Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Monetary policy without reserve requirements: analytical issues

Reserve requirements have traditionally been viewed as a key instrument of monetary policy. Indeed, textbook discussions of monetary policy typically center on the role of reserve requirements in determining the size of the money multiplier and the magnitude of bank credit expansion. In recent years, however, there has been a significant decline in the use of reserve requirements in the United States and in other industrialized countries. Many countries have made substantial cuts in the level of reserve requirements, and some countries have eliminated reserve requirements altogether. > The declining use of reserve requirements has two important implications for monetary policy. First, in the absence of a binding level of reserve requirements, the demand for central bank balances is no longer determined by the public's demand for transactions and term deposits but, instead, depends on depository institutions' need to hold balances for clearing and settlement purposes. This means that there is a direct connection between the payments system and monetary policy and implies that institutional changes in the payments system, such as new clearing and settlement methods, may require corresponding changes in monetary policy operating procedures. Second, the absence of binding reserve requirements may lead to increased volatility of short-term interest rates and impair the ability of central banks to implement monetary policy. If so, central banks may have to adapt operating procedures to contain this volatility. > In the first of two articles, Sellon and Weiner analyze the implications for monetary policy of the declining use of reserve requirements. The companion article, to be published in a future issue of the Review, will look at three countries that have eliminated reserve requirements Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand and ask whether adaptations to monetary policy procedures in those countries could be extended to the United States.
The Penetrated Male in Late Imperial China

some men (the penetrated) like women. Official anxiety about homosexual intercourse increased during the early eighteenth century, a time when fixed, heritable status differences eroded, while elite concern with gender performance intensified (Sommer, 1994; Mann, 1991). The result was a spate of new laws against sodomy (ji jian). Even so, the prohibition of sodomy predated the Qing dynasty and derived from long-standing perceptions by no means limited to official or elite circles.
Vector solid textures

In this paper, we introduce a compact random-access vector representation for solid textures made of intermixed regions with relatively smooth internal color variations. It is feature-preserving and resolution-independent. In this representation, a texture volume is divided into multiple regions. Region boundaries are implicitly defined using a signed distance function. Color variations within the regions are represented using compactly supported radial basis functions (RBFs). With a spatial indexing structure, such RBFs enable efficient color evaluation during real-time solid texture mapping. Effective techniques have been developed for generating such a vector representation from bitmap solid textures. Data structures and techniques have also been developed to compactly store region labels and distance values for efficient random access during boundary and color evaluation.
An Overview of Direct Somatic Reprogramming: The Ins and Outs of iPSCs

Stem cells are classified into embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. An evolving alternative to conventional stem cell therapies is induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which have a multi-lineage potential comparable to conventionally acquired embryonic stem cells with the additional benefits of being less immunoreactive and avoiding many of the ethical concerns raised with the use of embryonic material. The ability to generate iPSCs from somatic cells provides tremendous promise for regenerative medicine. The breakthrough of iPSCs has raised the possibility that patient-specific iPSCs can provide autologous cells for cell therapy without the concern for immune rejection. iPSCs are also relevant tools for modeling human diseases and drugs screening. However, there are still several hurdles to overcome before iPSCs can be used for translational purposes. Here, we review the recent advances in somatic reprogramming and the challenges that must be overcome to move this strategy closer to clinical application.
The teaching of speaking : an investigation into the relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices in Kazakhstani state secondary school EFL classrooms

The current study is an attempt to provide insights into the nature of tensions and consistencies between teachers’ belief-practice relationships and how these impact on teaching practices. The study aims to address three main research gaps. Firstly, it explores EFL teachers’ belief-practice consistency level in relation to the teaching of speaking, an understudied curricular domain. Secondly, the phenomenon is examined from two major perspectives: teachers’ perceptions of their own pedagogical contexts and their core-peripheral belief systems, thus using a multi-perspective approach which is usually not the case with other studies in the field. Finally, the study took place in Kazakhstani secondary school EFL classrooms, a geographical context which has not featured at all in the language teacher cognition literature to date. Using a multiple-case design and multiple methods of data collection, the research project explored the relationship between four EFL teachers’ stated beliefs and classroom practices in relation to the teaching of speaking. The teachers were interviewed and observed over a period of nine months. The findings provide evidence of how speaking instruction unfolded in the classroom and the multiplicity of factors which shaped teacher decision-making and behavior. Specifically, the insights from my study highlight the impact of a) teachers’ perceptions of their pedagogical contexts, b) their core and peripheral beliefs, and c) the interaction of all these factors on the enactment of their speaking instruction beliefs. These findings carry important implications for the field of language teacher cognition, and for teacher education and professional development.
The Adenylate Cyclase Toxins of Bacillus anthracis and Bordetella pertussis Promote Th2 Cell Development by Shaping T Cell Antigen Receptor Signaling

