Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regularizing deep networks using efficient layerwise adversarial training

Adversarial training has been shown to regularize deep neural networks in addition to increasing their robustness to adversarial examples. However, the regularization effect on very deep state of the art networks has not been fully investigated. In this paper, we present a novel approach to regularize deep neural networks by perturbing intermediate layer activations in an efficient manner. We use these perturbations to train very deep models such as ResNets and WideResNets and show improvement in performance across datasets of different sizes such as CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100 and ImageNet. Our ablative experiments show that the proposed approach not only provides stronger regularization compared to Dropout but also improves adversarial robustness comparable to traditional adversarial training approaches.
A BI-OBJECTIVE TRAFFIC COUNTING LOCATION PROBLEM FOR ORIGIN-DESTINATION TRIP TABLE ESTIMATION

In this study, we consider the bi-objective traffic counting location problem for the purpose of origin-destination (O-D) trip table estimation. The problem is to determine the number and locations of counting stations that would best cover the network. The maximal coverage and minimal resource utilization criteria, which are generally conflicting, are simultaneously considered in a multi-objective manner to reveal the tradeoff between the quality and cost of coverage. A distance-based genetic algorithm (GA) is used to solve the proposed bi-objective traffic counting location problem by explicitly generating the non-dominated solutions. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed model. The primary results indicate that the distance-based GA can produce the set of non-dominated solutions from which the decision makers can examine the tradeoff between the quality and cost of coverage and make a proper selection without the need to repeatedly solve the maximal covering problem with different levels of resource.
The Relationship between Illegal Drug Prices at the Retail User and Seller Levels

This article uses 1985-2000 DEA data on marijuana and cocaine prices in various metropolitan areas to empirically test two contrasting theories of the relationship between illegal drug prices at the retail seller and user levels. Regression results overwhelmingly reject a multiplicative model in which the ratio of prices at the two levels is constant, but strongly support an additive model in which the difference between these prices is constant. This finding reduces the attractiveness of policies aimed at raising wholesale prices, because retail price responses, and thus potential drug demand deterrence, would be substantially smaller than commonly assumed. (JEL "D40", "I18", "K42") Copyright 2006 Western Economic Association International.
Directional velocity estimation using focusing along the flow direction. II: experimental investigation

For pt. I see ibid., vol. 50, no. 7, p. 857 (2003). A new method for directional velocity estimation is investigated through a number of flow rig measurements. The method uses beam-formation along the flow direction to generate data, where the correct velocity magnitude can directly be estimated from the shift in position of the received consecutive signals. The shift is found by cross-correlating the beamformed lines. The approach can find the velocity in any direction, including transverse to the traditionally emitted ultrasound beam. The method is investigated using a flow rig with a peak velocity of 0.15 m/s. A 7-MHz linear array transducer is used together with a dedicated sampling system to acquire signals from 64 transducer elements simultaneously. A technique for obtaining 128-element data using multiplexing is also presented. The data is beamformed off-line on a PC. A relative standard deviation of 1.4% can be obtained for a beam-to-flow angle of 45/spl deg/ and 4.3% at 90/spl deg/. Color flow images are displayed showing that the correct velocity magnitude can be obtained with the method for beam-to-flow angles of 60 and 90/spl deg/ with an accuracy of 3 to 4%.
Ownership Dynamics and Asset Pricing with a Large Shareholder

We analyze the optimal trading and ownership policy of a large shareholder who must trade off diversification and monitoring incentives. Without commitment, the problem is similar to durable goods monopoly: the share price today depends on expected future trades. We show that the large shareholder ultimately trades to the competitive price‐taking allocation, even though it entails inefficient monitoring. With continuous trading, the large shareholder trades immediately to this allocation if moral hazard is weak enough that her private valuation of a share is decreasing in her stake. Otherwise, the large shareholder adjusts her stake gradually. We consider implications for asset pricing, IPO underpricing, and lockup provisions.
An evaluation of SFAS No. 130 comprehensive income disclosures

In this study, we provide evidence on the pricing of other comprehensive income (OCI) that differs from most evidence in prior research. Prior archival research has largely concluded that OCI is not priced by investors. In contrast, we provide evidence in the post-SFAS 130 period that OCI is priced on a dollar-for-dollar basis as is predicted by economic theory for transitory income items. We attribute this finding to our use of post-SFAS 130 as-reported measures of OCI rather than pre-SFAS 130 as-if estimates of OCI measures. Furthermore, we document that two components of OCI, foreign currency translation adjustment and unrealized gains/losses on available-for-sale securities, are priced by investors. In the post-SFAS 130 period, we also find that the type of financial statement in which firms report OCI and its components affects pricing, consistent with the conclusions of prior experimental research. However, our evidence suggests that investors pay greater attention to OCI information reported in the statement of changes in equity, rather than in a statement of financial performance. This could be attributed to investors becoming more familiar in the post-SFAS 130 period with the predominant reporting of OCI and its components in the statement of changes in equity. These findings may be relevant to both the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board, which jointly are undertaking a new project that, in part, is addressing financial statement presentation of OCI items.
Small firms in the tourism industry: some conceptual issues

