Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Application Problems of Anchor Dowels in Reinforced Concrete Shear Wall and Frame Connections

Strengthening of the existing seismically deficient reinforced concrete (RC) buildings is an important issue in earthquake prone regions. Addition of RC shear wall as infill or external walls into the structural system has been a commonly preferred strengthening technique since the Big Erzincan Earthquake occurred in Turkey, 1992. The newly added rigid infill walls act primarily as shear walls and relieve the non-ductile existing frames from being subjected to large shear demands providing that new RC inner or external walls are adequately anchored to the existing weak RC frame. The performance of the RC shear walls-RC weak frame connections by steel anchor dowels depends on some parameters such as compressive strength of the existing RC frame concrete, diameter and embedment length of anchored rebar, type of rebar, yielding stress of bar, properties of used chemicals, position of the anchor bars in RC. In this study, application problems of the steel anchor dowels have been checked with some field studies such as tensile test. Two different RC buildings which will be strengthened were selected, and before strengthening, some tests have been performed in the existing RC buildings. According to the field observation and experimental studies, if the concrete compressive strength is lower than 10 MPa, the performance of the anchors is reduced by 70%. Keywords—Anchor dowel, concrete, damage, reinforced concrete, shear wall, frame.
A non-DNN Feature Engineering Approach to Dependency Parsing – FBAML at CoNLL 2017 Shared Task

For this year’s multilingual dependency parsing shared task, we developed a pipeline system, which uses a variety of features for each of its components. Unlike the recent popular deep learning approaches that learn low dimensional dense features using non-linear classifier, our system uses structured linear classifiers to learn millions of sparse features. Specifically, we trained a linear classifier for sentence boundary prediction, linear chain conditional random fields (CRFs) for tokenization, part-of-speech tagging and morph analysis. A second order graph based parser learns the tree structure (without relations), and fa linear tree CRF then assigns relations to the dependencies in the tree. Our system achieves reasonable performance – 67.87% official averaged macro F1 score
Demand profile study of battery electric vehicle under different charging options

An increased research on electric vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) deals with their flexible use in electric power grids. Several research projects on smart grids and electric mobility are now looking into realistic models representing the behavior of an EV during charging, including nonlinearities. In this work, modeling, simulation and testing of the demand profile of a battery-EV are conducted. Realistic work conditions for a lithium-ion EV battery and battery charger are considered as the base for the modeling. Simulation results show that EV charging generates different demand profiles into the grid, depending on the applied charging option. Moreover, a linear region for the control of EV chargers is identified in the range of 20-90% state-of-charge (SOC). Experiments validate the proposed model.
Marketization via Compensation: Health Care and the Politics of the Right in Advanced Industrialized Nations

A novel theory of the healthcare policy of right-wing governments is presented in this article. It posits that the politics of health care is inherently different from the politics of a social policy related to the labour market. Health care protects against risks that are in the main uncorrelated with the income distribution. This implies that median voters will favour public provision, while high-income voters will not. This generates a unique challenge to right-wing governments that have to balance the interests of the two. The solution is marketization via compensation, where public spending is expanded but where public support of private market solutions is given special priority.
DESIGN OF TRIPLE-MODE BANDPASS FILTER USING IMPROVED HEXAGONAL LOOP RESONATOR

A novel triple-mode hexagonal bandpass fllter with capacitive loading stubs is introduced in this article. The technique, adding an open capacitive stub, is applied to enlarge the equivalent self- capacitance of the resonator, which declines its resonant frequencies. Three radial-line stubs in the center of top layer are used to implement this technique. One mode resonant frequency is varied with the radii of three radial-line stubs, while the other two modes are nearly not afiected. This fllter has a pair of transmission zeros which are close to the passband, thus it behaves with high selectivity. For method validation, a bandpass fllter operating at 2.4GHz is fabricated and measured. The experimental results are demonstrated and discussed.
Participatory Design of Future Every Day

