Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Term Structure of Volatility Implied by Foreign Exchange Options

Abstract This paper illustrates regression and Kalman filtering methods for estimating the time-varying term structure of volatility expectations revealed by options prices. Short- and long-term expectations are estimated for four currencies using daily PHLX options prices from 1985 to 1989. Throughout this period, there were important differences between shortand long-term expectations. The slope of the term structure changed frequently and there were significant variations in long-term volatility expectations. The expectation estimates can be used to value OTC options, to improve hedging strategies, and to test the hypothesis that the options market overreacts.
Are Emerging Markets Catching Up With the Developed Markets in Terms of Consumption?

ABSTRACT The study tests the consumption convergence hypothesis between developed and emerging markets over a 30-year period (1980–2009) with eight consumption variables: consumer expenditure on food, consumer expenditure on household goods and services, average consumption of calories per day, average consumption of protein per day, and possession of four durables: dishwasher, microwave oven, refrigerator, and washing machine. Socioeconomic influence on consumption convergence is also tested with income, energy consumption, life expectancy, and trade. The regression results indicate that the emerging markets are catching up in terms of consumption but the rate is very slow. Consumption of durables shows slightly faster convergence than other variables. All four socioeconomic variables exert some degree of influence on consumption convergence, with income showing the greatest effect. Knowledge about convergence should be useful to managers for demand estimation and forecasting and for market penetration, segmentation, and positioning strategy.
OPTIMAL ADVERTISING DECISIONS FOR FARMER AND FOOD PROCESSORS

This paper reviews some advertising decision models that are appropriate for food producers and processors. The returns from advertising to farmers, the trade, and government are examined for the examples of liquid milk, cream and English butter. The analysis demonstrates that any conclusions will be sensitive to different assumptions about key parameters in the theoretical framework used. More generally, prescriptive work in this area may be overly dependent on the use of elasticities and it may be better to develop a model which utilises the response of sales to advertising directly.
Adrenocorticotropin responses to endogenous and exogenous secretagogues in the sheep: specificity of glucocorticoid action.

Glucocorticoids act upon the hypothalamus and pituitary to regulate both corticotropin-releasing factors and adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) in a classical negative feedback loop. There are two distinct receptor systems in the central nervous system for glucocorticoids: type I corticosterone/cortisol-preferring, predominantly hippocampal receptors, and type II dexamethasone-binding receptors with a much broader distribution. To determine the relative roles played by these two receptors in determining basal and stress-induced ACTH/cortisol levels in the sheep, we have conducted two series of experiments. In the first, we infused 4 sheep with cortisol (50 micrograms/h), or dexamethasone (20 micrograms/h) for 17 h, collected 10-min blood samples for 3 h for basal hormone levels, and then subjected the sheep to an audiovisual stress (barking dog), 10 micrograms of ovine corticotropin-releasing factor (oCRF) 1 h later, and 100 U of insulin another 2 h later. Dexamethasone reduced ACTH and cortisol levels, both basal and in response to stress; cortisol infusion had no effect on any parameters; oCRF did not raise ACTH levels. In the second experiment, cortisol (100 micrograms/h) alone was infused into 4 sheep for 17 h, and blood samples were collected for 3 h for basal hormone levels; this was followed by the injection of 10 micrograms oCRF, and 2 h later a barking dog was introduced into the sheep shed. Again, cortisol infusion did not affect basal ACTH or cortisol levels, though both cortisol-infused and control animals had ACTH responses to oCRF when it was not preceded by the audiovisual stress. ACTH and cortisol levels were higher in the 2 h following oCRF injection. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Epitope spreading of the anti-citrullinated protein antibody response occurs before disease onset and is associated with the disease course of early arthritis

Background Anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA) are the most predictive factor for the development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Objective To investigate whether the recognition of citrullinated epitopes changes during disease onset or progression, by studying the fine specificity of ACPA in serum samples collected throughout the disease course, from before the onset of arthritis to longstanding RA. Methods Antibodies recognising five distinct citrullinated antigens were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Serum samples from 36 individuals who had donated blood before and after disease manifestation were used to investigate the development of citrullinated antigen recognition before disease onset. The association of ACPA reactivities with disease outcome was studied using sera from anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide-2 (CCP2)-positive patients with undifferentiated arthritis (UA) who did or did not progress to RA (UA–RA n=81, or UA–UA n=35). To investigate the ACPA recognition profile in patients with RA over a prolonged period of time, baseline serum samples from 68 patients were compared with samples obtained 7 years later. Results The number of recognised citrullinated peptides increased in the period preceding disease onset. At the time of disease manifestation, patients with UA who later developed RA recognised significantly more peptides than UA–UA patients. At later stages of the disease course, the ACPA fine specificity did not change. Conclusion Epitope spreading with an increase in the recognition of citrullinated antigens occurs before the onset of RA. Immunological differences in ACPA fine specificity between UA–UA patients and UA–RA patients are present at baseline and are associated with the future disease course.
Exploring stereochemical specificity of phosphotriesterase by MM-PBSA and MM-GBSA calculation and steered molecular dynamics simulation

Wild-type phosphotriesterase (PTE) prefers the SP-enantiomers over the corresponding RP-enantiomers by factors ranging from 10 to 90. To satisfy the binding modes of the PTE of SP- and RP-enantiomers, all-atom molecular dynamics simulations were carried out on two paraoxon SP and RP derivatives, namely, Sp-1 and Rp-1. Molecular mechanics Poisson–Boltzmann surface area and molecular mechanics generalized Born surface area (MM-PBSA and MM-GBSA) calculations indicated that His230 in Sp-1-PTE had a closer interaction with the substrate than that in Rp-1-PTE and that such interaction increased the catalytic efficiency of PTE for Sp-1. The steered molecular dynamics simulation indicated that, compared with Sp-1, Rp-1 in the unbinding (binding) may hinder some residue displacement, thus requiring more effort to escape the binding pocket of PTE. In addition, Trp131, Phe306, and Tyr309 are deemed important residues for the Sp-1 unbinding pathway via PTE, whereas Tyr309 alone is considered an important residue for the Rp-1 unbinding pathway. These results demonstrate the possibility of dramatically altering the stereoselectivity and overall reactivity of the native enzyme toward chiral substrates by modifying specific residues located within the active site of PTE.
High power density DC/DC converter using the close-coupled inductors

Among the specifications of eco-friendly electric vehicles, some will incorporate voltage converters in their systems to make full use of their power sources. The DC-DC converter using coupled inductors is known as one of converter types that may achieve higher power density. This paper focused on this circuit type especially using close-coupled inductors. Following, the elucidation of design guidelines for the close-coupled inductors theoretically, the superiority of the circuit in terms of reducing the size and losses in the magnetic components was demonstrated clearly through comparison with coupled inductors with looser coupling used in interleaved boost circuits and an inductor of boost chopper circuits. Finally, test results for a prototype of the proposed converter achieved a maximum power density of 24.7 kW/liter and a maximum efficiency of 98.4 % on an output of 42 kW (a maximum input current of 233 A) for a time rating of a few minutes.
The Microstructure of the Federal Funds Market

Unique transaction-level data for nearly every federal funds transaction made during the first quarter of 1998 forms the foundation for this in-depth exploration of the federal funds market. Unlike previous studies that have relied on aggregate and typically infrequent measures of federal funds market participation, the transaction-level data exploited here allows a closer look at the microstructure of the market. The paper explores the relationship between bank size and participation in the funds market and discovers that even the largest banks are frequently net sellers of funds. A time-of-day pattern is uncovered, as is significant market concentration. Preliminary exploration into trading patterns, or networks, is conducted, and the existence of relationship lending in the interbank market is investigated.
Maternal pitch height in ordinary and play situations

ABSTRACT Ten children at mean ages of o; 11.3 and o; 15.3 and their monolingual German-speaking mothers were audio- and videotaped in their homes while having a meal with a spoon (ordinary situation) and while feeding a doll with a spoon (play situation). Sentences spoken by the mothers that were comparable in length and sentence type across situations were analysed acoustically. In both data-collection sessions, it was found that the mothers spoke with the same mean amplitude in the two situations but they used higher mean fundamental frequency when speaking during the play situation than during the ordinary situation. In the first data-collection session, when the infants did not yet use meaningful words or engage in pretend play, the mothers also used a wider pitch range in the play situation than in the ordinary situation. It is concluded that mothers use both pitch height and pitch range to introduce the preverbal infant to the difference between non-play and play situations, and they continue to use variations in pitch height to mark the same distinction after the children have become active participants in pretend play activities. Implications of the results are discussed in terms of possible longitudinal patterns associated with mothers' use of intonational key and register.
Development of a Pheromone-Assisted Baiting Technique for Argentine Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Abstract Current control measures for Argentine ants, Linepithema humile (Mayr), in urban settings typically include perimeter applications of insecticides around structures, resulting in potential problems with insecticide runoff and environmental contamination. Insecticidal baits can be an effective alternative to perimeter spray applications and are largely considered target-specific with minimal nontarget impact and environmental contamination. We report a “pheromone-assisted baiting technique” as an economically viable approach to maximize the efficacy of conventional baits targeting Argentine ants. Laboratory experiments with a commercially available gel bait indicated that foraging activity and final mortality of Argentine ants were significantly improved by incorporating (Z)-9-hexadecenal in the bait. The field study demonstrated that the pheromone-treated gel bait achieved a 74% reduction in Argentine ant activity by the end of 4 wk when it was compared with its own pretreatment value. This was a significant improvement over the untreated gel bait that provided a 42% reduction over the same period of time. The pheromone-assisted baiting technique has the potential in providing effective ant control with reduced amount of insecticides applied in the environment.
Targeted Deletion of the Kynurenine Aminotransferase II Gene Reveals a Critical Role of Endogenous Kynurenic Acid in the Regulation of Synaptic Transmission via α7 Nicotinic Receptors in the Hippocampus