Public policy to promote small business development is an established feature of the political landscape throughout western Europe. In a tourism context, there is a growing interest in the small business dimension, in both academic and policy terms. Yet, research relating to small firms does not appear to inform policy development. This paper argues that such a situation is exacerbated, if not precipitated, by a lack of common understanding about terminology and reasons for categorisation. The paper explores various definitions of ‘small tourism firms’ and examines the utility of adopting such a grouping as an analytical category. Following a critical review of statistics relating to the sector, it argues that additional research is required so that policy initiatives might be more finely focused. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The use of ICT in rural firms: A policy-orientated literature review

Purpose – There is much evidence that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are drivers of economic growth. As a result, government is keen to promote ICT take‐up, particularly where there is economic development need. The rural economy in most countries is regarded as that which requires intervention in order to foster sustainability and development, and there have been many empirical studies of both the value and the use of ICTs in rural areas. These are, however, highly disparate, often being industry‐, country‐ and, indeed, type‐of‐technology‐specific. Aims to draw together the highly eclectic literature on the use of ICTs in rural small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to provide an overview of generic issues, relevant to policy.Design/methodology/approach – Comprises a literature review, based on academic, government and agency publications, and provides commentary on emergent issues, particularly those relating to policy recommendations.Findings – Finds that there is a lag in.
Sequential Audio-Visual Correspondence With Alternating Diffusion Kernels

A fundamental problem in multimodal signal processing is to quantify relations between two different signals with respect to a certain phenomenon. In this paper, we address this problem from a kernel-based perspective and propose a measure that is based on affinity kernels constructed separately in each modality. This measure is motivated from both a kernel density estimation point of view of predicting the signal in one modality based on the other, as well as from a statistical model, which implies that high values of the proposed measure are expected when signals highly correspond to each other. Considering an online setting, we propose an efficient algorithm for the sequential update of the proposed measure, and demonstrate its application to eye-fixation prediction in audio-visual recordings. The goal is to predict locations within a video recording at which people gaze when watching the video. As studies in psychology imply, people tend to gaze at the location of the audio source, so that their prediction becomes equivalent to locating the audio source within the video. Therefore, we propose to predict eye-fixations as regions within the video with the highest correspondence to the audio signal, thereby demonstrating the improved performance of the proposed method.
National unity and reconciliation in Rwanda: A flawed approach?

Abstract This article examines the Rwandan government's national unity and reconciliation policy and one of its key elements, the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC). It contends that while the NURC potentially represents an innovative model that other post-conflict societies could adapt and use, the central premise on which both the commission and the government's broader national unity and reconciliation policy are based is critically flawed. The unity that they are endeavouring to achieve, as a vehicle for reconciliation, relies upon a negation of ethnicity – a core component of the 1994 genocide – and hence does not allow for an open and honest engagement with the past. The problem is further compounded by the government's attitude towards the prosecution of crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which not only demonstrates that ethnicity remains highly significant but also underscores the incomplete and partial way in which the past is being addressed.
Measurement of reversal potential of Na+‐Ca2+ exchange current in single guinea‐pig ventricular cells.

1. To identify the Na+‐ or Ca2+‐induced current as Na+‐Ca2+ exchange current and to determine the stoichiometry of the Na+‐Ca2+ exchange, the reversal potential was measured in a wide range of external Na+ [( Na+]o) or Ca2+ [( Ca2+]o) concentrations. The Na+‐ or Ca2+‐induced current was recorded in single ventricular cells enzymatically dispersed from guinea‐pig hearts, using the technique of whole‐cell voltage clamp combined with internal perfusion. 2. In the presence of 10‐40 mM‐Na+ and 55‐803 nM‐Ca2+ in the internal solution, an increase of [Ca2+]o from 0.1 to 0.5‐20 mM or an increase of [Na+]o from 30 to 50‐140 mM induced an extra current associated with an increase in membrane conductance. The reversal potential of these extra currents was determined from an intersection of the current‐voltage (I‐V) relations obtained in the absence and presence of a Na+‐Ca2+ exchange blocker, Ni2+ (2 mM). 3. Ba2+ in the external solution failed to induce the extra current, but inhibited the background conductance having a reversal potential at around 0 mV. Thus, 1 mM‐Ba2+ was added to all external solutions, so that a change in the background current was minimized during application of Ca2+ or Ni2+. 4. The relation between [Ca2+]o and amplitude of the Ca2+‐induced current was examined in the presence and absence of Ni2+. Lineweaver‐Burk analysis revealed that the action of Ni2+ on the extra current might be a mixed type of competitive and non‐competitive inhibition. 5. During the application of Ca2+, the Ca2+‐induced outward current decayed in a time‐dependent manner, resulting in a shift of the I‐V relations towards positive potentials. This current decay was inhibited by increasing the capacity of the internal Ca2+‐buffer, using BAPTA (1,2‐bis(o‐aminophenoxy)ethane‐N,N,N',N'‐tetraacetic acid) or higher concentrations of EGTA. The result indicates that [Ca2+]i, at least under the cell membrane, changes due to ion fluxes through the Na+‐Ca2+ exchange and that control of the ion concentrations within the cell is prerequisite for measuring the reversal potential of the Na+‐Ca2+ exchange. 6. The shift of both the holding current and the I‐V relations during stimulation of the exchange was suppressed, when the membrane potential was clamped at the equilibrium potential of 3Na+:1Ca2+ exchange. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Fitting strategies and candidature criteria for unilateral and bilateral hearing aid fittings

