Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Supply and Demand for Safe Assets

There is a demand for safe assets, either government bonds or private substitutes, for use as collateral. Government bonds are safe assets, given the government's power to tax, but their supply is driven by fiscal considerations, and does not necessarily meet the private demand for safe assets. Unlike the government, the private sector cannot produce riskless collateral. When the private sector reaches its limit (the quality of private collateral), government bonds are net wealth, up to the government's own limits (taxation capacity). The economy is fragile to the extent that privately-produced safe assets are relied upon. In a crisis, government bonds can replace private assets that do not sustain borrowing anymore, raising welfare.
Testing for signals with unknown location and scale in a χ2 random field, with an application to fMRI

Siegmund and Worsley (1995) considered the problem of testing for signals with unknown location and scale in a Gaussian random field defined on ℝ N . The test statistic was the maximum of a Gaussian random field in an N+1 dimensional ‘scale space’, N dimensions for location and 1 dimension for the scale of a smoothing filter. Scale space is identical to a continuous wavelet transform with a kernel smoother as the wavelet, though the emphasis here is on signal detection rather than image compression or enhancement. Two methods were used to derive an approximate null distribution for N=2 and N=3: one based on the method of volumes of tubes, the other based on the expected Euler characteristic of the excursion set. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to show how the latter method can be extended to higher dimensions, and to apply this more general result to χ2 fields. The result of Siegmund and Worsley (1995) then follows as a special case. In this paper the results are applied to the problem of searching for activation in brain images obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
A Second Replicated Quantitative Analysis of Fault Distributions in Complex Software Systems

Background: Software engineering is searching for general principles that apply across contexts, for example, to help guide software quality assurance. Fenton and Ohlsson presented such observations on fault distributions, which have been replicated once. Objectives: We aimed to replicate their study again to assess the robustness of the findings in a new environment, five years later. Method: We conducted a literal replication, collecting defect data from five consecutive releases of a large software system in the telecommunications domain, and conducted the same analysis as in the original study. Results: The replication confirms results on unevenly distributed faults over modules, and that fault proneness distributions persist over test phases. Size measures are not useful as predictors of fault proneness, while fault densities are of the same order of magnitude across releases and contexts. Conclusions: This replication confirms that the uneven distribution of defects motivates uneven distribution of quality assurance efforts, although predictors for such distribution of efforts are not sufficiently precise.
Understanding servant leadership

textabstractThe 21st century has brought much in the way of turmoil and change to the world of business. As a consequence, ways of doing business that were once universally accepted now seem outdated and inflexible in an age where knowledge drives economies and socially responsible corporate attitudes influence stakeholders and shareholders alike.
Effectiveness Evaluation of Levamisole, Albendazole, Ivermectin, and Vernonia amygdalina in West African Dwarf Goats

Anthelmintic drug resistance has led to the search for alternatives in controlling helminth infections. Fifty West African Dwarf goats without history of anthelmintic treatment were divided equally into five groups. Group A was treated with ivermectin injection subcutaneously, group B with levamisole subcutaneously, group C with albendazole orally, and group D with aqueous extract of Vernonia amygdalina and group E was untreated control. Faecal samples were collected before treatment from each animal and larval culture was carried out. Faecal egg count reduction (FECR) test was carried out for each group and the data analysed using FECR version 4 to calculate percent reduction in faecal egg count. Predominant helminth infections from larval culture were Haemonchus contortus (70%), Trichostrongylus spp. (61%), and Oesophagostomum spp. (56%). Mixed infection was present in all the animals. From the FECR test Vernonia amygdalina extract was more effective against helminths (100%), compared to ivermectin 96%, levamisole 96%, and albendazole 99%. The lower 95% confidence limit was 89 for ivermectin and levamisole and 91 for albendazole. There is low resistance to ivermectin and levamisole and susceptibility to albendazole while V. amygdalina has great potentials that could be explored for the treatment of helminth diseases in goats.
The Spatial QRS-T Angle: Implications in Clinical Practice

