Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM AND FINANCIAL MARKETS

Social Security is in trouble. With declining population growth and rising life expectancy, the cost of Social Security benefits is rising relative to payroll tax revenues. As a result, the Social Security retirement fund is expected to run out around 2030.1 Recently, the 1994–1996 Advisory Council on Social Security (1997) proposed three different plans to address the problem. Interestingly, all three plans involve Social Security investments in the stock market. This paper examines the impact of Social Security reform on financial markets, commenting specifically on the Advisory Council’s proposals and more generally on the question of how to operate Social Security under uncertainty and under adverse demographic conditions. The effects of Social Security on financial markets have long been the subject of debate among economists. The debate has generally focused on issues of intergenerational redistribution, using deterministic or certaintyequivalent economic models and taking for granted that government debt and the Social Security trust funds involve essentially safe securities. The thrust of this literature is that Social Security reduces individual savings incentives, raises interest rates, and crowds out investment. The debate is about how much and under what conditions. The Advisory Council proposals about equity investments raise significant new questions about the workings of Social Security under uncertainty. These questions are fundamentally about the allocation of macroeconomic risks between generations, about intergenerational risk-
Formation and Metabolism of Prebeta-Migrating, Lipid-Poor Apolipoprotein A-I

Abstract—The preferred extracellular acceptor of cell phospholipids and unesterified cholesterol in the process mediated by the ATP-binding cassette A1 (ABCA1) transporter is a monomolecular, prebeta-migrating, lipid-poor or lipid-free form of apolipoprotein (apo) A-I. This monomolecular form of apoA-I is quite distinct from the prebeta-migrating, discoidal high-density lipoprotein (HDL) that contains two or three molecules of apoA-I per particle and which are present as minor components of the HDL fraction in human plasma. The mechanism of the ABCA1-mediated efflux of phospholipid and cholesterol from cells has been studied extensively. In contrast, much less attention has been given to the origin and subsequent metabolism of the acceptor lipid-free/lipid-poor apoA-I. There is a substantial body of evidence from studies conducted in vitro that a monomolecular, lipid-free/lipid-poor form of apoA-I dissociates from HDL during the remodeling of HDLs by plasma factors such as cholesteryl ester transfer protein, hepatic lipase, and phospholipid transfer protein. The rate at which apoA-I dissociates from HDL is influenced by the phospholipid composition of the particles and by the presence of apoA-II. This review describes current knowledge regarding the formation, metabolism, and regulation of monomolecular, lipid-free/lipid-poor apoA-I in plasma.
A review on statistical postprocessing methods for hydrometeorological ensemble forecasting

Computer simulation models have been widely used to generate hydrometeorological forecasts. As the raw forecasts contain uncertainties arising from various sources, including model inputs and outputs, model initial and boundary conditions, model structure, and model parameters, it is necessary to apply statistical postprocessing methods to quantify and reduce those uncertainties. Different postprocessing methods have been developed for meteorological forecasts (e.g., precipitation) and for hydrological forecasts (e.g., streamflow) due to their different statistical properties. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive review of the commonly used statistical postprocessing methods for both meteorological and hydrological forecasts. Moreover, methods to generate ensemble members that maintain the observed spatiotemporal and intervariable dependency are reviewed. Finally, some perspectives on the further development of statistical postprocessing methods for hydrometeorological ensemble forecasting are provided. WIREs Water 2017, 4:e1246. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1246
A novel approach to evolutionary computing: An introduction

This paper takes a novel view of evolutionary computing; that is, it attempts to analyze modern software viewed as a complex adaptive system (CAS). By going through the common characteristics of software as CAS and by comparing software with biological populations, an evolution approach to software development emerges. The benefit of the approach is rather practical targeting to promote the understanding of modern software analogous to biological complexity and to guide the progress in software development in order to improve software quality and software development productivity.
Sensor based online path planning for serpentine robots

This paper presents the multisensor-based online path planning of a serpentine robot in the unstructured changing environment of earthquake rubble during search for survivors. The robot has 6 links and 16 controllable degrees of freedom and is equipped with an ultrasound sensor and a camera on its head and infrared sensors along the links of the robot for obstacle avoidance. The serpentine robot locomotion is achieved as a combination of basic snakelike and wormlike gaits which are that of lateral undulation, rectilinear motion, flapping motion (right, left), and of torsional rotation (which has the pivot point at the center of the robot). The path planning algorithm is adopted from distance transform based exploratory path planning and modified to our serpentine robotic configuration. The adopted method is used for calculating the cost of the possible next configuration states so that the snake/worm like robot selects its next gait accordingly. Environmental data is obtained from the multiple sensors located along the body of the robot. The sensors are located in the following configuration: one ultrasound sensor for detecting the obstacles in front of the robot and constructing the map for free space, and 12 infrared sensors (6 pairs) which are located on the left and right of the joints of the robot. Simulation results are presented in the paper as an illustration of the efficiency of the method in complex unstructured environments.
Mycobacterium bovis BCG-Induced Granuloma Formation Depends on Gamma Interferon and CD40 Ligand but Does Not Require CD28