The adjuvanticity of bacterial adenylate cyclase toxins has been ascribed to their capacity, largely mediated by cAMP, to modulate APC activation, resulting in the expression of Th2–driving cytokines. On the other hand, cAMP has been demonstrated to induce a Th2 bias when present during T cell priming, suggesting that bacterial cAMP elevating toxins may directly affect the Th1/Th2 balance. Here we have investigated the effects on human CD4+ T cell differentiation of two adenylate cyclase toxins, Bacillus anthracis edema toxin (ET) and Bordetella pertussis CyaA, which differ in structure, mode of cell entry, and subcellular localization. We show that low concentrations of ET and CyaA, but not of their genetically detoxified adenylate cyclase defective counterparts, potently promote Th2 cell differentiation by inducing expression of the master Th2 transcription factors, c-maf and GATA-3. We also present evidence that the Th2–polarizing concentrations of ET and CyaA selectively inhibit TCR–dependent activation of Akt1, which is required for Th1 cell differentiation, while enhancing the activation of two TCR–signaling mediators, Vav1 and p38, implicated in Th2 cell differentiation. This is at variance from the immunosuppressive toxin concentrations, which interfere with the earliest step in TCR signaling, activation of the tyrosine kinase Lck, resulting in impaired CD3ζ phosphorylation and inhibition of TCR coupling to ZAP-70 and Erk activation. These results demonstrate that, notwithstanding their differences in their intracellular localization, which result in focalized cAMP production, both toxins directly affect the Th1/Th2 balance by interfering with the same steps in TCR signaling, and suggest that their adjuvanticity is likely to result from their combined effects on APC and CD4+ T cells. Furthermore, our results strongly support the key role of cAMP in the adjuvanticity of these toxins.
A SUMO-based Semantic Analysis for Knowledge Extraction

The process of extracting semantic information from texts is a key issue for human language technologies. However, this semantic extraction often relies on linguistic resources that are costly to acquire. This represents an obstacle to the wide development of semantic analyzers. This paper illustrates an effort in the semantic analysis of texts based on the already available upper-level ontology SUMO as well as the WordNet lexicon. A preliminary evaluation is conducted, where a comparison of our system with two baselines shows interesting results.
Differential contributions of Mesp1 and Mesp2 to the epithelialization and rostro-caudal patterning of somites

Mesp1 and Mesp2 are homologous basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors that are co-expressed in the anterior presomitic mesoderm (PSM) just prior to somite formation. Analysis of possible functional redundancy of Mesp1 and Mesp2 has been prevented by the early developmental arrest of Mesp1/Mesp2 double–null embryos. Here we performed chimera analysis, using either Mesp2-null cells or Mesp1/Mesp2 double–null cells, to clarify (1) possible functional redundancy and the relative contributions of both Mesp1 and Mesp2 to somitogenesis and (2) the level of cell autonomy of Mesp functions for several aspects of somitogenesis. Both Mesp2-null and Mesp1/Mesp2 double–null cells failed to form initial segment borders or to acquire rostral properties, confirming that the contribution of Mesp1 is minor during these events. By contrast, Mesp1/Mesp2 double–null cells contributed to neither epithelial somite nor dermomyotome formation, whereas Mesp2-null cells partially contributed to incomplete somites and the dermomyotome. This indicates that Mesp1 has a significant role in the epithelialization of somitic mesoderm. We found that the roles of the Mesp genes in epithelialization and in the establishment of rostral properties are cell autonomous. However, we also show that epithelial somite formation, with normal rostro-caudal patterning, by wild-type cells was severely disrupted by the presence of Mesp mutant cells, demonstrating non-cell autonomous effects and supporting our previous hypothesis that Mesp2 is responsible for the rostro-caudal patterning process itself in the anterior PSM, via cellular interaction.
Extracting State Transition Dynamics from Multiple Spike Trains with Correlated Poisson HMM