The ventricular gradient (VG) as a concept was conceived in the 1930s and its calculation yielded information that was not otherwise obtainable. The VG was not utilized by clinicians at large because it was not easy to understand and its computation time-consuming. The contemporary spatial QRS-T angle is based on the concept of the VG and defined as its mathematical and physiological integral. Its current major clinical use is to assess the cardiac primary repolarization abnormalities in 3-dimensional spatial vectorial plans which are normally untraced in the presence of secondary electrophysiological activity in a 2-dimensional routine electrocardiogram (ECG). Currently the calculation of the spatial QRS-T angle can be easily computed on the basis of a classical ECG and contributes to localization of arrhythmogenic areas in the heart by assessing overall and local heterogeneity of the myocardial ventricular action potention duration. Recent population-based studies suggest that the spatial QRS-T angle is a dominant ECG predictor of future cardiovascular events and death and it is superior to more conventional ECG parameters. Its assessment warrants consideration for intensified primary and secondary cardiovascular prevention efforts and should be included in everyday clinical practice. This review addresses the nature and diagnostic potential of the spatial QRS-T angle. The main focus is its role in ECG assessment of dispersion of repolarization, a key factor in arrythmogeneity.
The Role of Emission Trading in Domestic Climate Policy

This paper focuses on two specific issues in the design of a domestic cap and trade program for GHGs - whether the cap should be located upstream or downstream, and whether trading alone will suffice to achieve the desired reduction in GHGs or will need to be supplemented with additional regulatory measures. The paper argues for a downstream cap accompanied by measures such as a renewable portfolio standard, efficiency standards for vehicles, appliances and buildings, and a low carbon fuel standard. For this argument, it is necessary to address both the theory and the empirical evidence of emission trading. After reviewing the theory, the paper examines the actual experience in the U.S. with emission trading for SO2, to see whether the assumptions used in the theory actually applied in practice. What actually happened deviated in several important respects from what was supposed to happen according to the conventional theorizing. The design of a cap and trade program for GHG is then discussed, first considering the similarities between the past regulation of air pollutants and the challenge posed by GHGs, and then making the case for a downstream cap and complementary policies.
Systematic Review and Evidence Synthesis as a Practice and Scholarship Tool

Reviews of existing research evidence have the potential to inform both practice and scholarship. This opportunity is currently not being fully realized in management and organization studies due to the limitations of traditional methods of review, which fail to identify clearly what is known and not known about a given topic. For practitioners, systematic review can help address managerial problems by producing a reliable knowledge base through accumulating findings from a range of studies. For scholars, systematic review can enhance methodological rigour as well as highlight opportunities for further research. Systematic reviews are guided by a set of principles rather than a specific, inflexible and restricted protocol. By revealing these principles, outlining a systematic review methodology and offering examples we hope that this chapter helps both practitioners and scholars to use systematic review to inform their practice.
Title: “With a little help from my friends...”: The role of co-witness relationship in susceptibility to misinformation Running head: Co-witness relationship and misinformation

Inaccuracies in eyewitness accounts can occur when witnesses are exposed to post-event misinformation via discussion with a co-witness. The current study examined the role of co-witness relationship by comparing the memory performance of pairs of romantic couples, friends and previously unacquainted strangers with that of individuals. Ninety-six participants viewed an event and then discussed the witnessed event with a stranger, a romantic partner or a friend. One member of each pair saw a theft take place during the witnessed event. Individual group participants did not discuss the witnessed event with anyone. Results indicate that all co-witness dyads produced less accurate recall accounts than participants who did not interact with another witness. However, witnesses who were previously acquainted with their co-witness (either in a friendship or romantic relationship) were significantly more likely to report information obtained from their co-witness that they had not seen themselves. Prior acquaintance also led to an increased number of incorrect attributions of both guilt and innocence.
Retrospective vs. concurrent think-aloud protocols: Testing the usability of an online library catalogue

Think-aloud protocols are a dominant method in usability testing. There is, however, only little empirical evidence on the actual validity of the method. This paper describes an experiment that compares concurrent and retrospective think-aloud protocols for a usability test of an online library catalogue. There were three points of comparison: usability problems detected, overall task performance, and participant experiences. Results show that concurrent and retrospective think-aloud protocols reveal comparable sets of usability problems, but that these problems come to light in different ways. In retrospective think-aloud protocols, more problems were detected by means of verbalisation, while in concurrent think-aloud protocols, more problems were detected by means of observation. Moreover, in the concurrent think-aloud protocols, the requirement to think aloud while working had a negative effect on the task performance. This raises questions about the reactivity of concurrent think-aloud protocols, especially in the case of high task complexity.
Natural Abundance Isotopic Chirality in the Reagents of the Soai Reaction

