Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real options in system design: a methodological compromise and its implications DRAFT

This paper proposes a simulation methodology for the evaluation of flexibility in certain classes of engineering systems for the purpose of design. The intended audience for this process is the engineering community, whose priority and goal is not the absolute valuation of the system for diversified investors in the market, but the relative, ordinal valuation of the alternative engineering designs from a flexibility perspective. The proposed methodology sacrifices some technical rigor in the options valuation in order to be compatible with current evaluation practices in engineering organizations. We propose a step process that involves simulation of the exogenous uncertainties, valuation of one design alternative per the organization's practices, and finally, relative valuation of the other design alternatives and options based on the organization's inferred risk aversion. We use certainty-equivalence arguments for valuation and avoid risk-neutral dynamics. The method is accurate for valuing plain vanilla options, but strictly speaking, incorrect for options on multiple assets. The method is applied to a case of alternative uses of a land parcel and mixed-use development, which demonstrates the design implications from using this approach versus a traditional, rigorous real options analysis.
Is the receipt of social assistance transmitted from parents to children? Evidence from German panel data

This paper investigates the extent to which the duration and the receipt of social assistance (SA) are linked between parents and children in Germany. Several related questions are addressed. Does parents’ SA duration increase the future welfare dependency of children? Given exposure of welfare at home, are daughters more likely to live on SA later on than sons? Are there any differences in the probability of welfare dependency among young adults from the former East and West Germany? The analysis is based on alternative estimation procedures (probit and tobit, instrumental variable and non-parametric estimations) using data from the first nineteen years of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study. The estimates suggest that parental welfare receipt during late childhood years (ages 13-16) increases the probability and the expected duration that children receive SA in later life. Using various geographical differences in SA rates in Germany (between East-West Germany, northern-southern federal states and urban-rural areas) provide unique instruments to identify a causal link in intergenerational welfare receipt. No empirical evidence is found that the correlation in SA participation between parents and their adult children is spurious. JEL classification: J62, I38, J13
Cosmological Shock Waves and Their Role in the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe

We study the properties of cosmological shock waves identified in high-resolution, N-body/hydrodynamic simulations of a ΛCDM universe and their role on thermalization of gas and acceleration of nonthermal, cosmic-ray (CR) particles. External shocks form around sheets, filaments, and knots of mass distribution when the gas in void regions accretes onto them. Within those nonlinear structures, internal shocks are produced by infall of previously shocked gas to filaments and knots and during subclump mergers, as well as by chaotic flow motions. Due to the low temperature of the accreting gas, the Mach number of external shocks is high, extending up to M ~ 100 or higher. In contrast, internal shocks have mostly low Mach numbers. For all shocks of M ≥ 1.5, the mean distance between shock surfaces over the entire computed volume is ~4 h-1 Mpc at present, or ~1 h-1 Mpc for internal shocks within nonlinear structures. Identified external shocks are more extensive, with their surface area ~2 times larger than that of identified internal shocks at present. However, especially because of higher preshock densities but also due to higher shock speeds, internal shocks dissipate more energy. Hence, the internal shocks are mainly responsible for gas thermalization as well as CR acceleration. In fact, internal shocks with 2 ≲ M ≲ 4 contribute about one-half of the total dissipation. Using a nonlinear diffusive shock acceleration model for CR protons, we estimate the ratio of CR energy to gas thermal energy dissipated at cosmological shock waves to be about one-half through the history of the universe. Our result supports scenarios in which the intracluster medium contains energetically significant populations of CRs.
Obstetric outcome after in vitro fertilization with single or double embryo transfer.

BACKGROUND IVF children, including singletons, are known to have a poorer obstetric outcome than children born after spontaneous conception. With a broad introduction of single embryo transfer (SET), this scenario might change. This study compares the obstetric outcome after IVF with SET, elective SET (eSET), non elective SET (non-eSET) and double embryo transfer (DET) with outcomes in the general population. METHODS All IVF children born in Sweden after IVF treatment during the years 2002-2006 (n = 13 544 children) were included and compared with all non-IVF children born during the same time period (n = 587 009 children). Data were collected from all 16 Swedish IVF clinics and cross-linked with the Swedish Medical Birth Registry. Main outcomes were preterm birth (<28, <32 and <37 w), very-low-birthweight (VLBW) and low-birthweight (LBW). Adjusted odds ratios were calculated. RESULTS In total, 7763 children were born after SET and 5724 children after DET. Comparing all SET children, irrespective of multiplicity, with all children in the general population, significantly higher rates of <28 w was found for the IVF children. Comparing IVF singletons, irrespective of SET and DET with non-IVF singletons from the general population, significantly higher rates of <28 w, <37 w, LBW and VLBW were found. eSET singletons, compared with singletons in the general population, had a significantly higher rate of <37 w and non-eSET singletons had significantly higher rates of <28 w and <2500 g births. CONCLUSIONS Children born after IVF had a poorer obstetric outcome compared with children from the general population. Singletons, when analysed as one group, irrespective of whether the children were born after eSET, non-eSET or DET, also had a poorer obstetric outcome with higher rates of preterm and LBW compared with singletons in the general population.
Scheduling parallel programs by work stealing with private deques

