Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The substitution elasticity, growth theory, and the low-pass filter panel model

The elasticity of substitution between labor and capital (σ) is a crucial parameter in growth theory. A host of important issues, including the possibility of perpetual growth or decline, depend on the precise positive value of σ. This paper examines the role of σ in the neoclassical growth model and estimates σ by combining a low-pass filter with standard panel data techniques to better measure the theoretical constructs appropriate to production function estimation. Our approach is in the spirit of Friedman's permanent income theory of consumption and Eisner's related permanent income theory of investment. While their approaches and ours are similar in relying on permanent components, we extract these components with spectral methods that are more powerful and general for identifying these unobservables. We transform the data with the Baxter-King lowpass filter that depends on two parameters, the critical periodicity defining the long-run frequencies and a window for the number of lags approximating the ideal low-pass filter. Based on an analysis of the spectrum of the transformed series, we confirm that our choices of the critical periodicity and window emphasize long-run variation. The empirical results are based on the comprehensive panel industry data constructed by Dale Jorgenson and his research associates. Our estimate of σ is 0.308 for the baseline values of the critical periodicity of eight years and window of three years. This result is robust to variations in the window. As the periodicity declines from eight to the minimum value of two, the elasticity declines owing to the distorting effects of transitory variation.
Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Therapy Improves Vascular Dysfunction and Decreases Oxidative Stress in Patients With the Metabolic Syndrome and Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome

Patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) are always exposed to intermittent hypoxia and reoxygenation. The metabolic syndrome (MetS) and OSAS are also known to accelerate atherosclerosis, diabetes, and dyslipidemia. Therefore, nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy may have beneficial effects in patients with the MetS and OSAS.
Tuning Parameter Selection for the Adaptive Lasso Using ERIC

The adaptive Lasso is a commonly applied penalty for variable selection in regression modeling. Like all penalties though, its performance depends critically on the choice of the tuning parameter. One method for choosing the tuning parameter is via information criteria, such as those based on AIC and BIC. However, these criteria were developed for use with unpenalized maximum likelihood estimators, and it is not clear that they take into account the effects of penalization. In this article, we propose the extended regularized information criterion (ERIC) for choosing the tuning parameter in adaptive Lasso regression. ERIC extends the BIC to account for the effect of applying the adaptive Lasso on the bias-variance tradeoff. This leads to a criterion whose penalty for model complexity is itself a function of the tuning parameter. We show the tuning parameter chosen by ERIC is selection consistent when the number of variables grows with sample size, and that this consistency holds in a wider range of contexts compared to using BIC to choose the tuning parameter. Simulation show that ERIC can significantly outperform BIC and other information criteria proposed (for choosing the tuning parameter) in selecting the true model. For ultra high-dimensional data (p > n), we consider a two-stage approach combining sure independence screening with adaptive Lasso regression using ERIC, which is selection consistent and performs strongly in simulation. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
The Hα Luminosity Function and Star Formation Rate at z ≈ 0.24 in the COSMOS 2 Square Degree Field

To derive a new Hα luminosity function and to understand the clustering properties of star-forming galaxies at z ≈ 0.24, we have made a narrowband imaging survey for Hα-emitting galaxies in the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) COSMOS 2 square degree field. We used the narrowband filter NB816 (λc = 8150 Å, Δ λ = 120 Å) and sampled Hα emitters with EWobs(H α + [N II]) > 12Å in a redshift range between z = 0.233 and 0.251 corresponding to a depth of 70 Mpc. We obtained 980 Hα-emitting galaxies in a sky area of 5540 arcmin2, corresponding to a survey volume of 3.1 × 104 Mpc 3. We derive a Hα luminosity function with a best-fit Schechter function parameter set of α = − 1.35−0.13+0.11, log ϕ* = − 2.65−0.38+0.27, and log L*(ergs s−1) = 41.94−0.23+0.38. The Hα luminosity density is 2.7−0.6+0.7 × 1039 ergs s−1 Mpc−3. After subtracting the AGN contribution (15%) to the Hα luminosity density, the star formation rate density is evaluated as 1.8−0.4+0.7 × 10−2 M☉ yr−1 Mpc−3. The angular two-point correlation function of Hα-emitting galaxies of log L(H α) > 39.8 is well fit by a power-law form of w(θ) = 0.013−0.001+0. 002θ−0.88 ± 0.03, corresponding to the correlation function of ξ (r) = (r/1.9 Mpc)−1.88. We also find that the Hα emitters with higher Hα luminosity are more strongly clustered than those with lower luminosity.
Factor XI and Platelets: Evidence that Platelets Contain only Minimal Factor XI Activity and Antigen

