Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Consumer Spending During Unemployment: Positive and Normative Implications

Using de-identified bank account data, we show that spending drops sharply at the large and predictable decrease in income arising from the exhaustion of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. We use the high-frequency response to a predictable income decline as a new test to distinguish between alternative consumption models. The sensitivity of spending to income we document is inconsistent with rational models of liquidity-constrained households, but is consistent with behavioral models with present-biased or myopic households. Depressed spending after exhaustion also implies that the consumption-smoothing gains from extending UI benefits are four times larger than from raising UI benefit levels. (JEL D14, D91, E21, E24, E70, J65)
Returns of Islamic Stocks in Saudi Arabia: Segmentation and Risk-Aversion

This study investigates whether religious-based trading practices affect market returns. We use data from Saudi Arabia, which has clear defined religious rules on investing in stock markets. Using panel regression model, we find that non-Islamic stocks in this market have lower returns compared to Islamic stocks. These results conflict with Merton’s market segmentation theory.
Impact of Helicopter Emergency Medical Service in Traumatized Patients: Which Patient Benefits Most?

Introduction The Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) was established for the prehospital trauma care of patients. Improved rescue times and increased coverage areas are discussed as specific advantages of HEMS. We recently found evidence that HEMS exerts beneficial effects on outcomes for severely injured patients. However, it still remains unknown which group of trauma patients might benefit most from HEMS rescue. Consequently, the unique aim of this study was to reveal which patients might benefit most from HEMS rescue. Methods Trauma patients (ISS ≥9) primarily treated by HEMS or ground emergency medical services (GEMS) between 2002 and 2012 were analysed using the TraumaRegister DGU. A multivariate regression analysis was used to reveal the survival benefit between different trauma populations. Results The study included 52 281 trauma patients. Of these, 68.8% (35 974) were rescued by GEMS and 31.2% (16 307) by HEMS. HEMS patients were more severely injured compared to GEMS patients (ISS: HEMS 24.8±13.5 vs. GEMS 21.7±18.0) and more frequently suffered traumatic shock (SBP sys <90mmHg: HEMS 18.3% vs. GEMS 14.8%). However, logistic regression analysis revealed that HEMS rescues resulted in an overall survival benefit compared to GEMS (OR 0.81, 95% CI [0.75–0.87], p<0.001, Nagelkerke's R squared 0.526, area under the ROC curve 0.922, 95% CI [0.919–0.925]). Analysis of specific subgroups demonstrated that patients aged older than 55 years (OR 0.62, 95% CI [0.50–0.77]) had the highest survival benefit after HEMS treatment. Furthermore, HEMS rescue had the most significant impact after ‘low falls’ (OR 0.68, 95% CI [0.55–0.84]) and in the case of minor severity injuries (ISS 9–15) (OR 0.66, 95% CI [0.49–0.88]). Conclusions In general, trauma patients benefit from HEMS rescue with in-hospital survival as the main outcome parameter. Focusing on special subgroups, middle aged and older patients, low-energy trauma, and minor severity injuries had the highest survival benefit when rescued by HEMS. Further studies are required to determine the potential reasons of this benefit.
THE CHANGING DEMAND FOR SKILLS IN THE UK

We present estimates of changes in skills utilisation and in the returns to skills in the UK using new measures of skills derived from a systematic and detailed matching between the US O*NET system and UK SOC. There is strongly increasing utilisation of both analytical skills and interpersonal skills, and declining use of physical skills over the period 2002-2016. A decomposition analysis reveals that most of these changes in skills utilisation are within occupations rather than between occupations, suggesting that the changes are pervasive throughout employment. The wage returns to skills are estimated using a standard Mincerian earnings function. We find positive and significantly increasing returns to analytical skills throughout the period. While the returns to interpersonal skills are lower than to analytical skills, they are also increasing over time, and are significant especially post-2010. Finally, the returns to physical skills are significantly negative over the whole period. Our findings are robust to changes in the definitions and measurement of the skills variables, and to the empirical specification of the earnings function. The results suggest that the UK labour market is strongly increasing its demand for analytical and interpersonal skills.
Recent Advances in Sustainable Concrete for Structural Applications

Pressure is mounting on the construction industry to adopt sustainable development initiatives aimed at limiting the consumption of non-renewable materials as well as the generation of greenhouse gas emissions and demolition waste. This paradigm shift is requiring engineers to consider the environmental footprint of the materials used for construction projects. The concrete industry has recently made significant strides in this area, and there is a need to synthesize current knowledge and address remaining research needs. This paper reports on advances made in the last ten years with respect to the development and use of sustainable concrete for structural applications, with improved cement efficiency and incorporating recycled materials. Available literature supports the use of sustainable concrete as a viable alternative to conventional concrete for structural applications provided that appropriate design methodologies are employed and the characteristics of the constituent materials are properly considered. Despite the environmental and economic incentives, perceived inferiorities continue to limit the widespread adoption of sustainable concrete for field structures. Current research needs and opportunities are also discussed.
CesiumSpray : a Precise and Accurate Global Clock Service for Large-scale Systems