Work stealing has proven to be an effective method for scheduling parallel programs on multicore computers. To achieve high performance, work stealing distributes tasks between concurrent queues, called deques, which are assigned to each processor. Each processor operates on its deque locally except when performing load balancing via steals. Unfortunately, concurrent deques suffer from two limitations: 1) local deque operations require expensive memory fences in modern weak-memory architectures, 2) they can be very difficult to extend to support various optimizations and flexible forms of task distribution strategies needed many applications, e.g., those that do not fit nicely into the divide-and-conquer, nested data parallel paradigm. For these reasons, there has been a lot recent interest in implementations of work stealing with non-concurrent deques, where deques remain entirely private to each processor and load balancing is performed via message passing. Private deques eliminate the need for memory fences from local operations and enable the design and implementation of efficient techniques for reducing task-creation overheads and improving task distribution. These advantages, however, come at the cost of communication. It is not known whether work stealing with private deques enjoys the theoretical guarantees of concurrent deques and whether they can be effective in practice. In this paper, we propose two work-stealing algorithms with private deques and prove that the algorithms guarantee similar theoretical bounds as work stealing with concurrent deques. For the analysis, we use a probabilistic model and consider a new parameter, the branching depth of the computation. We present an implementation of the algorithm as a C++ library and show that it compares well to Cilk on a range of benchmarks. Since our approach relies on private deques, it enables implementing flexible task creation and distribution strategies. As a specific example, we show how to implement task coalescing and steal-half strategies, which can be important in fine-grain, non-divide-and-conquer algorithms such as graph algorithms, and apply them to the depth-first-search problem.
Organization and function of Drosophila odorant binding proteins

Odorant binding proteins (Obps) are remarkable in their number, diversity, and abundance, yet their role in olfactory coding remains unclear. They are widely believed to be required for transporting hydrophobic odorants through an aqueous lymph to odorant receptors. We construct a map of the Drosophila antenna, in which the abundant Obps are mapped to olfactory sensilla with defined functions. The results lay a foundation for an incisive analysis of Obp function. The map identifies a sensillum type that contains a single abundant Obp, Obp28a. Surprisingly, deletion of the sole abundant Obp in these sensilla does not reduce the magnitude of their olfactory responses. The results suggest that this Obp is not required for odorant transport and that this sensillum does not require an abundant Obp. The results further suggest a novel role for this Obp in buffering changes in the odor environment, perhaps providing a molecular form of gain control. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.20242. 001
Contribution of Flow Cytometry to Acute Leukemia Classification in Tunisia

The precision of immunological characterization of leukemias was improved by a certain number of technical innovations, particularly hybridoma production and standardization, resulting in monoclonal antibodies and definition of recognised cellular antigens (designated by CD: Cluster of Differentiation). The aim of this work was to determine the immunophenotyping profile of patients with leukemia, by means of a flow cytometric method: 66 blood samples coming from leukemic persons in the Sahel region were studied by flow cytometry, using about thirty monoclonal antibodies all marked with a fluorochrome, in one or two colour systems to assess their distribution according to type (lymphoid B or T / myeloid) and age, and to search for possible co-expressions of markers of different lineages. The marked preponderance of childhood B-ALL in our series is, at least partly, attributable to the age distribution of the Tunisian population. In agreement with studies from other countries, the majority of AML cases occurred among adults. A high proportion of AML cases in our series co-expressed markers of other lineages. Overall, accurate classification of acute leukemias was possible from a simple peripheral blood sample in 62 of 66 cases (93.9%).
A modal typing system for self-referential programs and specifications

This paper proposes a modal typing system that enables us to handle self-referential formulae, including ones with negative self-references, which on one hand, would introduce a logical contradiction, namely Russell's paradox, in the conventional setting, while on the other hand, are necessary to capture a certain class of programs such as fixed-point combinators and objects with so-called binary methods in object-oriented programming. The proposed system provides a basis for axiomatic semantics of such a wider range of programs and a new framework for natural construction of recursive programs in the proofs-as-programs paradigm.
Tourism Competitiveness: Price and Quality

The price competitiveness of tourism destinations is examined at the national level using the Almost Ideal Demand System model. The extent to which changes in the characteristics of package holidays in destinations contribute to a change in the price of the packages is then examined using hedonic pricing models. The results show that the price sensitivities of tourism demand vary considerably between destinations, so that monitoring relative price competitiveness is important. The characteristics that have significant effects on package prices are identified, assisting policy makers in their choice of which characteristics to enhance with a view to increasing the returns from tourism.
A Scalable 3D HOG Model for Fast Object Detection and Viewpoint Estimation

