Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural change, productivity and employment in the new EU Member States

This paper provides an overview of longer-term structural developments in the new EU Member States from Central and Eastern Europe (NMS). It analyses structural changes in the NMS' economies and patterns of productivity catching-up both at macro level and within the individual industries. With the transformational recession of the early 1990s left behind, the majority of the NMS embarked on a path of rapid economic growth during the past decade. They have experienced an impressive productivity catching-up, both at the macroeconomic level and in the manufacturing industry in particular. Yet in most NMS the growth of labour productivity went hand in hand with declining employment, and even with considerable job losses in the manufacturing industry. The structural changes observed during the past decade brought the NMS' economies nearer to the economic structure observed in the EU-15, but the shifts of labour among individual sectors or industries themselves did not have any marked impact on aggregate productivity growth. Similar to the EU-15, the recent productivity catching-up observed in the NMS resulted overwhelmingly from across-the-board productivity improvements in individual sectors of the economy while employment shifts among sectors had only a negligible effect on aggregate productivity growth. Notwithstanding fast productivity catching-up, the estimated productivity levels indicate that NMS are in this respect still lagging considerably behind the EU 15 economies, implying a huge catching-up potential. The estimated elasticity of employment to production growth is low in all NMS; the recently observed and expected rates of economic growth will in all likelihood not be sufficient for the creation of additional jobs. The required further productivity convergence with the EU-15 may thus be in conflict with the urgently needed employment growth in the NMS; net job creation occurred in just a few services sectors and could not offset the job losses in agriculture and industry. Countries covered Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania Topics Labour and Migration; International Trade and Competitiveness; Industry
Effects of Hepatitis B Virus Mutations on its Replication and Liver Disease Severity

Hepatitis B virus (HBV), nowadays, is one of the major human pathogens worldwide. Approximately, 400 million people worldwide have chronic HBV infection. Only 5% of persons infected during adulthood develop chronic infection. The reverse is true for those infected at birth or in early childhood, i.e. more than 90% of these persons progress to chronic infection. Currently, eight different genotypes o f HBV have been identified, differing in nucleotide sequence by greater than 8%. In addition, numerous subgenotypes have a l s o been recognized based on the nucleotide sequence variability of 4- 8%. It has invariably been found that these genotypes and mutations play a pivotal role in the liver disease aggravation and virus replication. The precore mutations (G1896A) and the double mutation (T1762/A1764) in the basal core promoter are important mutations that alter expression of the hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg). The HBeAg is important for establishing viral persistence. The precore G1896A mutation abrogates the expression of HBeAg. Numerous other mutations alter the disease severity and progression. It is predictive that the infected patient has high risk of hepatocellular carcinoma if the genotype C is incriminated or if HBV possesses basal core promoter double mutation. Association of the remaining genotypes have been noted but with less degree than genotype C. Phenotypic assays of the different HBV protein markers with different molecular techniques illustrate the replication efficiency of the virus in cell lines. This review will discuss various mutations into their association with liver disease severity and progression as well as virus replication.
Mergers and Market Power: Evidence from the Airline Industry

This paper examines price changes associated with airline mergers during 1985-88, a period of natural experimentation in which mergers were not contested by the government. The results show that prices increased on routes served by the merging firms relative to a control group of routes unaffected by the merger. Mergers may lead to more efficient operations but, on the whole, the impact of efficiency gains on airfares is more than offset by exercise of increased market power. Copyright 1993 by American Economic Association.
Microparticles from Patients with Metabolic Syndrome Induce Vascular Hypo-Reactivity via Fas/Fas-Ligand Pathway in Mice

Microparticles are membrane vesicles with pro-inflammatory properties. Circulating levels of microparticles have previously been found to be elevated in patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS). The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of in vivo treatment with microparticles, from patients with MetS and from healthy subjects (HS), on ex vivo vascular function in mice. Microparticles isolated from MetS patients or HS, or a vehicle were intravenously injected into mice, following which vascular reactivity in response to vasoconstrictor agonists was assessed by myography with respect to cyclo-oxygenase pathway, oxidative and nitrosative stress. Injection of microparticles from MetS patients into mice induced vascular hypo-reactivity in response to serotonin. Hypo-reactivity was associated with up-regulation of inducible NO-synthase and increased production of NO, and was reversed by the NO-synthase inhibitor (NG-nitro-L-arginine). The selective COX-2 inhibitor (NS398) reduced the contractile effect of serotonin in aortas from mice treated with vehicle or HS microparticles; however, this was not observed within mice treated with MetS microparticles, probably due to the ability of MetS microparticles to enhance prostacyclin. MetS microparticle-mediated vascular dysfunction was associated with increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) and enhanced expression of the NADPH oxidase subunits. Neutralization of the pro-inflammatory pathway Fas/FasL completely prevented vascular hypo-reactivity and the ability of MetS microparticles to enhance both inducible NO-synthase and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1). Our data provide evidence that microparticles from MetS patients induce ex vivo vascular dysfunction by increasing both ROS and NO release and by altering cyclo-oxygenase metabolites and MCP-1 through the Fas/FasL pathway.
Grid‐enabling Geographically Weighted Regression: A Case Study of Participation in Higher Education in England

Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) is a method of spatial statistical analysis used to explore geographical differences in the effect of one or more predictor variables upon a response variable. However, as a form of local analysis, it does not scale well to (especially) large data sets because of the repeated processes of fitting and then comparing multiple regression surfaces. A solution is to make use of developing grid infrastructures, such as that provided by the National Grid Service (NGS) in the UK, treating GWR as an “embarrassing parallel” problem and building on existing software platforms to provide a bridge between an open source implementation of GWR (in R) and the grid system. To demonstrate the approach, we apply it to a case study of participation in Higher Education, using GWR to detect spatial variation in social, cultural and demographic indicators of participation.
UV and FIR selected samples of galaxies in the local Universe. Dust extinction and star formation rates

We have built two samples of galaxies selected at 0.2 μ m (hereafter UV) and 60 μ m (hereafter FIR) covering a sky area of 35.36 deg 2 . The UV selected sample contains 25 galaxies brighter than $AB_{0.2}=17$. All of them, but one elliptical, are detected at 60 μ m with a flux density larger or equal to 0.2 Jy. The UV counts are significantly lower than the Euclidean extrapolation towards brighter fluxes of previous determinations. The FIR selected sample contains 42 galaxies brighter than $f_{60}=0.6$ Jy. Except four galaxies, all of them have a UV counterpart at the limiting magnitude $AB_{0.2}=20.3$ mag. The mean extinction derived from the analysis of the FIR to UV flux ratio is ~1 mag for the UV selected sample and ~2 mag for the FIR selected one. For each sample we compare several indicators of the recent star formation rate ( SFR ) based on the FIR and/or the UV emissions. We find linear relationships with slopes close to unity between the different SFR indicator, which means that, over the whole converting offset. Various absolute calibrations for both samples are discussed in this paper. A positive correlation between extinction and SFR is found when both samples are considered together although with a considerable scatter. A similar result is obtained when using the SFR normalized to the optical surface of the galaxies.
Complexity as a Guide to Understanding Decision Bias: A Contribution to the Favorite-Longshot Bias Debate

This paper investigates the origins of a widespread decision bias in betting markets, the favorite-longshot bias (FLB); in particular, whether it is caused by cognitive errors on the part of bettors or by the pricing policies of bookmakers. The methodology is based on previous literature, which has suggested that: (i) races, as decision tasks for bettors, can be distinguished by their degree of complexity and their attractiveness to those with access to privileged information (insiders), (ii) cognitive errors increase as complexity increases, and (iii) bookmakers set odds in a manner to protect themselves from insiders. The degree of FLB was examined in races of varying complexity and attractiveness to insiders using a dataset of 8,545 races drawn from the parallel bookmaker and pari-mutuel markets operating in the UK in 2004. The results, interpreted in the light of the cognitive error and complexity literature, suggest that neither bettors’ nor bookmakers’ cognitive errors are the main cause of the bias. Rather, bettors’ preferences for risk and the deliberate pricing policies of bookmakers play key roles in influencing the bias in markets where bookmakers and pari-mutuel operators co-exist.
Little Firms and Big Patents: The Incentives to Disclose Competencies

This paper offers a theoretical treatment of information disclosure through patenting. We consider a signaling model in which two domestic firms disclose their competencies to a foreign firm. Conditions are discussed under which separating and pooling equilibria occur, together with a domination-based re-finement. Depending on the payoff situation of the foreign firm, separating and semi-separating equilibria occur in which the firm with the higher competencies discloses. We show that subsidizing the costs of patent applications has no impact on the outcome.
On finding optimal clusterings of task graphs

Currently, many parallel algorithms are defined for shared memory architectures. The preferred machine model is the PRAM, but this model does not take into account properties of existing architectures that have a distributed memory and an asynchronous execution model. A transformation of PRAM programs into distributed, asynchronous ones is known. In order to produce not only correct but also efficient code the tasks have to be clustered. We introduce a parallel algorithm producing an optimal clustering for coarse grained task graphs with respect to the execution time on an asynchronous distributed random access machine, the A-DRAM. This machine model assumes distributed memory, asynchronous execution of tasks, computation costs, and communication delay. <<ETX>>
A structural VAR model of the New Zealand business cycle