In large-scale systems, such as Internet-based distributed systems, classical clocksynchronization solutions become impractical or poorly performing, due to the number of nodes and/or the distance. We present a global time service for world-wide systems, based on an innovative clock synchronization scheme, dubbed CesiumSpray . The service exhibits high precision and accuracy; it is virtually inde nitely scaleable; and it is fault-tolerant. It is deterministic for real-time machinery in the local area, which makes it particularly well-suited for, though not limited to, large-scale real-time systems. The clock synchronization scheme is a pseudo-hierarchical mix of external and internal synchronization. The root of the hierarchy are the GPS satellites, which \spray" their reference time over a set of nodes provided with GPS receivers, one per local network, where the second level of the hierarchy performs internal synchronization, further \spraying" the external time inside the local network. The algorithm of the second level is inspired on the high precision a posteriori agreement synchronization algorithm, modi ed to follow an external clock, and able to use simple group communication and membership facilities.
Future Bloom and Blossom Frost Risk for Malus domestica Considering Climate Model and Impact Model Uncertainties

The future bloom and risk of blossom frosts for Malus domestica were projected using regional climate realizations and phenological ( = impact) models. As climate impact projections are susceptible to uncertainties of climate and impact models and model concatenation, the significant horizon of the climate impact signal was analyzed by applying 7 impact models, including two new developments, on 13 climate realizations of the IPCC emission scenario A1B. Advancement of phenophases and a decrease in blossom frost risk for Lower Saxony (Germany) for early and late ripeners was determined by six out of seven phenological models. Single model/single grid point time series of bloom showed significant trends by 2021–2050 compared to 1971–2000, whereas the joint signal of all climate and impact models did not stabilize until 2043. Regarding blossom frost risk, joint projection variability exceeded the projected signal. Thus, blossom frost risk cannot be stated to be lower by the end of the 21st century despite a negative trend. As a consequence it is however unlikely to increase. Uncertainty of temperature, blooming date and blossom frost risk projection reached a minimum at 2078–2087. The projected phenophases advanced by 5.5 d K−1, showing partial compensation of delayed fulfillment of the winter chill requirement and faster completion of the following forcing phase in spring. Finally, phenological model performance was improved by considering the length of day.
CHINESE CONSUMER WILLINGNESS TOWARDS ECO-CONSCIOUS

Purpose – This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of the Chinese customers’ perception and acceptance of eco-conscious apparel (ECA) based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The thesis further examines whether people would like to pay more for ECA and how the factor of willingness to pay a premium is influenced by TPB variables. Design/methodology/approach – The research design is based on quantitative methodology. The data were collected via a web-based survey, a total of 315 responses from Chinese consumers were analyzed with application of the structural equation modeling. Findings – Both attitude toward ECA and perceived behavioral control over ECA acquisition have positive influence on ECA purchasing intention. Willingness to pay a premium for ECA is only positively affected by subjective norm. There is no correlation between ECA purchasing intention and willingness to pay a premium for ECA. Implications – To raise Chinese customers’ purchasing intention, fashion company should focus their actions on disseminating environmental information and knowledge, and offer affordable ECA options with the properties close to traditional apparel. To evoke the willingness to pay a premium for ECA, fashion company can apply celebrity endorsement to add perceived social value into its ECA series. Such actions will contribute to formation of positive social norm and hence positive perception towards ECA. Meanwhile, the government can put more efforts into educating Chinese people about sustainability issues in fashion industry, formulating and implementing policies in favor of ECA consumption, so that a positive social atmosphere for ECA consumption could be created. Originality/value – This study is novel in applying TPB for examining the consumer purchasing of apparel containing recycled fiber in China. The thesis provides useful information to corporate practitioners on how to formulate ECA marketing strategies in China. Research findings are also of relevance for Chinese government by providing recommendations for formulating relevant policies to favor the ECA consumption.
Retrieving the Structure of Utility Graphs Used in Multi-Item Negotiation through Collaborative Filtering 1

Graphical utility models represent powerful formalisms for modeling complex agent decisions involving multiple issues [2]. In the context of negotiation, it has been shown [8] that using utility graphs enables agents to reach Pareto-efficient agreements with a limited number of negotiation steps, even for high-dimensional negotiations over bundles of items involving complementarity/ substitutability dependencies. This paper considerably extends the results of [8], by proposing a method for constructing the utility graphs of buyers automatically, based on previous negotiation data. Our method is based on techniques inspired from itembased collaborative filtering, used in online recommendation algorithms. Experimental results show that our approach is able to retrieve the structure of utility graphs online, with a relatively high degree of accuracy, for complex, non-linear (k-additive) preference settings, even if a relatively small amount of data about concluded negotiations is available.
Universal brain systems for recognizing word shapes and handwriting gestures during reading