In this paper we present a scalable way to learn and detect objects using a 3D representation based on HOG patches placed on a 3D cuboid. The model consists of a single 3D representation that is shared among views. Similarly to the work of Fidler et al. [5], at detection time this representation is projected on the image plane over the desired viewpoints. However, whereas in [5] the projection is done at image-level and therefore the computational cost is linear in the number of views, in our model every view is approximated at feature level as a linear combination of the pre-computed fron to-parallel views. As a result, once the fron to-parallel views have been computed, the cost of computing new views is almost negligible. This allows the model to be evaluated on many more viewpoints. In the experimental results we show that the proposed model has a comparable detection and pose estimation performance to standard multiview HOG detectors, but it is faster, it scales very well with the number of views and can better generalize to unseen views. Finally, we also show that with a procedure similar to label propagation it is possible to train the model even without using pose annotations at training time.
Non-Gaussian Membrane Potential Dynamics Imply Sparse, Synchronous Activity in Auditory Cortex

Many models of cortical dynamics have focused on the high-firing regime, in which neurons are driven near their maximal rate. Here we consider the responses of neurons in auditory cortex under typical low-firing rate conditions, when stimuli have not been optimized to drive neurons maximally. We used whole-cell patch-clamp recording in vivo to measure subthreshold membrane potential fluctuations in rat primary auditory cortex in both the anesthetized and awake preparations. By analyzing the subthreshold membrane potential dynamics on single trials, we made inferences about the underlying population activity. We found that, during both spontaneous and evoked responses, membrane potential was highly non-Gaussian, with dynamics consisting of occasional large excursions (sometimes tens of millivolts), much larger than the small fluctuations predicted by most random walk models that predict a Gaussian distribution of membrane potential. Thus, presynaptic inputs under these conditions are organized into quiescent periods punctuated by brief highly synchronous volleys, or “bumps. ” These bumps were typically so brief that they could not be well characterized as “up states” or “down states. ” We estimate that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of presynaptic neurons participate in the largest volleys. These dynamics suggest a computational scheme in which spike timing is controlled by concerted firing among input neurons rather than by small fluctuations in a sea of background activity.
Does Investor Sentiment Affect Sell-Side Analysts' Forecast Accuracy?

We examine the association between investor sentiment and the accuracy of sell-side analysts’ forecasts of quarterly earnings over 1981 – 2004. We use the Index of Consumer Expectations (ICE) from the University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment. Following Lemmon and Portniaguina (2006) and Gao (2008), we investigate both the aggregate consumer expectations measure as well as its two components: that portion that is related to underlying economic factors (the “fundamental” component) and that portion that is unrelated to the underlying economic factors (the “residual” component). After controlling for other determinants of forecast accuracy, we find a negative relation between forecast accuracy and the residual component of consumer expectations. Thus, analysts are the least accurate when investors are “irrationally” optimistic. Examining the cumulative abnormal returns around the earnings announcement date, we show that the market places more weight on analyst forecast errors when the residual component of consumer expectations is high. Taken together, these findings suggest that analysts are affected by investor sentiment, and the market reacts more strongly to analyst forecast errors when they are the least accurate. The last result potentially explains why prior work (e.g., Baker and Wurgler, 2006) finds an association between investor sentiment and crosssectional stock returns. JEL classifications: G14; G17; G24; M41; N10
ENSO effects on primary productivity in Southern Atacama desert

Abstract. In the winter-rain southern Atacama Desert of the Coquimbo Region of Chile, El Nino - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events modulate primary productivity. In this region, there are important changes in water availability between La Nina (dry) and El Nino (rainy) years. Using inter-annual comparisons of LANDSAT images from 30° to 31° S latitude, we observed changes in primary productivity between dry and rainy years at the regional level. There were also significant, negative correlations between productivity and elevation, with changes occurring first at low elevation during rainy years. The limiting factors to dryland vegetation primary productivity is different in regard to elevation. Rain during an El Nino year is the main factor that explains the increase in primary productivity at low elevation, while lower temperatures reduce and delay the net primary productivity at mid elevation.
A Comparison of Empathy and Sympathy Between Counselors-in-Training and Their Non-Counseling Academic Peers

