Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Hybrid System of Hierarchical Planning of Behaviour Selection Networks for Mobile Robot Control

An office delivery robot receives a large amount of sensory data and there is uncertainty in its action outcomes. The robot should not only accomplish its goals using environmental information, but also consider various exceptions simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a hybrid system using hierarchical planning of modular behaviour selection networks to generate autonomous behaviour in the office delivery robot. Behaviour selection networks, one of the well-known behaviour-based methods suitable for goal-oriented tasks, are made up of several smaller behaviour modules. Planning is attached to the construct and adjust sequences of the modules by considering the sub-goals, the priority in each task and the user feedback. This helps the robot to quickly react in dynamic situations as well as achieve global goals efficiently. The proposed system is verified with both the Webot simulator and a Khepera II robot that runs in a real office environment carrying out delivery tasks. Experimental results have shown that a robot can achieve goals and generate module sequences successfully even in unpredictable situations. Additionally, the proposed planning method reduced the elapsed time during tasks by 17.5% since it adjusts the behaviour module sequences more effectively.
A Sensitive Neutralization Assay for Influenza C Viruses Based on the Acetylesterase Activity HEF Glycoprotein

Influenza C virus possesses specific neuraminate-O-acetylesterase as a receptor-destroying function. This enzymatic activity of the viral glycoprotein HEF (Hemagglutinin, esterase activity and fusion factor) can be visualized in situ by the use of distinct color substrates. Hereby the localization, as well as the quantity of synthesized HEF protein is detectable. We further developed the esterase staining technique for a rapid detection and typing of influenza C progeny virus and for sensitive quantification of low viral loads. Neutralizing antibodies, interfering with virus attachment, were utilized to determine the infectivity of the inoculum in an indirect manner. The amount of unneutralized, infectious virus could easily be quantitated by in situ staining of the HEF esterase activity in infected cells. An evaluation of infectivity is presented and is put into relation to hemagglutinating virus units. Both, virus and serum antibody titers can be reliably determined by the esterase-neutralization assay. In this study a serial dilution of human and different animals (swine, dog and rabbit) sera were tested by in situ estrase neutralization assay (ENA) and hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test. The results show that in situ ENAis a sensitive method for titration of infectious rate of virus and quantification of neutralizing antibody against influenza C virus in different sera.
The Price Effects of International Airline Alliances*

This paper provides evidence on the effect of international airline alliances on fares. The main finding is that alliance partners charge interline fares that are approximately 25 percent below those charged by nonallied carriers. According to our theoretical model, the main source of this fare reduction is the internalization of a negative externality that arises from the uncoordinated choice of interline “sub‐fares” in the absence of an alliance. The paper also looks for evidence of an anti‐competitive alliance effect in the gateway‐to‐gateway markets. While the point estimates show that an alliance between two previously competitive carriers would raise fares by about 5 percent, this effect is not statistically significant.
Tracking Labor Demand with Online Job Postings: The Case of Health it Workers and the HITECH Act

Growth in the health information technology (health IT) workforce will be necessary for the widespread adoption of electronic health records called for by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. However, the health IT workforce is difficult to track using existing sources of data. We introduce a novel method for measuring labor demand in markets not defined by standard industrial or occupational codes. Drawing from 84 million online help wanted postings, we create a dataset of 434,000 health IT–related job listings from 2007 to 2011 whose descriptions contain key phrases such as “electronic health record” or “clinical informatics. ” We find that health IT–related job postings have grown substantially over time, tripling as a share of healthcare job postings since 2007. Trend‐break and difference‐in‐difference analyses suggest that health IT–related job postings accelerated following HITECH. According to our preferred specification, the legislation was associated with an 86 percent increase in monthly postings, or 162,000 additional postings overall.
An Econometric Analysis of Money Demand and Its Stability in the Malaysian Economy

The paper utilizes cointegration technique and a battery of diagnostics statistics to evaluate the behaviour of money demand (M1 and M2) and examine whether the short-run money demand specification is structurally stable. The main finding is that, although there exists no long run relationship between M1 and the other macroeconomic variables considered, the long run relationship of M2 demand function is established. However, the evidence suggests that the short run of M2 demand is unstable. Thus, the usefulness of M2 target in the conduct of monetary policy depends crucially on the extent to which the policy makers can detect the structural break in the money demand function and on how long it takes for them to realize that there exists a behavioral change in the demand. Otherwise, the policy makers should only focus on long-run stabilization policies.
A delay-sensitive strategy for real-time monitoring in wireless sensor networks