This paper develops a new open economy structural VAR model of the New Zealand economy. The model adopts techniques introduced by Cushman and Zha (1997) and Dungey and Pagan (2000) to identify international and domestic shocks and dynamic responses to these shocks in a small open economy. The international variables are block exogenous and the model includes restrictions on contemporaneous and lagged variables. Novel features include the introduction of an expanded set of domestic financial variables not captured in previous New Zealand VAR models, the use of a forward looking Taylor Rule to identify monetary policy, and the introduction of a climate variable to capture the impact of climatic conditions on the business cycle. Key results to emerge are the significant influence of international variables on the New Zealand business cycle, the importance of separately identifying import price and export price shocks, and the significant influence of climate.
A Political Economy Theory of Government Debt and Social Security

This paper analyzes the determinants of government debt and social security for the old in a closed-economy, overlapping-generation model. Under the probabilistic voting, the model presents (i) an intergenerational link of resource allocation via debt and social security; (ii) multiple political equilibria; and (iii) a negative cor- relation between tax and debt. These three results are robust to the introduction of public goods as an alternative government expenditure or to the introduction of income heterogeneity within a generation.
Insider Ownership and the Cost of Debt Capital: Evidence from Bank Loans

Agency theory predicts that the incentives for insiders to extract private benefits at the expense of creditors are negatively related to the level of ownership retained by insiders. However, the ability of insiders to effectively control the resources of the firm and engage in such activities is positively related to their level of ownership. Using a large international sample of bank loans, this paper demonstrates how these two contrasting forces result in an inverse U-shaped relationship between insider ownership and the firm's cost of borrowing. Consistent with the control argument, the positive relationship between insider ownership and cost of debt for low levels of insider ownership is found to be not in place when insiders are entrenched above and beyond their level of ownership. Finally, the relationship between insider ownership and cost of debt in presence of loan contract clauses is addressed.
Nonnormal energy transient growth in the Taylor-Couette problem

This work is devoted to the study of transient growth of perturbations in the Taylor-Couette problem due to nonnormal mechanisms. The study is carried out for a particular small gap case and is mostly focused on the linearly stable regime of counter-rotation. The exploration covers a wide range of inner and outer angular speeds as well as axial and azimuthal modes. Clear evidence of transient growth is found as long as the counter-rotation is increased. The numerical results are in agreement with former analyses based on energy methods. Similarities with transient growth mechanisms in plane Couette flow and in Hagen-Poiseuille flow are found. This is reflected in the modulation of the basic circular Couette flow by the presence of azimuthal streaks as a result of the nonmodal growth of initial axisymmetric perturbations. This study might shed some light on the subcritical transition to turbulence which is found experimentally in Taylor-Couette flow when the cylinders rotate in opposite directions. This work was supported by UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Grant GR/M30890.
A Computational Model of the Pregnant Occupant: Effects of Restraint Usage and Occupant Position on Fetal Injury Risk

Automobile crashes are the largest single cause of death for pregnant women and the leading cause of traumatic fetal injury mortality in the United States. The purpose of this paper is to present a validated model of a 30 week pregnant occupant and to examine the risk of fetal injury in frontal crashes. The pregnant uterine model was imported into MADYMO 6.0 and included in the 5th percentile female human body model using membrane elements to serve as ligaments and facet surfaces for the overlying skin. A simulation matrix of 17 tests was developed to predict fetal outcome and included frontal crash impulses from minor ( 48 kph) crashes for the driver and passenger occupant positions. The test matrix also included various restraint combinations: no restraint, lap belt, 3-point belt, 3-point with airbag, and airbag only. Overall, the highest risk for fetal death was seen in higher speed frontal accidents in the driver position for all restraint conditions. The peak uterine strain was reduced by 26% to 54% for the passenger position versus the driver position. This difference was due primarily to driver interaction with the steering wheel. For all impact directions, the maternal injury indices were greatest for the unrestrained occupant. In addition, the possibility of direct fetal brain injury from inertial loading alone appears possible and a component that should be included in future models. The current modeling effort has verified previous experimental findings regarding the importance of proper restraint use for the pregnant occupant.
Convergence of Neural Networks for Programming Problems via a Nonsmooth Łojasiewicz Inequality

