Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SIMULATING THE DIFFUSION OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION WITH AN INTEGRATED CLASS OF HYBRID AGENT-BASED SYSTEM DYNAMICS MODEL

The potential of hybrid models to enhance simulations of the real world is explored. Whilst the scope for design of such models is large, the focus here brings together agent-based and system dynamics modelling within a defined architectural framework. Comprising a number of modules, each of which is implemented in a single modelling paradigm, the design of hybrid models looks to exploit the potential from a range of approaches and tools. Coded within a single programming environment, the international diffusion of technological innovation is used as a case study to highlight model design and implementation. Incorporating feedback between modules in a continuous, fluid, process, the integrated design class for hybrid simulations is investigated for a model that comprises two system dynamics modules and one agent-based module. The predictions from the hybrid model are compared to known outcomes regarding the national adoption of mobile telephony, fixed internet and fixed broadband.
Beyond Westminster and Whitehall: The sub-central governments of Britain

Beyond Westminster and Whitehall provides the first comprehensive account of the range of sub-central government institutions that are responsible for the delivery of services to citizens. These bodies are the warp and weft of the British system of government and yet are all too frequently ignored. For a full understanding of British government, the study of sub-central government is of equivalent importance to that of the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, and Parliament. Westminster and Whitehall do not always get what they want. There are a great many restraints upon the actions of the centre, and central policies all too often have unintended consequences. This book, demonstrating that Britain is not a unitary state but a differentiated polity in which sub-central governments play a key role, will be essential reading for teachers and students of British politics.
Wavefront-Guided versus Non-Wavefront-Guided Photorefractive Keratectomy for Myopia: Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Purpose To compare the efficacy, predictability, safety, and induced higher-order aberrations (HOAs) between wavefront-guided and non-wavefront-guided photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). Methods The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PubMED, and EMBASE were searched for randomized controlled trials. Trials meeting the selection criteria were quality appraised, and data was extracted by 2 independent authors. Measures of association were pooled quantitatively using meta-analytical methods. Comparisons between wavefront-guided and non-wavefront-guided ablations were made as pooled odds ratios (ORs) or weighted mean differences. The pooled ORs and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were computed for efficacy, safety, and predictability. The weighted mean differences and 95% CIs were used to compare induced HOAs. Results The study covered five trials involving 298 eyes. After wavefront-guided PRK, the pooled OR of achieving an uncorrected distance visual acuity of 20/20 (efficacy) was 1.18 (95% CI, 0.53–2.60; p = 0.69), the pooled OR of achieving a result within ±0.50 diopter of the intended target (predictability) was 0.86 (95% CI, 0.40–1.84; p = 0.70). No study reported a loss of 2 or more lines of Snellen acuity (safety) with either modality. In eyes with wavefront-guided PRK, the postoperative trefoil aberrations (mean difference −0.02; 95% CI, −0.03 to −0.00; p = 0.03) were significantly lower. There were no significant differences between the two groups in the postoperative total HOAs (mean difference −0.04; 95% CI, −0.23 to 0.14; p = 0.63), spherical (mean difference 0.00; 95% CI, −0.08 to 0.09; p = 0.93), and coma (mean difference −0.06; 95% CI, −0.14 to 0.03; p = 0.20) aberrations. Conclusions According to the meta-analysis, wavefront-guided PRK offered no advantage in efficacy, predictability, or safety measures over non-wavefront-guided PRK, although it may have induced fewer trefoil aberrations.
Circulating Type-1 Anti-Tumor CD4+ T Cells are Preferentially Pro-Apoptotic in Cancer Patients

Cancer patients frequently exhibit a deficiency in Type-1 (but not Type-2 or regulatory) CD4+ T cell responses against tumor-associated antigens (TAA), which may limit protection against disease progression or responsiveness to immunotherapy in these individuals. Since such deficiency was acutely evident in patients with active disease (AD), where chronic stimulation of anti-tumor CD4+ T cells would be expected and activation-induced cell death may be prevalent, we employed MHC Class II-peptide tetramers to characterize the frequency and apoptotic status of TAA- vs. influenza (FluM1) virus-specific CD4+ T cells in the peripheral blood of HLA-DR*0401+ patients with melanoma or renal cell carcinoma. We observed that Flu-specific CD4+ T cells ranged from 0.17 to 3.89%, while up to approximately 1% of CD4+ T cells reacted against individual TAA epitopes derived from the EphA2 or MAGE-6 proteins. The frequencies of EphA2 and MAGE-6-specific CD4+ T cells in patients were significantly correlated with AD and gender of the patient (i.e., females > males), while frequencies of Flu-specific CD4+ T cells were distributed within a normal range in all patients. Notably, patient CD4+ T cells reactive with MHC class II-TAA (but not MHC class II-Flu) tetramers were significantly enriched for a pro-apoptotic (Annexin-V+) phenotype, particularly amongst the Th1 (T-bet+) subset. These results suggest that the preferential sensitivity of TAA (but not viral)-specific CD4+ Th1 cells to apoptosis in melanoma patients with AD will need to be overcome for optimal clinical benefit of immunotherapeutic approaches to be realized.
Is There a Southern-Sclerosis? Worker Reallocation and Regional Unemployment in Italy

