Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gain scheduled control for linear differential inclusions subject to constraint input

This paper is concerned with the problem of robust stabilization of linear differential inclusions (LDIs) subject to actuator saturation. A family of continuous controllers based on a parameter-dependent quadratic Lyapunov function (LF) are designed for a given worst-case disturbance while complying the saturation bounds. Based on the closed-loop behavior, the controller is selected such that the system has the best performance at each time. The internal stability and guaranteed performance can be obtained simultaneously through the dynamic gain scheduled control law. The benefit of the proposed scheme is presented via a numerical example.
Learning in Sequential Wage Negotiations: Theory and Evidence

When union‐firm pairs bargain sequentially, and when unobserved components of firms' abilities to pay are subject to correlated shocks, unions that bargain later in a sequence can acquire valuable information by observing previous bargaining outcomes in their industry. We derive the implications of this kind of learning in an asymmetric information model of wage negotiations and argue that the most robust implication is a lower incidence of strikes among “followers” than “leaders” in wage negotiations. Considerable empirical support for this implication is found in a long panel of Canadian contract negotiations.
Global Macroeconomic Consequences of Pandemic Influenza

This paper explores the implications of a pandemic influenza outbreak on the global economy through a range of scenarios (mild, moderate, severe and ultra) that span the historical experience of influenza pandemics of the twentieth century. An influenza pandemic would be expected to lead to: a fall in the labour force to different degrees in different countries due to a rise in mortality and illness; an increase in the cost of doing business; a shift in consumer preferences away from exposed sectors; and a re-evaluation of country risk as investors observe the responses of governments. The paper finds that even a mild pandemic has significant consequences for global economic output. The mild scenario is estimated to cost the world 1.4 million lives and close to 0.8% of GDP (approximately $U330 billion) in lost economic output. As the scale of the pandemic increases, so do the economic costs. A massive global economic slowdown occurs in the “ultra” scenario with over 142.2 million people killed and a GDP loss of $US4.4 trillion. The composition of the slowdown differs sharply across countries with a major shift of global capital from the affected economies to the less affected safe haven economies of North America and Europe.
Fault-tolerant sampled-data mixed ℋ∞ and passivity control of stochastic systems and its application

This article addresses the problem of fault-tolerant sampled-data mixed H∞ and passivity control for a class of stochastic system with actuator failures, where the plant is modeled as a continuous-time one and the control inputs are implemented as discrete-time signals. Sufficient conditions for the reliable sampled-data mixed H∞ and passivity performance control law is established for the considered systems by constructing an appropriate Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional together with the Newton–Leibniz formula and free-weighting matrix technique. More precisely, linear matrix inequality based sampled-data methodology is employed to design the mixed H∞ and passivity formation controller to reject the impact of the formation changes being treated as disturbances. Simulation studies are performed based on the flight control model to verify the stability, performance, and effectiveness of the proposed design strategy. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 420–429, 2016
Entrepreneurship and small businesses in Russia: a review of empirical research

Purpose – Entrepreneurship and small businesses in Russia have been of academic interest for over 15 years. This paper seeks to bring together current knowledge concerning the phenomenon, and to suggest further directions for research.Design/methodology/approach – The study consists of a systematic review of 48 refereed empirical articles on entrepreneurship and small businesses in Russia.Findings – From the articles reviewed it appears that entrepreneurs in Russia use non‐material resources to overcome the financial and institutional obstacles, which still seem to afflict the market. However, theoretical and methodological issues are, in many cases, poorly reported and this undermines the scientific rigour of the studies they report.Research limitations/implications – Because of the wide scope of the studies reviewed the results included here provide somewhat broad‐brush descriptions of the phenomenon. However, it is believed that the findings are valuable for an understanding of the current situation fo.
Prophets of future corporate profits: a role for leading indicators in the information sets of security analysts?

