Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A slacks-based network DEA efficiency analysis of European airlines

Conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) models consider a system as a single-process ‘black box’. There are, however, DEA approaches that consider a system as composed of distinct processes or stages, each one with its own inputs and outputs and with intermediate flows among the stages. In this paper, a network DEA approach to airline efficiency assessment is presented. One conclusion of the study is that the network DEA approach has more discriminative power than the single-process DEA approach and that the computed targets, efficiency scores and rankings are more valid. This is because network DEA allows for a more fine-grained analysis that leads to a more realistic estimation of the overall system production possibility set than the one assumed by conventional DEA. In other words, compared with network DEA the conventional, single-process DEA represents an aggregated analysis that merges all system processes with their inputs and outputs and ignores their internal flows. The main drawbacks are the need for more detailed data (i.e. at the process level) and the greater complexity of the resulting models, especially if there are inputs or outputs that are shared among the processes.
Implicit Contracts in the Japanese Bank Loan Market

The implicit contract theory explored by Azariadis [2] suggests that wage rigidity and underemployment are explained by the microeconomic optimizing behavior of each agent in the labor market. In this theory, the former phenomenon is interpreted as risk-sharing arrangements between firms and workers, whereas the latter may occur when workers have the opportunity to use leisure or unemployment insurance benefits.
Domestic Violence against Women and Girls

This Digest focuses on domestic violence as one of the most prevalent yet relatively hidden and ignored forms of violence against women and girls globally. Domestic violence is a health, legal, economic, educational, developmental and, above all, a human rights issue. The Digest looks at the magnitude and universality of domestic violence, and its impact on the rights of women and children. It emphasizes the need for coordinated and integrated policy responses; implementing existing leglisation; and ensuring greater accountability from governments in order to eliminate this violence. Information on regional and international NGOs working in this area, and suggestions for further reading are also provided.
Product and Process Flexibility in an Innovative Environment

This article studies several attributes of a firm's long-run decisions about organizational structure, attributes that affect the firm's short-run innovative activity. We focus on flexibility, which lowers the future costs of implementing innovations, and research capabilities, which improve the future opportunities for innovation. We consider two dimentsions of innovation: demand-enhancing (product) and cost-reducing (process). These two types of innovation are complementary in terms of increasing the firm's net revenue in the short run. The complementarities between the firm's short-run decision variables then lead to complementarities between its long-run decisions about product and process flexibility and research capabilities.
Cutting Edge: Epitope-Dependent Effect of Nef-Mediated HLA Class I Down-Regulation on Ability of HIV-1-Specific CTLs to Suppress HIV-1 Replication1

It is believed that Nef-mediated HLA class I down-regulation is one of the mechanisms that allow HIV-1-infected cells to escape from being killed by HIV-1-specific human CTLs. In this study, we show that the effect of Nef-mediated HLA class I down-regulation on the ability of HIV-1-specific CTLs to suppress HIV-1 replication is epitope dependent. The CTLs specific for two Pol epitopes presented by HLA-B*5101, one of the HLA alleles associated with slow progression to AIDS, effectively killed HIV-1-infected CD4+ T cells and suppressed HIV-1 replication. In contrast, those specific for the other four epitopes failed to kill HIV-1-infected CD4+ T cells and partially or hardly suppressed HIV-1 replication. The difference of the ability between these two types of CTLs may result from the difference of the number of HLA class I epitope complex on the surface of NL-432-infected CD4+ T cells.
Optimal Taxation Under Regional Inequality

Regional productivity differences provide scope for productivity-enhancing labor mobility. Redistribution reduces relocation incentives through higher taxes or lower transfers. Combining an intensive labor supply margin with an extensive, productivity-enhancing migration margin, we determine how regional inequality and labor mobility affect optimal redistribution. Simulations using the productivity differences between rural and urban regions in the US indicate that optimal marginal tax rates are reduced by several percentage points if productivity enhancing migration is taken into account. Additionally, we study optimal regionally differentiated taxation.
Rural leadership development: pathways to community change