Theoretical reasoning justifies different signs of the relationship between the local variation in unemployment rates and the extent of workers reallocation. This paper aims to test different theoretical hypotheses in the case of Italy by using the longitudinal files of the Italian labour force survey over the years from 2004 to 2010. We find that labour turnover, as well as inflows and outflows separately, differ significantly at the regional level and are ceteris paribus positively related to the unemployment rate. In addition, we study the determinants of labour turnover across NUTS1 and NUTS2 geographical units and find that it correlates positively with structural change, as measured by the Lilien index, and negatively with the degree of industrial concentration, as measured by the Herfindahl index. Once we control for sectoral shifts and industrial concentration, we note a reduction of between 25 and 40% of the regional gap in labour turnover rates. This general conclusion is robust to the use of different control variables.
Quantification of Dexterity as the Dynamical Regulation of Instabilities: Comparisons Across Gender, Age, and Disease

Dexterous manipulation depends on using the fingertips to stabilize unstable objects. The Strength–Dexterity paradigm consists of asking subjects to compress a slender and compliant spring prone to buckling. The maximal level of compression [requiring low fingertip forces <300 grams force (gf)] quantifies the neural control capability to dynamically regulate fingertip force vectors and motions for a dynamic manipulation task. We found that finger dexterity is significantly affected by age (p = 0.017) and gender (p = 0.021) in 147 healthy individuals (66F, 81M, 20–88 years). We then measured finger dexterity in 42 hands of patients following treatment for osteoarthritis of the base of the thumb (CMC OA, 33F, 65.8 ± 9.7 years), and 31 hands from patients being treated for Parkinson’s disease (PD, 6F, 10M, 67.68 ± 8.5 years). Importantly, we found no differences in finger compression force among patients or controls. However, we did find stronger age-related declines in performance in the patients with PD (slope −2.7 gf/year, p = 0.002) than in those with CMC OA (slope −1.4 gf/year, p = 0.015), than in controls (slope −0.86 gf/year). In addition, the temporal variability of forces during spring compression shows clearly different dynamics in the clinical populations compared to the controls (p < 0.001). Lastly, we compared dexterity across extremities. We found stronger age (p = 0.005) and gender (p = 0.002) effects of leg compression force in 188 healthy subjects who compressed a larger spring with the foot of an isolated leg (73F, 115M, 14–92 years). In 81 subjects who performed the tests with all four limbs separately, we found finger and leg compression force to be significantly correlated (females ρ = 0.529, p = 0.004; males ρ = 0.403, p = 0.003; 28F, 53M, 20–85 years), but surprisingly found no differences between dominant and non-dominant limbs. These results have important clinical implications, and suggest the existence – and compel the investigation – of systemic versus limb-specific mechanisms for dexterity.
Role Of Family And Friends In Improving Self Rated Health: An Empirical Investigation In India

The economic crisis registered on international markets can be seen simply as corporate crisis as a result of that crash is the effect of large financial institutions and companies in the field of goods and services. Corporate crisis is a process that develops in nearly 10 years on the international market falling to the level of maximum development and producing her effects for 10 years hence. The paper tries to follow the stages of evolution of this crisis together with factors such as management and the economic environment characterized current economy. Also the relationship between companies management and "macroeconomic management" that generates these developments should be defined so that for future periods to be offered the best solutions to balance the market domestically and internationally.
UK Short Selling Activity and Firm Performance

Abstract: We use short selling data from Data Explorers from 2004 to 2012 to investigate the extent to which UK short sellers are informed investors, in accordance with Diamond and Verrecchia's (1987) hypothesis. Our results suggest that heavily-shorted stocks fail to consistently underperform their lightly-shorted counterparts. Short sellers’ ability to predict firm performance is limited to firms that struggle for survival, such as firms about to enter bankruptcy or financial firms during the financial crisis. These results provide new evidence regarding the source of short-sellers’ information and should be of interest to academics, financial regulators and market participants.
Strategies for Automated GUI Tailoring for Multiple Devices