This article revisits a model developed by Levi (1980) designed to examine the ability of lagged money supply data to explain future corporate profits. Levi's original US study is developed here in two ways: firstly, it is reassessed using Japanese quarterly pre-tax profits for the period 1973 to 2000 and secondly the model is augmented to include Japan's composite leading index. While the composite leading index is found to have explanatory power at lead times of between 0 and 3 quarters-ahead, the money supply leads at times of between 3 and 5 quarters. In addition, the money supply exhibits the same peak-and-trough lag structure first identified in Levi's US study. This article demonstrates that while a composite leading index may provide short term explanatory power for corporate earnings, the money supply has a distinctive and significant role to play at longer lags. These results suggest that both indicators have a potentially significant role to play as elements within the information sets of security analysts.
Simulating Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation during PET with a Large-Scale Neural Network Model of the Prefrontal Cortex and the Visual System

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) exerts both excitatory and inhibitory effects on the stimulated neural tissue, although little is known about the neurobiological mechanisms by which it influences neuronal function. TMS has been used in conjunction with PET to examine interregional connectivity of human cerebral cortex. To help understand how TMS affects neuronal function, and how these effects are manifested during functional brain imaging, we simulated the effects of TMS on a large-scale neurobiologically realistic computational model consisting of multiple, interconnected regions that performs a visual delayed-match-to-sample task. The simulated electrical activities in each region of the model are similar to those found in single-cell monkey data, and the simulated integrated summed synaptic activities match regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) data obtained in human PET studies. In the present simulations, the excitatory and inhibitory effects of TMS on both locally stimulated and distal sites were studied using simulated behavioral measures and simulated PET rCBF results. The application of TMS to either excitatory or inhibitory units of the model, or both, resulted in an increased number of errors in the task performed by the model. In experimental studies, both increases and decreases in rCBF following TMS have been observed. In the model, increasing TMS intensity caused an increase in rCBF when TMS exerted a predominantly excitatory effect, whereas decreased rCBF following TMS occurred if TMS exerted a predominantly inhibitory effect. We also found that regions both directly and indirectly connected to the stimulating site were affected by TMS.
Historical and Clinical Perspectives of the Expanded Disability Status Scale

Background: The measurement of neurologic impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS) is of importance in treatment trials and course of illness. Methods: This review describes the rationale underlying the formation and use of a bifid rating system, the (Expanded) Disability Status Scale (DSS) and the Functional Systems (FS). Results: All signs found at neurologic examination in MS can be consolidated into 8 mutually exclusive FS: pyramidal, cerebellar, brain stem, sensory, bowel and bladder, visual, cerebral and other, each of which, save ‘other’, is given ordinal grades from 0 to 5 or 6. Each FS correlates with the DSS, a step scale from 0 (normal) to 10 (death due to MS), which is an overall measure of neurologic abnormality. Dividing steps 1–9 each into 2 gives the Expanded DSS. The FS and DSS were used in an Army series to describe neurologic status at first diagnosis and over the first 20 years of illness. DSS severity at 5 years after onset, but not earlier, was highly predictive of later severity. Conclusions: Combination of the (Expanded) DSS and FS has been used successfully to assess impairment for natural history and treatment studies in MS.
GENETIC LOAD OF THE YEAST SACCHAROMYCES CEREVISIAE UNDER DIVERSE ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS

Fitness effect of spontaneous mutations accumulated in mismatch‐repair deficient strains of yeast was estimated by measuring their maximum growth rate. Several environments with different energetic substrates, nutritional conditions, and temperature were tested. Genetic load of haploid strains was about 20–30% under most of these conditions. Because such a pronounced effect was caused by relatively small lesions (point mutations) affecting probably less than 1% of genes, resistance of the yeast genome to DNA damage appears to be rather limited. Fitness transitions among environments were orderly, in the sense that some strains tended to be more or less fit than others in all circumstances. One of the environments (an extremely high temperature, 38°C) was stressful to the strains that accumulated mutations, as some of them stopped to grow, whereas the mutation‐free strains were only moderately affected. These results imply that the impact of random point mutations is substantial and generally not dependent on a particular environment. Under stressful conditions, however, natural selection may be especially effective in purging mutations that, if commonly met, could slow down the rate of mutation accumulation.
Time-Dependent and Time-Invariant Covariates within a Proportional Hazards Model: A Financial Distress Application

Research in the area of financial distress often uses proportional hazards models to determine the influence of covariates on the duration of time that precedes financial distress. A critical issue in the use of a proportional hazards model is the use of time-invariant and time-dependent covariates. Time-invariant covariates remain fixed while time-dependent covariates change during the estimation of the model. Although the choice of covariates might substantially affect the estimation of the proportional hazards model, existing literature does not consider the potential effect of this choice on model estimation. Using a sample of financially distressed and non-financially distressed firms to estimate proportional hazards models with time-invariant and time-dependent covariates, this paper suggests the choice of time dependence substantially influences model estimation and that covariate selection should be given more serious consideration in financial distress research.
Simultaneous detection and typing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex bacteria