Factor‐XI activity of platelets has been studied in platelet‐rich plasmas and isolated platelet suspensions. Fresh platelets in both environments had little or no measurable factor‐XI activity. Frozen and thawed platelet‐rich normal plasma had markedly elevated apparent factor‐XI activity and factor‐IX activity as compared to platelet‐poor plasma. Frozen and thawed platelet‐rich and platelet‐poor normal plasmas had equivalent factor‐XI antigen. Platelets isolated from normal blood and from factor‐XI deficient blood had the same small amounts of apparent factor‐XI activity, which increased slightly on freezing and thawing. The data indicates that minimal factor XI is associated with the platelet. The markedly elevated apparent factor‐XI activity of frozen and thawed platelet‐rich plasma is shown to reflect the interaction of a platelet activator with plasma clotting factors to produce a later activated‐clotting‐intermediate.
The IBP Compound Dirichlet Process and its Application to Focused Topic Modeling

The hierarchical Dirichlet process (HDP) is a Bayesian nonparametric mixed membership model—each data point is modeled with a collection of components of different proportions. Though powerful, the HDP makes an assumption that the probability of a component being exhibited by a data point is positively correlated with its proportion within that data point. This might be an undesirable assumption. For example, in topic modeling, a topic (component) might be rare throughout the corpus but dominant within those documents (data points) where it occurs. We develop the IBP compound Dirichlet process (ICD), a Bayesian nonparametric prior that decouples across-data prevalence and within-data proportion in a mixed membership model. The ICD combines properties from the HDP and the Indian buffet process (IBP), a Bayesian nonparametric prior on binary matrices. The ICD assigns a subset of the shared mixture components to each data point. This subset, the data point's "focus", is determined independently from the amount that each of its components contribute. We develop an ICD mixture model for text, the focused topic model (FTM), and show superior performance over the HDP-based topic model.
Does Privatization Improve Productivity? Empirical Evidence from Ethiopia

Theoretically, it is posited that privatization enables the private sector to play a dominant role in the economy by enhancing competition, productivity and efficiency. When evaluated using these criteria, privatization of the manufacturing industries has failed in Ethiopia. Our empirical results show that, at best, privatization did not result in improving productivity, and at worst, it led to a decline in productivity. We argue that the main reason for this outcome is the unique economic and business environment prevailing in Ethiopia, which does not allow the standard economic assumptions of market competition to hold. Ethiopia’s ‘private sector’ can be described as a ‘duopoly’ market where two powerful players dominate every sector of the economy: the ruling party’s parastatals and a family business conglomerate. The results of this paper should not be surprising as the majority of the firms in this study operate under such an unfavorable business environment. The paper employs 15 years of panel data constructed from the Large and Medium Scale Manufacturing Industries Surveys conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia between 1996 and 2010.
Neuroprotection Caused by Hyperoxia Preconditioning in Animal Stroke Models

Ischemic tolerance induced by hyperoxia (HO) can protect against brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases. Although multiple studies demonstrate neuroprotection by HO, the exact mechanism(s) of HO neuroprotection has not been elucidated. Here, I first review related mechanisms of brain ischemia and then data evaluating the neuroprotective effects of HO in focal and global ischemic animal models. I clearly establish that the cerebrovascular, extracellular matrix, plasma membrane, endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondrial, and lysosomal reactions are critical in neuroprotection induced by HO in focal ischemia. In rats and mice, the middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) model was used to represent cerebrovascular stroke. Neuroprotection induced by HO exhibits specific adaptation responses that involve a number of cellular and biochemical alterations, including metabolic homeostasis and reprogramming of gene expression. The changes in the metabolic pathways are generally short lived and reversible, while the consequences of gene expression are a long-term process and may lead to the permanent alteration in the pattern of gene expression. The neuroprotection provided by HO may have important clinical implications. Therefore, it is important to assess the benefits and risks of HO therapy in noninfarcted tissue.
Multi-Grained Chinese Word Segmentation