Do the neural circuits for reading vary across culture? Reading of visually complex writing systems such as Chinese has been proposed to rely on areas outside the classical left-hemisphere network for alphabetic reading. Here, however, we show that, once potential confounds in cross-cultural comparisons are controlled for by presenting handwritten stimuli to both Chinese and French readers, the underlying network for visual word recognition may be more universal than previously suspected. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in a semantic task with words written in cursive font, we demonstrate that two universal circuits, a shape recognition system (reading by eye) and a gesture recognition system (reading by hand), are similarly activated and show identical patterns of activation and repetition priming in the two language groups. These activations cover most of the brain regions previously associated with culture-specific tuning. Our results point to an extended reading network that invariably comprises the occipitotemporal visual word-form system, which is sensitive to well-formed static letter strings, and a distinct left premotor region, Exner’s area, which is sensitive to the forward or backward direction with which cursive letters are dynamically presented. These findings suggest that cultural effects in reading merely modulate a fixed set of invariant macroscopic brain circuits, depending on surface features of orthographies.
The University of Bradford Institutional Repository

Thyroid hormone (TH) is essential for adult brain function and its actions include several key roles in the hypothalamus. Although TH controls gene expression via specific TH receptors of the nuclear receptor class, surprisingly few genes have been demonstrated to be directly regulated by TH in the hypothalamus, or the adult brain as a whole. This study explored the rapid induction by TH of retinaldehyde dehydrogenase 1 ( Raldh1 ), encoding a retinoic acid (RA)-synthesizing enzyme, as a gene specifically expressed in hypothalamic tanycytes, cells that mediate a number of actions of TH in the hypothalamus. The resulting increase in RA may then regulate gene expression via the RA receptors, also of the nuclear receptor class. In vivo exposure of the rat to TH led to a significant and rapid increase in hypothalamic Raldh1 within 4 hours. That this may lead to an in vivo increase in RA is suggested by the later induction by TH of the RA-responsive gene Cyp26b1 . To explore the actions of RA in the hypothalamus as a potential mediator of TH control of gene regulation, an ex vivo hypothalamic rat slice culture method was developed in which the Raldh1 -expressing tanycytes were maintained. These slice cultures confirmed that TH did not act on genes regulating energy balance but could induce Raldh1 . RA has the potential to upregulate expression of genes involved in growth and appetite, Ghrh and Agrp . This regulation is acutely sensitive to epigenetic changes, as has been shown for TH action in vivo . These results indicate that sequential triggering of two nuclear receptor signalling systems has the capability to mediate some of the functions of TH in the hypothalamus.
Tribological Performance of Hydrogenated Amorphous Carbon ( a ‐ C : H ) DLC Coating when Lubricated with Biodegradable Vegetal Canola Oil

Increasing environmental awareness and demands for lowering energy consumptions are strong driving forces behind the development of the vehicles of tomorrow. Without the advances of lubricant chemistry and adequate lubricant formulation, expansion of modern engines would not have been possible. Considering environmental awareness factors as compared to mineral oils, vegetal oil based biolubricants are renewable, biodegradable, non‐toxic and have a least amount of greenhouse gases. Furthermore, improvement in engine performance and transmission components, which were impossible to achieve by applying only lubricants design, is now possible through diamond like carbon (DLC) coatings. DLC coatings exhibit brilliant tribological properties, such as good wear resistance and low friction. In this regard, tribological performance of a‐C: H DLC coating when lubricated with Canola vegetal oil has been investigated by the help of a ball‐on‐flat geometry. Experimental results demonstrated that the a‐C: H DLC coating exhibited better performance with Canola oil in terms of friction and wear as compared to the uncoated materials. Large amount of polar components in the Canola oil significantly improved the tribological properties of the a‐C:H coating. Thus, usage of a‐ C: H DLC coating with Canola oil in the long run may have a positive impact on engine life. © 2014 Published by Faculty of Engineering Corresponding author: H.M. Mobarak Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dhaka university of Engineering and Technology, Gazipur, Bangladesh E‐mail: tanvirhasanimc@gmail.com
Distribution of Plant Nutrient Elements and Carbon in Particle Size Fractions of Broiler Litter Ash