atively high death rate. About 30 percent of the world's population is latently infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The annual incidence of all forms of TB is currently about 1.7 million globally, and is increasing. TB causes more health problems than any other disease caused by a single infectious agent. The increasing global TB burden is much more serious than in previous decades. This is probably due to multiple factors including changing demographic situations, deterioration of TB control programmes, co-infection with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), medical practitioners who have insufficient knowledge of the disease, limited health provisions especially for those living in poor socioeconomic conditions, increasing immigration from countries endemic for the disease, and the emergence and spread of multi-drug resistant (MDR)-TB. The increase of drugresistance, and especially MDR-TB, presents a serious threat to tuberculosis control. Consequently, MDR-TB has led to the development of more rapid and efficient methods of diagnosis and identification of resistance phenotypes as well as new epidemiological markers. The standardised and most frequently used molecular fingerprinting technique for detecting M. tuberculosis complex isolates is IS6110 Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP). Spoligotyping was developed as a PCR-based macroarray technique for the simultaneous detection and differentiation of M. tuberculosis complex strains. Spoligotyping has one disadvantage, namely it is less discriminatory than IS6110 RFLP when strains contain many IS6110 copies, but it has four major advantages compared with other amplification methods for strain differentiation and genotyping. Firstly, detection and genotyping can be performed directly on bacterial DNA from clinical samples without the need for culturing. Secondly, the different subspecies of the M. tuberculosis complex can be distinguished (M. tuberculosis, M. bovis, M. bovis BCG, M. bovis subsp. caprae comb. nov., M. africanum, M. microti and M. canettii). Thirdly, genotyping can be performed much more quickly than with RFLP techniques, and fourthly it is a more sensitive method for strains with one or two IS6110 S poligotyping & TB
[Unemployment, job insecurity and life satisfaction: results of a study with young adults in the new German states].

OBJECTIVES Based on research about the psychosocial aspects of experiencing unemployment, the present study analyses the effects of actual unemployment and the impact of being at risk of becoming unemployed and the influence of perceived job insecurity on life satisfaction. METHODS In the 17th wave of the Saxon Longitudinal Study (Sächsische Längsschnittstudie) in 2003, 419 people (193 male, 226 female, mean age 30.05 years) were examined with a life satisfaction questionnaire. This questionnaire addresses eight areas of life satisfaction: friends, leisure time, health, income, job, housing, family, partnership. RESULTS Two-thirds of the participants have had experiences with unemployment so far. People who had been unemployed several times were significantly more dissatisfied with their income, housing, profession and health. Still, considering people employed at the time of survey, the subjective job insecurity and the perceived risk of becoming unemployed had noticeably negative effects on life satisfaction. This could be also shown for areas which are not directly connected to occupation, such as friends and family life. CONCLUSIONS The study emphasizes the known results regarding the connection between unemployment and (poor) life satisfaction. Evidence was provided that even the anticipated loss of the workplace causes a decrease in life satisfaction, affecting many areas of subjective evaluation.
Statistical Models of Bond Ratings: A Methodological Inquiry

Published financial statements of corporations are supposed to provide relevant information to a variety of users. Empirical studies indicate that earnings numbers of corporations are included in the information set of investors when setting security prices of a firm's common shares (see Kaplan [1978] for a survey of these studies). No generally accepted formal models exist, however, to show how to use the information in a firm's financial statements to determine what "good" investments might be. The efficient market theory implies that one cannot use publicly available financial data to choose common stocks which will outperform the stock market after controlling for risk effects. Financial statement analysis, which traditionally has consisted of extensive computations of a myriad of ratios and statistics to detect underor overvalued securities, is presently in a less than satisfying state. What helpful information can be gleaned from systematic examination of firms' financial statements? Practitioners emphasize the complex and subjective nature of their analysis which cannot be reduced to mathematical formulas. Nevertheless, research has indicated that formal analysis of accounting and Previously developed models for predicting bond ratings are summarized and criticized. A statistical procedure appropriate to the ordinal nature of a bond rating is applied to a recent sample of seasoned and newly issued bonds. A simple linear model using a subordination dummy variable, total assets, the long-term debt to total-assets ratio, and the common stock systematic risk measure can correctly classify two-thirds of a holdout sample of newly issued bonds. Further analysis reveals that the model may be predicting the actual risk of a bond better than the rating agency in about half of the "misclassifications. "
Study of Two Feature Extraction Methods to Distinguish between the First and the Second Heart Sounds