Although leadership development programs are seen as key to equipping individuals with the tools to navigate the challenges facing their communities, there is relatively little evidence of their impact at the community level. In this paper, the evaluation findings of a rural leadership development program are situated within a framework of community change to illustrate the pathways of program impact. The analysis reveals that the program has increased the human capital and network resources of rural communities, and in most cases, this has resulted in increased community capacity. Some communities have gone on to experience additional environmental, social, and economic changes as a result of community processes that stemmed from the leadership program. The findings suggest that the evaluated leadership development program can serve as a model for efforts to build community capacity, but to realize more social, environmental, and economic changes, the scope of the program should do more to encourage residents to intentionally leverage their new capacity by engaging in processes to address community issues.
Effect of C∕Si ratio on deep levels in epitaxial 4H–SiC

Changing the ratio of carbon to silicon during the epitaxial 4H–SiC growth is expected to alter the dominant deep level trap, which has been attributed to a native defect. The C∕Si ratio was changed from one to six during epitaxial growth of SiC. Diodes fabricated on the epitaxial layer were then characterized using current-voltage and deep level transient spectroscopy. The single peak at 340K (Z1/Z2 peak), was deconvolved into two traps, closely spaced in energy. The concentration of one of the Z1/Z2 traps decreased with increasing C∕Si ratio. This result opposes theoretical predictions of carbon interstitial components, and supports assignment to a silicon antisite or carbon vacancy relationship. The concentration of the second component of the peak at 340K did not depend on the C∕Si ratio, which would indicate an impurity in an interstitial site.
N-1 Reliable Unit Commitment via Progressive Hedging

AbstractProgressive hedging is a scenario-based decomposition method that can be applied to solve the stochastic unit commitment problem. Progressive hedging is not guaranteed to converge to the global optimal solution since unit commitment involves integer variables. Slow convergence rates and cyclic behaviors have been previously observed in practice. Hedging is conventionally performed on the unit commitment status variables. In this paper, several hedging methods are proposed to improve progressive hedging for the N-1 (single contingency) stochastic unit commitment problem. In particular, hedging on the start-up and shutdown variables is proposed and tested in this paper. The performance of the progressive hedging is rather sensitive to the choice in the penalty factors. Thus, several strategies for choosing the penalty factors are evaluated for the cases when using the unit commitment status variables versus using the start-up and shutdown binary variables as the hedging mechanisms. Finally, a hybrid.
Parameter estimation of soil hydraulic and thermal property functions for unsaturated porous media using the HYDRUS-2D code

Abstract Knowledge of soil hydraulic and thermal properties is essential for studies involving the combined effects of soil temperature and water input on water flow and redistribution processes under field conditions. The objective of this study was to estimate the parameters characterizing these properties from a transient water flow and heat transport field experiment. Real-time sensors built by the authors were used to monitor soil temperatures at depths of 40, 80, 120, and 160 cm during a 10-hour long ring infiltration experiment. Water temperatures and cumulative infiltration from a single infiltration ring were monitored simultaneously. The soil hydraulic parameters (the saturated water content θ s, empirical shape parameters α and n, and the saturated hydraulic conductivity Ks) and soil thermal conductivity parameters (coefficients b1, b2, and b3 in the thermal conductivity function) were estimated from cumulative infiltration and temperature measurements by inversely solving a two-dimensional water flow and heat transport using HYDRUS-2D. Three scenarios with a different, sequentially decreasing number of optimized parameters were considered. In scenario 1, seven parameters (θ s, Ks, α, n, b1, b2, and b3) were included in the inverse problem. The results indicated that this scenario does not provide a unique solution. In scenario 2, six parameters (Ks, α, n, b1, b2, and b3) were included in the inverse problem. The results showed that this scenario also results in a non-unique solution. Only scenario 3, in which five parameters (α, n, b1, b2, and b3) were included in the inverse problem, provided a unique solution. The simulated soil temperatures and cumulative infiltration during the ring infiltration experiment compared reasonably well with their corresponding observed values.
The Effect of Prolonged Modification of Cerebral Temperature on Outcome after Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Injury in the Infant Rat

