Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
China’s Investment Incentive Strategy for Shale Gas Development

ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of the uncertainty and irreversibility of shale gas development investment, we use the real option analysis framework to study how the government can optimally arrange an investment incentive policy for shale gas development and promote the immediate investment of enterprises under shale gas price uncertainty. In this article, we present two types of investment incentive policies for shale gas development, namely tax reductions and production subsidies. The output characteristics of shale gas development are included in the real option model. From this study, the government incentive level required to trigger the immediate investment of enterprises will rise with an increase in shale gas price volatility and the output decline rate and decrease with an increase in the initial gas recovery rate. When shale gas price volatility and the output decline rate are less than a certain level or the initial recovery rate is greater than a certain level, enterprises’ investment will be spontaneous, even without government incentives. The study reveals that shale gas development incentives for the immediate investment of enterprises need to focus not only on the uncertainty of the external environment, but also on the shale gas resource endowment characteristics in Chinese regions.
The change in official Islam in Turkey: an analysis of friday sermons published by the presidency of religious affairs

The cleavage between the secular Kemalists and the political Islamists has been salient throughout the history of Republican Turkey. On the one hand, an identity based on Turkish nationalism and laicisim put forward by the Kemalist elite during the inception of the Republic has been prevalent in state institutions. On the other hand, a movement which aims to revive Islam as an identity both socially and politically has risen in response to this Kemalist project. An important institution established during the early years of the Republic, which aimed at disseminating official Islam, is the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet Isleri Baskanligi, DIB). Within the context of the Kemalist-Islamist cleavage, this thesis aims to show how the official Islam adopted by the DIB has changed. Specifically, the DIB has moved from representing the Kemalist idea of Islam to representing the version of Islam adopted by the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP), successors to the political Islam movement. The thesis argues that AKP has achieved this change through a process of “desecularization”, once it reached “commanding heights” after the 2010 Constitutional Referendum. To show this change, 696 Friday sermons published by the Istanbul Muftu’s Office (Istanbul Il Muftulugu) are analyzed using a mixed methods approach. The analysis finds that there is a clear distinction between the two periods analyzed across various themes, such as the idea of the nation, ethnicity, terrorism and science.
Tax Policy and Local Labor Market Behavior

Since 2002, the US government has encouraged business investment using accelerated depreciation policies that significantly reduce investment costs. We provide the first in-depth analysis of this stimulus on employment and earnings. Our local labor markets approach exploits cross-industry variation in policy generosity interacted with county-level industry location data. This strategy identifies the partial equilibrium effects of accelerated depreciation. Places that experience larger decreases in investment costs see an increase in employment and earnings. In contrast, the policy does not have positive effects on earnings-per-worker. Overall, our findings suggest federal corporate tax policy has large effects on local labor markets. (JEL D25, G31, H25, H32, J23, J31, R23)
SINS aided GPS integrity monitoring for SINS/GPS tightly integrated navigation system

A new approach suitable for real-time detecting and isolating GPS faults in pseudo-range and pseudo-range rate is investigated for tightly coupled SINS/GPS integrated navigation system. First, the SINS/GPS tight integration system structure, the system state and measurement equations are deduced based on error models and Kalman filter theory. Then, a GPS fault detection method based on residual chi-square test and a GPS fault isolation method based on Chebyshev theorem are designed through analyzing the statistical characteristics of the residuals of the kalman filter. This new fault detection and exclusion (FDE) algorithm unrestricted by number of visible satellites can dynamically monitor pseudo-range and pseudo-range rate of GPS, and isolate the faulty signal in real-time. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can further improve the system's performance in anti-interference ability, thus guarantee the navigation accuracy under satellite faults.
Language and Culture as Barriers to Healthcare for Chinese Immigrants

Immigrants and their descendants are projected to account for 88 percent of United States population growth through 2065. Currently, immigrants make up for about 13.5 percent of the US population. In addition, 65.5 million Americans speak a language other than English at home. Language and culture are the two most significant barriers faced by immigrants seeking health care. These barriers have a significant impact on immigrants’ ability to receive quality care, make them more vulnerable to poor health outcomes. Many resources exist to help immigrants with various needs including health care. However, more effort is needed to strengthen the resources that are aimed to address and alleviate language and cultural barriers in the health care system. This thesis reviews scholarly literature in order to provide a better understanding of the impact of language and cultural barriers on the health care seeking experiences of older Chinese immigrants, evaluate the efficacy of existing tools and services designed to address these issues, and proposes ways to improve these existing resources in order to build a better experience for all immigrants seeking health care.
Weblog and short text feature extraction and impact on categorisation