Isotopic chirality influences sensitively the enantiomeric outcome of the Soai asymmetric autocatalysis. Therefore magnitude and eventual effects of isotopic chirality caused by natural abundance isotopic substitution (H, C, O, Zn) in the reagents of the Soai reaction were analyzed by combinatorics and probability calculations. Expectable enantiomeric excesses were calculated by the Pars–Mills equation. It has been found that the chiral isotopic species formed by substitution in the otherwise achiral reagents provide enantiomeric excess (e.e.) levels that are higher than the sensitivity threshold of the Soai autocatalysis towards chiral induction. Consequently, possible chiral induction exerted by these e.e. values should be taken into account in considerations regarding the molecular events and the mechanism of the chiral induction in the Soai reaction.
Context, not predictions: a field study of financial analysts

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the nature of the work that financial analysts actually do in the context of the market for information and to further open up research in this area to qualitative and sociological inquiry. Design/methodology/approach - – A field study with 49 financial analysts (both buy-side and sell-side) was undertaken in order to understand the work that they actually do. This field study was theoretically informed by the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Findings - – The authors find, in contrast to both conventional wisdom and assumptions in prior (mostly quantitative) literature, that the primary value of sell-side analyst work lies not in the recommendations that analysts ultimately produce, but in the rich contextual information that they provide to buy-side analysts. In order to successfully provide this information, analysts have to embody large amounts of technical capital into their habitus. Research limitations/implications - – Much research in this area erroneously presumes that forecasting is the primary function of analysts. Analyst work needs to be understood as multifarious and requiring a well-developed habitus that is attuned to the accumulation of both technical and social capital. Future qualitative research might usefully explore in more detail the way in which corporate managers interact with analysts. The present study solicits the viewpoints only of the analysts themselves. The organisational context of the analysts was not explored in detail and the interviews were pre-crisis, which possibly explains why the technical capital of sell-side analysts was extolled by interviewees rather than lambasted. Originality/value - – The paper is one of few studies to look at analysts from a qualitative and sociological perspective. It both complements and extends both emerging sociological work on financial intermediaries and qualitative work on the “market for information”.
A broadband low-noise single-ended input differential output amplifier with IM2 cancelling

A broadband single-ended input differential output low noise amplifier exploiting IM2 cancelling has been designed in a 90 nm CMOS technology. A feedback path from the common mode output to the input effectively cancels the second order distortion products with negligible effect on the noise performance. The measured IIP2 varies from 17 dBm with the feedback disabled to 35 dBm when the feedback is enabled. Measured gain and noise figure are respectively 10 dB and 5 dB on a single output with 50 Omega load while dissipating 7.5 mW.
The Reform of Unemployment Protection Insurance, 1993-2007: the Erosion of Legislated Rights in France, Germany, Portugal and Spain

In the extensive literature that has been dedicated during the past fifteen years to the analysis of the reform of the welfare states, a significant number of studies have focused on the characterisation of the nature and direction of the changes in the main social programmes. This article seeks to contribute to this debate by analysing the reform of unemployment insurance schemes between 1993 and 2007 in France, Germany, Portugal and Spain, as representative of the conservative regime. A comparative analysis is carried out by examining the major legislative amendments concerning eligibility criteria and entitlement conditions, as they are expressed by legislation in the four countries. The findings of the study indicate that the four countries have adopted different instruments at different moments in time, while no significant differences were detected between them, and that the legislative changes introduced in the four insurance schemes may be seen to constitute a real erosion of social rights.
Androgen Receptor Copy Number Variation and Androgenetic Alopecia: A Case-Control Study

Background The functional polymorphism that explains the established association of the androgen receptor (AR) with androgenetic alopecia (AGA) remains unidentified, but Copy Number Variation (CNV) might be relevant. CNV involves changes in copy number of large segments of DNA, leading to the altered dosage of gene regulators or genes themselves. Two recent reports indicate regions of CNV in and around AR, and these have not been studied in relation to AGA. The aim of this preliminary case-control study was to determine if AR CNV is associated with AGA, with the hypothesis that CNV is the functional AR variant contributing to this condition. Methodology/Principal Findings Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification was used to screen for CNV in five AR exons and a conserved, non-coding region upstream of AR in 85 men carefully selected as cases and controls for maximal phenotypic contrast. There was no evidence of CNV in AR in any of the cases or controls, and thus no evidence of significant association between AGA and AR CNV. Conclusions/Significance The results suggest this form of genomic variation at the AR locus is unlikely to predispose to AGA.
Explaining Inflation Differentials in the Euro Area: Evidence from a Dynamic Panel Data Model