Traditionally, word segmentation (WS) adopts the single-grained formalism, where a sentence corresponds to a single word sequence. However, Sproat et al. (1997) show that the inter-native-speaker consistency ratio over Chinese word boundaries is only 76%, indicating single-grained WS (SWS) imposes unnecessary challenges on both manual annotation and statistical modeling. Moreover, WS results of different granularities can be complementary and beneficial for high-level applications. This work proposes and addresses multi-grained WS (MWS). We build a large-scale pseudo MWS dataset for model training and tuning by leveraging the annotation heterogeneity of three SWS datasets. Then we manually annotate 1,500 test sentences with true MWS annotations. Finally, we propose three benchmark approaches by casting MWS as constituent parsing and sequence labeling. Experiments and analysis lead to many interesting findings.
Structurally Heterogeneous Source Code Examples from Unstructured Knowledge Sources

Software developers rarely write code from scratch. With the existence of Wikipedia, discussion forums, books and blogs, it is hard to imagine a software developer not looking up these sites for sample code while building any non-trivial software system. While researchers have proposed approaches to retrieve relevant posts and code snippets, the need for finding variant implementations of functionally similar code snippets has been ignored. In this work, we propose an approach to automatically create a repository of structurally heterogeneous but functionally similar source code examples from unstructured sources. We evaluate the approach on stackoverflow, a discussion forum that has approximately 19 million posts. The results of our evaluation indicates that the approach extracts structurally different snippets with a precision of 83%. A repository of such heterogeneous source code examples will be useful to programmers in learning different implementation strategies and for researchers working on problems such as program comprehension, semantic clones and code search.
Prolylcarboxypeptidase Regulates Proliferation, Autophagy, and Resistance to 4-Hydroxytamoxifen-induced Cytotoxicity in Estrogen Receptor-positive Breast Cancer Cells*

Endocrine therapy with tamoxifen (TAM) significantly improves outcomes for patients with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer. However, intrinsic (de novo) or acquired resistance to TAM occurs in a significant proportion of treated patients. To identify genes involved in resistance to TAM, we introduced full-length cDNA expression library into estrogen receptor-positive MCF7 cells and exposed them to a cytotoxic dose of 4-hydroxytamoxifen (4OHTAM). Four different library inserts were isolated from surviving clones. Re-introduction of the genes individually into naive MCF7 cells made them resistant to 4OHTAM. Cells overexpressing these genes had an increase in acidic autophagic vacuoles induced by 4OHTAM, suggesting their role in autophagy. One of them, prolylcarboxypeptidase (PRCP), was investigated further. Overexpression of PRCP increased cell proliferation, boosted several established markers of autophagy, including expression of LC3-2, sequestration of monodansylcadaverine, and proteolysis of BSA in an ER-α dependent manner, and increased resistance to 4OHTAM. Conversely, knockdown of endogenous PRCP in MCF7 cells increased cell sensitivity to 4OHTAM and at the same time decreased cell proliferation and expression of LC3-2, sequestration of monodansylcadaverine, and proteolysis of BSA. Inhibition of enzymatic activity of PRCP enhanced 4OHTAM-induced cytotoxicity in MCF7 cells. Cells with acquired resistance to 4OHTAM exhibited increased PRCP activity, although inhibition of PRCP prevented development of 4OHTAM resistance in parental MCF7 cells and restored response to 4OHTAM in MCF7 cells with acquired resistance to 4OHTAM. Thus, we have for the first time identified PRCP as a resistance factor for 4OHTAM resistance in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer cells.
The early evolution of tidal dwarf galaxies