In this paper we describe a PD approach applied in a context of designing a future everyday IT artifact with limited resources. In the DigiNews project we aim at proposing design suggestions for the future e-newspaper, i.e. a newspaper based on epaper technology. The PD approach includes future workshop, scenario and mock-up techniques and focus groups. Based on eleven workshops with readers, newspaper staff and advertisers and three different focus groups involving readers, newspaper designers and interaction designers respectively, we illustrate the various types of results which could be derived from this approach.
Home-based general versus center-based selective rehabilitation in patients with posterior tibial tendon dysfunction.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to compare the effect of home-based and supervised center-based selective rehabilitation in patients with Grade 1 to 3 posterior tibial tendon dysfunction (PTTD). METHODS The study included 49 subjects diagnosed with PTTD and referred to physiotherapy by an orthopedic surgeon. Subjects were randomly assigned into a home-based rehabilitation (21 cases; mean age: 33.56 ± 17.59) group or center-based rehabilitation (28 cases; mean age: 28.57 ± 14.74 years). The patients in the home-based rehabilitation group followed a home program of cold application, strengthening exercises for the posterior tibial and intrinsic muscles, and stretching in the subtalar neutral position. The patients in the center-based rehabilitation group followed a selective, supervised treatment consisting of the home protocol plus re-education of the non-functional tibialis posterior, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation methods, electrical stimulation, joint mobilization and taping techniques. Both groups received appropriate orthotics. All subjects were assessed before and after treatment for pain, muscle strength, foot function index (FFI) scores and specific tests for PTTD. RESULTS Statistical analysis showed significant differences between pre- and post-treatment results for pain, first metatarsophalangeal angle, forefoot abduction angle, FFI scores and foot and ankle muscle strengths in the center-based group and for the tibialis posterior muscle strength in the home-based group (p<0.05). Intergroup comparison, however, showed no differences between the groups at the end of the treatment program with the exception of posterior tibial muscle strength (p<0.05). CONCLUSION Home- and center-based forms of rehabilitation seem to be equally effective in relieving pain and improving functional outcome in patients with Grade 1 to 3 PTTD. A patient-selective, supervised program may provide a better improvement in tibialis posterior strength than home-based rehabilitation.
Commitment profiles in special groups of employees in Hungary: The role of deliberate commitment

We wish to introduce the concept of the five-factor model of employee commitment while proving that in addition to the factors of the three dimensional model of organisational commitment (affective, normative, and continuance), relevant organisational behaviour and attitude to work are also influenced by professional commitment and the so-called deliberate commitment; these appear mostly as a consequence of the crisis that is also a drawn-out phenomenon in Hungary. Our other aim is to define commitment profiles for some specific employee groups (the previously unemployed, Generation Y individuals in their first jobs, and teleworkers) once their members have been characterised, using the five commitment factors. The resulting commitment profiles are then compared to the commitment profile of the reference group. The results of this empiric research are based on the commitment attitude of 661 Hungarian employees.
Exports and growth: is the export-led growth hypothesis valid for provincial economies?

This paper re-examines the export-led growth hypothesis using provincial data. Unlike other studies that concentrate on country-level data, this study investigates the validity of the hypothesis for four largest provinces in Korea: Seoul, Kyunggee, Kyungnam, and Pusan. The causal implication of the export-led growth hypothesis is generally supported for all provinces in the sample. The framework of analysis is two- and four-variable autoregressive models that include provincial exports, provincial output, terms of trade, and national output shocks. Granger causal orderings from exports to output growth are generally supported in bivariate causal models. In multivariate models, variance decompositions and impulse response functions further indicate that export growth has a significant impact on output growth for all provinces although a feedback effect from output to export growth appears in Seoul and the Kyungnam province.
Deliberative Democracy in Theory and Practice: Connecticut's Medicaid Managed Care Council

Despite calls for greater deliberation among citizens on public policy, we have little information about how existing deliberation is structured or how well it works. We examine Connecticut's effort to put public deliberation to work in Medicaid policy-making. Findings from our participant-observation study and in-person interviews with 100 participants in this process suggest some important qualifications to literature on public deliberation. Greater inclusion of diverse social groups from the target population is important, but this should not replace the inclusion of professional advocates since the latter are often more willing than citizen representatives to challenge policy experts on technical issues. Incorporating public deliberation into the process at an early stage is ideal, but deliberation during the later stages of policymaking (including during implementation) can still produce useful results. Finally, the style and purpose of deliberation can shape the range of topics on the agenda, so it is important to understand how the structure of a deliberative forum can affect the style and purpose of deliberation. The essence of democracy itself is now widely taken to be deliberation, as opposed to voting, interest aggregation, constitutional rights, or even self-government. (Dryzek 2000, 1).
Smoothing State Tax Revenues Over the Business Cycle: Gauging Fiscal Needs and Opportunities