We try to explain the differences in euro area countries’ inflation rates over the period 1999-2006, using a dynamic panel data model. Our results suggest that euro area inflation differentials are partly due to differences in the exposure to exchange rate deviations and oil price shocks. They are also the reflection of remaining cyclical asymmetries amplified by a rather high degree of inflation persistence. On the other hand, “convergence factors”, namely the price convergence process and the Balassa-Samuelson effects, do not seem to have played a key role in driving inflation differentials in the EMU since 1999. We conclude by emphasizing the potential consequences of such long-lasting inflation differentials on diverging trends in relative competitiveness of the EMU member countries.
Automating bug report assignment

Open-source development projects typically support an open bug repository to which both developers and users can report bugs. A report that appears in this repository must be triaged to determine if the report is one which requires attention and if it is, which developer will be assigned the responsibility of resolving the report. Large open-source developments are burdened by the rate at which new bug reports appear in the bug repository. The thesis of this work is that the task of triage can be eased by using a semi-automated approach to assign bug reports to developers. The approach consists of constructing a recommender for bug assignments; examined are both a range of algorithms that can be used and the various kinds of information provided to the algorithms. The proposed work seeks to determine through human experimentation a sufficient level of precision for the recommendations, and to analytically determine the trade-offs of the various algorithmic and information choices.
Importance Sampling for the Ruin Problem for general gaussian Processes

We study a family of importance sampling estimators for the problem of computing the probability of level crossing when the crossing level is large, or when the intensity of the noise is small. We give general results concerning centered gaussian processes with drift and develop a method which allows to compute explicitly the asymptotics of the second order moment, with a special mention for the fractional Brownian Motion case. The main tools are some rened versions of classical large deviations results and, for the fractional Brownian Motion, recent results on changes of probability by Norros et al.
Named and Specific Entity Detection in Varied Data: The Quæro Named Entity Baseline Evaluation

The Quæro program that promotes research and industrial innovation on technologies for automatic analysis and classification of multimedia and multilingual documents. Within its context a set of evaluations of Named Entity recognition systems was held in 2009. Four tasks were defined. The first two concerned traditional named entities in French broadcast news for one (a rerun of ESTER 2) and of OCR-ed old newspapers for the other. The third was a gene and protein name extraction in medical abstracts. The last one was the detection of references in patents. Four different partners participated, giving a total of 16 systems. We provide a synthetic descriptions of all of them classifying them by the main approaches chosen (resource-based, rules-based or statistical), without forgetting the fact that any modern system is at some point hybrid. The metric (the relatively standard Slot Error Rate) and the results are also presented and discussed. Finally, a process is ongoing with preliminary acceptance of the partners to ensure the availability for the community of all the corpora used with the exception of the non-Quæro produced ESTER 2 one.
How Eco-Efficient Are Low-Input Cropping Systems in Western Europe, and What Can Be Done to Improve Their Eco-Efficiency?

Low-input cropping systems were introduced in Western Europe to reduce the environmental impacts of intensive farming, but some of their benefits are offset by lower yields. In this paper, we review studies that used Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to investigate the effects of reducing external inputs on the eco-efficiency of cropping systems, measured as the ratio of production to environmental impacts. We also review various cropping system interventions that can improve this ratio. Depending on the initial situation and the impacts considered, reducing inputs will in itself either reduce or increase environmental impacts per product unit—highly eco-efficient cropping systems require application of optimum instead of minimum quantities of external inputs. These optimum rates can be lowered by utilizing positive synergies between crops to minimise waste of nutrients and water and by utilizing locally produced organic waste; both from within the farm as well as well as from the surrounding sociotechnical environment. Eco-efficiency can also be improved by increasing yields in a sustainable matter. Strategies such as breeding, increasing diversity, no-tillage or intercropping will not be effective under all conditions. LCA provides a useful framework to identify environmentally optimum levels of inputs and trade-offs between various intensification scenarios.
A General Equilibrium Model of Sovereign Default and Business Cycles

Emerging markets business cycle models treat default risk as part of an exogenous interest rate on working capital, while sovereign default models treat income fluctuations as an exogenous endowment process with ad-noc default costs. We propose instead a general equilibrium model of both sovereign default and business cycles. In the model, some imported inputs require working capital financing; default on public and private obligations occurs simultaneously. The model explains several features of cyclical dynamics around default triggers an efficiency loss as these inputs are replaced by imperfect substitutes; and default on public and private obligations occurs simultaneously. The model explains several features of cyclical dynamics around deraults, countercyclical spreads, high debt ratios, and key business cycle moments.