The characterisation and categorisation of weblogs and other short texts has become an important research theme in the areas of topic/trend detection, and pattern recognition, amongst others. The value of analysing and characterising short text is to understand and identify the features that can identify and distinguish them, thereby improving input to the classification process. In this research work, we analyse a large number of text features and establish which combinations are useful to discriminate between the different genres of short text. Having identified the most promising features, we then confirm our findings by performing the categorisation task using three approaches: the Gaussian and SVM classifiers and the K-means clustering algorithm. Several hundred combinations of features were analysed in order to identify the best combinations and the results confirmed the observations made. The novel aspect of our work is the detection of the best combination of individual metrics which are identified as potential features to be used for the categorisation process.
Improving Multi-Context Execution Speed on DRFPGAs

To implement a user circuit on a Dynamically Reconflgurable FPGA (DRFPGA) the circuit needs to be temporally partitioned into several sub-circuits such that their sequential execution on the DRFPGA yields the same result as that of the user circuit. In devices where interconnect delay is far dominating than logic delay, such implementation has the prospect of executing user circuits faster than traditional FPGA implementation, since temporal partitioning divides a long spatial wire of a circuit into several short temporal wires, thus converting interconnect delay into logic delay. To realize such prospect, reconfiguration delay and temporal communication delay of a DRFPGA must be kept as low as possible. This paper studies these issues and reports the architecture and performance of Flexible Processor III (FP3), a newly proposed DRFPGA. FP3 employs a new shift register type temporal interconnect and Nearest Neighbor (NN) type spatial interconnect to reduce the delay mentioned above. Correct behavior of FP3, designed and fabricated in 0.35 um CMOS technology, has been confirmed and our experimental results show that there exist cases where the best user circuit speed is achieved when two or more contexts are in use.
Serotonin–mushroom body circuit modulating the formation of anesthesia-resistant memory in Drosophila

Pavlovian olfactory learning in Drosophila produces two genetically distinct forms of intermediate-term memories: anesthesia-sensitive memory, which requires the amnesiac gene, and anesthesia-resistant memory (ARM), which requires the radish gene. Here, we report that ARM is specifically enhanced or inhibited in flies with elevated or reduced serotonin (5HT) levels, respectively. The requirement for 5HT was additive with the memory defect of the amnesiac mutation but was occluded by the radish mutation. This result suggests that 5HT and Radish protein act on the same pathway for ARM formation. Three supporting lines of evidence indicate that ARM formation requires 5HT released from only two dorsal paired medial (DPM) neurons onto the mushroom bodies (MBs), the olfactory learning and memory center in Drosophila: (i) DPM neurons were 5HT-antibody immunopositive; (ii) temporal inhibition of 5HT synthesis or release from DPM neurons, but not from other serotonergic neurons, impaired ARM formation; (iii) knocking down the expression of d5HT1A serotonin receptors in α/β MB neurons, which are innervated by DPM neurons, inhibited ARM formation. Thus, in addition to the Amnesiac peptide required for anesthesia-sensitive memory formation, the two DPM neurons also release 5HT acting on MB neurons for ARM formation.
Could Holding Multiple Safe Havens Improve Diversification in a Portfolio? The Extended Skew-T Vine Copula Approach

We propose a vine copula model based on a bivariate extended skew-t distribution and derive its corresponding multivariate tail dependence function. Our simulations demonstrate that the proposed estimator dominates the conventional vine copula approach in the estimation of multivariate tail dependence. We apply our model to a safe haven analysis of US dollars (US$) and gold prices against stocks. The estimated multivariate lower tail dependence coefficients suggest that even though either US$ or gold can be safe haven assets against stocks, combining US$ and gold in a portfolio does not provide a safe haven property against stocks. Therefore, incorporating multiple safe haven assets in a portfolio may end in heavier losses in the event of a market downturn. Our results highlight the importance of simultaneously investigating multiple safe haven assets in financial risk analysis.
Surface-Roughness-Limited Mean Free Path in Silicon Nanowire Field Effect Transistors

The mean free path (MFP) in silicon nanowire field effect transistors limited by surface roughness scattering (SRS) is calculated with the nonperturbative approach utilizing the nonequilibrium Green's function method. The entrance scattering effect associated with finiteness of the channel length is identified and a method to eliminate it in the calculation of the MFP is developed. The behavior of the MFP with respect to channel length (L), channel width (W) , and the root mean square (rms) of the surface roughness is investigated extensively. Our major findings are that the single parameter, rms/W, can be used as a good measure for the strength of the SRS effects and that the overall characteristics of the MFP are determined by the parameter. In particular, the MFP exponentially decreases with the increase of rms/W and the MFP versus the gate electric field shows a distinctively different behavior depending on whether the strength of the SRS effects measured by rms/W is smaller or greater than 0.06.
Independent predictors of survival in patients with incurable malignant gastric outlet obstruction: a multicenter prospective observational study