It has been postulated that endogenous kynurenic acid (KYNA) modulates α7* nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) and NMDA receptor activities in the brain.a To test this hypothesis, α7* nAChR and NMDA receptor functions were studied in mice with a targeted null mutation in the gene encoding kynurenine aminotransferase II (mKat-2-/- mice), an enzyme responsible for brain KYNA synthesis. At 21 postnatal days, mKat-2-/- mice had lower hippocampal KYNA levels and higher spontaneous locomotor activity than wild-type (WT) mice. At this age, α7* nAChR activity induced by exogenous application of agonists to CA1 stratum radiatum interneurons was ∼65% higher in mKat-2-/- than WT mice. Binding studies indicated that the enhanced receptor activity may not have resulted from an increase in α7* nAChR number. In 21-d-old mKat-2-/- mice, endogenous α7* nAChR activity in the hippocampus was also increased, leading to an enhancement of GABAergic activity impinging onto CA1 pyramidal neurons that could be reduced significantly by acute exposure to KYNA (100 nM). The activities of GABAA and NMDA receptors in the interneurons and of α3β4* nAChRs regulating glutamate release onto these neurons were comparable between mKat-2-/- and WT mice. By 60 d of age, KYNA levels and GABAergic transmission in the hippocampus and locomotor activity were similar between mKat-2-/- and WT mice. Our findings that α7* nAChRs are major targets for KYNA in the brain may provide insights into the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease, disorders in which brain KYNA levels are increased and α7* nAChR functions are impaired.
Discordance between Xpert MTB/RIF Assay and Bactec MGIT 960 Culture System for Detection of Rifampin-Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis Isolates in a Country with a Low Tuberculosis (TB) Incidence

ABSTRACT Among 452 samples that were positive by the Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) assay and MGIT 960 system (MGIT), 440 and 10 Mycobacterium tuberculosis samples were detected as rifampin susceptible and rifampin resistant, respectively. Two isolates that were rifampin susceptible by the MGIT system were rifampin resistant by the Xpert assay. rpoB sequencing identified a silent (CTG521TTG) mutation in one isolate and a missense (GAC516TAC) mutation in another. The detection of rifampin resistance is imperfect with both the Xpert assay and MGIT system. Any discordant rifampin resistance results should be confirmed by sequencing of the rpoB gene.
Career patterns for IT engineering graduates

Women constitute a clear minority in the field of information and communications technology (ICT) in higher education as well as in the job market. At the same time, this field is expected to have a shortage of qualified people in the future. Do women and men engineering graduates have the same career opportunities? This article problematizes the relationship between higher education in engineering and opportunities on the job market. The results show that men reach higher positions to a greater extent than women, and that women remain in low-qualification jobs to a greater extent than men.
Labor Mobility, Market Integration, and Wage Convergence in Late 19th Century India

Abstract I use district-level wage and food price data for the period 1873 to 1906 to investigate the impact of improvements in transportation on the price of labor in late 19th century India. Falling transport costs could have promoted regional wage convergence by facilitating both labor mobility and interregional commodity trade. There is, however, only qualified evidence of wage convergence in late 19th century India, and it appears that the steady-state dispersion of wages was not compressed by the forces of “globalization. ” Relatively low rates of internal migration, weak Heckscher–Ohlin factor price convergence forces, and high climatic variability all contribute to this result.
The Persistence of Early Childhood Maturity: International Evidence of Long-Run Age Effects

A continuum of ages exists at school entry due to the use of a single school cutoff date—making the "oldest" children approximately 20 percent older than the "youngest" children. We provide substantial evidence that these initial maturity differences have long-lasting effects on student performance across OECD countries. In particular, the youngest members of each cohort score 4–12 percentiles lower than the oldest members in grade four and 2–9 percentiles lower in grade eight. In fact, data from Canada and the United States show that the youngest members of each cohort are even less likely to attend university.
Migration, immigration controls and the fashioning of precarious workers

Immigration controls are often presented by government as a means of ensuring ‘British jobs for British workers’ and protecting migrants from exploitation. However, in practice they can undermine labour protections. As well as a tap regulating the flow of labour, immigration controls function as a mould, helping to form types of labour with particular relations to employers and the labour market. In particular, the construction of institutionalised uncertainty, together with less formalised migratory processes, help produce ‘precarious workers’ over whom employers and labour users have particular mechanisms of control.
Community-based tourism enterprises: challenges and prospects for community participation; Khama Rhino Sanctuary Trust, Botswana

