Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trend Shocks, Risk Sharing and Cross-Country Portfolio Holdings

This paper analyzes the dynamics of risk premia, real exchange rates and portfolio movements in a two-country, two-good, two-bond model. We use an asymmetric set-up in the model, where one of the countries is emerging and the other one is developed and both countries issue bonds in domestic currency. The emerging country differs from the developed country in that it is subject to trend shocks and it is more risk averse. We find that the trend shocks produce strong wealth effects for the emerging country, and as a result, the terms of trade and the real exchange rate appreciate. Appreciation of the terms of trade breaks the hedging opportunities coming from international trade in goods. In contrast, the appreciation of the real exchange rate generates new hedging opportunities in international financial markets for both countries. Therefore, our model can endogenously generate large portfolio holdings. And differences in the risk aversion across countries lead to net positive foreign asset positions and significant risk premia in the emerging country. Moreover, the relative volatilities and cyclicalities of risk premia and real exchange rates improve significantly and move closer to the observed values in the data and our model can account for the lack of international risk sharing.
Synthesis of Polynucleotide Analogs Containing a Polyvinyl Alcohol Backbone

Water soluble homo-base polynucleotide analogues were synthesized in which polyvinyl alcohol and partially phosphonated polyvinyl alcohol constituted the backbones, onto which were grafted uracil or adenine via 1,3-dioxane spacers formed by acetal formation with the 1,3-diol moieties in PVA. The resulting adenine-PVA polynucleotide analogs exhibited hyperchromic effects, which was not the case for the corresponding uracil compounds. Mixtures of the adenine- and aracil PVA-phosphate polynucleotide analogs in solutions exhibited characteristic S-shaped UV-absorbance vs temperature and melting curves with melting points at approximately 40 oC.
Clock-directed modular code generation for synchronous data-flow languages

The compilation of synchronous block diagrams into sequential imperative code has been addressed in the early eighties and can now be considered as folklore. However, separate, or modular, code generation, though largely used in existing compilers and particularly in industrial ones, has never been precisely described or entirely formalized. Such a formalization is now fundamental in the long-term goal to develop a mathematically certified compiler for a synchronous language as well as in simplifying existing implementations. This article presents in full detail the modular compilation of synchronous block diagrams into sequential code. We consider a first-order functional language reminiscent of LUSTRE, which it extends with a general n-ary merge operator, a reset construct, and a richer notion of clocks. The clocks are used to express activation of computations in the program and are specifically taken into account during the compilation process to produce efficient imperative code. We introduce a generic machine-based intermediate language to represent transition functions, and we present a concise clock-directed translation from the source to this intermediate language. We address the target code generation phase by describing a translation from the intermediate language to JAVA and C.
Quantitative trait locus analyses and the study of evolutionary process

The past decade has seen a proliferation of studies that employ quantitative trait locus (QTL) approaches to diagnose the genetic basis of trait evolution. Advances in molecular techniques and analytical methods have suggested that an exact genetic description of the number and distribution of genes affecting a trait can be obtained. Although this possibility has met with some success in model systems such as Drosophila and Arabidopsis, the pursuit of an exact description of QTL effects, i.e. individual gene effect, in most cases has proven problematic. We discuss why QTL methods will have difficulty in identifying individual genes contributing to trait variation, and distinguish between the identification of QTL (or marker intervals) and the identification of individual genes or nucleotide differences within genes (QTN). This review focuses on what ecologists and evolutionary biologists working with natural populations can realistically expect to learn from QTL studies. We highlight representative issues in ecology and evolutionary biology and discuss the range of questions that can be addressed satisfactorily using QTL approaches. We specifically address developing approaches to QTL analysis in outbred populations, and discuss practical considerations of experimental (cross) design and application of different marker types. Throughout this review we attempt to provide a balanced description of the benefits of QTL methodology to studies in ecology and evolution as well as the inherent assumptions and limitations that may constrain its application.
Dissecting the interactions of SERRATE with RNA and DICER-LIKE 1 in Arabidopsis microRNA precursor processing

Efficient and precise microRNA (miRNA) biogenesis in Arabidopsis is mediated by the RNaseIII-family enzyme DICER-LIKE 1 (DCL1), double-stranded RNA-binding protein HYPONASTIC LEAVES 1 and the zinc-finger (ZnF) domain-containing protein SERRATE (SE). In the present study, we examined primary miRNA precursor (pri-miRNA) processing by highly purified recombinant DCL1 and SE proteins and found that SE is integral to pri-miRNA processing by DCL1. SE stimulates DCL1 cleavage of the pri-miRNA in an ionic strength-dependent manner. SE uses its N-terminal domain to bind to RNA and requires both N-terminal and ZnF domains to bind to DCL1. However, when DCL1 is bound to RNA, the interaction with the ZnF domain of SE becomes indispensible and stimulates the activity of DCL1 without requiring SE binding to RNA. Our results suggest that the interactions among SE, DCL1 and RNA are a potential point for regulating pri-miRNA processing.
Word2vec based system for recognizing partial textual entailment