Advances in the research of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have allowed their use for several purposes, including monitoring of critical and dangerous environments. Applications in these environments share the need of operation without human intervention, which imposes autonomy and efficiency in executing their tasks, even under critical environmental conditions. Besides the traditional WSN physical limitations, their utilization as a source of collecting data in challenging environments requires the ability to support real-time observations of the monitoring environment. These observations should consider not only environment unpredictability with respect to mobility but also the variable amount of nodes and collected data. To deal with that, in this paper we propose a delay-sensitive strategy, which aims to enable WSN for monitoring challenging environments, taking into account real-time data constraints as well as mobility and limitations of the sensor nodes. This strategy is implemented in a new routing protocol, called PROST.
Lots of value? A spatial hedonic approach to water quality valuation

Very few studies have addressed the effects of water quality on recreational values in a hedonic property price setting. This study elicits the value of improved water quality capitalised in Finnish recreational property prices adjacent to the Baltic Sea, lakes and rivers. In addition, spatial econometric methods are employed to address the spatial autocorrelation found in data. An expert-determined, water body specific water quality index that describes the usability status of the water is used instead of more specific, but also more problematic, water quality indicators. The study finds that water usability has a positive effect on property prices, with weak suggestions on non-linearity.
A review of episodes of zinc phosphide toxicosis in wild geese (Branta spp.) in Oregon (2004–2011)

Epizootic mortality in several geese species, including cackling geese (Branta hutchinsii) and Canada geese (Branta canadensis), has been recognized in the Willamette Valley of Oregon for over a decade. Birds are generally found dead on a body of water or are occasionally observed displaying neurologic clinical signs such as an inability to raise or control the head prior to death. Investigation of these epizootic mortality events has revealed the etiology to be accidental poisoning with the rodenticide zinc phosphide (Zn3P2). Gross and histologic changes are restricted to acute pulmonary congestion and edema, sometimes accompanied by distension of the upper alimentary tract by fresh grass. Geese are unusually susceptible to this pesticide; when combined with an epidemiologic confluence of depredation of specific agricultural crops by rodents and seasonal avian migration pathways, epizootic toxicosis may occur. Diagnosis requires a high index of suspicion, appropriate sample collection and handling, plus specific test calibration for this toxicant. Interagency cooperation, education of farmers regarding pesticide use, and enforcement of regulations has been successful in greatly decreasing these mortality events since 2009.
A review on the evolution of user acceptance behaviour in collaborative e-commerce

To explore the evolution of consumers' transition behaviour under collaborative e-commerce, on the basis of actual Chinese collaborative e-commerce vendors Rakuten, Flashpoint 100 and so on a framework of e-commerce consumer transition behaviour is proposed. Related literature in sum has illustrated how single/collaborative technology/brand effect transitions the behaviour of e-commerce consumers, and has brought to light those influence factors, as well as the relationship among multi factors. Empirical research methods based on TAM, TPB, TRA and IDT can be used for modelling e-commerce consumer acceptant behaviour, and a computational experiment method can represent the complex dynamic evolution process of consumer transition behaviour by integrating an agent-based model with a cognitive relationship framework determined by empirical data.
Note on Existence and Uniqueness of Equilibrium Points for Concave N-Person Games

IN [1] J. B. ROSEN GIVES a sufficient condition for the uniqueness of the equilibrium point of a game. The same condition is also sufficient for the stability of the equilibrium point given a reasonable model of player adjustment behavior. The purpose of this note is to show restrictions on the class of games which imply his condition and which may sometimes be of use. In the remainder of the note Rosen's notation and assumptions are used, and it is assumed that the reader is familiar with his paper.
Neuronal correlates of visual and auditory alertness in the DMT and ketamine model of psychosis

Deficits in attentional functions belong to the core cognitive symptoms in schizophrenic patients. Alertness is a nonselective attention component that refers to a state of general readiness that improves stimulus processing and response initiation. The main goal of the present study was to investigate cerebral correlates of alertness in the human 5HT2A agonist and N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) antagonist model of psychosis. Fourteen healthy volunteers participated in a randomized double-blind, cross-over event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study with dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and S-ketamine. A target detection task with cued and uncued trials in both the visual and the auditory modality was used. Administration of DMT led to decreased blood oxygenation level-dependent response during performance of an alertness task, particularly in extrastriate regions during visual alerting and in temporal regions during auditory alerting. In general, the effects for the visual modality were more pronounced. In contrast, administration of S-ketamine led to increased cortical activation in the left insula and precentral gyrus in the auditory modality. The results of the present study might deliver more insight into potential differences and overlapping pathomechanisms in schizophrenia. These conclusions must remain preliminary and should be explored by further fMRI studies with schizophrenic patients performing modality-specific alertness tasks.
Evaluation of Croatian Word Embeddings

Croatian is poorly resourced and highly inflected language from Slavic language family. Nowadays, research is focusing mostly on English. We created a new word analogy corpus based on the original English Word2vec word analogy corpus and added some of the specific linguistic aspects from Croatian language. