Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Annual Report Transportation Data Research Laboratory 2004 Final Report

Duluth was established to study archiving and sharing issues of large-scaled data generated by Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). The intent was to attain additional benefits of ITS data by archiving and sharing the historic data with public, universities, and government organizations through Internet. In the fiscal year (FY) 2003-04, TDRL completed online automation for the two large sets of transportation data generated by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) ITS; they are the traffic data collected from the Transportation Management Center (TMC) in Twin Cities and the statewide road-weather data collected from the Mn/DOT Road Weather Information System (RWIS). These two sets of large data are now available through Internet and can be freely downloaded. Beyond the data archiving and sharing issues, TDRL researchers also participate in other research issues. In FY 2003-04, TDRL developed a method of detecting faulty loop detectors using software based on analysis of archived traffic data. This method was implemented as a software diagnostic tool and utilizes a new decision-tree algorithm that classifies detectors into four classes, i.e., healthy, marginal, suspected, and highly suspected detectors. TDRL also completed a data automation project with the Mn/DOT Office of Transportation Data & Analysis (TDA). This project involves development of an on-line automation system that computes the traditional continuous and short-duration count data using the ITS archived data. Another project completed by TDRL in FY 2003-04 was the development of a raw-signal probing tool for Lineas Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) systems. The signal processing hardware and software for the WIM probe was successfully developed and delivered to the Mn/DOT TDA. The WIM probe allows for analysts to probe various stages of WIM signal processing and determine the status of each WIM channel. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author(s) wish to acknowledge those who made this research possible. completed online automation for the two large sets of Minnesota Department of Transportation's (Mn/DOT's) transportation data, i.e., the Transportation Management Center (TMC) traffic data, and the statewide Road Weather Information System (RWIS) data. This success was due to the development of a new data archiving technology referred to as the Unified Transportation Sensor Data Format (UTSDF) that allows efficient archiving of many types of transportation sensor data regardless of their data types. With this new technology, the users now need to learn only one type of data format to understand the entire TDRL's data archives. Presently, TDRL Data Center automatically acquires the RWIS and traffic …
Does food marketing need to make us fat? A review and solutions

Food marketing is often singled out as the leading cause of the obesity epidemic. The present review examines current food marketing practices to determine how exactly they may be influencing food intake, and how food marketers could meet their business objectives while helping people eat healthier. Particular attention is paid to the insights provided by recently published studies in the areas of marketing and consumer research, and those insights are integrated with findings from studies in nutrition and related disciplines. The review begins with an examination of the multiple ways in which 1) food pricing strategies and 2) marketing communication (including branding and food claims) bias food consumption. It then describes the effects of newer and less conspicuous marketing actions, focusing on 3) packaging (including the effects of package design and package-based claims) and 4) the eating environment (including the availability, salience, and convenience of food). Throughout, this review underscores the promising opportunities that food manufacturers and retailers have to make profitable “win-win” adjustments to help consumers eat better.
GIS approach to scale issues of perimeter-based shape indices for drainage basins

Abstract Shape indices have been in use for several decades to describe the characteristics and hydrological properties of drainage basins. Due to the fractal behaviour of the basin boundary, perimeter-based shape indices depend on the scale at which they are determined. Therefore, these indices cannot objectively compare drainage basins across a range of scales and basin sizes. This paper presents an objective GIS-based methodology for determining scale-dependent shape indices from gridded drainage basin representations. The scale effect is addressed by defining a representative scale at which the indices should be determined, based on a threshold symmetric difference between two grids representing the drainage basin at different resolutions.
Detecting faults in technical indicator computations for financial market analysis

Many financial trading and charting software packages provide users with technical indicators to analyze and predict price movements in financial markets. Any computation fault in technical indicator may lead to wrong trading decisions and cause substantial financial losses. Testing is a major software engineering activity to detect computation faults in software. However, there are two problems in testing technical indicators in these software packages. Firstly, the indicator values are updated with real-time market data that cannot be generated arbitrarily. Secondly, technical indicators are computed based on a large amount of market data. Thus, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to derive the expected indicator values to check the correctness of the computed indicator values. In this paper, we address the above problems by proposing a new testing technique to detect faults in computation of technical indicators. We show that the proposed technique is effective in detecting computation faults in faulty technical indicators on the MetaTrader 4 Client Terminal.
International Monetary Policy Coordination: Past, Present and Future