When the same graphical user interface (GUI) is being used on multiple devices with different properties, usability problems arise, especially when GUI pages are too large for a (small) screen. Scrolling is a usual approach in such a situation, but it also depends on device properties. For desktop PCs used with a mouse, it is well-known that scrolling should be avoided. In contrast, for touch-based devices like tablet PCs or smartphones used with fingers, scrolling especially in vertical direction is widely used and accepted. So, providing several GUIs tailored for multiple devices is desirable but expensive, and it takes time. Automated GUI generation may help, when different GUIs can be generated from the same high-level interaction design model. This is still an issue, however, since usually adaptations to high-level models have to be made manually. Our approach just requires a device specification with a few parameters for automated GUI tailoring, which employs heuristic optimization techniques. Our fully implemented approach even offers different tailoring strategies for automated GUI generation.
Asymmetric Effects of Monetary Policy

Abstract In this paper, we first use a structural vector autoregression model to examine whether the US economy responds asymmetrically to expansionary and contractionary monetary policies. The empirical results show that monetary policy has significant asymmetric effects on output and investment. To provide an explanation of such asymmetries, we consider a nonlinear dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model in which collateral constraints are occasionally binding over the business cycle. The nonlinear DSGE model is able to match the empirical findings that macroeconomic aggregates react asymmetrically to positive and negative monetary policy shocks.
Seeking homeostasis: temporal trends in respiration, oxidation, and calcium in SOD1 G93A Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis mice

Impairments in mitochondria, oxidative regulation, and calcium homeostasis have been well documented in numerous Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) experimental models, especially in the superoxide dismutase 1 glycine 93 to alanine (SOD1 G93A) transgenic mouse. However, the timing of these deficiencies has been debatable. In a systematic review of 45 articles, we examine experimental measurements of cellular respiration, mitochondrial mechanisms, oxidative markers, and calcium regulation. We evaluate the quantitative magnitude and statistical temporal trend of these aggregated assessments in high transgene copy SOD1 G93A mice compared to wild type mice. Analysis of overall trends reveals cellular respiration, intracellular adenosine triphosphate, and corresponding mitochondrial elements (Cox, cytochrome c, complex I, enzyme activity) are depressed for the entire lifespan of the SOD1 G93A mouse. Oxidant markers (H2O2, 8OH2′dG, MDA) are initially similar to wild type but are double that of wild type by the time of symptom onset despite early post-natal elevation of protective heat shock proteins. All aspects of calcium regulation show early disturbances, although a notable and likely compensatory convergence to near wild type levels appears to occur between 40 and 80 days (pre-onset), followed by a post-onset elevation in intracellular calcium. The identified temporal trends and compensatory fluctuations provide evidence that the “cause” of ALS may lay within failed homeostatic regulation, itself, rather than any one particular perturbing event or cellular mechanism. We discuss the vulnerabilities of motoneurons to regulatory instability and possible hypotheses regarding failed regulation and its potential treatment in ALS.
Experimental Essays on Social and Agency Dilemmas

Economic research frequently uses experimental methods to study, in the laboratory or in the field, behaviour of economic agents. The advantage of the laboratory experimental method is the collection of data which is, in some cases, otherwise impossible to obtain. In addition, experiments permit to test, ceteris paribus, the impact of a certain treatment on the behaviour of the economic agents. These are the reasons for the application of laboratory experimental methods in the three essays of this thesis; which are focused on possible measures for rising compliant behaviour in social and agency dilemmas. Tax compliance has been selected for two essays on social dilemma, while asset management has been chosen for one essay on agency dilemma. In the tax compliance context, we refer to a compliant behaviour when subjects do not engage tax evasion: the support of compliance has been studied through non monetary (dis)incentives (Chapter 2) and through direct participation of taxpayers in the tax system (Chapter 3). In the asset management context (Chapter 4), we refer to a compliant behaviour when a fund manager, managing her clients's money, follows the client's disposition even if this implies a payoff reduction for the manager herself. Accountability and monetary punishment are the measures studied in order to reduce opportunistic behaviour of managers and rise their compliance.
Barriers and Disparities in Emergency Medical Services 911 Calls for Stroke Symptoms in the United States Adult Population: 2009 BRFSS Survey