Neural activity is non-stationary and varies across time. Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) have been used to track the state transition among quasi-stationary discrete neural states. Within this context, independent Poisson models have been used for the output distribution of HMMs; hence, the model is incapable of tracking the change in correlation without modulating the firing rate. To achieve this, we applied a multivariate Poisson distribution with correlation terms for the output distribution of HMMs. We formulated a Variational Bayes (VB) inference for the model. The VB could automatically determine the appropriate number of hidden states and correlation types while avoiding the overlearning problem. We developed an efficient algorithm for computing posteriors using the recursive relationship of a multivariate Poisson distribution. We demonstrated the performance of our method on synthetic data and a real spike train recorded from a songbird.
Survival and Prognostic Factors for AIDS and Non-AIDS Patients with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in Bahia, Brazil: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Despite the benefits of HAART, HIV-infected patients are increasingly affected by different malignancies. We compared a 5-year-period survival time and prognostic factors for HIV-1-infected individuals diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL) in a nested case-control study, with non-HIV-infected individuals in Salvador, Brazil. Survival time and prognostic factors were compared to HIV-negative patients. 31 cases (versus 63 controls) had a significantly more advanced NHL at diagnosis and lower mean CD4 count (26 cells/mm3) than controls. Mean overall survival (OS) was 35.8 versus 75.4 months, for cases and controls, respectively (P < 0.001), while mean event-free survival time (EFS) was 34.5 months for cases, versus 68.8 for controls (P = 0.002). Higher IPI, increased LDH levels, bone marrow infiltration, lower absolute lymphocyte counts (<1,000 cells/mm3), and type B symptoms were associated with a shorter survival time for cases. Although patients without poorer prognostic factors at baseline had an OS comparable to controls, the mean CD4 cell count for cases was similar for patients with favorable and nonfavorable response to therapy. Our findings suggest that HIV-1 infection is significantly associated with a shorter survival time for patients with NHL, independently of other predictive factors and of disease stage.
Single site electromyograph amplitude estimation

Previous investigators have experimentally demonstrated and/or analytically predicted that temporal whitening of the surface electromyograph (EMG) waveform prior to demodulation improves the EMG amplitude estimate. However, no systematic study of the influence of various whitening filters upon amplitude estimate performance has been reported. The authors describe a phenomenological mathematical model of a single site of the surface EMG waveform and reports on experimental studies which examined the performance of several temporal whitening filters. Surface EMG waveforms were sampled during nonfatiguing, constant-force, isometric contractions of the biceps or triceps muscles, over the range of 10-75% maximum voluntary contraction. A signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was computed from each amplitude estimate (deviations about the mean value of the estimate were considered as noise). A moving average root mean square estimator (245 ms window) provided an average/spl plusmn/standard deviation (A/spl plusmn/SD) SNR of 10.7/spl plusmn/3.3 for the individual recordings. Temporal whitening with one fourth-order whitening filter designed per site improved the A/spl plusmn/SD SNR to 17.6/spl plusmn/6.0. <<ETX>>
Thermal issues in disk drive design: Challenges and possible solutions

The importance of pushing the performance envelope of disk drives continues to grow in the enterprise storage market. One of the most fundamental factors impacting disk drive design is heat dissipation, since it directly affects drive reliability. Until now, drive manufacturers have continued to meet the 40% annual growth target of the internal data-rates (IDR) by increasing RPMs and shrinking platter sizes, both of which have counteracting effects on the heat dissipation within a drive. In this article, we shall show that we are getting to a point where it is going to be very difficult to stay on this roadmap. We first present detailed models that capture the close relationships between capacity, performance, and thermal characteristics over time. Using these models, we quantify the drop-off in IDR growth rates over the next decade if we are to adhere to the thermal design envelope. We motivate the need for continued improvements in IDR by showing that the response times of real workloads can be improved by 30--60% with a 10K increase in the RPM for disks used in their respective storage systems. We then present two dynamic thermal management (DTM) techniques that can be used to buy back some of this IDR loss. The first DTM technique exploits the thermal slack between what the drive was intended to support and the currently lower operating temperature to ramp up the RPM. The second DTM technique assumes that the drive is only designed for average case operation and dynamically throttles its activities to remain within the thermal envelope.
Retinoic acid-producing DCs and gut-tropic FOXP3+ regulatory T cells in the induction of oral tolerance

The systemic unresponsiveness of the immune system to orally administered antigens is known as oral tolerance. Recent findings describe a new step for the induction of oral tolerance, consisting in the homing of FOXP3+ regulatory T cells to the small bowel and the local acquisition of full immunosuppressive capacities, a process in which retinoic acid-producing dendritic cells might play a crucial role.
Modeling and tackling resistivity scaling in metal nanowires

