Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Silvio Gesell: “A strange, unduly neglected” monetary theorist

Abstract In recent years negative nominal interest rates came to the attention of a wider audience as one instrument to overcome the lower zero bound to conventional monetary policy. Modern proponents trace the origin of the proposal back to Silvio Gesell, a largely forgotten German autodidactic scholar of the interwar period, whose work provides valuable insight into heterodox late nineteenth- and twentieth-century economic thinking. Against this backdrop, the present article provides a comprehensive review of Gesell’s life and social economy, firmly linking him to German anarchism of the interwar period. It suggests that Gesell not only provided a monetary theory of interest, but put forward an independent monetary theory of economic crisis that is essential in understanding the historical origins of depreciative currency proposals. Moreover, the article maintains that Gesell’s monetary theory of interest can be seen as the missing link between heterodox economics, The General Theory, and anarchist economic theory.
Impact of Oral Fast Release Amantadine on Movement Performance in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

Application of oral fast release amantadine and levodopa may induce an improvement of motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The objective of this trial was to investigate the clinical efficacy of a fast release amantadine sulfate formulation on simple and complex movement performance and putative relations to the pharmacokinetic behavior in PD patients. We challenged two cohorts of 12 PD patients, who were taken off their regular antiparkinsonian treatment for at least 12 hours, with oral 300 mg amantadine sulfate. We scored motor symptoms and performed instrumental tasks, which ask for performance of simple or complex motion series under cued conditions. Motor symptoms and performance of complex movements significantly improved in contrast to the carrying-out of simple motions. N-methyl-D-aspartic acid antagonistic and dopaminomimetic amantadine also influences altered higher predominant prefrontal cognitive functions. Therefore, performance of complex motion series improved, whereas carrying-out of simple repetitive movements is more associated to the striatal dopamine dependent basal ganglia function.
Exploring Predictability in Mobile Interaction

Recent endeavors in mobile computing concentration analyzing the predictability of human behavior by means of mobility models synthesized from real mobile user traces. Currently, the main focus of such studies is physic allocation: discovering travel patterns, estimating real user movements and anticipating the whereabouts and dynamics of individuals. In this paper, we propose to widen the analyzed context as to take into account a more natural activity inhuman behavior, namely interaction. As such, we explore the predictability of user synergy based on tracing data collected from mobile phone users in academic and office environments. We take into account interactions over Bluetooth and over wireless networks and, by measuring the entropy of interacting both with peers and wireless access points, we discover a remarkable invariability in synergic patterns.
A novel tracer technique to quantify the atmospheric flux of trace elements to remote ocean regions

Atmospheric input into the global ocean constitutes an important budgetary component of numerous chemical species and plays a key role in controlling biogeochemical processes in the ocean. Assessment of this input is difficult, however, because measurements of deposition rates to the ocean, particularly in remote areas, are rare and susceptible to problems of temporal and spatial variability. While the collection and analysis of aerosol samples is somewhat routine, the chemical concentration data collected from ship board or land-based aerosol samplers in and of themselves cannot yield the deposition flux of trace elements; a method is required to transform concentration measurements into flux. The ability to derive the atmospheric flux of 7Be from its ocean inventory provides a key linkage between the atmospheric concentration of chemical species and their deposition to the ocean. We have demonstrated that estimates of the atmospheric flux of trace elements (TEs) can be made by multiplying the ocean inventory of 7Be x [TE/7Be] ratio in bulk aerosols. Flux estimates for trace elements made by the 7Be ocean inventory method were comparable to fluxes derived from rain samples collected on the island of Bermuda. The situation at Bermuda allows such testing to be made, where ocean-based methods can be calibrated by convenient land locations. Our results suggest that this method would be useful for remote areas where fixed sampling stations do not exist; that is, the majority of the global ocean.
Coryneform bacteria in human semen: inter-assay variability in species composition detection and biofilm production ability