This paper examines two explanations for the recent spate of complaints about cross-border monetary policy spillovers and calls for international monetary policy coordination, a development that contrasts sharply with the monetary system in the 1980s, 1990s and until recently. The first explanation holds that deviations from rules-based policy at several central banks created incentives for other central banks to deviate from such policies. The second explanation either does not see deviations from rules or finds such deviations benign; it characterises recent unusual monetary policies as appropriate, explains the complaints as an adjustment to optimal policies, and downplays concerns about interest rate differentials and capital controls. Going forward, the goal for central banks should be an expanded rulesbased system similar to that of the 1980s and 1990s, which would operate near an international cooperative equilibrium. International monetary policy coordination – at least formal discussions of rules-based policies and the issues reviewed here – would help central banks get such equilibrium.
Transgenic Crops and Crop Varietal Diversity: The Case of Maize in Mexico

Abstract Transgenic crop varieties are a rapidly expanding and controversial technology. Their effects on biological and cultural diversity are a key issue in an often polarized debate. Here we provide answers to questions about one important example, that of transgenic maize in Mexico. In situ maize diversity in Mexico is present in traditional varieties in farmers' fields, and in wild and weedy relatives of maize. It is likely that transgenes are present in farmers' local maize varieties, but it is unknown whether they have introgressed. Socioeconomic changes, including migration, trade liberalization, and reduced support for Mexican farmers, may also affect maize diversity. Diversity may increase, decrease, or remain the same, but whether this is viewed as good or bad will depend on subjective values.
Consumer Price Behavior in Mexico Under Inflation Targeting: A Microdata Approach

In this paper we do a statistical analysis of the Mexican Consumer Price Index microdata set to characterize the rigidities of the price setting process in the different sectors of the Mexican economy. The microdata set goes from July 2002 to December 2009. Broadly, results show that there exists a considerable heterogeneity in the price setting behavior across different sectors and over time. Evidence was found that when big shocks affect inflation, there is a strong co-movement of the fraction of the firms that change prices with the level of inflation.
Engineering the Financial Crisis: Systemic Risk and the Failure of Regulation

List of Figures and Tables Glossary of Abbreviations and Acronyms Introduction 1 Bonuses, Irrationality, and Too-Bigness: The Conventional Wisdom About the Financial Crisis and Its Theoretical Implications 2 Capital Adequacy Regulations and the Financial Crisis: Bankers' and Regulators' Errors 3 The Interaction of Regulations and the Great Recession: Fetishizing Market Prices 4 Capitalism and Regulation: Ignorance, Heterogeneity, and Systemic Risk Conclusion Appendix I. Scholarship About the Corporate-Compensation Hypothesis Appendix II. The Basel Rules off the Balance Sheet Notes References Index Acknowledgments
A novel inheritable color space with application to kinship verification

Anthropology studies discover that some genetic related facial features, which are inherited by children from their parents, can be used for kinship verification. This paper investigates an important inheritable feature - color and presents a novel inheritable color space (InCS) and a generalized InCS (GInCS) framework with application to kinship verification. Specifically, a novel color similarity measure (CSM) is first defined. Second, based on this similarity measure, a new inheritable color space (InCS) is derived by balancing the criterion of minimizing the distance between kinship pairs and the criterion of maximizing the distance between non-kinship pairs. Unlike conventional color spaces, e.g. the RGB color space, the proposed InCS, which is learned automatically from the data, captures the inheritable information between parent and child. Third, theoretical and empirical analysis show that the proposed InCS exhibits the decorrelation property, which is positively related to the performance of kinship verification. Robustness to the illumination variation is also discussed. Fourth, a generalized InCS framework is presented to extend the InCS from the pixel level to the feature level for improving the performance and the robustness to illumination variation. The proposed InCS is evaluated on several popular datasets, namely the KinFaceW-I dataset, the KinFaceW-II dataset, the UB KinFace dataset, and the Cornell KinFace dataset. Experimental results show that the proposed InCS is able to (i) improve the conventional color spaces such as RGB, YUV, YIQ color spaces by a large margin, (ii) achieve robustness to the illumination variation, and (iii) outperforms other popular methods.
The Effect of the Semantic Depth of Spanish Verbs on Processing Demands of Filler-Gap Relationships in Noun Clauses

The Effect of the Semantic Depth of Spanish Verbs on Processing Demands of Filler-Gap Relationships in Noun Clauses Ashlee Marie Jessen Department of Spanish and Portuguese, BYU Master of Arts This study explored the relationship between syntax and semantics in an effort to provide evidence against a strict theory of the Autonomy of Syntax. The evidence was provided by an acceptability survey given to 20 native, adult Mexicans who ranked both declarative and whquestions which manifested a filler-gap relationship where the gap was located in an embedded noun clause. The main verbs were controlled for semantic depth by being ranked within verbal categories according to external evidence of markedness or semantic depth. The primary hypothesis was that semantically deeper verbs would add to the already increased strain on working memory associated with filler-gap processing, thereby resulting in decreased acceptability. The results of the survey showed that, while this hypothesis held true to some degree, further research will be required to confirm the results and to further understand the intricate interactions between syntax and semantics.
Persistent Lexical Entrainment in HRI