ABSTRACT Progressive granuloma formation is a hallmark of chronic mycobacterial infection. Granulomas are localized, protective inflammatory reactions initiated by CD4+ T cells, which contribute to control of bacterial growth and blockade of bacterial dissemination. In order to understand the costimulatory requirements that allow CD4+ T cells to directly or indirectly induce granulomas, we studied granuloma formation after 6 weeks inMycobacterium bovis BCG-infected CD28- and CD40 ligand (CD40L)-deficient mice and compared it to granuloma formation in infected wild-type inbred mice and infected cytokine-deficient mice. We characterized granulomas morphologically in liver sections, analyzed granuloma infiltrating cells by flow cytometry, and measured cytokine production by cultured granuloma cells. CD28-deficient mice have no defect at the local inflammatory site, inasmuch as they form protective granulomas and control bacterial growth. However, there are fewer activated T cells in the spleen compared to infected wild-type animals, and quantitative differences in the cellular composition of the granuloma are observed by flow cytometry. In CD40L-deficient mice, the granuloma phenotype is very similar to the phenotype in gamma interferon (IFN-γ)-deficient mice. Both IFN-γ-deficient and CD40L-deficient mice form granulomas which prevent bacterial dissemination, but control of bacterial growth is significantly impaired. The relative proportion of CD4+ T cells in granulomas from both CD28−/− and CD40L−/−mice is significantly decreased compared with wild-type animals. Both models demonstrate that the phenotype and activation stage of systemic T cells do not always correlate with the phenotype and activation stage of the localized granulomatous response.
Towards a structured underlay for network routing

Structured peer-to-peer overlays have recently been developed with low stretch and overheads that increase with the logarithm of the number of nodes in the system. In this paper we develop a new network-layer routing protocol that leverages the design of these overlays to achieve their desirable scaling and robustness properties. The key difficulty in this approach is that these overlays typically assume an underlying network layer transport such as IP to provide connectivity between overlay nodes. We solve this problem with a layered approach: the ov rlay layer constructs and maintain overlay routes, and the underlay layer constructs paths between the overlay nodes. This technique maintains the desirable scaling properties of a structured overlay without reliance on IP transport. In particular, our results indicate that (i) overhead and stretch increase with the logarithm of the number of nodes in the system (ii) these performance metrics remain stable and the system maintains consistency under churn.
Equivariant Gromov - Witten Invariants

The objective of this paper is to describe some construction and applications of the equivariant counterpart to the Gromov-Witten (GW) theory, i.e. intersection theory on spaces of (pseudo-) holomorphic curves in (almost-) Kahler manifolds. Given a Killing action of a compact Lie group G on a compact Kahler manifold X, the equivariant GW-theory provides, as we will show in Section 3, the equivariant cohomology space H G(X) with a Frobenius structure (see [2]). We discuss applications of the equivariant theory to the computation ([7],[11]) of quantum cohomology algebras of flag manifolds (Section 5), to the simultaneous diagonalization of the quantum cup-product operators (Sections 7,8), to the S-equivariant Floer homology theory on the loop space LX (see Section 6 and [10],[9]) and to a “quantum” version of the Serre duality theorem (Section 12). In Sections 9 — 11 we combine the general theory developed in Sections 1 — 6 with the fixed point localization technique [3] in order to prove the mirror conjecture (in the form suggested in [10]) for projective complete intersections. By the mirror conjecture one usually means some intriguing relations (discovered by physicists) between symplectic and complex geometry on a compact Kahler Calabi–Yau nfold and respectively complex and symplectic geometry on another Calabi-Yau n-fold called the mirror partner of the former one. The remakable application [16] of the mirror conjecture to enumeration of rational curves on Calabi–Yau 3-folds (1991, see the theorem below) raised a number of new mathematical problems — challenging maturity tests for modern methods of symplectic topology.
Adaptation of a named entity recognition system for the ESTER 2 evaluation campaign

In this paper, we report our participation to the ESTER 2 (Evaluation des Systèmes de Transcription Enrichie d'Emissions Radiophoniques) evaluation campaign, on the Named Entity Recognition for French track. After describing the ESTER 2 goals and guidelines, we present our deep robust parser. Then we show how we adapt the existing French NER module of this parser to the ESTER 2 task. The results we obtain both on manual and automatic transcriptions are presented and discussed.
How Much Novelty is Relevant?: It Depends on Your Curiosity

Traditional recommendation systems (RS's) aim to recommend items that are relevant to the user's interest. Unfortunately, the recommended items will soon become too familiar to the user and hence fail to arouse her interest. Discovery-oriented recommendation systems (DORS's) complement accuracy with "discover utilities" (DU's) such as novelty and diversity and optimize the tradeoff between the DU's and accuracy of the recommendations. Unfortunately, DORS's ignore an important fact that different users have different appetites for DU's. That is, highly curious users can accept highly novel and diversified recommendations whereas conservative users would behave in the opposite manner. In this paper, we propose a curiosity-based recommendation system (CBRS) framework which generates recommendations with a personalized amount of DU's to fit the user's curiosity level. The major contribution of this paper is a computational model of user curiosity, called Probabilistic Curiosity Model (PCM), which is based on the curiosity arousal theory and Wundt curve in psychology research. In PCM, we model a user's curiosity with a curiosity distribution function learnt from the user's access history and compute a curiousness score for each item representing how curious the user is about the item. CBRS then selects items which are both relevant and have high curiousness score, bounded by the constraint that the amount of DU's fits the user's DU appetite. We use joint optimization and co-factorization approaches to incorporate the curiosity signal into the recommendations. Extensive experiments have been performed to evaluate the performance of CBRS against the baselines using a music dataset from last.fm. The results show that compared to the baselines CBRS not only provides more personalized recommendations that adapt to the user's curiosity level but also improves the recommendation accuracy.
Ribosome Biogenesis Modulates Ty1 Copy Number Control in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Transposons can impact the host genome by altering gene expression and participating in chromosome rearrangements. Therefore, organisms evolved different ways to minimize the level of transposition. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its close relative S. paradoxus, Ty1 copy number control (CNC) is mediated by the self-encoded restriction factor p22, which is derived from the GAG capsid gene and inhibits virus-like particle (VLP) assembly and function. Based on secondary screens of Ty1 cofactors, we identified LOC1, a RNA localization/ribosome biogenesis gene that affects Ty1 mobility predominantly in strains harboring Ty1 elements. Ribosomal protein mutants rps0bΔ and rpl7aΔ displayed similar CNC-specific phenotypes as loc1Δ, suggesting that ribosome biogenesis is critical for CNC. The level of Ty1 mRNA and Ty1 internal (Ty1i) transcripts encoding p22 was altered in these mutants, and displayed a trend where the level of Ty1i RNA increased relative to full-length Ty1 mRNA. The level of p22 increased in these mutants, and the half-life of p22 also increased in a loc1Δ mutant. Transcriptomic analyses revealed small changes in the level of Ty1 transcripts or efficiency of translation initiation in a loc1Δ mutant. Importantly, a loc1Δ mutant had defects in assembly of Gag complexes and packaging Ty1 RNA. Our results indicate that defective ribosome biogenesis enhances CNC by increasing the level of p22, and raise the possibility for versatile links between VLP assembly, its cytoplasmic environment, and a novel stress response.
Simulation methodology for decision support workloads

The impact of any new architectural proposal must be evaluated under realistic working conditions. This class of analysis requires trustworthy simulation tools and representative workloads that allow us to know the real effectiveness of the improvement. We propose a methodology that enable the use of an important family of transactional workloads, such as decision support system workloads, in a full system simulator. In contrast to numerical applications, with this type of workload it is not possible to scale down the problem size in order to reduce the computational requirements of the simulation. We will show the stationary behaviour of the workload and how it can be employed to reduce computational requirements without significant loss. Taking into account this fact, we will show how simulating only 3% of the benchmark the maximum error in the main system performance metrics is approximately 5%.
Towards Logical Linked Data Compression

Linked data has experienced accelerated growth in recent years. With the continuing proliferation of structured data, demand for RDF compression is becoming increasingly important. In this study, we introduce a novel lossless compression technique for RDF datasets, called Rule Based compression (RB compression) that compresses datasets by generating a set of new logical rules from the dataset and removing triples that can be inferred from these rules. We employ existing frequent pattern mining algorithms for generating new logical rules. Unlike other compression techniques, our approach not only takes advantage of syntactic verbosity and data redundancy but also utilizes intraand inter-property associations in the RDF graph. Depending on the nature of the dataset, our system is able to prune more than 50% of the original triples without affecting data integrity.
MLLS: Minimum Length Link Scheduling Under Physical Interference Model

