Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Combination of traffic-responsive and gating control in urban networks: Effective interactions

Recent findings regarding macroscopic relationships of urban traffic measures such as the Macroscopic or Network Fundamental Diagram (MFD or NFD) have led to the development of novel traffic control strategies that can be applied at a network-wide level. One pertinent example is perimeter flow control (also known as gating or metering), which limits the rate at which vehicles are allowed to enter an urban region. In general, these gating strategies seek to prevent a network from becoming congested and maximize network efficiency/productivity by maintaining an optimal accumulation of vehicles within the network. Several studies have found that NFDs are more well-defined (i.e., have less scatter and show better overall network performance) when adaptive traffic signals are installed that dynamically respond to local traffic conditions. A combined gating and adaptive traffic control scheme can leverage the more reproducible macroscopic traffic patterns achieved with adaptive signals to provide more robust and efficient gating control. The purpose of this paper is to explore the benefits of combining perimeter gating with locally adaptive traffic signals through micro-simulation of the Chania, Greece traffic network. Two adaptive traffic signal strategies are considered with the feedback-based gating strategy: (1) a simple volume-based strategy and (2) a modified version of the SCATS algorithm. The results of the combined gating/adaptive signal control scheme are compared to gating under fixed traffic signals and the implementation of adaptive signals only. Overall, the study finds that travel delays and congestion can be considerably reduced with the combined strategy. This is because the adaptive traffic signals allow the network to achieve higher network productivity while the gating control allows the network to maintain this higher efficiency for a longer period of time than if left uncontrolled. The results are promising for the implementation of perimeter gating strategies in practice
Vegetation structure and decreased moth abundance limit the recolonisation of restored habitat by the European Nightjar

Woodland ecosystems of Europe have undergone major transitions in the last centuries. Changes in land use and the loss of natural forest dynamics have often led to structurally poor, uniform and dense stands. Not surprisingly, open forest species relying on a heterogeneous stand structure have suffered dramatic population declines. The European Nightjar Caprimulguseuropaeus, a nocturnal insectivorous bird, has undergone such a decline in its main Swiss stronghold in Valais. Despite the species’ potential to colonize new sites and habitat restoration measures implemented since 2001, recolonisation of restored sites has not taken place, suggesting problems with the current habitat restoration strategy. In order to refine management recommendations, we compared habitat structure and moth abundance, a key Nightjar food source, at sites that are still occupied and at sites that had been abandoned but have recently been restored. Vegetation structure was more heterogeneous and moth abundance greater at occupied than at abandoned sites. More specifically, occupied sites harboured a greater coverage of bare ground, while abandoned sites exhibited a higher amount of regeneration and intermediate shrub layer. The occurrence of natural perches was also higher in occupied sites. Abandoned sites are thus characterised by lower prey abundance and denser vegetation cover, the combination of which is likely to lead to lower prey availability for hunting Nightjars. Restoration action would benefit from maintaining snags and dead branches and by targeting unproductive habitats characterised by mineral soils, thereby slowing down regeneration and shrub regrowth. For future successful management of Nightjar habitats, it seems thereby essential trying to find the balance between actions that allow opening the lower and mid-strata of the forest while sustaining high moth populations.
Hormônio do crescimento e exercício físico: considerações atuais

Although growth hormone (GH) is one of the most extensively studied hormones, various aspects related to this hormone have not been completely established, including its relationship with physical exercise. Recent studies have contributed to the understanding of the mechanisms of action of GH, which can be divided into 1) direct actions mediated by intracellular signals that are triggered by the binding of GH to its receptor on the plasma membrane, and 2) indirect actions mediated mainly by the regulation of the synthesis of insulin-like growth factors (IGF). Physical exercise has been shown to be a potent stimulator of GH release, especially in young men and women. The magnitude of this increase is influenced by several factors, especially the intensity and volume of exercise, in addition to training status. In this respect, athletes normally present a lower exercise-induced GH release than sedentary or poorly trained individuals. Experimental evidence indicates that GH may 1) favor the mobilization of free fatty acids from adipose tissue for energy generation, 2) increase the capacity of fat oxidation, and 3) increase energy expenditure.
Portfolio Assignments in Teacher Education: A Tool For Self-regulating the Learning Process?