Recognizing textual entailment is typically considered as a binary decision task - whether a text T entails a hypothesis H. Thus, in case of a negative answer, it is not possible to express that H is “almost entailed” by T. Partial textual entailment provides one possible approach to this issue. This paper presents an attempt to use word2vec model for recognizing partial (faceted) textual entailment. The proposed approach does not rely on language dependent NLP tools and other linguistic resources, therefore it can be easily implemented in different language environments where word2vec models are available.
Job sharing : the career experiences of women primary teachers

This study is an investigation of the career experiences of women primary teachers who job share. It explores how job sharing fits into overall working patterns and examines whether it fulfils the personal and professional needs of teachers. It investigates how successful job sharing is seen as being in practice and explores the potential advantages and disadvantages of job sharing for teachers and for schools. The study examines the claims made for job sharing as a means of advancing the cause of equality in the workplace. Data were gathered through indepth interviews with twenty women primary teachers who job shared. The role of job sharing in their careers was examined and the extent to which it satisfied personal and professional expectations explored. The career experiences of job sharing teachers were further investigated through a questionnaire sent to a sample of teachers who had previously job shared. This provided a retrospective and longer term account. All of these experiences were then situated within the wider contexts in which teaching operates. For this, documentary and policy analysis were undertaken, and semistructured interviews were conducted with headteachers and parents, and key informants at local and national level. The research found that job sharing is successful in meeting the personal needs of the women primary teachers. Teachers spoke of the balance in their lives which this working arrangement helped them to achieve. In terms of the professional dimension, the study found that experiences of job sharing in practice were positive. For teachers the affective rewards of being with children and feeling competent and skilled in daily work were high. Feelings of acceptance within the workplace culture were positive; building and sustaining relationships with parents and, in particular, with colleagues, which was viewed as a salient part of the job of primary teaching, was possible whilst job sharing. As a result, schools were seen to be gaining by employing experienced and motivated individuals who were able to make positive contributions. However, some difficulties were found with the professional and career development of job sharing teachers. The study concludes that job sharing is not deleterious to women teachers' careers. It is far less harmful than other forms of part-time teaching although, as yet, it is not challenging full-time teaching as the dominant work model.
Birth Defects in Gaza: Prevalence, Types, Familiarity and Correlation with Environmental Factors

This is the first report of registration at birth, and of incidence of major structural birth defects (BD) obtained in Gaza at Al Shifa Hospital, where 28% of total births in Gaza Strip occur. Doctors registered 4,027 deliveries, with a protocol comprehensive of clinical, demographic, kin and environmental questions. Prevalence of BD is 14/1,000, without association with intermarriage or gender of the child. Prevalence of late miscarriages and still births are respectively 23.3/1,000 and 7.4/1,000, and of premature births 19.6/1,000. Couples with a BD child have about 10 times higher frequency of recurrence of a BD in their progeny than those with normal children, but none of their 694 siblings and only 10/1,000 of their 1,423 progeny had BD, similar to the frequency in general population. These data suggest occurrence of novel genetic and epigenetic events in determination of BD. Children with BD were born with higher frequency (p < 0 001) in families where one or both parents were under “white phosphorus” attack, that in the general population. Bombing of the family home and removal of the rubble were also frequently reported by couples with BD occurrence. These data suggests a causative/favoring role of acute exposure of parents to the weapons-associated contaminants, and/or of their chronic exposure from their persistence in the environment on the embryonic development of their children.
Architectural Study of HOG Feature Extraction Processor for Real-Time Object Detection

This paper describes a Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) feature extraction processor for HDTV resolution video (1920 × 1080 pixels). It features a simplified HOG algorithm with cell-based scanning and simultaneous Support Vector Machine (SVM) calculation, cell-based pipeline architecture, and parallelized modules. To evaluate the effectiveness of our approach, the proposed architecture is implemented onto a FPGA prototyping board. Results show that the proposed architecture can generate HOG features and detect objects with 40 MHz for SVGA resolution video (800 ~ 600 pixels) at 72 frames per second (fps). The proposed schemes are easily expandable to HDTV resolution video at 30 fps with 76.2 MHz if a high-resolution camera and higher operating frequency are available.
Science mapping the knowledge base on educational leadership and management from the emerging regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America, 1965–2018