We study a fundamental problem called Minimum Length Link Scheduling (MLLS) which is crucial to the efficient operations of wireless networks. Given a set of communication links of arbitrary length spread and assume each link has one unit of traffic demand in wireless networks, the problem MLLS seeks a schedule for all links (to satisfy all demands) of minimum number of time-slots such that the links assigned to the same time-slot do not conflict with each other under the physical interference model. In this paper, we will explore this problem under three important transmission power control settings: linear power control, uniform power control and arbitrary power control. We design a suite of new and novel scheduling algorithms and conduct explicit complexity analysis to demonstrate their efficiency. Our algorithms can account for the presence of background noises in wireless networks. We also investigate the fractional case of the problem MLLS where each link has a fractional demand. We propose an efficient greedy algorithm of the approximation ratio at most $(K+1)^{2}\omega$.
Gait training with the newly developed ‘LokoHelp’-system is feasible for non-ambulatory patients after stroke, spinal cord and brain injury. A feasibility study

Primary objective: To evaluate the feasibility of using a newly developed electromechanical gait device (LokoHelp) for locomotion training in neurological patients with impaired walking ability with respect to training effects and patients’ and therapists’ efforts and discomfort. Methods and procedures: Design: Case series. Setting: A neurological rehabilitation centre for children, adolescents and young adults. Subjects: Six patients with impaired walking function: two after stroke, two after spinal cord injury and two after brain injury. Intervention: Twenty additional training sessions on a treadmill fitted with a newly developed electromechanical gait device and body weight support (BWS), performed over a study-period of 6 weeks. Main outcomes and results: Patients’ progress was assessed with the following instruments: the Functional Ambulation Category FAC (walking ability), the 10-metre walk test (gait velocity), the Motricity Index (lower limb strength), the Berg Balance Scale (postural capacity), the modified Ashworth Scale (spasticity) and the Rivermead Mobility Index (activity). After each therapy session, therapists completed a form, thereby indicating whether manual assistance was necessary and, if so, how much physical effort was expended and how much discomfort was experienced during the therapy session. The therapists also indicated on the form information about the patient's effort and discomfort. No severe adverse events were observed during the locomotion training with the LokoHelp device. Patients improved with regard to Functional Ambulation Category (FAC) (from mean 0.7, SD = 1.6, to mean 2.5, SD = 2.1, p = 0.048), Motricity Index (from mean 94 points, SD = 50, to mean 111, SD = 52, p = 0.086), Berg Balance Scale (BBS) (from mean 20 points, SD = 23 to mean 25, SD = 23, p = 0.168) and Rivermead Mobility Index (RMI) (from mean 5 points, SD = 4, to mean 7, SD = 5, p = 0.033). Therapists required a low level of effort to carry out the training and seldom experienced discomfort. Patients described their effort during training as being low-to-exhausting. They rarely experienced discomfort, which was mostly related to difficulties with the BWS-System. Training intensity had to be adjusted in one patient who complained of knee pain. Conclusions: Locomotion training with the newly developed ‘LokoHelp’-system is feasible in severely affected patients after brain injury, stroke and spinal cord injury. In addition, our results indicate that the described alternative method of gait training may decrease the exertion needed by therapists to carry out the training.
Bounded Delay-Tolerant Space Time Block Codes for Asynchronous Cooperative Networks

When distributed cooperative nodes are communicating with a destination, the received signal can be asynchronous due to the propagation or processing delays. This can destroy the space time block code properties designed initially for synchronous case. In this paper, a new construction method of bounded delay tolerant codes is presented. These new codes preserve the full diversity with optimal rates if the relative delays are in a designed delay tolerance interval. The general design method is based on the concatenation and permutation of optimal synchronous space time block codes and works for an arbitrary number of transmitting and receiving antennas. Examples of bounded delay tolerant codes based on the Alamouti code, the Golden code and Threaded Algebraic Space-Time (TAST) codes are given. Theoretical proofs are used to show that the new codes respect the design criteria. Simulation results manifest better error rate performance of the new codes compared to other known delay tolerant codes.
Ontology-based Interoperation of Linguistic Tools for an Improved Lemma Annotation in Spanish

In this paper, we present an ontology-based methodology and architecture for the comparison, assessment, combination (and, to some extent, also contrastive evaluation) of the results of different linguistic tools. More specifically, we describe an experiment aiming at the improvement of the correctness of lemma tagging for Spanish. This improvement was achieved by means of the standardisation and combination of the results of three different linguistic annotation tools (Bitexts DataLexica, Connexors FDG Parser and LACELLs POS tagger), using (1) ontologies, (2) a set of lemma tagging correction rules, determined empirically during the experiment, and (3) W3C standard languages, such as XML, RDF(S) and OWL. As we show in the results of the experiment, the interoperation of these tools by means of ontologies and the correction rules applied in the experiment improved significantly the quality of the resulting lemma tagging (when compared to the separate lemma tagging performed by each of the tools that we made interoperate).