Abstract Objective. Gastric outlet obstruction (GOO) is one of the late complications of a variety of malignancies. Palliation of symptoms of obstruction rather than cure is the primary aim of treatment in affected patients. Thus far prognostic information on life expectancy is lacking in these patients although it can be of importance when deciding upon their optimal treatment. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether baseline data in patients with incurable GOO can independently predict survival. Patients and methods. In total, 105 consecutive patients with symptomatic GOO treated with duodenal stent placement were enrolled in this multicenter prospective observational study. Patients were followed until death or till 1 November 2008. The Cox proportional hazard regression model was used for both univariate and multivariate analyses of survival. Results. Baseline data of 101 patients were completed. At the time of analysis, 95% of patients had died; median overall survival was 82 days (75% alive at 36 days, 25% alive at 156 days). The final prediction model revealed the dichotomized WHO performance status (HR: 2.63, 95% CI: 1.68–4.12, p < 0.001), prescription of morphines stronger than tramadol (HR: 2.42, 95% CI: 1.38–4.25, p = 0.002) and pain score of the EORTC QLQ-C30 (HR: 1.01, 95% CI: 1.00–1.01, p = 0.035) as independent significant prognostic factors for short survival. Conclusions. This study demonstrates clear predictors of poor outcome for patients presenting with symptomatic malignant GOO. The model may enhance the selection of optimal treatment for individual patients.
Role of earnings management in determining firm value: An emerging economy perspective

Resource allocation decisions by investors are made on the basis of information provided by firm management. The reports providing information are prepared with the help of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) which provide a great deal of discretion to the management. Management, on the basis of this discretion, manipulates the financial information particularly earnings of firm termed as earnings management which has important implications for firm future. This earnings management can be accruals based and real activities based. This earnings management if beneficial for the firm is efficient and if detrimental is opportunistic. The current study investigates the behavior of earnings management for Pakistani non-financial listed firms for the period of 15 years for 2003-2017 and finds a positive relation between aspects of real and accrual earnings management and firm value variables. However, it appeared to be opportunistic for financially distressed firms and efficient for non-distressed firms when the sample was divided into four categories. Impact of accrual earnings management was more pronounced for Pakistani firms as compared to real earnings manipulation.
Navigating the Storm of Mental Illness: Phases in the Family’s Journey

About 1.25 million American families live with persistently mentally ill members. Costs, personal and public, are substantial. Research providing holistic understanding of the processes these families experience is needed. This qualitative study’s objectives were to (a) examine the process holistically and (b) search for patterns in families’ experiences. The author used a framework of symbolic interaction and dramaturgical interviewing. Twenty-six respondents participated in a semistructured interview. Results indicated that families typically experienced six phases: development of awareness, crisis, instability and recurrent crises, movement toward stability, continuum of stability, and growth and advocacy. Needs characteristic of each phase were evident. Additional research is needed to determine if phases are consistent in other groups and to develop interventions appropriate for each phase.
An Automatic Approach to Adaptive Local Background Estimation and Suppression in Hyperspectral Target Detection

This paper deals with subspace-based target detection in hyperspectral images. Specifically, it focuses on a general detection scheme where, first, background is suppressed through orthogonal-subspace projection and then target detection is accomplished. An adequate estimation of the background subspace is essential to a successful outcome. The background subspace has been typically estimated globally. However, global approaches may be ineffective for small-target-detection applications since they tend to overestimate the background interference affecting a given target. This may result in a low target residual energy after background suppression that is detrimental to detection performance. In this paper, we propose a novel and fully automatic algorithm for local background-subspace estimation (LBSE). Local background has typically a lower inherent complexity than that of global background. By estimating the background subspace over a local neighborhood of the test pixel, the resulting background-subspace dimension is expected to be low, thus resulting in a higher target residual energy after suppression which benefits the detection performance. Specifically, the proposed LBSE acts on a per-pixel basis, thus adaptively tailoring the estimated basis to the local complexity of background. Both simulated and real hyperspectral data are employed to investigate the detection-performance improvements offered by LBSE with respect to both global and local methodologies previously presented.
Comparison of resistive and capacitive strain gauge sensors printed on polyimide substrate using ink-jet printing technology

In this paper we compared a resistive and capacitive strain gauge in terms of sensitivity and material cost, both printed with deposition material printer using silver nanoparticle ink on a flexible polyimide substrate. The resistive change due to strain was measured with a full Wheatstone bridge and a signal conditioning circuit, while the capacitance change was measured with the HP4194A impedance analyzer. Measured and derived strain gauge factor for resistive sensor was 1.10, and 0.91 for the capacitive sensor.
Passive fault tolerant control of quadrotor UAV using regular and cascaded Sliding Mode Control