In this study, we set out to ask three questions. First, does lexical entrainment with a robot interlocutor persist after an interaction? Second, how does the influence of social robots on humans compare with the influence of humans on each other? Finally, what role is played by personality traits in lexical entrainment to robots, and how does this compare with the role of personality in entrainment to other humans? Our experiment shows that first, robots can indeed prompt lexical entrainment that persists after an interaction is over. This finding is interesting since it demonstrates that speakers can be linguistically influenced by a robot, in a way that is not merely motivated by a desire to be understood. Second, we find similarities between lexical entrainment to the robot peer and lexical entrainment to a human peer, although the effects are stronger when the peer is human. Third, we find that whether the peer is a robot or a human, similar personality traits contribute to lexical entrainment. In both peer conditions, participants who score higher on “Openness to experience” are more likely to adopt less conventional terminology.
Quantifying the Structure of Food Demand in China Using a Generalized Quadratic AIDS Specification

This manuscript is used to examine food demand structure and its dynamics for 11 commodities in urban China. The analysis is based on household-level expenditure survey data for two cross-sectional surveys of Chinese households pertaining to food expenditure patterns during 1995 and 2003. A major focus of this presentation is on the pre-committed component of demand that is not accounted for by economic and demographic characteristics. We use the generalized quadratic almost ideal demand system (GQAIDS) for its empirical superiority to the GAIDS, and estimate the associated parameters via a full information maximum likelihood procedure (FIML) procedure, where we test for whether total food expenditure for home consumption (FAH) is endogenous. We also use quality adjusted commodity unit values to account for quality differences resulting from commodity aggregation and food choice. We find that the demand for FAH by surveyed households has changed for a majority of the 11 commodities included in the analysis. We find that more than a third of vegetables consumed in 1995 were due to pre-committed demand, while no traditional Chinese food staple had positive significant pre-committed demand in 2003. With the changing food structure this may be indicative of an increased desire for flexibility in the Chinese diet.
Measuring enjoyment of an interactive museum experience

Museums are increasingly being equipped with interactive technology. The main goal of using technology is to improve the museum-going experience of visitors. In this paper, we present the results of a study with an electronic quest through a museum aimed at children in the age of 10-12. We wanted to find out whether personalization of the quest effects enjoyment. For this purpose we involved an interactive multi-touch table in the experiment, which also offered the opportunity to add the element of collaboration. We compared a group that did the original non-personalized quest with a group that did the personalized quest. This last group interacted with the multi-touch table to personalize the quest before they started on it. No significant differences were found between the experimental groups. We did find many differences between the children of age 10-11 and those of age 11-12, on almost all measurements. On this aspect we present some methodical results about measuring enjoyment and intrinsic motivation with children of 10-12 years old.
Statins Attenuate the Increase in P-Selectin Produced by Prolonged Exercise

Strenuous endurance exercise increases inflammatory markers and acutely increases cardiovascular risk; however, statins may mitigate this response. We measured serum levels of p-selectin in 37 runners treated with statins and in 43 nonstatin treated controls running the 2011 Boston Marathon. Venous blood samples were obtained the day before (PRE) as well as within 1 hour after (FINISH) and 24 hours after (POST) the race. The increase in p-selectin immediately after exercise was lower in statin users (PRE to FINISH: 20.5 ± 19.4 ng/mL) than controls (PRE to FINISH: 30.9 ± 27.1 ng/mL; P < 0.001). The increase in p-selectin 24 hours after exercise was also lower in statin users (PRE to POST: 21.5 ± 26.6 ng/mL) than controls (PRE to POST: 29.3 ± 31.9 ng/mL; P < 0.001). Furthermore, LDL-C was positively correlated with p-selectin at FINISH and POST (P < 0.01 and P < 0.05, resp.), irrespective of drug treatment, suggesting that lower levels of LDL-C are associated with a reduced inflammatory response to exercise. We conclude that statins blunt the exercise-induced increase in p-selectin following a marathon and that the inflammatory response to a marathon varies directly with LDL-C levels.
Prostacyclin-IP signaling and prostaglandin E2-EP2/EP4 signaling both mediate joint inflammation in mouse collagen-induced arthritis