The high degree of fiscal stress experienced by state governments in the 2001 and the 2007-2009 recessions has prompted renewed discussions of alternative approaches to stabilizing state finances over the business cycle. Prompted by evidence of increased state tax revenue cyclicality in the aggregate, this study explores state-specific patterns so as to inform policymakers in individual states. It finds that while elasticity levels continued to differ across states, most states experienced greater cyclical sensitivity in the 2000s than in the 1980s and 1990s. In addition, during the 2000s personal income tax receipts varied more over the business cycle than sales tax receipts in most states that imposed both forms of taxation. This trend represented a departure from the patterns of the prior two decades, when sales tax receipts were more cyclically sensitive than individual income tax receipts in the majority of states. Cross-section regressions reveal that the main source of variation in income tax elasticities across states during the 2000s was the cyclical sensitivity of their residents’ incomes as reflected on their federal income tax returns. By contrast, state-specific features such as the tax treatment of capital gains or the progressivity of tax rates did not account for significant differences in revenue elasticities across states. In addition, state departures from the federal definitions of adjusted gross income and taxable income, on the whole, did not contribute to increased revenue volatility over the business cycle. The findings are used to evaluate the efficacy of alternative measures that could be used to help stabilize state revenues, including reforms of state tax and stabilization trust structures.
Why Fiscal Stimulus is Likely to Work

We provide an overview of the effectiveness of fiscal policy actions by summarizing evidence from empirical and theoretical studies. Empirically, expansionary policy is found to have output multipliers greater than one. Given current economic conditions, we argue that the fiscal cost of not stabilizing the economy is likely to be much higher than the cost of a deficit that helps the economy go faster towards a recovery path.
Shifting the Paradigm of Return on Investment: Towards a Composite Index to Measure Overall Corporate Performance

Extending “above-the table”-relationships has been a principal objective of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the very outset. This would provide benefits to the corporation and its stakeholders by getting everyone closely involved in the raison d'etre of the business, through inviting them to pose their perspectives and to participate in decision-making. The same applies to sustainable development. However, when it comes to measuring how these efforts can be integrated into overall corporate performance, the major emphasis is on technical data. The main achievements have been consolidated in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) where each of the indicators prudently measures a well-determined set of facts. But one major discussion point is whether GRI and other reporting frameworks do really reflect the link between the outcome of CSR and economic value, and how they would properly connect to the information used by management for running the business on a day-to-day basis. This article tries to point out that one way out of the disconnectedness might be through expanding the concept of ‘Economic Value Added’ (EVA). EVA measures overall corporate performance by claiming that shareholders gain when the return from the capital employed in a corporation is greater than the cost of that capital. From there it is a short way to proclaiming that all stakeholders gain when the value created by a corporation is greater than the cost of the capital employed in the corporation and the capital employed in whichever commonly available resources outside the corporation are used by its business. The expansion of EVA that is envisaged would be to enlarge the cost of capital by the costs that are caused by that part of ‘Public Goods’ that is available to a corporation. There is one political and one theoretical obstacle in this: the argument is quite radical and complying with it would require some leadership from ‘big corporations’; and valuing public goods is a research field that has not yet reached the stadium of generally accepted applicability, at least with regard to aggregative monetary value. However there are new initiatives under way, e.g. the International Integrated Reporting Committee now formed, among others, by the GRI, which will join forces to reach a breakthrough.
Canada's watersheds: The demographic basis for an urban-rural dialogue

Canada’s water supply is a fundamental issue for both these policy initiatives. Environmental stewardship is central to the provision of water in sufficient quantity and of a suitable quality for Canada’s agricultural, industrial, commercial, recreational and domestic requirements. Most natural and artificial water bodies within Canada are located in rural areas and the provision and maintenance of this supply is often viewed as the responsibility of rural citizens. With much of this water supply consumed by industrial and domestic use within Canada’s cities, water supply also constitutes one important facet of the fundamental interconnectivity of rural and urban areas of Canada.
Segmentation of the left ventricle in cardiac MRI using a probabilistic data association active shape model

The 3D segmentation of endocardium of the left ventricle (LV) in cardiac MRI volumes is a challenging problem due to the intrinsic properties of this image modality. Typically, the object shape and position are estimated to fit the observed features collected from the images. The difficulty inherent to the LV segmentation in MRI is that the images contain outliers (i.e., observations not belonging to the LV border) due to the presence of other structures. This paper proposes a robust approach based on the Active Shape Model (ASM) that is able to circumvent the above problem. More specifically, the ASM will be guided by probabilistic data association filtering (PDAF) of strokes (i.e. line segments) computed in the neighborhood of the shape model. Thus, the proposed approach, termed herein as ASM-PDAF, will perform the following main steps: 1) edge detection (low-level features) in the vicinity of the shape model; 2) edge grouping (mid-level features) to obtain potential LV strokes; and 3) filtering using a PDAF framework (high-level features) to update the ASM. Experimental results on a public cardiac MRI database show that the proposed approach outperforms previous literature research.
The Global Economic Crisis and Foreign Investment in Russia from the EU: Empirical Evidence from Firm-Level Data