In this paper, two passive fault tolerant controllers based on Sliding Mode Control theory are designed for AscTec Pelican quadrotor. The first controller is a regular Sliding Mode Controller (SMC) that uses the robustness of SMC and its insensitivity to model uncertainties and disturbances to tolerate two different types of actuator faults. The latter controller is a cascaded SMC (CascSMC) with an inner loop fast SMC controlling the velocity system and tolerating its faults, and an outer loop SMC controlling the inner system (inner SMC and velocity system) with integrator. To tune the parameters of the controllers for their optimal values, a bio-inspired search algorithm called Ecological Search Algorithm (ESA) is used. SIMULINK results show that the proposed controllers are successful in controlling the quadrotor performing a helical path in the space in presence of two different actuator faults. Tests show that the cascaded SMC outperforms the regular SMC in handling tougher faults by compensating them quickly in its fast inner loop.
Chemotherapy of Genital Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 Infections of Female Hamsters

The antiviral activity of 1-β-d-arabinofuranosylcytosine (ara-C, cytarabine, Cytosar), 5-iodo-2′-deoxyuridine (IdUrd), 9-β-d-arabinofuranosyladenine (ara-A), and disodium phosphonoacetate (PAA) have been compared in herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2)-infected primary rabbit kidney cells and in female hamsters with genital HSV-2 infection. In vitro, ara-C and IdUrd were more active than ara-A, and PAA was least active. In female hamsters with genital HSV-2 infection, intravaginal treatment with PAA or ara-A was more effective than either ara-C or IdUrd. PAA was more active than ara-A when treatment was initiated early (1 h) after infection. The activity of PAA was greatly reduced if initiation of treatment was delayed for 24 h. Both PAA and ara-A reduced the virus titers of the vagina and protected hamsters from death when the drugs were given by either the intravaginal or subcutaneous route, with intravaginal treatment being more effective.
Mechanisms of nonlinear disposition kinetics of sulfamethazine

Five healthy male subjects received oral doses of 10 and 40 mg/kg of sulfamethazine (SMZ) approximately 14 days apart in a nonrandomized crossover study. Blood and urine samples were collected for at least 24 and 72 hr, respectively. All samples were assayed by the Bratton‐Marshall procedure for SMZ and apparent N‐acetylsulfamethazine (NSMZ). Recovery of total drug (SMZ + NSMZ) in urine was 88.9% following the low and 79.5% following the high dose. The low and high dose plasma concentration time curves were not readily superimposable (i.e., nonlinear kinetic behavior was observed). The data suggest that several mechanisms contribute to the nonlinearity. Specifically, a dose‐dependent decrease in absorption rate displaced the plasma concentration‐time curve to the right in some subjects, whereas apparent metabolic clearance (Clm) decreased with increasing dose (estimated assuming dose = amount of SMZ + NSMZ in urine to 72 hr) in all subjects (0.35 ml/min/kg for the low and 0.23 for the high dose). Still greater dose‐dependent effects were found when apparent Clm of unbound drug was determined, since free fraction rose from 0.11 to 0.30 over the observed plasma concentration range. Renal clearance (ClR) of SMZ appeared to be a complex function of time. In the low dose study it ranged from an average of 0.071 ml/min/kg at 2 hr to 0.146 mllminlkg at 6 hr after drug. After the high dose comparable values were 0.083 and 0.128. Interindividual variability and pronounced nonlinear kinetics of SMZ after 40 mg/kg suggest that this dose is probably a poor choice for the determination of acetylator phenotype.
Reasons why family members become carers and the outcome for the person with dementia: results from the CARD study

ABSTRACT Background: Using a representative secondary care survey for the first time, we explored family carers’ reasons for providing care. We hypothesized that carers with a positive rather than negative motivation for caring would be less abusive towards the care recipient and more likely to be caring for someone still living at home a year later. Methods: We interviewed 220 consecutively referred dementia family/friend carers from UK Community Mental Health Teams. We asked non-spousal carers why they were the main carer. Our main outcomes were the revised Modified Conflict Tactics Scale scores, measuring abusive behavior by the carer, and admission of the person with dementia to a care home. Results: Nineteen (17.1%) said they were the main carer due to the high quality of their relationship with the care recipient, their willingness to take on or their suitability for the carer role. A further 22 (19.8%) said they were the main carer due to other potential carers’ negative relationship with the care recipient, unwillingness or lack of suitability for the role. Carers who gave the latter explanation tended to be more anxious at baseline (F = 3.0, p = 0.055), reported higher abusive behavior towards the care recipient a year later after controlling for sociodemographic variables (t = 2.0, p = 0.05), and their care recipient was more likely to be admitted to a care home in the following year (hazards ratio 9.9, p = 0.040). Conclusions: We found preliminary evidence that carers’ reasons for providing care predict the well-being of the care recipient. Future studies involving dementia family carers should consider asking why the main carer assumed this role.