In this paper, hearing aid fitting strategies are reviewed and candidature criteria for unilateral and bilateral fittings are discussed. Fitting strategies are primarily governed by the objectives of hearing aid fitting that can be set in different ways. Based on common goals, fitting strategies can be broken down into three stages: (1) basic fitting, (2) fine-tuning and (3) verification and validation. A fine-tuning concept basing on so-called meta-controllers is described and the issue of bilateral fitting strategies is discussed. In a first order approach, bilateral hearing aids can be fitted in parallel as unilateral aids, followed by bilateral fine-tuning, making sure that loudness is balanced and overall loudness is accepted. Parallel fitting of bilateral aids is more favourable than sequential fitting to avoid rejection because of a negative experience with unilateral amplification due to difficulties in disadvantageous listening situations. Candidature criteria are presented by means of a flow chart structuring the decision making process and arriving at the conclusion that bilateral fitting should be considered the normal case. If there is any doubt about the benefit of bilateral fitting, a trial with bilateral aids should be performed.
Attention-via-Attention Neural Machine Translation

Since many languages originated from a common ancestral language and influence each other, there would inevitably exist similarities between these languages such as lexical similarity and named entity similarity. In this paper, we leverage these similarities to improve the translation performance in neural machine translation. Specifically, we introduce an attention-via-attention mechanism that allows the information of source-side characters flowing to the target side directly. With this mechanism, the target-side characters will be generated based on the representation of source-side characters when the words are similar. For instance, our proposed neural machine translation system learns to transfer the character-level information of the English word "system" through the attention-via-attention mechanism to generate the Czech word "systém. " Consequently, our approach is able to not only achieve a competitive translation performance, but also reduce the model size significantly.
AN ECOLOGICAL RISK-BASED CLEANUP STRATEGY FOR CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS IN A FRESHWATER BROOK

An ecological risk-based approach was used to define the extent of remediation in a brook adjacent to a former manufacturing and assembly plant. Sediment contained concentrations of metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phthalates, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and pesticides above sediment quality benchmarks. Samples of sediment were analyzed for metals, 34 individual PAHs, phthalates, PCBs, pesticides, total organic carbon, black carbon, and sediment toxicity using the 42-day Hyalella azteca toxicity test. In addition, freely dissolved concentrations of PAHs in pore water from a subset of samples were determined using a solid phase microextraction (SPME) technique. Concentrations of freely dissolved PAHs in pore water and bioavailable PAHs in sediment were below levels of concern for aquatic organisms. Further evaluations indicated that lead was the contaminant most closely associated with sediment toxicity. A site-specific sediment cleanup level for lead in sediment was developed to define areas for sediment removal in the brook. Using the site-specific sediment cleanup level for lead resulted in a substantially smaller remediation footprint in the brook (24,434 ft 2 ; 2,270 m 2 ) than that originally proposed (64,799 ft 2 ; 6,020 m 2 )
Estimating Distributed Lags in Short Panels with an Application to the Specification of Depreciation Patterns and Capital Stock Constructs

In this paper, we investigate the problem of estimating distributed lags in short panels. Estimates of the parameter of distributed lag relationships based on single time-series of observations have been usually rather imprecise. The promise of panel data is in the N repetitions of the time-series that it contains which should allow one to estimate the identified lag parameters with greater precision. On the other hand, panels tend to track their observations only over a relatively short time interval. Thus, some assumptions will have to be made on the contribution of the unobserved presample x's to the current values of y before any lag parameters can be identified from such data. In this paper we suggest two such assumptions; both of which are, at least in part, testable, and outline appropriate estimation techniques. The first places reasonable restrictions on the relationship between the presample and in sample x's while the second imposes conventional functional form constraints on the lag coefficients. The paper concludes with an example which investigates empirically how to construct a "capital stock" for profit or rate of return regressions.
Research on export performance over the past 10 years: a narrative review