Hypoxic-ischemic injuries can evolve over several days, and recent studies suggest that further neuronal death may occur 6 to 72 h later. Because cerebral temperature is an important determinant of outcome during the primary injury, we investigated the effect of temperature, on outcome, during the later phases of injury. Hypoxic-ischemic injury was induced in 21-d-old rats by unilateral ligation of the right carotid artery followed by exposure to 15 min of hypoxia of 8% O2 at 34°C. Cerebral temperature changes were induced by modifying environmental temperature. The rats were divided into four treatment groups: group 1 (n = 15) remained at 34°C for 72 h; group 2 (n = 14) were kept at 34°C for 6 h and then at 22°C for the remaining 66 h; group 3 (n = 17) remained at 22°C for 6 h and 34°C for the next 66 h; group 4 (n = 16) remained at 22°C for 72 h. Rats kept at 22 or 34°C had cortical temperatures of 35.5 ± 0.1°C and 37.9 ± 0.2°C, respectively. Histologic outcome was assessed 72 h after hypoxia. The area of cortical infarction was reduced in group 4 compared with groups 1-3(p ≤ 0.05). Striatal damage was reduced in group 4 (p = 0.05). Hippocampal neuronal loss was not significantly altered. In a subsequent study the area of cortical infarction was 12.1 ± 3 mm2 in group 1 (n = 11) compared with 3.4 ± 1.5 mm2 group 4 treated rats (n = 10) 21 d after the injury(p < 0.01). Thus hypothermia spanning both the first 6 h and from 6 to 72 h after injury was needed to improve outcome. Conversely exposure to the thermoneutral environment exacerbated the injury. These observations suggest that prolonged moderate cerebral hypothermia can be used to suppress the cytotoxic processes that occur after hypoxic-ischemic injury.
The Demand for Money during Hyperinflation under Rational Expectations: II

This paper estimates the parameters of Phillip Cagan's model of portfolio balance for hyperinflations under the assumption that the public's expectations about inflation are rational in the sense of John F. Muth [1961]. This paper is a sequel to a paper by Sargent [1977] which estimated and tested Cagan's model for the special circumstance in which the adaptive expectations scheme that Cagan assumed turns out to be rational. In that setting, econometric identification of Cagan's a the slope of the log of real money balances with respect to the expected inflation rate -is very tenuous and requires prior information about the covariance of shocks to demand and supply schedules for money. In this paper, we show how knowledge of that covariance can be dispensed with provided that rational expectations turn out not to be adaptive, for then O appears in restrictions that Cagan's model imposes oIn the systematic part of the vector autoregression for the money creation, inflation process. Our strategy is to estimate a from those restrictions and to test the model by seeing how much those restrictions cost in terms of goodness of fit vis-a-vis unconstrained vector autoregression.
Theology: A Very Short Introduction

Preface PART I: DESCRIBING THE FIELD 1. Introduction: Theology and the Religions in Transformation 2. Theology and Religious Studies: How is the Field Shaped? PART II: THEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS 3. Thinking of God 4. Living before God: Worship, Ethics and Politics 5. Facing Evil 6. Jesus Christ 7. Imagining Salvation PART III: SKILLS, DISCIPLINES AND METHODS 8. Through the Past to the Present: History and Texts 9. Experience, Reason and Wisdom PART IV: CONCLUSION 10. Theology for the Third Millennium
Basle Ii Capital Adequacy: Computing the 'Fair' Capital Charge for Loan Commitment 'True' Credit Risk