A self-consistent analytical solution of the multi-subband Boltzmann transport equation with collision term describing grain boundary and surface roughness scattering is presented to study the resistivity scaling in metal nanowires. The different scattering mechanisms and the influence of their statistical parameters are analyzed. Instead of a simple power law relating the height or width of a nanowire to its resistivity, the picture appears to be more complicated due to quantum-mechanical scattering and quantization effects, especially for surface roughness scattering.
Effect of psychological contract breach on employee voice behavior: Evidence from China

I explored the internal influence mechanism of psychological contract breach on employee voice using hierarchical regression analysis and a bootstrap method. Participants were 232 employees from 5 Chinese private corporations. The results indicated that psychological contract breach was negatively associated with employees’ promotive and prohibitive voice. In addition, organizational trust played a completely mediating role in this relationship, and managerial openness moderated the relationship between organizational trust and employees’ promotive and prohibitive voice. The results extend previous findings on psychological contract breach and employee voice behavior and clarify their relationship to some extent.
Slow Growth Induces Heat-shock Resistance in Normal and Respiratory-deficient Yeast

Yeast cells respond to a variety of environmental stresses, including heat shock and growth limitation. There is considerable overlap in these responses both from the point of view of gene expression patterns and cross-protection for survival. We performed experiments in which cells growing at different steady-state growth rates in chemostats were subjected to a short heat pulse. Gene expression patterns allowed us to partition genes whose expression responds to heat shock into subsets of genes that also respond to slow growth rate and those that do not. We found also that the degree of induction and repression of genes that respond to stress is generally weaker in respiratory deficient mutants, suggesting a role for increased respiratory activity in the apparent stress response to slow growth. Consistent with our gene expression results in wild-type cells, we found that cells growing more slowly are cross-protected for heat shock, i.e., better able to survive a lethal heat challenge. Surprisingly, however, we found no difference in cross-protection between respiratory-deficient and wild-type cells, suggesting induction of heat resistance at low growth rates is independent of respiratory activity, even though many of the changes in gene expression are not.
Atrio-Ventricular Junction behaviour during Atrial Fibrillation

Up to now the functioning of the Atrio-Ventricular Junction (AVJ) during Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is still not completely understood. To shed some light on the AVJ behavior during AF episodes, this study analyses the existence of a possible relationship between the occurrence of a heart beat and the power of the atrial activity (AA) preceding this heart beat in an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal. AA power is measured in the interval of the ECG between the onset of the heart beat under analysis and the ending of the previous heart beat (T-Q interval). Our analysis has shown a difference in the distributions of AA power versus cardiac cycle length (RR interval on the ECG) between healthy and pathological subjects. In particular, a negative trend between these two parameters is discovered in pathological subjects. This negative relation shows a possible coherence between power arriving at the AVJ and the triggering of the heart beat, which is in line with the assumptions made in the quantitative model for the ventricular response during AF by Cohen.
A Comparison of Low-Cost Monocular Vision Techniques for Pothole Distance Estimation

Consider a single camera mounted on the inside of a vehicle's windscreen used for detecting potholes and other obstacles on the road surface. This paper outlines three approaches to the depth estimation problem of determining the distance to these obstacles in the range of 5 m to 30 m. We provide an empirical evaluation of the accuracy of these approaches under various conditions, and make recommendations for when each approach is most suitable. The approaches are based on the pinhole camera model: the simplest approach is based on the geometry of similar triangles, another employs the cross-ratio of a set of collinear points, and the final approach relies on calibration of the camera matrix. We recommend the use of the cross ratio approach for a fixed camera setup and depth estimation almost directly ahead, and an approach using similar triangles when predicting distances at wide angles or adjusting the camera height may be necessary.
Reexamining the factor structure of the test of gross motor development – second edition: Application of exploratory structural equation modeling

ABSTRACT The Test of Gross Motor Development – Second Edition (TGMD-2) is a widely used evaluation tool of children’s fundamental motor skills (FMS). This study illustrates how exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) addresses current limitations associated with TGMD-2 factor structure. Using the normative dataset from the TGMD-2 manual, we test alternative measurement models using ESEM and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and assess measurement invariance between boys and girls and across age. Findings highlight complexity and poor discriminant validity in the two-factor solution that is accentuated when relying on CFA independent clusters assumption. Results also demonstrate differential item functioning (DIF) across age for three of the 12 TGMD-2 indicators. Taken together, this study provides valuable information on the need to reevaluate the TGMD-2 factor structure and can guide revisions for the third edition of the TGMD.