Most of the existing methods for the segmentation of heart sounds use the feature of systole and diastole duration to classify the first heart sound (S1) and the second heart sound (S2). These time intervals can become problematic and useless in several clinical real life settings which are particularly represented by severe tachycardia or in tachyarrhythmia. Consequently with the objective of development of a robust generic module for heart sound segmentation we propose to study two methods of extraction based on Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) technique to distinguish S1 from S2. A K-Neirest Neighbor (KNN) classifier is used to estimate the performance of each feature extraction method. The study uses a database with 80 subjects, including 40 cardiac pathologic sounds which contain different systolic murmurs and tachycardia cases. The first and the second proposed method reached 96 % and 95% correct classification rates, respectively.
The Flexibility to Switch between Different Products

In many situations of fluctuating demand, firms react by diversifying into several different markets. The use of flexible (non-dedicated) equipment implies higher costs for the production of one good, but makes it easier (less costly) to switch to the production of another. When flexibility is modelled in this way, the market will usually be characterized by the coexistence of a variety of different firms, some using (high-cost) flexible technologies, others (low-cost) dedicated production units. This heterogeneity of firms is due to the fact that the choice between specialization and flexibility involves a fundamental non-convexity.
Interleukin‐6 signalling regulates vascular endothelial growth factor‐C synthesis and lymphangiogenesis in human oral squamous cell carcinoma

Lymph node metastasis is associated with resistance to conventional therapy and poor survival of patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Although lymphangiogenesis is well known to be associated with the occurrence of lymph node metastasis in various cancers, the precise mechanisms of lymphangiogenesis in OSCC are largely unknown. IL‐6, a potent pro‐inflammatory cytokine, has been shown to play active roles in various cancers, including OSCC. This study aimed to investigate the involvement of IL‐6 signalling in lymphatic metastasis and to evaluate the efficacy of tocilizumab, a humanized anti‐human IL‐6 receptor antibody, as an anti‐lymphangiogenic agent for OSCC. This investigation confirmed that levels of expression of IL‐6 protein and VEGF‐C mRNA in OSCC tissues were significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis in patients with OSCC, as assessed by immunohistochemical analysis and real‐time quantitative RT–PCR. In vitro studies showed that IL‐6 regulated VEGF‐C mRNA expression in a human OSCC cell line, SAS cells, through the phosphoinositide 3‐kinase‐Akt pathway. In addition, treatment with tocilizumab led to markedly reduced VEGF‐C mRNA expression and OSCC‐related lymphangiogenesis in SAS xenografts. Together, these data suggest that tocilizumab acted as expected: it inhibited lymph node metastasis in OSCC by reducing tumour lymphangiogenesis. Copyright © 2011 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Towards a Framework for Food Tourism as an Element of Destination Marketing

Local and regional food holds great potential to contribute to sustainable competitiveness in a destination. An analysis of the literature and promotional material of South African and key international destinations, however, indicate that the contribution of food to sustainable tourism and the marketing of destinations has received very little attention globally, as well as in South Africa. A framework and guidelines for developing and implementing food tourism could enable destination marketers and entrepreneurs to optimise the tourism potential of local and regional food. To this end a food tourism destination-marketing framework was conceptualised, which was based on the findings of a South African situation analysis and international trends and best practices. The South African situation analysis entailed an empirical investigation among regional and provincial destination marketing organisations to determine the current status and future potential and food tourism initiatives as a key component of destination marketing in South Africa. To support the food tourism destination marketing framework, two key tools were developed, namely TOURPAT (a tourism and culinary atlas linked to a geospatial database) and PAT (a product potential and attractiveness tool). The framework and tools were tested in a South African destination and provided the stakeholders with mechanisms to develop and implement food tourism. This paper outlines the key components and an evaluation of the framework and tools that have been developed. Guidelines and recommendations for the development, packaging and marketing of local and regional foods are postulated. Proposals for future research are also outlined.
Summable Reparameterizations of Wasserstein Critics in the One-Dimensional Setting

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) are an exciting alternative to algorithms for solving density estimation problems---using data to assess how likely samples are to be drawn from the same distribution. Instead of explicitly computing these probabilities, GANs learn a generator that can match the given probabilistic source. This paper looks particularly at this matching capability in the context of problems with one-dimensional outputs. We identify a class of function decompositions with properties that make them well suited to the critic role in a leading approach to GANs known as Wasserstein GANs. We show that Taylor and Fourier series decompositions belong to our class, provide examples of these critics outperforming standard GAN approaches, and suggest how they can be scaled to higher dimensional problems in the future.