This study examines the effects of a portfolio programme on self-regulation – and thus among third year students of teacher education training to be secondary school teachers. Data collection was by means of self-reporting before, during and after the portfolio programme and via perception questionnaires. The study indicates a significant increase in self-regulation. The portfolio programme therefore improves students’ capacity to go through their learning process independently, although the analysis also shows that the rising score with respect to the construct ‘self-regulation’ stems from the increase of only one sub-scale (regulation). The comparison of the students’ own opinions with those of the portfolio supervisors also reveals the weak links in the self-regulation cycle. Students have difficulty evaluating and re-orientating their learning process. It also appears that students do not set and/or implement new objectives themselves, which means that they cannot regulate their own learning process on a completely independent basis because they have not thoroughly mastered all the components of the self-regulation cycle.
Observations of core-mantle boundary Stoneley modes

[1] Core-mantle boundary (CMB) Stoneley modes represent a unique class of normal modes with extremely strong sensitivity to wave speed and density variations in the D” region. We measure splitting functions of eight CMB Stoneley modes using modal spectra from 93 events with Mw> 7.4 between 1976 and 2011. The obtained splitting function maps correlate well with the predicted splitting calculated for S20RTS+Crust5.1 structure and the distribution of Sdiff and Pdiff travel time anomalies, suggesting that they are robust. We illustrate how our new CMB Stoneley mode splitting functions can be used to estimate density variations in the Earth's lowermost mantle.
Regional and sectoral varieties of capitalism

Abstract This study seeks to go beneath the generalizations that constitute characterizations of national economies in order to examine local and sectoral diversity – in particular, forms of capitalist organization at the level of localized sectors. It reports on the findings of research based on detailed case histories of local economies in four different types of production: modernized craft manufacturing (furniture), mass production (motor vehicles), high-technology production (biopharmaceuticals) and high-tech services (television film-making). In each case a local economy in Germany (usually seen counter-factually as an example of a particularly national system) was compared with one elsewhere in Europe: respectively, southern Sweden, Hungary (compared with eastern Germany) and the UK (for two studies). In the analysis, companies act rationally in response to sector-specific challenges, being partly bound by the existing institutional framework that they encounter, but partly acting to alter it. Two possibilities are distinguished and found in the cases. In the first (structurally conservative) case, arrangements of governance in the national innovation and production system prove to be beneficial for the companies and their aim to stand up to international competition. Insofar as national institutions help companies to deal with competition on their markets, they will probably try to preserve these arrangements. In the second (innovative) case, companies turn away from the national context and develop their own local governance structure. If the national institutional structure is seen as not adequate or ‘non-fitting’ to deal with sectorally specific terms of competition, then the internal and external coordination of companies – in reaction to challenges posed by the market – is likely to deviate from the national structure. In some instances evidence of ‘creative incoherence’, where local deviation from the national model provides a creative impulse, is found.
Exploiting low-rank structure in semidefinite programming by approximate operator splitting

In contrast to many other convex optimization classes, state-of-the-art semidefinite programming solvers are still unable to efficiently solve large-scale instances. This work aims to reduce this scalability gap by proposing a novel proximal algorithm for solving general semidefinite programming problems. The key characteristic of the proposed algorithm is to be able to exploit the low-rank property inherent to several semidefinite programming problems. Exploiting the low-rank structure provides a substantial speedup and allows the operator splitting method to efficiently scale to larger instances. As opposed to other low-rank based methods, the proposed algorithm has convergence guarantees for general semidefinite programming problems. Additionally, an open-source semidefinite programming solver called ProxSDP is made available and its implementation details are discussed. Case studies are presented in order to evaluate the performance of the proposed methodology.
Perceived Impact of Halitosis on Individual's Social life and Marital Relationship in Qassim Province, KSA

Objectives: To assess self-perception of halitosis, oral hygiene practices and the impact of bad breath on individual's social life and marital relationship among male and female visitors of commercial malls in Qassim Province, KSA. Materials and Methods: Self-administered anonymous questionnaire was administered to the visitors of two grand commercial malls in the city of Buraidah in Qassim. The questionnaire was completed by 2490 subjects. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics and chi-square tests, as well as regression analysis. Results: More than 69.00% and 53.00% of males and females had coatings on their tongue. About 67.00% and 59.00% of males and females self-perceived that they had bad breath. Social embarrassment due to bad breath was sensed by 74.81% and 66.95% of males and females. About 70.00% and 68.51% of males and females emphasized that their spouses experiencing bad breath. The vast majority of females asserted that there is impact of bad breath on the marital relationship. Sag relationship between the couple was reported by 53.61% of the participants, while 36.52% of the studied group were tolerating from spacing and 9.87% became divorced. Conclusion: Halitosis is an annoying social problem causing some social difficulties. An impact of bad breath on the marital relationship was found in the form of sagging or spacing in the relation between partners. (Nabila Ahmed Sedky. Perceived Impact of Halitosis on Individual's Social life and Marital Relationship in Qassim Province, KSA. J Am Sci 2015;11(3):187-196). (ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.jofamericanscience. org . 23
A Cephalometric Study of Relationship of Anterior Teeth to Incisive Papilla, Mucolabial Reflections and A-Pogonion Line in Dentulous Subjects and In Complete Denture Wearers

Facial appearance influences the social acceptance and psychological well-being of an individual. Prosthodontic treatment restores the lost support. Regardless of judgment and technical ability the dentist can place the artificial teeth more correctly if some natural stable landmarks are available to guide. In this study, lateral cephalograms were used to determine the relation of anterior teeth to incisive papilla, mucolabial reflections and A-Pogonion line in dentulous subjects and in complete denture wearers. The results of this study indicate that within dentulous subjects there is no significant difference in the horizontal or vertical relationship of anterior teeth with various landmarks such as incisive papilla, mucolabial reflections and A-Pog line, irrespective of age group. In complete denture wearer, the dentures which were constructed to esthetic and phonetic sense of dentist, there is not much variation in labiolingual position of anterior teeth, as compared to the natural teeth; however, there was slight increase in the vertical measurement from the denture borders to the tips of maxillary and mandibular incisors.
The Comparative Regression Discontinuity (CRD) Design: An Overview and Demonstration of its Performance Relative to Basic RD and the Randomized Experiment

Abstract Relative to the randomized controlled trial (RCT), the basic regression discontinuity (RD) design suffers from lower statistical power and lesser ability to generalize causal estimates away from the treatment eligibility cutoff. This chapter seeks to mitigate these limitations by adding an untreated outcome comparison function that is measured along all or most of the assignment variable. When added to the usual treated and untreated outcomes observed in the basic RD, a comparative RD (CRD) design results. One version of CRD adds a pretest measure of the study outcome (CRD-Pre); another adds posttest outcomes from a nonequivalent comparison group (CRD-CG). We describe how these designs can be used to identify unbiased causal effects away from the cutoff under the assumption that a common, stable functional form describes how untreated outcomes vary with the assignment variable, both in the basic RD and in the added outcomes data (pretests or a comparison group’s posttest). We then create the two CRD designs using data from the National Head Start Impact Study, a large-scale RCT. For both designs, we find that all untreated outcome functions are parallel, which lends support to CRD’s identifying assumptions. Our results also indicate that CRD-Pre and CRD-CG both yield impact estimates at the cutoff that have a similarly small bias as, but are more precise than, the basic RD’s impact estimates. In addition, both CRD designs produce estimates of impacts away from the cutoff that have relatively little bias compared to estimates of the same parameter from the RCT design. This common finding appears to be driven by two different mechanisms. In this instance of CRD-CG, potential untreated outcomes were likely independent of the assignment variable from the start. This was not the case with CRD-Pre. However, fitting a model using the observed pretests and untreated posttests to account for the initial dependence generated an accurate prediction of the missing counterfactual. The result was an unbiased causal estimate away from the cutoff, conditional on this successful prediction of the untreated outcomes of the treated.
Income of Farmers Who Use Direct Marketing

Policy makers are looking for ways to preserve farmlands, especially near urban areas. Farmers are also trying to find ways to increase their farm income by incorporating non-traditional activities into their farm routine. This paper attempts to quantify the contributions of selected nontraditional activities towards farmers’ efforts to enhance their farm income. For farmers involved in direct marketing, a logit model is used to estimate the probability of attaining high income for each activity considered. The results indicate that activities such as agrotourism, direct retailing to consumers, selling of farm related value-added products, greenhouse operations and urban location of farm markets will increase the chance of attaining high income levels.
Alternative Theories of Wage Determination and Unemployment in LDC's: The Labor Turnover Model

I. Introduction, 194. — II. The model, 196. — III. The market equilibrium, 205. — IV. Optimal allocation of labor and determination of urban wage level, 207. — V. Wage subsidies, 214. — VI. Wages and shadow price of labor in the public sector, 218. — VII. Urban income taxes, 220. — VIII. Concluding comments and summary, 222. — Appendix: "nominal" and "expected" urban wages and the unemployment rate, 223.
Influence of breed, milk diet and slaughter weight on carcass traits of suckling kids from seven Spanish breeds