This bibliometric review of research sought to document and compare trends in educational leadership and management (EDLM) knowledge production from the emerging regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Using a science mapping methodology, the review identified 1171 articles published in nine “core” EDLM journals between 1965 and August 2018. This represented 22% of the full corpus of articles published in these EDLM journals during this period of time. Despite representing a relatively small portion of the overall corpus, these studies from emerging regions grew to comprise 42.5% of the corpus published between 2015 and 2018. Despite this broad pattern of growth, there was also significant geographical variation in the volume of articles published in these journals both between and within the regions. The review also identified “canonical scholars and documents” that have demonstrated lasting influence on this knowledge base. Co-citation analyses also revealed several schools of thought within this literature. The review concludes that the global literature in EDLM is undergoing a significant change in composition. The findings will inform scholarly efforts to develop a more diverse, representative, and globally relevant knowledge base. Recommendations are offered for strengthening the quality and scope of research from emerging regions of the world.
Does fair play reduce concussions? A prospective, comparative analysis of competitive youth hockey tournaments

Background/aim To determine if Boys Bantam and Peewee and Girls U14 sustain fewer concussions, head hits, ‘other injuries’ and penalties in hockey tournaments governed by intensified fair play (IFP) than non-intensified fair play (NIFP). Methods A prospective comparison of IFP, a behaviour modification programme that promotes sportsmanship, versus control (non-intensified, NIFP) effects on numbers of diagnosed concussions, head hits without diagnosed concussion (HHWDC), ‘other injuries’, number of penalties and fair play points (FPPs). 1514 players, ages 11–14 years, in 6 IFP (N=950) and 5 NIFP (N=564) tournaments were studied. Results Two diagnosed concussions, four HHWDC, and six ‘other injuries’ occurred in IFP tournaments compared to one concussion, eight HHWDC and five ‘other injuries’ in NIFP. There were significantly fewer HHWDC in IFP than NIFP (p=0.018). However, diagnosed concussions, ‘other injuries’, penalties and FPPs did not differ significantly between conditions. In IFP, a minority of teams forfeited the majority of FPPs. Most diagnosed concussions, HHWDC, and other injuries occurred to Bantam B players and usually in penalised teams that forfeited their FPPs. Conclusions In response to significant differences in HHWDC between IFP and NIFP tournaments, the following considerations are encouraged: mandatory implementation of fair play in regular season and tournaments, empowering tournament directors to not accept heavily penalised teams, and introducing ‘no body checking’ in Bantam.
A Psychophysical Investigation of Size as a Physical Variable

Physical visualizations, or data physicalizations, encode data in attributes of physical shapes. Despite a considerable body of work on visual variables, “physical variables” remain poorly understood. One of them is physical size. A difficulty for solid elements is that “size” is ambiguous - it can refer to either length/diameter, surface, or volume. Thus, it is unclear for designers of physicalizations how to effectively encode quantities in physical size. To investigate, we ran an experiment where participants estimated ratios between quantities represented by solid bars and spheres. Our results suggest that solid bars are compared based on their length, consistent with previous findings for 2D and 3D bars on flat media. But for spheres, participants' estimates are rather proportional to their surface. Depending on the estimation method used, judgments are rather consistent across participants, thus the use of perceptually-optimized size scales seems possible. We conclude by discussing implications for the design of data physicalizations and the need for more empirical studies on physical variables.
Research of Greenhouse Gases (CH4 and CO2) Emission Flux in Baiyangdian Wetland

CH<sub>4</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub> are important greenhouse gases, playing a very important role in greenhouse effect. In order to estimate the current situation of source and sink of main greenhouse gases in Baiyangdian wetland and evaluate the influences of wetland system to the greenhouse effect of North China, static closed chamber-gas chromatogram method was adopted to study the space-time variation characteristics of N<sub>2</sub>O, CH<sub>4</sub>, and CO<sub>2</sub> emission fluxes in Baiyangdian wetland. The analysis results indicate: the lake wetland which was abundant in organic matters and nutritive salt was an important greenhouse gases emission source. During one year of observation, it was found out that the fluxes of N<sub>2</sub>O, CH<sub>4</sub>, and CO<sub>2</sub> of Baiyangdian wetland posses a very high time variability, with the range of variation being-0.08~0.33 mg·m<sup>-2</sup>·h<sup>-1</sup>, -5.40~328.65 mg·m<sup>-2</sup>·h<sup>-1</sup> and -814.06~2934.93 mg·m<sup>-2</sup>·h<sup>-1</sup>. The emission fluxes of N<sub>2</sub>O, CH4, and CO2 reaches to maximum in summer, respectively being 62.09%, 92.15% and 87.04% of the annual total emission flux, The lakeside was a core area of N<sub>2</sub>O, CH<sub>4</sub> emission, with annual average emission flux respectively reaching up to 0.11 mg·m<sup>-2</sup>·h<sup>-1</sup> and 40.86 mg·m<sup>-2</sup>·h<sup>-1</sup>. Although the main emission area of CO<sub>2</sub> was land, the emission flux of lakeside, with annual average emission flux being 692.35 mg·m<sup>-2</sup>·h<sup>-1</sup>, was also very high, ranking only second to land, the lakeside area of Baiyangdian wetland was only 12.60% of the whole lake wetland area, but the emission loads of N<sub>2</sub>O, CH<sub>4</sub>, and CO<sub>2</sub> were respectively 26.51%, 43.96% and 23.76% of the total emission load, which explains that the lakeside was leading the greenhouse gases emission of Baiyangdian wetland.
Some Results on Stochastic Resonance in One-Bit Quantizers