Background Coryneform bacteria constitute an important segment of male urogenital microbiota. They have been generally considered as saprophytes, although some species have been associated with prostatitis as well. At the same time, biofilm infections have been suspected as a cause of prostatitis. Objective To identify a set of coryneform bacteria isolated from semen of either healthy men or prostatitis patients applying different methods to reveal inter-assay variability and to determine their ability of adhesion and biofilm production. Design Coryneform bacteria were identified by API Coryne 2.0 biochemical identification system and 16S rDNA sequencing using different primer sets. Quantitative assessment of biofilm production was performed using crystal violet binding assay method. Results The most common species were Corynebacterium seminale, C. minutissimum, and Dermabacter hominis. Altogether 14 species and related genera were found. We observed the best inter-assay agreement when identifying C. seminale. Biofilm was observed in 7 out of 24 strains. The biofilm-producing strains belonged to Arthrobacter cumminsii, Dermabacter hominis, C. minutissimum, and Actinomyces neuii. No differences were found between the strains originating from prostatitis patients and healthy men. Dermabacter hominis strains were more potent biofilm producers than C. seminale strains (p=0.048). Conclusions We can conclude that a wide variety of coryneform bacteria can be found from the male genital tract, although their exact identification is problematic due to insufficient representation in databases. Nearly one third of the strains are able to form biofilm that may give them an advantage for surviving several host- and treatment-related conditions.
Face detection using information fusion

The fundamental point of this paper is that the fusion of several simple, somewhat unreliable, and somewhat inefficient frontal face detectors results in an efficient and reliable frontal face detector which, without any training, performs similarly to a state-of-the-art neural network based face detector trained on 60,000 images. The simple detectors used include a skin detector, symmetry detectors, as well as structural face detectors. On a test set of 30 color images containing frontal faces, the fused face detector had an accuracy of 93% with a RMSE of 4.96 pixels, as compared to an accuracy of 87% and a RMSE of 8.00 pixels for the neural network based face detector. On the Caltech face database, the fused face detector had a 90% detection rate which is on par with state-of-the-art face detection methods that utilize extensive prior training, including the neural network approach which achieves a detection rate of 94%.
Stability of Stochastic Approximations With “Controlled Markov” Noise and Temporal Difference Learning

We are interested in understanding stability (almost sure boundedness) of stochastic approximation algorithms (SAs) driven by a “controlled Markov” process. Analyzing this class of algorithms is important, since many reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms can be cast as SAs driven by a “controlled Markov” process. In this paper, we present easily verifiable sufficient conditions for stability and convergence of SAs driven by a “controlled Markov” process. Many RL applications involve continuous state spaces. While our analysis readily ensures stability for such continuous state applications, traditional analyses do not. As compared to literature, our analysis presents a two-fold generalization: 1) the Markov process may evolve in a continuous state space and 2) the process need not be ergodic under any given stationary policy. Temporal difference (TD) learning is an important policy evaluation method in RL. The theory developed herein, is used to analyze generalized $\text{TD}(0)$, an important variant of TD. Our theory is also used to analyze a TD formulation of supervised learning for forecasting problems.
The Returns to Education in China: Evidence from the 1986 Compulsory Education Law

As China transforms from a socialist planned economy to a market-oriented economy, its returns to education are expected to rise to meet those found in middle-income established market economies. This study employs a plausible instrument for education: the China Compulsory Education Law of 1986. We use differences among provinces in the dates of effective implementation of the compulsory education law to show that the law raised overall educational attainment in China by about 0.8 years of schooling. We then use this instrumental variable to control for the endogeneity of education and estimate the returns to an additional year of schooling in 1997-2006. Results imply that the overall returns to education are approximately 20 percent per year on average in contemporary China, fairly consistent with returns found in most industrialized economies. Returns differ among subpopulations; they increase after controlling for endogeneity of education.
Tractability of Multivariate Integration for Periodic Functions

We study multivariate integration in the worst case setting for weighted Korobov spaces of smooth periodic functions of d variables. We wish to reduce the initial error by a factor ? for functions from the unit ball of the weighted Korobov space. Tractability means that the minimal number of function samples needed to solve the problem is polynomial in ? 1 and d. Strong tractability means that we have only a polynomial dependence in ? 1. This problem has been recently studied for quasi-Monte Carlo quadrature rules and for quadrature rules with non-negative coefficients. In this paper we study arbitrary quadrature rules. We show that tractability and strong tractability in the worst case setting hold under the same assumptions on the weights of the Korobov space as for the restricted classes of quadrature rules. More precisely, let ? j moderate the behavior of functions with respect to the jth variable in the weighted Korobov space. Then strong tractability holds iff ? ∞j=1? j<∞, whereas tractability holds iff limsupd? ∞? dj=1? j/lnd<∞. We obtain necessary conditions on tractability and strong tractability by showing that multivariate integration for the weighted Korobov space is no easier than multivariate integration for the corresponding weighted Sobolev space of smooth functions with boundary conditions. For the weighted Sobolev space we apply general results from E. Novak and H. Wo? niakowski (J. Complexity17 (2001), 388? 441) concerning decomposable kernels.
Genomics of ageing in twins

