadian evidence

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate the relationship between board of directors' independence and executive compensation disclosures transparency. Design/methodology/approach - The paper examines compensation disclosure practices of a sample of 181 firms listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Board independence from management is assessed through an aggregate score which takes into account the proportion of independent directors, board leadership structure (i.e. CEO is the board chairperson), and the existence and independence of board committees. A cross-sectional regression analysis is used to examine the relationship between board independence and the extent of compensation disclosure. Findings - The paper finds that board independence from management is positively related to the transparency of executive compensation-related information. In addition, this study documents a positive (negative) relation between firm size, US cross-listing, growth opportunities (leverage) and the extent of executive compensation disclosure. Research limitations/implications - The study's results provide support to the managerial opportunism hypothesis in executive compensation. These findings highlight the importance of the board of directors as an effective governance mechanism which limits managerial rent-seeking in the design as well as the disclosure of executive compensation practices. Originality/value - This paper extends prior disclosure studies by examining the impact of board characteristics on the transparency of executive compensation disclosures in a principles-based governance regime. Furthermore, executive compensation disclosure provides an interesting setting in which to examine the ability of the directors to act independently from managers in a conflict of interests situation.
Achievement of Cardiometabolic Goals among Diabetic Patients in Spain. A Nationwide Population-Based Study

Background No previous study has reported a comprehensive assessment of the attainment of cardiometabolic goals in the diabetic population of a European country. We examined the achievement of cardiometabolic goals among diabetics in Spain. Methods and Findings A cross-sectional survey was performed in 2008–2010 among 12,077 individuals representative of the Spanish population aged ≥18 years. Information on cardiometabolic characteristics was collected at the participants’ homes through structured questionnaires, physical examination, and fasting blood samples. Attainment of cardiometabolic goals was evaluated according to the most well-known guidelines. A total of 834 individuals had diabetes (fasting serum glucose ≥126 mg/dl, or glycosylated hemoglobin ≥6.5%,) or were being treated with oral antidiabetic drugs or insulin). Among diabetic patients, 661 (79.2%) were aware of their condition. Among the aware diabetic patients, only 11.4% had neither general (body mass index <25 kg/m2) nor abdominal obesity (waist circumference ≤102 cm in men and ≤88 cm in women), 8.6% consumed <7% of calories daily from saturated fats, and 41.1% achieved the recommendation on weekly physical activity. About 71% had glycosylated hemoglobin <7%, 22% had blood pressure <130/80 mmHg, and 36% reached the LDL-cholesterol goal of <100 mg/dl. Although a large proportion of aware diabetic individuals received lifestyle medical advice, only 38% of overweight individuals and 20% of daily smokers were offered a specific strategy for weight loss or quitting smoking, respectively. Conclusions In a European country with universal healthcare coverage, achievement of many cardiometabolic goals, in particular lifestyle, among aware diabetic individuals is poor. This suggests a need for improvement in both clinical guidelines' implementation and patients’ adherence.
Adaptive compression-based models of Chinese text

Large alphabet languages such as Chinese present different problems for language modelling compared to small alphabet languages such as English. In this paper, we describe adaptive models of Chinese text based on the Partial Predictive Match (PPM) text compression scheme that learns the language as the text is processed sequentially. We describe several character-based, word-based and part-of-speech (POS) based variants of PPM that achieve significant improvements in compression rate over existing models. Interestingly, results for Chinese text contrast that achieved for English text, with character-based models outperforming the word and POS based models rather than the other way round. We then explore how well these models perform at the task of Chinese word segmentation.
Activity‐dependent expression of Egr1 mRNA in somatosensory cortex of developing rats

The rat barrel field in somatosensory cortex is a well‐characterized model of neocortical development, with activity‐dependent and activity‐independent components. Egr1 encodes an inducible transcription factor that is required for certain forms activity‐dependent plasticity. This study examines Egr1 mRNA expression in the developing barrel field under basal conditions and after short‐term deprivation or stimulation of whiskers. Egr1 mRNA was measured with in situ hybridization at postnatal Day (P) 6, P9, P12, P15, and P21. For short‐term deprivation, whiskers were trimmed close to the skin and Egr1 mRNA was examined 3 hr later. For controlled stimulation of a single whisker, surrounding whiskers were trimmed, a wire was glued to the designated whisker, and animals were placed in an AC magnetic field pulsed at 2 Hz, 10 mT rms for 15 min. Egr1 mRNA was examined 30 min later. At P6, basal Egr1 mRNA in the barrel field was very low and was increased only slightly by stimulation (P < 0.05). At each of the later ages, there was a large increase in Egr1 mRNA in stimulated versus deprived barrels (P < 0.001). Egr1 mRNA expression after whisker stimulation increased exponentially with age through P15 (P < 0.001) and then declined between P15 and P21. The onset of Egr1 responses to whisker stimulation at P9 and the striking increase in activity‐dependent Egr1 mRNA expression in the second postnatal week suggest that this transcription factor may play a role in activity‐dependent processes that occur in this developmental period, such as maturation of barrel cortex circuitry. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Effects of Rumination Induction on Attentional Breadth for Self-Related Information

The attentional scope model of rumination describes the links between rumination and attentional breadth. The model postulates that a more narrow attentional scope, caused by negative mood, increases the likelihood that thoughts become repetitive on the same topic, which in turn could exacerbate negative mood and lead to more attentional narrowing. We experimentally tested this model by examining the attentional effects of rumination using a newly developed rumination versus problem-solving induction. In the first experiment we found that only at high levels of trait rumination, induction of rumination compared with a problem-solving approach was associated with more attentional narrowing for self-related information relative to other-related information. A second experiment on the relationship between trait rumination and attentional breadth in the absence of induced rumination revealed that especially trait brooding was related to more narrowed attention for self-related information relative to other-related information.
Aid and Growth in the Pacific Islands

The literature on the aid–growth relationship has recently been reinvigorated through the application of growth equations that seek to explain growth as a function of institutions, policies and aid. This approach has generally led to the conclusion that aid has contributed to growth, albeit with decreasing returns. Some studies have found that there is only a positive relationship between aid and growth when there is a favourable policy environment—a finding that has been used to provide a reason for the reallocation of aid to better-performing countries and an increased emphasis by donors on aid conditionality. It is unclear whether these conclusions apply to the Pacific island countries given their unusual features: notably, small populations, remote locations and a high level of aid. This paper draws on the recent literature in examining the aid–growth relationship in seven Pacific island countries. A positive relationship between aid and growth is identified, although it is subject to decreasing returns. The study is unable to provide an adequate explanation for the role of institutions and policy in growth in the countries studied, or determine whether aid only contributes to growth when favourable policy environments are in place.