Context. Dwarf galaxies can arise from self-gravitating structures emerging from tidal tails. What fraction of the known dwarf galaxies in the Local Universe can have this origin is still a matter of debate. Aims. In our effort to understand the origin and evolution of tidal dwarf galaxies and their correspondence with local objects, the first step is to understand how these galaxies (which are supposed to have a limited amount of dark matter) react to the feedback of the ongoing star formation. Methods. We make use of 2-D chemodynamical calculations in order to study the early evolution of isolated, dark matter-free dwarf galaxies. We present models in which feedback parameters are varied. We also compare the results with dark matter-dominated dwarf galaxy models. Results. All the considered models show that the star formation proceeds for more than 300 Myr, therefore dwarf galaxies without large dark matter halos are not necessarily quickly destroyed. The chemical evolution of these objects is consistent with the main chemical properties of the dSphs of the Local Group. Models with large dark matter halos show results consistent with models free of dark matter, indicating that the distribution of gas is more important than the depth of the potential well in determining the global behaviour of dSph-sized dwarf galaxies.
Can Students Accurately Assess Themselves? Predictive Validity of Student Self-Reports

A ssessing the quality of school music programs has long been a topic of discussion. In recent years, pro­ gram assessment has become a rising imperative due to the current interest in outcome measures. The recent assessment movement has spawned various processes for measuring program quality. School boards across the country have adopted some form of the Quality Performance Accreditation (QPA) system to ensure increased student success. Through this process, schools compile student performance data to build a school profile (baseline data), write a school improvement plan to increase student success, and continue to track and assess progress in student per­ formance against their baseline data. Simply put, a schools quality will be judged by its students' perfor­ mance and their continual academic improvement.
Pharmacokinetic Study of the Structural Components of Adenosine Diphosphate-Encapsulated Liposomes Coated with Fibrinogen γ-Chain Dodecapeptide as a Synthetic Platelet Substitute

Fibrinogen γ-chain (dodecapeptide HHLGGAKQAGDV, H12)–coated, ADP-encapsulated liposomes [H12-(ADP)-liposomes] were developed as a synthetic platelet alternative that specifically accumulates at bleeding sites as the result of interactions with activated platelets via glycoprotein IIb/IIIa and augments platelet aggregation by releasing ADP. The aim of this study is to characterize the pharmacokinetic properties of H12-(ADP)-liposomes and structural components in rats, and to predict the blood retention of H12-(ADP)-liposomes in humans. With use of H12-(ADP)-liposomes in which the encapsulated ADP and liposomal membrane cholesterol were radiolabeled with 14C and 3H, respectively, it was found that the time courses for the plasma concentration curves of 14C and 3H radioactivity showed that the H12-(ADP)-liposomes remained intact in the blood circulation for up to 24 hours after injection, and were mainly distributed to the liver and spleen. However, the 14C and 3H radioactivity of H12-(ADP)-liposomes disappeared from organs within 7 days after injection. The encapsulated ADP was metabolized to allantoin, which is the final metabolite of ADP in rodents, and was mainly eliminated in the urine, whereas the cholesterol was mainly eliminated in feces. In addition, the half-life of the H12-(ADP)-liposomes in humans was predicted to be approximately 96 hours from pharmacokinetic data obtained for mice, rats, and rabbits using an allometric equation. These results suggest that the H12-(ADP)-liposome has potential with proper pharmacokinetic and acceptable biodegradable properties as a synthetic platelet substitute.
PIK3CA in Colorectal Cancer

PIK3CA, the catalytic subunit of PI3K, is mutated in many different tumors, including colorectal cancer (CRC). Mutations of PIK3CA have been reported in 10–20% of CRC, about 80% of mutations found in two hot spots in exon 9 and exon 20. In RAS wild-type CRC, PIK3CA mutations have been associated with a worse clinical outcome and with a negative prediction of a response to targeted therapy by anti-EGFR monoclonal antibodies. However, these findings have not been confirmed in all studies and subsequent more detailed analysis has revealed that these effects may be restricted to mutations in Exon 20. Finally, mutations in PIK3CA may be the long sought biomarker for successful adjuvant therapy with aspirin in patients with CRC. Therefore, PIK3CA mutations appear to be a promising predictive biomarker; however, further data are needed to conclusively define the impact of somatic mutations in the PIK3CA gene for the management of patients with CRC.
Obesity and male hypogonadism: Tales of a vicious cycle