Ageing is a complex multifactorial process, reflecting the progression of all degenerative pathways within an organism. Due to the increase of life expectancy, in recent years, there is a pressing need to identify early-life events and risk factors that determine health outcomes in later life. So far, genetic variation only explains ~20–25 % of the variability of human survival to age 80+. This clearly implies that other factors (environmental, epigenetic and lifestyle) contribute to lifespan and the rate of healthy ageing within an individual. Twin studies in the past two decades proved to be a very powerful tool to discriminate the genetic from the environmental component. The aim of this review is to describe the basic concepts of the twin study design and to report some of the latest studies in which high-throughput technologies (e.g. genome/epigenome-wide assay, next generation sequencing, MS metabolic profiling) combined with the classical twin design have been applied to the analysis of novel ‘omics’ to further understand the molecular mechanisms of human ageing.
Estimating the Rank of the Spectral Density Matrix

Abstract. The rank of the spectral density matrix conveys relevant information in a variety of statistical modelling scenarios. This note shows how to estimate the rank of the spectral density matrix at any given frequency. The method presented is valid for any hermitian positive definite matrix estimate that has a normal asymptotic distribution with a covariance matrix the rank of which is known.
What Can the Oil Futures Curve Tell Us About the Outlook for Oil Prices?

Large movements in the oil price have had significant effects on UK CPI inflation over the past few years. In order to produce an inflation forecast, it is necessary to assume a path for oil and other commodity prices. The Monetary Policy Committee assumes that oil prices follow the path given by market futures prices when deciding their central projections for CPI inflation and GDP growth. This article considers arguments for and against using the futures curve as an assumed path and describes some of the other indicators used by the Committee in assessing the outlook for oil prices.
Utility of whole‐exome sequencing for those near the end of the diagnostic odyssey: time to address gaps in care

An accurate diagnosis is an integral component of patient care for children with rare genetic disease. Recent advances in sequencing, in particular whole‐exome sequencing (WES), are identifying the genetic basis of disease for 25–40% of patients. The diagnostic rate is probably influenced by when in the diagnostic process WES is used. The Finding Of Rare Disease GEnes (FORGE) Canada project was a nation‐wide effort to identify mutations for childhood‐onset disorders using WES. Most children enrolled in the FORGE project were toward the end of the diagnostic odyssey. The two primary outcomes of FORGE were novel gene discovery and the identification of mutations in genes known to cause disease. In the latter instance, WES identified mutations in known disease genes for 105 of 362 families studied (29%), thereby informing the impact of WES in the setting of the diagnostic odyssey. Our analysis of this dataset showed that these known disease genes were not identified prior to WES enrollment for two key reasons: genetic heterogeneity associated with a clinical diagnosis and atypical presentation of known, clinically recognized diseases. What is becoming increasingly clear is that WES will be paradigm altering for patients and families with rare genetic diseases.
Photodynamic therapy with indocyanine green complements and enhances low-dose cisplatin cytotoxicity in MCF-7 breast cancer cells.

OBJECTIVE We investigated the effects of photodynamic therapy (PDT) combined with low-dose chemotherapy on breast cancer cells. Photodynamic treatment was administered by irradiating indocyanine green-preloaded MCF-7 cells with an IR diode laser source at 805 nm; cisplatin was used for chemotherapy. METHODS The dose-response phenomena associated with the two treatments administered individually and together were evaluated with the following tests: trypan blue dye exclusion, 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay, clonogenic survival, thymidine and methionine incorporation, and insulin-dependent and insulin-independent glucose transport. RESULTS Viability and metabolic data demonstrated mutual reinforcement of therapeutic efficacy. However, isobolographic analysis of quantal and variable data indicated that reinforcement was additive according to trypan blue data and synergistic according to MTT data. To investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying alterations in cell proliferation and apoptosis, we evaluated (by Western blotting) the expression of proteins Bcl-2, Bax, Bcl-X(L), p21, p53, and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase. Photodynamic treatment caused transient selective destruction of Bcl-2 and up-regulation of Bax. It also induced apoptosis in a limited fraction of cells (10-12%). Flow cytometry data showed that PDT killed mostly G(1)-phase cells, whereas cisplatin killed mostly S-phase cells. This disjointed phase-related effect may account for the favorable effects exerted by combined treatment. CONCLUSIONS Our findings imply that low doses of cytostatic drugs may be as effective or even more effective than currently used doses if appropriately combined with PDT.
Frontiers of software clone management