This study assesses community participation in a community-based tourism enterprise in Botswana, the Khama Rhino Sanctuary Trust, founded in 1992. Data were collected using structured and semi-structured questionnaires, interviews with key stakeholders and community focus group discussions. Results indicate that although Community-Based Natural Resource Management is popular in many southern African nations, communities still face challenges and constraints which hinder their participation in community-based enterprises. While some other studies in Botswana indicate the value of community-based tourism, 95% of adult residents in the Khama Rhino Sanctuary Trust area did not know who owned the Trust, and 98% had never been to the Trust's lands. There was community disappointment about loss of cattle grazing and other land-related benefits, lack of communication with the community, lack of benefits, the low numbers employed and the slow progress of the project which did not record a profit until 2008. But the Trust now has over 25% of the rhinos in Botswana and has seen visitor numbers rise from 1820 in 1996 to over 21,000 in 2008. Suggestions for the future include appointment of a community liaison officer, training for local people in tourism and management and use of single-community rather than multi-community trusts.
Involvement of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF)/TNF receptor system in leukemic cell apoptosis induced by histone deacetylase inhibitor depsipeptide (FK228)

Inhibition of histone deacetylase (HDAC) is a novel strategy for the treatment of leukemias via restoration of aberrantly silenced genes. In this study, we conducted a detailed analysis of anti‐leukemic effects of an HDAC inhibitor (HDI), depsipeptide (FK228), using myeloid leukemia cell lines HL‐60 and K562. DNA chip analysis revealed upregulation of TNF‐α mRNA and a number of molecules involved in TNF‐signaling such as TRAF‐6, caspases‐10, and ‐7 in depsipeptide‐treated HL‐60 cells, which prompted us to examine the involvement of the TNF/TNF receptor system in the anti‐leukemic effects of the drug. Upregulation of TNF‐α was induced by depsipeptide in HL‐60 and K562 cells, which expressed type I TNF receptors (TNF‐RI). Depsipeptide activated caspases‐8 and ‐10, which in turn cleave caspases‐3 and ‐7, leading to apoptotic cell death in both cell lines. Anti‐TNF‐α neutralizing antibody and short interfering RNA (siRNA) against TNF‐RI alleviated the activation of the caspase cascade and the induction of apoptosis, indicating the presence of an autocrine loop. Finally, we demonstrated that the enhanced production of TNF‐α by depsipeptide was due to transcriptional activation of the TNF‐α gene through hyperacetylation of histones H3 and H4 in its promoter region (−208 to +35). These results suggest that autocrine production of TNF‐α plays a role in the cytotoxicity of depsipeptide against a subset of leukemias. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
CPDScorer: Modeling and Evaluating Developer Programming Ability across Software Communities

—Since developer ability is recognized as a determinant of better software project performance, it is a critical step to model and evaluate the programming ability of developers. However, most existing approaches require manual assessment, like 360 degree performance evaluation. With the emergence of social networking sites such as StackOverﬂow and Github, a vast amount of developer information is created on a daily basis. Such personal and social context data has huge potential to support automatic and effective developer ability evaluation. In this paper, we propose CPDScorer, a novel approach to modeling and scoring the programming ability of developer through mining heterogeneous information from both Community Question Answering (CQA) sites and Open-Source Software (OSS) communities. CPDScorer analyzes the answers posted in CQA sites and evaluates the projects submitted in OSS communities to assign expertise scores to developers, considering both the quantitative and qualitative factors. When modeling the programming ability of developer, a programming ability term extraction algorithm is also designed based on set covering. We have conducted experiments on StackOverﬂow and Github to measure the effectiveness of CPDScorer. The results show that our approach is feasible and practical in user programming ability modeling. In particular, the precision of our approach reaches 80%.
Market Size and Substitutability in Imperfect Competition: A Bertrand-Edgeworth-Chamberlin Model

Competition is often associated with the idea that there are many traders in the market or that each price maker is small as compared to the market. This paper introduces this notion of market size in a model of price competition with imperfect substitutes by constructing a model which creates a bridge between the Chamberlin and Bertrand-Edge worth lines of work on price competition. We investigate the role of two fundamental parameters in the existence of an equilibrium: the market size, given by the number n of competitors, and the degree of substitutability. We prove that: (a) For a given number of n ≦ 2 of competitors, a sufficiently large but finite degree of substitutability entails nonexistence. This thus generalizes the Bertrand-Edgeworth nonexistence result, which applies only to perfect substitutes, (b) Conversely for a given upper bound on the degree of substitutability, a sufficiently large number of competitors ensures existence, which thus introduces a significant role for market size in models of imperfect competition. We finally investigate the proximity of an equilibrium (when it exists) to a "competitive outcome", and we find that both high substitutability and large market size are a condition for competitiveness.