This research makes two contributions: (i) to price analytically put option and extension premium embedded in a borrower-extendible commitment, and (ii) to compute the "fair" capital charge that corresponds to the commitment "true" credit risk. In doing so, the procedure replaces the BIS accountingbased concepts of credit-conversion factor, principal-risk factor, and initial term to maturity of irrevocable commitments with the market-based concepts of exercise-cum-takedown proportion and put value implicit in the borrower-extendible commitment, respectively. Finally, the approach is developed one step further to account for the borrowers' risk ratings by public credit agencies; this results in a two-dimensional (timestate of nature) risk-weighting system that applies to all commitment types.
Effect of Effective Velocity Ratio on the Near-Field Mixing Structures of a Jet in Crossflow

The effect of jet-to-crossflow effective velocity ratio ( r ) on the near-field mixing structures of a jet in crossflow is investigated. Three jets with r of 2, 4, and 7 are examined under the condition of equal jet volume flowrate and equivalent stoichiometric ratio. The experiment is conducted using the combination of smoke fluid condensation, Mie scattering, and laser-sheet visualization techniques. Series of planar lasersheet visualization images, particularly the plane perpendicular to the jet exit, are taken. The instantaneous and mean images are then analyzed in order to survey the effect of r on the near-field mixing structures. It is found that as r increases, the mean mixing structure of the jet changes characteristics from the lateral-maximum, leewardly-connected, two distinct lateral lobes at the extreme lowr , r = 2, to windward-maximum, windwardly-connected structure at the extreme highr , r = 7. For the intermediate r , r = 4, it is found that such evolution occurs spatially. That is, the jet at r = 4 evolves from the characteristics of the extreme highr jet to those of the extreme lowr jet in the transverse direction. These results suggest that the near-field mixing structures of a jet in crossflow, in the region where the unmixed core is still present, can be described by the competing effect between the developments of 1) the lateral skewed mixing layers and the corresponding vortical roll ups and 2) the windward jet shear layer. Specifically, when consider the evolution with respect to increasing r , JICF evolves from the lateral skewed mixing layers dominated in the lowr jet to the windward jet shear layer ‘dominated’ in the highr jet. On the other hand, such reverse evolution, i.e., in the direction of decreasing r , occurs spatially for the intermediater jet as the jet evolves in the transverse direction.
Optimal Market Making in the Foreign Exchange Market

Abstract This paper is concerned with optimal market making in the foreign exchange market. The market maker's holdings in the different currencies are modelled as stochastic processes that are influenced by both the stochastic exchange rates and the stochastic customer buy and sell orders. The market maker can control their own bid and ask price quotes and, additionally, can buy and sell at other market participants' quotes. The resulting stochastic control problem consists of a controlled diffusion problem for the optimal quotes and a singular control problem for optimal trades at other market participants' quotes. A Markov chain approximation is used to derive optimal strategies.
Discretionary write-downs, write-offs, and other restructuring provisions: a signaling approach

This paper introduces a model seeking to explain the discretionary write-downs, write-offs, and other restructuring provisions reported by managers. The model comprises a firm, a manager, and a financial market. The firm is about to be restructured. The manager has some private information about the likelihood of success of his restructuring action. The manager may recognise all or part of the expenditure associated with his future restructuring action by reporting a discretionary restructuring provision. The manager chooses whether or not to report a provision, recognising the impact of the provision on his compensation. The paper shows how, under certain conditions, the manager may credibly communicate his private information to investors through his provision policy. Testable implications are consistent with the empirical evidence reported by Strong and Meyer (1987), Elliott and Shaw (1988), and Zucca and Campbell (1992).
Slim Embedding Layers for Recurrent Neural Language Models

Recurrent neural language models are the state-of-the-art models for language modeling. When the vocabulary size is large, the space taken to store the model parameters becomes the bottleneck for the use of recurrent neural language models. In this paper, we introduce a simple space compression method that randomly shares the structured parameters at both the input and output embedding layers of the recurrent neural language models to significantly reduce the size of model parameters, but still compactly represent the original input and output embedding layers. The method is easy to implement and tune. Experiments on several data sets showthat the new method can get similar perplexity and BLEU score results whileonly using a very tiny fraction of parameters.
When Married Men Lose Jobs: Income Replacement within the Family