This paper considers a class of neural networks (NNs) for solving linear programming (LP) problems, convex quadratic programming (QP) problems, and nonconvex QP problems where an indefinite quadratic objective function is subject to a set of affine constraints. The NNs are characterized by constraint neurons modeled by ideal diodes with vertical segments in their characteristic, which enable to implement an exact penalty method. A new method is exploited to address convergence of trajectories, which is based on a nonsmooth Lstrokojasiewicz inequality for the generalized gradient vector field describing the NN dynamics. The method permits to prove that each forward trajectory of the NN has finite length, and as a consequence it converges toward a singleton. Furthermore, by means of a quantitative evaluation of the Lstrokojasiewicz exponent at the equilibrium points, the following results on convergence rate of trajectories are established: 1) for nonconvex QP problems, each trajectory is either exponentially convergent, or convergent in finite time, toward a singleton belonging to the set of constrained critical points; 2) for convex QP problems, the same result as in 1) holds; moreover, the singleton belongs to the set of global minimizers; and 3) for LP problems, each trajectory converges in finite time to a singleton belonging to the set of global minimizers. These results, which improve previous results obtained via the Lyapunov approach, are true independently of the nature of the set of equilibrium points, and in particular they hold even when the NN possesses infinitely many nonisolated equilibrium points
Optimal Consumption and Portfolio Selection with Stochastic Differential Utility

This paper develops the utility gradient (or martingale) approach for computing portfolio and consumption plans that maximize stochastic differential utility (SDU), a continuous-time version of recursive utility due to Duffie and Epstein (1992a). The setting is that of a general stochastic investment opportunity set with Brownian information (making some of the results novel in the time-additive case, as well). We characterize the first order conditions of optimality as a system of forward-backward SDE's, and for the Markovian case we show how to solve this system in terms of a system of quasilinear parabolic PDE's and forward only SDE's, which is amenable to numerical computation. Another contribution is a proof of existence, uniqueness, and basic properties for a parametric class of homothetic SDU that can be thought of as a continuous-time version of the CES Kreps-Porteus utilities studied by Epstein and Zin (1989). For this class, we show that the solution method simplifies significantly, resulting in closed form solutions in terms of a single backward SDE (without imposing a Markovian structure). The latter can be easily computed, as we will illustrate with a number of tractable concrete examples involving the type of "affine" state price dynamics that are familiar from the term structure literature.
SOEPL 2009 - An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model for Policy Analysis and Forecasting

The paper documents elements of work on the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) SOEPL model that has been carried out in recent years at the National Bank of Poland. In 2009 a new version of the model was developed (called SOEPL−2009) which in 2010 is to support an econometric model and experts’ forecasts in mid-term forecasting of inflation and economic activity. The paper consists of three basic parts. The first part is introductory and briefly outlines the development of macroeconometric methods which brought about the creation of new-keynesian models specified within the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium approach. The remaining two parts of the paper report specification, estimation results and some properties of the SOEPL−2009 DSGE model.
Homophily, Close Friendship, and Life Satisfaction among Gay, Lesbian, Heterosexual, and Bisexual Men and Women

Friends play important roles throughout our lives by providing expressive, instrumental, and companionate support. We examined sexual orientation, gender, and age differences in the number of friends people can rely on for expressive, instrumental, and companionate support. Additionally, we examined the extent to which people relied on same-gender versus cross-gender friends for these types of support. Participants (N = 25,185) completed a survey via a popular news website. Sexual orientation differences in number of same-gender and cross-gender friends were generally small or non-existent, and satisfaction with friends was equally important to overall life satisfaction for all groups. However, the extent to which people’s friendship patterns demonstrated gender-based homophily varied by sexual orientation, gender, and age. Young adult gay and bisexual men, and to some extent bisexual women and older bisexual men, did not conform to gendered expectations that people affiliate primarily with their own gender.
Satellite attitude control through evolving a neural network

We propose a pure topological recurrent network controller for satellite attitude control, which has random binary connections in hidden layer, and all hidden neurons are activated by sinusoidal functions. A direct graph encoding method and four genetic operators are implemented for using genetic programming to train this controller. Moreover, a simulated small satellite which equipped with three reaction wheels was developed, then this simulator was employed to test the controller and training method for a given simple attitude adjusting mission. The experimental results reveal that this controller has the simplicity, usability and potentials for satellite attitude control through evolutionary learning.
Economic Effects of Federal Credit Programs

Since 1980, the federal government has directly subsidized one-third of all nonfederal borrowing. This paper presents numerical estimates of the effects of federal lending. Existing credit subsidies appear to have important effects on the allocation of credit, but little effect on aggregate investment. Efficiency costs are shown to be large (approximately 1/3 percent of GNP). Government costs exceed fifty cents per dollar of incremental targeted lending. Interactions among programs can eliminate much or all of the original gain provided by a subsidy, especially if borrowers are rationed. The paper also examines the effects of several policy reforms. Copyright 1991 by American Economic Association.