Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Capacity Realization and Productivity Growth in a Developing Country

Policy regimes and development experiences in Bangladesh productive performance measures total factor productivity (TFP) growth and productive capacity realization suggested measures of productive capacity realization and productivity growth measuring productive capacity realization in selected manufacturing industries sources of output growth empirical estimation and interpretation of results determinants of capacity realization - an empirical analysis conclusions and policy implications.
Noisy Chaotic Neural Networks With Variable Thresholds for the Frequency Assignment Problem in Satellite Communications

We propose a novel approach, i.e., a noisy chaotic neural network with variable thresholds (NCNN-VT), to solve the frequency assignment problem in satellite communications. The objective of this NP-complete optimization problem is to minimize cochannel interference between two satellite systems by rearranging frequency assignments. The NCNN-VT model consists N times M of noisy chaotic neurons for an N-carrier M-segment problem. The NCNN-VT facilitates the interference minimization by mapping the objective to variable thresholds (biases) of the neurons. The performance of the NCNN-VT is demonstrated by solving a set of benchmark problems and randomly generated test instances. The NCNN-VT achieves better solutions, i.e., smaller interference with much lower computation cost compared to existing algorithms.
On Rational Bubbles and Fat Tails

This paper addresses the statistical properties of time series driven by rational bubbles à la Blanchard and Watson (1982). Using insights on the behavior of multiplicative stochastic processes, we demonstrate that the tails of the unconditional distribution emerging from such bubble processes follow power-laws (exhibit hyperbolic decline). More precisely, we find that rational bubbles predict a "fat" power tail for both the bubble component and price differences with an exponent µ smaller than 1. The distribution of returns is dominated by the same power-law over an extended range of large returns. Although power-law tails are a pervasive feature of empirical data, these numerical predictions are in disagreement with the usual empirical estimates. It therefore appears that exogenous rational bubbles are hardly reconcilable with some of the stylized facts of financial data at a very elementary level.
Molecular Typing of Treponema pallidum: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background Syphilis is resurgent in many regions of the world. Molecular typing is a robust tool for investigating strain diversity and epidemiology. This study aimed to review original research on molecular typing of Treponema pallidum (T. pallidum) with three objectives: (1) to determine specimen types most suitable for molecular typing; (2) to determine T. pallidum subtype distribution across geographic areas; and (3) to summarize available information on subtypes associated with neurosyphilis and macrolide resistance. Methodology/Principal Findings Two researchers independently searched five databases from 1998 through 2010, assessed for eligibility and study quality, and extracted data. Search terms included “Treponema pallidum,” or “syphilis,” combined with the subject headings “molecular,” “subtyping,” “typing,” “genotype,” and “epidemiology. ” Sixteen eligible studies were included. Publication bias was not statistically significant by the Begg rank correlation test. Medians, inter-quartile ranges, and 95% confidence intervals were determined for DNA extraction and full typing efficiency. A random-effects model was used to perform subgroup analyses to reduce obvious between-study heterogeneity. Primary and secondary lesions and ear lobe blood specimens had an average higher yield of T. pallidum DNA (83.0% vs. 28.2%, χ2 = 247.6, p<0.001) and an average higher efficiency of full molecular typing (80.9% vs. 43.1%, χ2 = 102.3, p<0.001) compared to plasma, whole blood, and cerebrospinal fluid. A pooled analysis of subtype distribution based on country location showed that 14d was the most common subtype, and subtype distribution varied across geographic areas. Subtype data associated with macrolide resistance and neurosyphilis were limited. Conclusions/Significance Primary lesion was a better specimen for obtaining T. pallidum DNA than blood. There was wide geographic variation in T. pallidum subtypes. More research is needed on the relationship between clinical presentation and subtype, and further validation of ear lobe blood for obtaining T. pallidum DNA would be useful for future molecular studies of syphilis.
Breaking the Norm: An Empirical Investigation into the Unraveling of Good Behavior

We present results from an artefactual field experiment conducted in rural Peru that considers whether observing non-reciprocal behavior influences an individual's decision to reciprocate. Specifically, we consider the behavior of second movers in a trust game, assessing whether their decision to reciprocate is influenced by the observed reciprocity of others. In documenting the impact of an external shock to observed reciprocity, this paper shows that small increases in non-reciprocal behavior result in an unraveling of the norm of reciprocity. Survey data is used to explore mechanisms by which this occurred. Results are not consistent with learning effects, suggesting that preferences may be changed by observing others deviating from a norm of reciprocity. These results suggest that investing in encouraging trustworthy behavior can have large benefits in situations where individuals are observing each other's behavior, such as may be the case in a new market institution.
Hemodynamic analysis in left coronary artery using lumped parameter model

Mathematical modeling of left coronary artery based on lumped parameter model to study the hemodynamics is proposed in this work. Since there is an influence of left ventricular pressures in coronary artery flow and this interaction is studied by modeling left atrium, left ventricle, proximal aorta and left coronary artery branches. The proposed lumped parameter model represents the time varying elastance of chambers which is of exponentially charging and discharging function. Ordinary differential equations (ODE) are derived and simulated. The elements in the proposed model is considered for simulating both normal and stenosis conditions. It is observed that the flow and pressure in each section of the left atrium, left ventricle, proximal aorta and left coronary artery branches in conditions of normal and stenosis occlusion in the coronary artery is matching with the literature data. The results of blood flow and pressure changes in the vessels were validated using Wigger's diagram. Thus the proposed model will be useful in studying detailed human blood flow dynamics of left coronary artery during critical conditions.
Extending a system in the calculus of structures with a self-dual quantifier

We recall thatSBV, a proof system developed under the methodology of deep inference, extends multiplicative linear logic with the self -dual non-commutative logical operatorSeq. We introduceSBVQ that extendsSBV by adding the self-dual quantifier Sdq. The systemSBVQ is consistent because we prove that (the analogous of) cut el imination holds for it. Its new logical operator Sdq operationally behaves as a binder, in a way that the interplay between Seq, andSdq can modelβ-reduction of linearλ-calculus inside the cut-free subsystem BVQ of SBVQ. The long term aim is to keep developing a programme whose goal is to give pure logical accounts of com putational primitives under the proof-search-as-computation analogy, by means o f minimal, and incremental extensions of SBV.
Understanding the Determinants of Female Labor Force Participation in the Middle East and North Africa Region: The Role of Education and Social Norms in Amman

The similarities between the labor market supply of women with a Middle Eastern background living in Europe and those of women living in the Middle East is of particular interest. Indeed, empirical evidence shows that Female Labor Force Participation (FLFP) of immigrants reflects to a large extent the FLFP of country of origin, with women from more conservative societies tending to participate less in the labor market than natives or immigrants from countries with a high FLFP. This impacts the host country’s FLFP at an aggregate level. Therefore, from a European perspective, understanding the determinants of female labor supply in the conservative societies, such as countries from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is of particular interest, considering the high share of this group among immigrants. Hence, this empirical research focuses on the role of education, especially higher education, and social norms in MENA on the choice of women to work outside. The region has achieved substantial progress in educating women, increasingly so at the tertiary level and across disciplines, but its FLFP remains the lowest among all regions. Our paper empirically investigates the impact of education with emphasis on higher education on FLFP and the relationship between social norms and female labor supply in a representative city in MENA, namely Amman, Jordan, as a proxy for MENA. Our analysis shows that higher education (post-secondary/university/post-university) has a positive and significant impact on FLFP, whereas secondary and below do not. In addition, there is a strong negative and statistically significant association between traditional social norms and the participation of women in the labor force. The findings pose the question of whether additional policies and actions are needed to change institutions and attitudes toward women’s work in general, as well as improve the economic opportunities of women who have secondary education which affects the bulk of working age women.
Resource Transfers to the Elderly: Do Adult Children Substitute Financial Transfers for Time Transfers?

Using the Health and Retirement Study, this research investigates whether an adult child substitutes financial transfers to an elderly parent for time transfers as the cost of his or her time increases. The author develops and estimates a model of the effect of a child's wage rate on time and money transferred to an elderly parent. She then calculates a wage elasticity and studies how this varies with the existence of substitutes such as siblings and a spouse, and how this varies by sex of the child. The results show that an adult child will substitute money for time. Furthermore, the author finds that for a male child, a spouse is a substitute helper for elderly parents and that for a female child a spouse is a complementary helper while siblings serve as substitutes.
Bayesian identification of bacterial strains from sequencing data

Rapidly assaying the diversity of a bacterial species present in a sample obtained from a hospital patient or an environmental source has become possible after recent technological advances in DNA sequencing. For several applications it is important to accurately identify the presence and estimate relative abundances of the target organisms from short sequence reads obtained from a sample. This task is particularly challenging when the set of interest includes very closely related organisms, such as different strains of pathogenic bacteria, which can vary considerably in terms of virulence, resistance and spread. Using advanced Bayesian statistical modelling and computation techniques we introduce a novel pipeline for bacterial identification that is shown to outperform the currently leading pipeline for this purpose. Our approach enables fast and accurate sequence-based identification of bacterial strains while using only modest computational resources. Hence it provides a useful tool for a wide spectrum of applications, including rapid clinical diagnostics to distinguish among closely related strains causing nosocomial infections. The software implementation is available at https://github.com/PROBIC/BIB.
A long non-coding RNA, PTCSC3, as a tumor suppressor and a target of miRNAs in thyroid cancer cells

Papillary thyroid carcinoma susceptibility candidate 3 (PTCSC3) is a newly identified non-coding RNA, which is highly thyroid-specific. Dramatic downregulation in thyroid cancers suggests its potential roles in the occurrence and development of thyroid tumors. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of PTCSC3 on the biological features of thyroid cancer cells and to explore its possible function as a competing endogenous RNA to bind with miRNAs. Constructs containing the long non-coding RNA, PTCSC3, were transfected into various thyroid cancer cell lines (BCPAP, FTC133 and 8505C). Cell growth, cell cycle transition and apoptosis were measured by MTT assay and flow cytometry. In silico analysis was performed to identify the binding site of PTCSC3 for target miRNAs. Additionally, detection of putative miRNA by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in thyroid cancer cells transfected with PTCSC3 was determined to confirm the interaction. Following transfection with PTCSC3, all three thyroid cancer cells originating from various pathological types of thyroid cancers demonstrated significant growth inhibition, cell cycle arrest and increased apoptosis. The top 20 miRNAs to have a potential interaction with PTCSC3 were identified, out of which miR-574-5p was selected to further confirm the inverse correlation with PTCSC3 in thyroid cancer cells in vitro. In the present study, PTCSC3 as a tumor suppressor was investigated as a competing endogenous RNA for miR-574-5p.
Real-Time 3D Human Pose Estimation from Monocular View with Applications to Event Detection and Video Gaming

We present an effective real-time approach forautomatically estimating 3D human body poses frommonocular video sequences. In this approach, human bodyis automatically detected from video sequence, then imagefeatures such as silhouette, edge and color are extractedand integrated to infer 3D human poses by iterativelyminimizing the cost function defined between 2D featuresderived from the projected 3D model and those extractedfrom video sequence. In addition, 2D locations of head,hands, and feet are tracked to facilitate 3D tracking. Whentracking failure happens, the approach can detect andrecover from failures quickly. Finally, the efficiency androbustness of the proposed approach is shown in two realapplications: human event detection and video gaming.
Active suppression of finite amplitude

(Received ? and in revised form ? ) We study by a fully nonlinear, three-dimensional pseudospectral, time-splitting simulation the feedback control of a layer of fluid heated from below. The initial condition corresponds to a steady, large-amplitude, preferred convection state obtained at Prandtl number of 7.0 and Rayleigh number of 10 4 , which is about six times the Rayleigh critical value. A robust controller based on the LQG (Linear-Quadratic-Gaussian) synthesis method is used. Both sensors and actuator are thermal-based, planar, and assumed to be continuously distributed. The simulated results show that large-amplitude steady-state convection rolls can be suppressed by the linear LQG controller action. The Green's function of the controller gives the shape of the control action corresponding to a point measurement. In addition, for Rayleigh numbers below the proportional feedback control stability limit, this controller appeared to be effective in damping out steady-state convection rolls as well. However, in a region very near the proportional control stability limit, proportional control action induces subcritical g-type hexagonal convection, which is obtained here through direct simulations. Note that well above this proportional control limit, the LQG still damps out all convection. Check cases to validate the nonlinear plant model are also performed by comparison with published results.
Online News Media Use And Political Tolerance

ONLINE NEWS MEDIA USE AND POLITICAL TOLERANCE by JESSICA ELIZABETH-SABO MCCABE August 2010 Advisor: Dr. Hayg Oshagan Major: Communications (Media Effects) Degree: Doctor of Philosophy This study examined the relationship between online news media use, selectivity in media content, and political tolerance. Tolerance develops as result of exposure to a diversity of ideas and perspectives, which the media provide. Online news use encourages and requires users to selectively expose and navigate through information based on personal choice. Online news permits individuals to choose information based on personal opinion and preference in ways traditional forms of mainstream media do not allow. Therefore, it was expected that online news use and selectivity in media content would negatively relate to tolerance. A total of 305 participants were surveyed from a large urban university. Based on the data, greater media use was significantly related to higher tolerance. Additionally, online news use was significantly related to less tolerance compared to television and newspaper use. Greater selectivity in media content was significantly related to lower tolerance, and online news media use was significantly more selective in content than newspapers, but similar to selectivity in television. However, heavy media use under the
On the Effects of Rare Disasters and Uncertainty Shocks for Risk Premia in Non-Linear DSGE Models