Prostaglandin (PG)I2 (prostacyclin [PGI]) and PGE2 are abundantly present in the synovial fluid of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. Although the role of PGE2 in RA has been well studied, how much PGI2 contributes to RA is little known. To examine this issue, we backcrossed mice lacking the PGI receptor (IP) to the DBA/1J strain and subjected them to collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). IP-deficient (IP−/−) mice exhibited significant reduction in arthritic scores compared with wild-type (WT) mice, despite anti-collagen antibody production and complement activation similar to WT mice. IP−/− mice also showed significant reduction in contents of proinflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin (IL)-6 in arthritic paws. Consistently, the addition of an IP agonist to cultured synovial fibroblasts significantly enhanced IL-6 production and induced expression of other arthritis-related genes. On the other hand, loss or inhibition of each PGE receptor subtype alone did not affect elicitation of inflammation in CIA. However, a partial but significant suppression of CIA was achieved by the combined inhibition of EP2 and EP4. Our results show significant roles of both PGI2-IP and PGE2-EP2/EP4 signaling in the development of CIA, and suggest that inhibition of PGE2 synthesis alone may not be sufficient for suppression of RA symptoms.
strength of hydroxyapatite biomaterials micromechanical predictions of elasticity and The role of disc-type crystal shape for

References l.html#ref-list-1 http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing. org/content/368/1917/1913.ful This article cites 38 articles Rapid response 1917/1913 http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing. org/letters/submit/roypta;368/ Respond to this article Subject collections (142 articles) biomedical engineering  (105 articles) materials science  collections Articles on similar topics can be found in the following
Considering Spatial Scale and Reproductive Consequences of Habitat Selection when Managing Grasslands for a Threatened Species

Habitat selection that has fitness consequences has important implications for conservation activities. For example, habitat characteristics that influence nest success in birds can be manipulated to improve habitat quality with the goal of ultimately improving reproductive success. We examined habitat selection by the threatened streaked horned lark (Eremophila alpestris strigata) at both the breeding-site (territory) and nest-site scales. Larks were selective at both spatial scales but with contrasting selection. At the territory scale, male larks selected sparsely vegetated grasslands with relatively short vegetation. At the nest-site scale, female larks selected sites within territories with higher vegetation density and more perennial forbs. These nest-site scale choices had reproductive consequences, with greater nest success in areas with higher densities of perennial forbs. We experimentally manipulated lark habitat structure in an attempt to mimic the habitat conditions selected by larks by using late summer prescribed fires. After the burn, changes in vegetation structure were in the direction preferred by larks but habitat effects attenuated by the following year. Our results highlight the importance of evaluating habitat selection at spatial scales appropriate to the species of interest, especially when attempting to improve habitat quality for rare and declining species. They also highlight the importance of conducting restoration activities in a research context. For example, because the sparsely vegetated conditions created by fire attenuate, there may be value in examining more frequent burns or hotter fires as the next management and research action. We hope the design outlined in this study will serve as an integrated research and management example for conserving grassland birds generally.
Equity Investment Strategies: The Case of Croatia

Abstract This paper aims to analyze an investment strategy employed by particular equity investment fund in Croatia, i.e. to detect the fraction of passive funds which claim to be active. In order to test for bilateral long-run co-movements between fifteen selected mutual funds and CROBEX in time period from their start to the end of 2009, we use bivariate Johansen cointegration procedure. Results reveal that most of the Croatian equity funds share long run comovements with benchmark equity market index, representing the "closet indexers". Obtained results are to some extent unexpected given spotted inefficiencies on Croatian equity market that should have been exploited by active stock pickers.
Corporate governance: institutional arrangement or market choice?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate governance mechanism and firm value of the listed companies in China. Does the better corporate governance lead to the higher firm value? Or does the higher firm value make it easy to choose a better governance mechanism? Or they affect each other? In other words, this paper tries to answer whether the corporate governance mechanism is only decided by institutional arrangement, or by market choice according to firm value or performance or by the interaction of institutional arrangement and market choice? It tries to answer whether institutional arrangement maximizes the firm value, or an invisible hand pushes them to arrive at its maximum. Design/methodology/approach – This paper establishes an analytic framework of simultaneous equations based on causality, which includes five endogenous variables: ownership of larger shareholders, managerial ownership, director compensation, debt financing and firm value. It adopts .
The causes of happiness and misery

Chapter 3 discusses the causes of happiness and misery, based on 30 years of research on the topic. Both external and personal features determine well-being. Some of the important external factors include income, work, community and governance, and values and religion. More "personal" factors include mental and physical health, family experience, education, gender, and age. Many of these factors have a two-way interaction with happiness – physical health may improve happiness, while happiness improves physical health. An analysis of all these factors strikingly shows that while absolute income is important in poor countries, in richer countries comparative income is probably the most important. Many other variables have a more powerful effect on happiness, including social trust, quality of work, and freedom of choice and political participation.