Empathy plays an integral role in the facilitation of therapeutic relationships and promotion of positive client outcomes. Researchers and scholars agree that some components of empathy might be dispositional in nature and that empathy can be developed through empathy training. However, although empathy is an essential part of the counseling process, literature reviewing the development of counseling students’ empathy is limited. Thus, we examined empathy and sympathy scores in counselors-in-training (CITs) in comparison to students from other academic disciplines (N = 868) to determine if CITs possess greater levels of empathy than their non-counseling academic peers. We conducted a MANOVA and failed to identify differences in levels of empathy or sympathy across participants regardless of academic discipline, potentially indicating that counselor education programs might be missing opportunities to further develop empathy in their CITs. We call for counselor education training programs to promote empathy development in their CITs.
A supersingular K3 surface in characteristic 2 and the Leech lattice

We construct a K3 surface over an algebraically closed field of characteristic 2 which contains two sets of 21 disjoint smooth rational curves such that each curve from one set intersects exactly 5 curves from the other set. This configuration is isomorphic to the configuration of points and lines on the projective plane over the finite field of 4 elements. The surface admits a finite automorphism group which contains the group of automorphisms of the plane which acts on the configuration of each set of 21 smooth rational curves, and the additional element of order 2 which interchanges the two sets. The Picard lattice of the surface is a reflective sublattice of an even unimodular lattice of signatuire (1,25) and the classes of the 42 curves correspond to some Leech roots in this lattice.
Ultraviolet-excess sources with a red/infrared counterpart: low-mass companions, debris discs and QSO selection

We present the result of the cross-matching between UV-excess sources selected from the UV-excess survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (UVEX ) and several infrared surveys (2MASS , UKIDSS and WISE ). From the position in the (J H) vs. (H K) colour-colour diagram we select UV-excess candidate white dwarfs with an M-dwarf type companion, candidates that might have a lower mass, brown-dwarf type companion, and candidates showing an infrared-excess only in the K-band, which might be due to a debris disk. Grids of reddened DA+dM and sdO+MS/sdB+MS model spectra are fitted to the U,g,r,i,z,J,H,K photometry in order to determine spectral types and estimate temperatures and reddening. From a sample of 964 hot candidate white dwarfs with (g r) <0.2, the spectral energy distribution fitting shows that �2-4% of the white dwarfs have an M-dwarf companion, �2% have a lower-mass companion, and no clear candidates for having a debris disk are found. Additionally, from WISE 6 UV-excess sources are selected as candidate Quasi-Stellar Objects (QSOs). Two UV-excess sources have a WISE IR-excess showing up only in the mid-IR W3 band of WISE , making them candidate Luminous InfraRed Galaxies (LIRGs) or Sbc star-burst galaxies.
Hot Ductility Behavior of a Peritectic Steel during Continuous Casting

Hot ductility properties of a peritectic steel for welded gas cylinders during continuous casting were studied by performing hot tensile tests at certain temperatures ranging from 1200 to 700 °C for some cooling rates by using Gleeble-3500 thermo-mechanical test and simulation machine in this study. The effects of cooling rate and strain rate on hot ductility were investigated and continuous casting process map (time-temperature-ductility) were plotted for this material. Reduction of area (RA) decreases and cracking susceptibility increases during cooling from solidification between certain temperatures depending on the cooling rate. Although the temperatures which fracture behavior change upon cooling during continuous casting may vary for different materials, it was found that the type of fracture was ductile at 1100 and 1050 °C; semi-ductile at 1000 °C, and brittle at 800 °C for the steel P245NB. There is a ductility trough between 1000 and 725 °C. The ductility trough gets slightly narrower as the cooling rate decreases.
Interference with Glycosaminoglycan-Chemokine Interactions with a Probe to Alter Leukocyte Recruitment and Inflammation In Vivo

In vivo leukocyte recruitment is not fully understood and may result from interactions of chemokines with glycosaminoglycans/GAGs. We previously showed that chlorite-oxidized oxyamylose/COAM binds the neutrophil chemokine GCP-2/CXCL6. Here, mouse chemokine binding by COAM was studied systematically and binding affinities of chemokines to COAM versus GAGs were compared. COAM and heparan sulphate bound the mouse CXC chemokines KC/CXCL1, MIP-2/CXCL2, IP-10/CXCL10 and I-TAC/CXCL11 and the CC chemokine RANTES/CCL5 with affinities in the nanomolar range, whereas no binding interactions were observed for mouse MCP-1/CCL2, MIP-1α/CCL3 and MIP-1β/CCL4. The affinities of COAM-interacting chemokines were similar to or higher than those observed for heparan sulphate. Although COAM did not display chemotactic activity by itself, its co-administration with mouse GCP-2/CXCL6 and MIP-2/CXCL2 or its binding of endogenous chemokines resulted in fast and cooperative peritoneal neutrophil recruitment and in extravasation into the cremaster muscle in vivo. These local GAG mimetic features by COAM within tissues superseded systemic effects and were sufficient and applicable to reduce LPS-induced liver-specific neutrophil recruitment and activation. COAM mimics glycosaminoglycans and is a nontoxic probe for the study of leukocyte recruitment and inflammation in vivo.