This paper studies how rare disasters and uncertainty shocks affect risk premia in DSGE models approximated to second and third order. Based on an extension of the results in Schmitt-GrohA© & Uribe (2004) to third order, we derive propositions for how rare disasters, stochastic volatility, and GARCH affect any type of risk premia in a wide class of DSGE models. To quantify the effects, we set up a standard New Keynesian DSGE model where total factor productivity includes rare disasters, stochastic volatility, and GARCH. We find that rare disasters increase the level of the 10-year nominal term premium, whereas a key effect of uncertainty shocks, i.e. stochastic volatility and GARCH, is an increase in the variability of this premium. (Copyright: Elsevier)
A patient outreach program between visits improves diabetes care: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE Barriers to guideline-based diabetes care include poor patient activation, haphazard clinic appointments, poorly organized medical records and a lack of automated physician decision support. We developed a patient recall intervention to mitigate these barriers and improve diabetes care coordination. We evaluated this intervention in terms of operational feasibility, provider and patient acceptance and effects on process of care measures. METHODS On the basis of the American Diabetes Association criteria, we identified patients with diabetes in a large internal medicine practice who were due for provider visits; hemoglobin A1c, lipid, microalbumin and serum creatinine laboratories; and retinal examinations. An outreach coordinator contacted patients to summarize this information and schedule recommended services. We assessed patient responsiveness to outreach and used medical chart review to compare diabetes care rendered before and after the intervention. Providers gave feedback about their satisfaction with the program. RESULTS Over 3 months, 709 patients were overdue for diabetes-related services. Of 415 overdue for provider visits, a total of 125 (30.1%) completed such visits arranged by an outreach coordinator and, of these, 101 (80.8%) completed laboratories at least a day ahead of time. An additional 52 out of 415 patients (12.5%) bypassed the outreach coordinator to self-schedule diabetes visits within a 6-week period after the outreach letter was mailed. Among overdue patients, completion of recommended services and intensity of diabetes care were significantly greater through the outreach program compared with traditional care. Provider attitudes were favorable. CONCLUSIONS An outreach intervention was associated with improved timeliness and intensity of diabetes care in an outpatient setting. The success of this pilot program in terms of process measures warrants additional evaluation focused on clinical outcomes.
The process of business group formation by habitual entrepreneurs : entrepreneurial dynamics and organizational setting

The paper develops a conceptual framework to analyze the causes and mechanisms of business group formation by habitual entrepreneurs. Data for analysis are drawn from a database regarding a sample of groups of Italian manufacturing businesses. The empirical analysis shows that business group formation by habitual entrepreneurs is mainly the result of a growth process around the original business. Several levels of entrepreneurship can be distinguished in this process. Firstly the emergence of new ventures to exploit the specialized market niches or regionally segmented markets that are typical of the small business sector. Secondly the creative extraction of value from manipulating legal forms.
Teacher Socialization in Technological Education.

In a recent technological education teacher development study, two elements of teacher socialization–the process of formally preparing to become a teacher (Ginsburg, 1988, p.1)–were singled out for review. First, the study set out to examine the influences on teacher socialization prior to formal teacher education. Second, the impact of pre-service teacher education itself, was explored. The socialization process for technological education teachers was felt to have two dimensions: The first concerns the adjustment would-be teachers make when initially preparing for the profession. Feiman-Nemser (1990) refers to this adjustment as a transformative one because teachers come to the profession with a range of preconceptions that may or may not be effective in the classroom instruction component of a teacher’s work. The second element of socialization is identified in the occupational socialization research literature (Schein, 1985) and involves the adjustment a teacher makes as she/he becomes an educator in a broader context, i.e., the adjustment of the individual to the culture of the profession. The purpose of this paper is to report the results of the teacher development study undertaken at the University of Western Ontario (UWO), Faculty of Education.
Cross-sectoral patterns of efficiency and technical change in manufacturing: A stochastic frontier analysis

This paper uses data from 11 countries for 19 years to investigate the forces driving output change in 6 manufacturing sectors. A stochastic production frontier model is adopted which allows for the decomposition of output changes into three types of change: technical, efficiency and input. This framework allows, among other things, for the investigation of i) the relative roles of the three components of output growth in each sector, ii) the manner in which efficiency change moves over the business cycle, and iii) the determination of potential technical progress spillovers from one sector to another. To estimate the model, Bayesian methods with Gibbs sampling are used.