Obesity prevalence, particularly in children and young adults, is perilously increasing worldwide foreseeing serious negative health impacts in the future to come. Obesity is linked to impaired male gonadal function and is currently a major cause of hypogonadism. Besides signs and symptoms directly derived from decreased circulating testosterone levels, males with obesity also present poor fertility outcomes, further evidencing the parallelism between obesity and male reproductive function. In addition, males with androgen deficiency also exhibit increased fat accumulation and reduced muscle and mineral bone mass. Thus, compelling evidence highlights a vicious cycle where male hypogonadism can lead to increased adiposity, while obesity can be a cause for male hypogonadism. On the opposite direction, sustained weight loss can attain amelioration of male gonadal function. In this scenario, a thorough evaluation of gonadal function in men with obesity is crucial to dissect the causes from the consequences in order to target clinical interventions towards maximized improvement of reproductive health. This review will address the causes and consequences of the bidirectional relationship between obesity and hypogonadism, highlighting the implicit male reproductive repercussions.
Vitamin D receptor activator and dietary sodium restriction to reduce residual urinary albumin excretion in chronic kidney disease (ViRTUE study): rationale and study protocol.

UNLABELLED Optimal albuminuria reduction is considered essential to halting chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression. Both vitamin D receptor activator (VDRA) treatment and dietary sodium restriction potentiate the efficacy of renin-angiotensin-aldosterone-system (RAAS) blockade to reduce albuminuria. The ViRTUE study addresses whether a VDRA in combination with dietary sodium restriction provides further albuminuria reduction in non-diabetic CKD patients on top of RAAS blockade. The ViRTUE study is an investigator-initiated, prospective, multi-centre, randomized, double-blind (paricalcitol versus placebo), placebo-controlled trial targeting stage 1-3 CKD patients with residual albuminuria of >300 mg/day due to non-diabetic glomerular disease, despite angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker use. During run-in, all subjects switched to standardized RAAS blockade (ramipril 10 mg/day) and blood pressure titrated to <140/90 mmHg according to a standardized protocol. Eligible patients are subsequently enrolled and undergo four consecutive study periods in random order of 8 weeks each: (i) paricalcitol (2 µg/day) combined with a liberal sodium diet (∼200 mmol Na(+)/day, i.e. mean sodium intake in the general population), (ii) paricalcitol (2 µg/day) combined with dietary sodium restriction (target: 50 mmol Na(+)/day), (iii) placebo combined with a liberal sodium diet and (iv) placebo combined with dietary sodium restriction. Data are collected at the end of each study period. The primary outcome is 24-h urinary albumin excretion. Secondary study outcomes are blood pressure, renal function (estimated glomerular filtration rate), plasma renin activity and, in a sub-population (N = 9), renal haemodynamics (measured glomerular filtration rate and effective renal plasma flow). A sample size of 50 patients provides 90% power to detect a 23% reduction in albuminuria, assuming a 25% dropout rate. Further reduction of residual albuminuria by combination of VDRA treatment and sodium restriction during single-agent RAAS-blockade will justify long-term studies on cardiorenal outcomes and safety. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION NTR2898 (Dutch trial register).
Kernel fully constrained least squares abundance estimates

A critical step for fitting a linear mixing model to hyperspectral imagery is the estimation of the abundances. The abundances are the percentage of each end member within a given pixel; therefore, they should be non-negative and sum to one. With the advent of kernel based algorithms for hyperspectral imagery, kernel based abundance estimates have become necessary. This paper presents such an algorithm that estimates the abundances in the kernel feature space while maintaining the non-negativity and sum-to-one constraints. The usefulness of the algorithm is shown using the AVIRIS Cuprite, Nevada image.