Stochastic Resonance (SR) is a phenomenon that occurs in certain non-linear systems in which noise can be used to improve the system response [L. Gammaitoni, 1998]. A recent approach to quantizer design has employed Stochastic Resonance by randomizing the threshold of the quantizer (Stochastic Thresholding). Stochastic Thresholding has shown a good performance in detection of weak signals buried in heavy noise even in -50 dB SNR. In fact, Stochastic Thresholding helps ML estimation by some Fisher Information gain given in the quantizer. Driven by this motivation, in this paper we obtain new results on Stochastic Resonance in one-bit quantizers. Also, some discussions on threshold Probability Distribution Function (PDF) especially on the relation of the mean and the variance of PDF with a constant signal which we intend to estimate are implemented.
Action of the Noradrenergic System on Adult-Born Cells Is Required for Olfactory Learning in Mice

We have previously shown that an experience-driven improvement in olfactory discrimination (perceptual learning) requires the addition of newborn neurons in the olfactory bulb (OB). Despite this advance, the mechanisms which govern the selective survival of newborn OB neurons following learning remain largely unknown. We propose that activity of the noradrenergic system is a critical mediator providing a top-down signal to control the selective survival of newly born cells and support perceptual learning. In adult mice, we used pharmacological means to manipulate the noradrenergic system and neurogenesis and to assess their individual and additive effects on behavioral performance on a perceptual learning task. We then looked at the effects of these manipulations on regional survival of adult-born cells in the OB. Finally, using confocal imaging and electrophysiology, we investigated potential mechanisms by which noradrenaline could directly influence the survival of adult-born cells. Consistent with our hypotheses, direct manipulation of noradrenergic transmission significantly effect on adult-born cell survival and perceptual learning. Specifically, learning required both the presence of adult-born cell and noradrenaline. Finally, we provide a mechanistic link between these effects by showing that adult-born neurons receive noradrenergic projections and are responsive to noradrenaline. Based upon these data we argue that noradrenergic transmission is a key mechanism selecting adult-born neurons during learning and demonstrate that top-down neuromodulation acts on adult-born neuron survival to modulate learning performance.
Molecular Layer Interneurons Relay Cerebellar Cortical Activity to Bergmann Glial Cells

Astrocytes are increasingly viewed as active participants in the moment-to-moment functioning of the brain. They respond to neural activity ([Beierlein and Regehr, 2006][1]), affect network excitability ([Pascual et al., 2005][2]), and regulate blood flow ([Takano et al., 2006][3]). One structurally
ARTOS - Adaptive Real-Time Object Detection System

ARTOS is all about creating, tuning, and applying object detection models with just a few clicks. In particular, ARTOS facilitates learning of models for visual object detection by eliminating the burden of having to collect and annotate a large set of positive and negative samples manually and in addition it implements a fast learning technique to reduce the time needed for the learning step. A clean and friendly GUI guides the user through the process of model creation, adaptation of learned models to dierent domains using in-situ images, and object detection on both oine images and images from a video stream. A
A Polynomial Time Algorithm to Determine Maximal Balanced Equivalence Relations

Following Golubitsky, Stewart, and others, we give definitions of networks and input trees. In order to make our work as general as possible, we work with a somewhat extended notion of multiplicity, and introduce the concept of "bunching" of trees. We then define balanced equivalence relations on networks, and a partial ordering on these relations. Previous work has shown that there is a maximal balanced equivalence relation on networks of certain classes: we provide a different style of proof which gives this result for any network. We define two algorithms to determine this relation in practice on a given finite network — one for use with networks with all multiplicities equal, and a second for the more general case. We then provide illustrative examples of each algorithm in use. We show both of these algorithms to be quartic in the size of the given network.