This paper empirically examines the impact of the recent global economic crisis on foreign investment from EU countries in Russia by estimating a location choice model for foreign firms' entry in Russian regions for the period 1997-2011. It also examines the relative importance of various determinants of location choice on the redistribution of foreign-owned firms among Russian regions before and after the crisis. Strong evidence during the post-crisis period (2008-2011) of a decrease in market-seeking foreign investment in manufacturing and resource-seeking foreign investment in trade is examined not only in light of the crisis but also (in the latter case) within the context of the new Russian law for foreign investment in strategic industries, which went into effect in 2008.
Genetic suppression and phenotypic masking of a Myxococcus xanthus frzF‐ defect

An insertion of transposon Tn5‐lac, ω4519, generates a lacZ fusion with a Myxococcus xanthus promoter expressed during both vegetative growth and development. Sequence analysis of the junction of ω4519 with M. xanthus DNA shows that the insertion is in frzF, a homologue of cheR from Salmonella typhimurium. When frzF‐ (or frzCD‐) cells are starved for nutrients at modest densities, they aggregate to form a radial pattern and produce fewer than 1% of the wild‐type complement of spores. At higher densities, frzF::ω519 cells form‘frizzy’aggregates and produce 80–90% of the wild‐type complement of spores. In contrast, when cells with both a frzF‐ (or frzCD‐) and an sgtA1 mutation are allowed to develop at either low or high cell densities, they produce frizzy aggregates containing a near wild‐type complement of heat‐resistant spores. In addition to suppressing the density dependence of fruiting‐body morphogenesis, the sglA1 mutation also suppresses the sporulation defect caused by two different frzF‐ mutations and a frzCD‐ mutation. In contrast, a mutation in a different S motility gene, sglG1, does not suppress the frz‐ mutations. Thus, the suppression of frz‐ mutations by sgl‐ mutations is allele‐specific, and depends on the sgl allele, but not the frz allele. Because the phenotypes of frz‐ mutations have been determined in a (suppressing) sglA1 genetic background, the frz genes may play more central roles in development than initially recognized.
AN ANALYSIS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACROSS FIVE MAJOR NATIONALITY GROUPS IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The paper investigates differences in entrepreneurial activity, attitudes, aspirations, connectivity and behavior among nascent entrepreneurs across five key nationality groups residing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It also seeks to identify key differences between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs' perceptions and attitudes toward entrepreneurship. More than 8000 adult residents were randomly surveyed as part of the GEM UAE studies conducted in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011. The findings indicate that the temporary residency status of expatriate workers has not prevented them from becoming entrepreneurs in the UAE. Arab expatriates in particular, have higher entrepreneurship rates compared to other nationality groups. Sharing a common culture and language appears to play a part in increased entrepreneurial activity. Moreover, socioeconomic factors like income and employment have a significant influence in determining entrepreneurship activity in the UAE. Regardless of nationality, entrepreneurs have more in common with each other compared to non-entrepreneurs in regards to their attitudes, connectivity and activities related to entrepreneurship, suggesting some homogenizing force that exists within the entrepreneurial population of the UAE.
Revisiting Dynamic Duopoly with Consumer Switching Costs

The degree of collusiveness of a market with consumer switching costs is studied in an infinite-horizon overlapping-generations model of duopolistic competition. In contrast to previous models of switching costs, this paper assumes that firms compete for the demand for a homogeneous good by setting prices simultaneously in each period. It characterizes the unique symmetric stationary Markovian perfect equilibrium of this game and shows that the existence of switching costs unambiguously relaxes price competition in equilibrium. It also shows that, on the contrary, tacit collusion is more difficult to sustain in a market with consumer switching costs since the severity of the optimal punishments is reduced.
Measuring the UK Economy

Prepublication version of ‘Measuring the UK Economy’, in Dorling, D. and Simpson, S. (1999) Statistics and Society, p361-369. London Arnold. ISBN 0 340 71994 X. This article demonstrates that the System of National Accounts (SNA) implicitly specify a conception of value. They divide all productive activities into those which create value (paid labour and capital, the factors of production) and those which merely transmit pre-existing value such as the state, or which are not treated as creative of value at all, such as unpaid labour. The measures of output derived from the System of National Accounts are consequently not factually neutral or objective but arise from a specific conception of value. As Anwar Shaikh and Ertugrul Tonak have shown, a different concept of value – such as the idea that labour only is productive of value leads to a different set of measures of output arise, both for the economy as a whole and for each sector. The article shows how to transform the national accounts of the UK from their present form to one in which only labour is considered productive of value.