Using matched-file data from the January and March 1986 Current Population Surveys, the author estimates a model of earnings reduction and family income replacement in 1985 for a group of married men displaced from full-time nonagricultural jobs. The displacements, which occurred between 1981 and 1984, resulted in substantial earnings losses for a large fraction of the sample. Husbands with earnings losses had higher levels of spouse earnings and income transfers in 1985 than the control group of non-displaced husbands, but the fraction of lost earnings replaced was not large on average. The author concludes that long-term trends in both the nature of the experience of displaced workers and the structure of the family economy call for reconsideration of traditional family adjustment mechanisms.
The Higher Order Factor Structure and Gender Invariance of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory

The Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI) is a recently developed multidimensional inventory for the assessment of pathological narcissism. The authors describe and report the results of two studies that investigate the higher order factor structure and gender invariance of the PNI. The results of the first study indicate that the PNI has a higher order factor structure that conforms to the theoretical structure of pathological narcissism with one factor representing narcissistic grandiosity and the other capturing narcissistic vulnerability. These results uniquely place the PNI as the only measure to broadly assess the two phenotypic themes of pathological narcissism. In the second study, results from tests of measurement invariance indicate that the PNI performs similarly in large samples of men (n = 488) and women (n = 495). These results further establish the psychometric properties of the PNI and suggest that it is well suited for the assessment of pathological narcissism.
Turning Cheap Talk into Economic Growth: On the Relationship Between Property Rights and Judicial Independence

Among economists, the view that precisely defined and reliably enforced property rights are generally conducive to economic growth has been quasi-unanimous. But recently, some authors have argued that the relationship is more complex than previously acknowledged: property rights reforms might, for example, not per se lead to increases in observed growth rates. This paper contributes to the debate by emphasizing that the mere promise of secure property rights is unlikely to have any effects unless accompanied by some commitment to enforce these rights that is perceived as credible by private actors. An independent judiciary is interpreted as a tool that permits governments to make credible commitments to abide by the law. We provide empirical evidence for a positive growth effect of constitutional property rights, once the judicial system is independent enough to guarantee their enforcement.
Phosphorylation of p53 Serine 18 Upregulates Apoptosis to Suppress Myc-Induced Tumorigenesis

ATM and p53 are critical regulators of the cellular DNA damage response and function as potent tumor suppressors. In cells undergoing ionizing radiation, ATM is activated by double-strand DNA breaks and phosphorylates the NH2 terminus of p53 at serine residue 18. We have previously generated mice bearing an amino acid substitution at this position (p53S18A) and documented a role for p53 phosphorylation in DNA damage–induced apoptosis. In this present study, we have crossed Eμmyc transgenic mice with our p53S18A mice to explore a role for ATM-p53 signaling in response to oncogene-induced tumorigenesis. Similar to DNA damage induced by ionizing radiation, expression of c-Myc in pre–B cells induces p53 serine18 phosphorylation and Puma expression to promote apoptosis. Eμmyc transgenic mice develop B-cell lymphoma more rapidly when heterozygous or homozygous for p53S18A alleles. However, Eμmyc-induced tumorigenesis in p53S18A mice is slower than that observed in Eμmyc mice deficient for either p53 or ATM, indicating that both p53-induced apoptosis and p53-induced growth arrest contribute to the suppression of B-cell lymphoma formation in Eμmyc mice. These findings further reveal that oncogene expression and DNA damage activate the same ATM-p53 signaling cascade in vivo to regulate apoptosis and tumorigenesis. Mol Cancer Res; 8(2); 216–22
Water service delivery in Kenya and Ghana: an area-based assessment of water utility performance

This paper explores through case studies the quality of water service delivery in four different water utilities in Kenya and Ghana. The research confirms that the utilities’ current performance indicators by themselves are insufficient to assess the access of users to good-quality water service delivery. The case studies show that low-income populations receive a poor quality of water service delivery. The paper concludes that benchmarking needs to be complemented with a more in-depth analysis of the water service delivery by water providers.