Introduction This study examines barriers and disparities in the intentions of American citizens, when dealing with stroke symptoms, to call 911. This study hypothesizes that low socioeconomic populations are less likely to call 911 in response to stroke recognition. Methods The study is a cross-sectional design analyzing data from the Centers for Disease Control’s 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, collected through a telephone-based survey from 18 states and the District of Columbia. The study identified the 5 most evident stroke-warning symptoms based on those given by the American Stroke Association. We conducted appropriate weighting procedures to account for the complex survey design. Results A total of 131,988 respondents answered the following question: “If you thought someone was having a heart attack or a stroke, what is the first thing you would do? ” A majority of those who said they would call 911 were insured (85.1%), had good health (84.1%), had no stroke history (97.3%), had a primary care physician (PCP) (81.4%), and had no burden of medical costs (84.9%). Those less likely to call 911 were found in the following groups: 65 years or older, men, other race, unmarried, less than or equal to high school degree, less than $25,000 family income, uninsured, no PCP, burden of medical costs, fair/poor health, previous history of strokes, or interaction between burden of medical costs and less than $50,000 family income (p<0.0001 by X2 tests). The only factors significantly associated with “would call 911” were age, sex, race/ethnicity, marital status, and previous history of strokes. Conclusion Barriers and disparities exist among subpopulations of different socioeconomic statuses. This study suggests that some potential stroke victims could have limited access to EMS services. Greater effort targeting certain populations is needed to motivate citizens to call 911.
A New Method for Quantitative Immunoblotting of Endogenous α-Synuclein

β-Sheet-rich aggregates of α-synuclein (αSyn) are the hallmark neuropathology of Parkinson’s disease and related synucleinopathies, whereas the principal native structure of αSyn in healthy cells - unfolded monomer or α-helically folded oligomer - is under debate. Our recent crosslinking analysis of αSyn in intact cells showed that a large portion of endogenous αSyn can be trapped as oligomers, most notably as apparent tetramers. One challenge in such studies is accurately quantifying αSyn Western blot signals among samples, as crosslinked αSyn trends toward increased immunoreactivity. Here, we analyzed this phenomenon in detail and found that treatment with the reducible amine-reactive crosslinker DSP strongly increased αSyn immunoreactivity even after cleavage with the reducing agent β-mercaptoethanol. The effect was observed with all αSyn antibodies tested and in all sample types from human brain homogenates to untransfected neuroblastoma cells, permitting easy detection of endogenous αSyn in the latter, which had long been considered impossible. Coomassie staining of blots before and after several hours of washing revealed complete retention of αSyn after DSP/β-mercaptoethanol treatment, in contrast to a marked loss of αSyn without this treatment. The treatment also enhanced immunodetection of the homologs β- and γ-synuclein and of histones, another group of small, lysine-rich proteins. We conclude that by neutralizing positive charges and increasing protein hydrophobicity, amine crosslinker treatment promotes adhesion of αSyn to blotting membranes. These data help explain the recent report of fixing αSyn blots with paraformaldehyde after transfer, which we find produces similar but weaker effects. DSP/β-mercaptoethanol treatment of Western blots should be particularly useful to quantify low-abundance αSyn forms such as extracellular and post-translationally modified αSyn and splice variants.
Transfer effects and conditional learning in rats with selective lesions of medial septal/diagonal band cholinergic neurons.

The authors examined visual-spatial conditional learning with automated touchscreen tasks in male Long-Evans rats with selective lesions of medial septal/vertical limb of diagonal band (MS/VDB) cholinergic neurons produced by 192 IgG-saporin. Performance on a conditional task, in which 1 of 2 centrally displayed stimuli directed the rat to respond to an illuminated panel on the left or right, depended on training history: Control rats with experience on other visual tasks performed better than MS/VDB-lesioned rats with similar training histories, whereas this effect was reversed in naive rats. This difference appears to reflect transfer effects present in the control rats that are absent in the MS/VDB-lesioned rats. These findings may suggest that MS/VDB cholinergic neurons play a particular role in the transfer of behavioral experience and flexibility of application of behavioral rules in memory, rather than a role in conditional learning per se.
Customer choice of a car maintenance service provider

Purpose – This paper investigates the determinants of customer choice of a car maintenance service provider after the warranty period. It focuses on the alternative of using branded car dealers, who provide this service during the warranty period, or independent garages.Design/methodology/approach – A comprehensive list of 30 service attributes is developed drawing on the service quality literature, specific previous studies on car maintenance services, and including other purchase behaviour determinants such as perceived value. Simple random sampling with replacement is used to collect data from 400 car owners using the actual choice of a service provider as the dependent variable. A quantitative analysis using a set of logistic regressions links directly customer choice to the service attributes.Findings – Service attributes that determine customer choice are the ones consumers simultaneously consider important and perceive differences in performance between the service providers. The branded dealers se.
The Determinants of Audit Committee Independence and Activity: Evidence from the UK

We investigate the determinants of audit committee independence and activity in UK firms. We employ panel data analysis for non-financial films that provide the required information for the period from 2003 to 2008. Our findings show that audit committees are more independent when firms have large boards and more insider ownership. In addition, we detect that large firms place less demand on audit independence. This study also provides new evidence that firms with more free cash flows require more audit independence. Finally, firms with large audit committees and large boards that meet more frequently are active and demand more audit committee meetings.