The export marketing literature has been criticised for not developing a widely accepted model of export performance, thereby limiting theoretical advancement in the export performance research field. This paper answers these criticisms by qualitatively reviewing existing research (n = 91) within the last decade to classify and reconcile obtained results, to formulate hypotheses based on the inference of three major theories and finally to provide a comprehensive list of variables influencing the company's export performance. The goal of this narrative review is twofold: to document export performance research within our timeframe and to develop an integrative, dynamic framework explaining the effects of various independent variables and their direction of influence on export performance. The hypotheses point to the conclusion that company, industry and institutional/market factors are major causes for variations in export performance.
Association of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Vif with RNA and Its Role in Reverse Transcription

ABSTRACT The vif gene of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) is essential for viral replication, although the functional target of Vif remains elusive. HIV-1 vif mutant virions derived from nonpermissive H9 cells displayed no significant differences in the amount, ratio, or integrity of their protein composition relative to an isogenic wild-type virion. The amounts of the virion-associated viral genomic RNA and tRNA3 Lyswere additionally present at normal levels in vif mutant virions. We demonstrate that Vif associates with RNA in vitro as well as with viral genomic RNA in virus-infected cells. A functionally conserved lentivirus Vif motif was found in the double-stranded RNA binding domain of Xenopus laevis, Xlrbpa. The natural intravirion reverse transcriptase products were markedly reduced invif mutant virions. Moreover, purified vifmutant genomic RNA-primer tRNA complexes displayed severe defects in the initiation of reverse transcription with recombinant reverse transcriptase. These data point to a novel role for Vif in the regulation of efficient reverse transcription through modulation of the virion nucleic acid components.
System-level design for human action recognition in 3D scenes

This study proposes a system-on-a-chip, field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based real-time video processing platform for human action recognition. We provide the details of a hardware implementation for real-time human activity recognition in 3D scenes, including capture, processing, and display. The proposed platform is implemented by adding a two-stage preprocessing step to improve the results of a saliency map and utilizing the inherent parallelism of FPGAs. Appropriate circuits for parallelized operation of Harris and Hessian interest point detection and support vector machine classifiers are discussed.
Ex Ante Severance Agreements and Earnings Management

This research studies whether severance agreements may reduce fraudulent earnings management, and whether severance pay mitigates executives’ career concerns. In a sample of large U.S. firms, those with higher severance pay are less likely to be subject to accounting and auditing enforcement releases (AAERs) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Among S&P 500 firms in the post-SOX period with premanaged earnings below analyst forecasts, firms with higher severance pay are less likely to meet/beat the analyst forecast using abnormal accruals. Overall, these results suggest that fear of losing a lucrative severance package, and/or the insurance offered by such a package curbs earnings management.
Financial Market Spillovers in Transition Economies

This paper examines financial market comovements across European transition economies and compares their experience to that of other regions. Correlations in monthly indices of exchange market pressures can partly be explained by direct trade linkages, but not by measures of other fundamentals. Higher-frequency data during three crisis periods reveals the presence of structural breaks in the relationship between exchange-, but not stock markets. While the reaction of markets during the Asian and Czech crises is muted, the pattern of high-frequency spillovers during the Russian crisis looks very similar to that observed in other regions during turbulent times. With greater financial market integration, the financial markets of the more advanced transition economies can be expected to behave more and more like their Asian and Latin American counterparts.
IL‐21 and IL‐21R are not required for development of Th17 cells and autoimmunity in vivo

Th17 cells have been recognized as the central effectors in organ‐related autoimmune diseases. IL‐6 is a key factor that reciprocally regulates Th17 and Foxp3+ Treg differentiation by inhibition of TGF‐β induced Foxp3 and induction of RORγt, a Th17 lineage‐specific transcription factor. Recently IL‐21 has been suggested to induce RORγt and Th17 development in the absence of IL‐6. However, the relevance of IL‐21 for Th17‐dependent inflammatory responses in vivo remains unclear. In this study, we demonstrate that differentiation of IL‐17‐producing CD4 T cells, their recruitment to inflamed organs, and the development of autoimmune disease was not affected in il21R–/– and il21–/– mice in models of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein‐induced autoimmune encephalitis and autoimmune myocarditis. IL‐6 induced Th17 differentiation independent of and much more potently than IL‐21 in vitro. These data suggest that IL‐6 is sufficient to drive Th17 development and associated autoimmunity in vivo in the absence of IL‐21 or IL‐21R.