Ad-hoc reuse through copy-and-paste occurs frequently in practice affecting the evolvability of software. This paper summarizes the state of the art in software clone management (detection, tracking, presentation, assessing, removal, changing) and the empirical knowledge we have gained so far. In the course of the summary, the paper identifies further research potential.
The Family behind the Family Firm

Economists have long acknowledged that the structure of the family (number of offspring, marital status, etc.) plays a crucial role in important economic decisions (e.g., labor supply, demand patterns, portfolio choice, educational attainment). In this paper we investigate the link between family structure and corporate decisions of family firms. Even though there is considerable anecdotal evidence on this link, there is no systematic study. This paper fills this gap. To this end, we assembled a unique dataset with accounting information from 1995 to 2002 of the universe of privately held firms in Denmark. Our dataset includes the family trees of the owners as well as personal information about all family members. This information allows us to identify family firms among privately held firms. We find that, using a 50% definition of control, 89% of privately held firms are family firms. We focus on the decision whether to choose a family member or an outsider as the next CEO. We show that the larger the pool of potential heirs, the higher the probability of family transition. Also we document that this probability is significantly lower when all offspring are female. Finally, family conflicts (proxied by divorce or multiple marriages) reduce the probability of family transition. In a robustness check we show that there is a causal effect from family structure to corporate decisions. We do this by instrumentimg the number of children with sibling sex composition and by restricting the sample to one in which founders had their last child years before founding the firm.
A Survey on Color Image Fusion for Multi sensor Night Vision Image

Image fusion involves merging of two or more images in such a way that, to get the most desirable characteristics of each image. Here the Visible image is fused with InfraRed(IR) image, so that the desired result will be a single highly informative image providing full information. The color fusion methods incorporated with color transfer technology have achieved greater success in multi-band night vision fusion. The aim of color transfer technology is to give the multiband fused image as natural day-time color appearance and the hot targets are popped out with intense colors while the background details present with natural color appearance. The multi-band fused image technology has been widely used in surveillance, intelligence gathering, and security. This paper presents the survey on different methods for color transfer technology to give the multiband fused image as natural day-time color appearance.
On the viewing angle dependence of blazar variability

Internal shocks propagating through an ambient radiation field are subject to a radiative drag that, under certain conditions, can significantly affect their dynamics, and consequently the evolution of the beaming cone of emission produced behind the shocks. The resultant change of the Doppler factor combined with opacity effects leads to a strong dependence on the viewing angle of the variability pattern produced by such systems; specifically, the shape of the light curves and the characteristics of correlated emission. One implication is that objects oriented at relatively large viewing angles to the observer should exhibit a higher level of activity at high synchrotron frequencies (above the self-absorption frequency), and also at gamma-ray energies below the threshold energy of pair production, than at lower (radio/millimetre) frequencies.
Inflammatory Genital Infections Mitigate a Severe Genetic Bottleneck in Heterosexual Transmission of Subtype A and C HIV-1

The HIV-1 epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is driven largely by heterosexual transmission of non-subtype B viruses, of which subtypes C and A are predominant. Previous studies of subtype B and subtype C transmission pairs have suggested that a single variant from the chronically infected partner can establish infection in their newly infected partner. However, in subtype A infected individuals from a sex worker cohort and subtype B individuals from STD clinics, infection was frequently established by multiple variants. This study examined over 1750 single-genome amplified viral sequences derived from epidemiologically linked subtype C and subtype A transmission pairs very early after infection. In 90% (18/20) of the pairs, HIV-1 infection is initiated by a single viral variant that is derived from the quasispecies of the transmitting partner. In addition, the virus initiating infection in individuals who were infected by someone other than their spouse was characterized to determine if genital infections mitigated the severe genetic bottleneck observed in a majority of epidemiologically linked heterosexual HIV-1 transmission events. In nearly 50% (3/7) of individuals infected by someone other than their spouse, multiple genetic variants from a single individual established infection. A statistically significant association was observed between infection by multiple genetic variants and an inflammatory genital infection in the newly infected individual. Thus, in the vast majority of HIV-1 transmission events in cohabiting heterosexual couples, a single genetic variant establishes infection. Nevertheless, this severe genetic bottleneck can be mitigated by the presence of inflammatory genital infections in the at risk partner, suggesting that this restriction on genetic diversity is imposed in large part by the mucosal barrier.