This experiment aimed to describe the influence of production system on the following characteristics from seven Spanish goat breeds: carcass weight, dressing percentage, head weight, viscera weight, kidney fat weight, fatness score, carcass length, leg length, rump perimeter, rump width, kidney fat colour and tissue composition of shoulder. Experiment involved 201 male, single-birth suckling kids from five meat and two dairy breeds. Animals from meat breeds were slaughtered at two targets carcass weights (light, 4 kg; heavy, 7 kg). In dairy breeds, half of the animals were reared with dam’s milk and the other half with a milk replacer and all of them were slaughtered at light weight (4 kg). Statistics consisted in two GLM, means for each variable, a PCA to study relationships between variables and a discriminant analysis to compare breeds. In dairy breeds, breed had greater influence than milk diet, with breed effect being par ticularly strong for kids that were fed with natural milk. In meat breeds, slaughter weight was more important than breed and many significant interactions were found between both effects. All carcass traits were closely related to each other and to slaughter weight. Slaughter weight was also positively related to dressing percentage and to fatness degree. Discriminant analysis explained 76.1% of variability and separated dairy breeds, with well-fattened, medium-shaped carcasses, from meat breeds, with good conformations and medium fatness degrees. Hence, carcass traits were able to group breeds by diary or meat type. Additional key words: carcass tissue composition; fat colour; goat; morphometric measurements.
Dynamic Consequences of Monetary Policy for Financial Stability

We theoretically investigate the state-dependent effects of monetary policy on macroeconomic instability. In the model, banks borrow using deposits and allocate resources to productive projects. Because banks do not actively issue equity, aggregate outcomes depend on the level of equity in the financial sector. Carefully targeted monetary policy can improve stability by increasing the rate of bank equity growth, and improve allocations by encouraging leverage when intermediation is needed. A fed put is generally stabilizing, but the marginal impact of a rate cut depends on the state of the economy. The effectiveness of monetary policy depends on the extent to which rate cuts pass through to bank returns. When banks are relatively well-capitalized, rate cuts primarily decrease banks' returns. In terms of welfare, the costs of "leaning against the wind" generally outweigh the benefits, but a fed put can improve outcomes if the costs of deviating from the inflation target are sufficiently small.
BUY-AND-HOLD PROPERTY FOR FULLY INCOMPLETE MARKETS WHEN SUPER-REPLICATING MARKOVIAN CLAIMS

We show that when the price process [Formula: see text] represents a fully incomplete market, the optimal super-replication of any Markovian claim [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text] being nonnegative and lower semicontinuous is of buy-and-hold type. Since both (unbounded) stochastic volatility models and rough volatility models are examples of fully incomplete markets, one can interpret the buy-and-hold property when super-replicating Markovian claims as a natural phenomenon in incomplete markets.
Debt Renegotiation and Debt Overhang: Evidence from Lender Mergers

Abstract This article studies whether debt renegotiation mitigates debt overhang and increases corporate investment. Using mergers between lenders participating in the same syndicated loans as natural experiments that reduce the number of lenders and thus make renegotiation easier, I find that the firms affected by the mergers become more likely to renegotiate the loans and increase capital investment. The effect is stronger for firms with higher Q and firms in financial distress, supporting the hypothesis that the lender mergers mitigate the debt-overhang problem.
Sleep disordered breathing in coronary heart disease patients with mild and moderate heart failure

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between sleep disordered breathing (SDB) and degree of heart failure (HF) in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). A total of 3017 patients (77.4% men and 22.6% women) were included in the study. Clinical examination and echocardiography for evaluation of HF using NYHA functional classification and sleep polysomnography were performed. The study demonstrated that SDB is more common in CHD patients with higher NYHA functional class. The prevalence of central sleep apneas against obstructive apneas was observed in patients with mild and moderate HF. The number of central apneas was strongly related to the severity of heart failure. More frequent appearance of central sleep apneas is predominantly due to instability of ventilatory control systems during sleep because of impaired cardiac function in HF patients. Sleep architecture was more disturbed in CHD patients with higher NYHA functional class. A gradual increase of stage 1 and wakefulness after sleep onset and a decrease of sleep stages 3-4 and REM sleep as well as a diminution of sleep efficiency with worsening of NYHA functional class were observed. We suggest that both SDB and disturbed sleep variables independently significantly correlate with manifestation of HF.
Clean-Label Backdoor Attacks

Deep neural networks have been recently demonstrated to be vulnerable to backdoor attacks. Specifically, by altering a small set of training examples, an adversary can install a backdoor that is able to be used during inference to fully control the model’s behavior. While the attack is very powerful, it crucially relies on the adversary being able to introduce arbitrary, often clearly mislabeled, inputs to the training set and can thus be foiled even by fairly rudimentary data sanitization. In this paper, we introduce a new approach to executing backdoor attacks. This approach utilizes adversarial examples and GAN-generated data. The key feature is that the resulting poisoned inputs appear to be consistent with their label and thus seem benign even upon human inspection.