An estimated 10.8 million tons of broiler litter and 3.0 million tons of turkey litter were produced in the United States in 2009. Poultry litter is a mixture of manure, bedding material (e.g. wood chips, sawdust, or straw), feathers, and spilled feed. Poultry litter contains high levels of Ca, N, P, and K, and is often applied as a fertilizer on fields in close proximity to poultry houses. Repeated poultry litter application to these fields can increase soil P to levels in excess of plant requirements, resulting in potential environmental risk. An alternative to land application of poultry litter is its use as a fuel in electricity generation. Ash from this process has been used as a fertilizer after sieving to 0.5 mm) fractions. Nevertheless, the amount of P in the coarsest frac- tion ranged from 15 to 25 percent of the total extractable phosphorus in the ash. With such high P content in the coarse fraction, there is a potential of P leaching when this fraction is disposed of in landfills. We recommend that the coarse fraction should be crushed and mixed with the fine fractions before the ash is used as a fertilizer and soil amendment.
Active classifier training with the 3DS strategy

In this article, we introduce and investigate 3DS, a novel selection strategy for pool-based active training of a generative classifier, namely CMM (classifier based on a probabilistic mixture model). Such a generative classifier aims at modeling the processes underlying the “generation” of the data. The strategy 3DS considers the distance of samples to the decision boundary, the density in regions where samples are selected, and the diversity of samples in the query set that are chosen for labeling, e.g., by a human domain expert. The combination of the three measures in 3DS is adaptive in the sense that the weights of the distance and the density measure depend on the uniqueness of the classification. With nine benchmark data sets it is shown that 3DS outperforms a random selection strategy (baseline method), a pure closest sampling approach, ITDS (information theoretic diversity sampling), DWUS (density-weighted uncertainty sampling), DUAL (dual strategy for active learning), and PBAC (prototype based active learning) regarding evaluation criteria such as ranked performance based on classification accuracy, number of labeled samples (data utilization), and learning speed assessed by the area under the learning curve.
Essays on the Economics of Information and Communication Technologies: copyleft, Networks and Compatibilitycor

Essay 1: An astonishing phenomenon is the rise of a large population of programmers who, seemingly against economic logic, develop and distribute software that is copylefted: freely available but licensed. Our paper suggests that the occupational choices of programmers based on reputation incentives determine the qualities of programs. When software implementation costs are low, the monopolist accepts the copyleft program in the market. We explain the simultaneous existence of commercial and copylefted programs, like Windows and Linux, and also why commercial alternatives to copyleft programs may not exist. Essay 2: Firms in the IT-industry use resources to initiate and support copyleft programmers’ communities, which develop competing free programs. We introduce a model where programs exhibit network effects in the consumer market and where a monopoly firm selling a copyright program has an incentive to support the development of a free copyleft substitute program. The incentive arises under a weak network effect even when the network of copyleft programmers is small compared to consumer network. We report welfare results under different market outcomes. Essay 3: The future compatibility of a product can be important to a buyer. With IT products, switching costs may in the worst cases well exceed the purchasing price. We develop a model in which rational buyers value products by their expected levels of future compatibility, using suppliers’ R&D budget levels as signals. Suppliers compete by investing in R&D to increase compatibility. In all the analysed market scenarios R&D investment levels fall short of the social optimum. Essay 4: When buyers value products in terms of the expected compatibility between the current and the new vintage, firms can invest strategically to control for the switching costs. Their open announcements of R&D budgets transmit information to buyers and to competitors. Since only an efficient firm finds it optimal to have a large R&D-budget, a firm can signal its private information of its production cost to the uninformed rival. The paper proves that the likely outcome is a unique separating equilibrium if the R&D cost is low but the uncertainty of the rival’s production cost large. %%%%Endast sammandrag. Inbundna avhandlingar kan sokas i Helka-databasen (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Elektroniska kopior av avhandlingar finns antingen oppet pa natet eller endast tillgangliga i bibliotekets avhandlingsterminaler. %%%%Only abstract. Paper copies of master’s theses are listed in the Helka database (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Electronic copies of master’s theses are either available as open access or only on thesis terminals in the Helsinki University Library. %%%%Vain tiivistelma. Sidottujen gradujen saatavuuden voit tarkistaa Helka-tietokannasta (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Digitaaliset gradut voivat olla luettavissa avoimesti verkossa tai rajoitetusti kirjaston opinnaytekioskeilla.
A new Delayless subband adaptive filter based on Discrete Cosine Harmonic Wavelet Transform (CHWT)

This paper proposes a new delayless subband adaptive filter (SAF) based on Discrete Cosine Harmonic Wavelet Transform (CHWT). The subband signals derived using CHWT are of real nature due to DCT. This enables to obtain the estimate of the overall plant impulse response in the DCT domain and hence is simple compared to that of difficult stacking used in delayless SAF realized by DFT filter banks. Further the aliasing due to filtering is absent as subband signals are derived in DCT domain and hence critical sampling is sufficient. This does not suffer from eigen value spread, due to over sampling used to avoid aliasing. The wavelet nature in addition to handling nonstationarity provides the perception. Hence, the new algorithm is simple and provides good convergence rate for signals with large eigenvalue spread and of nonstationary nature.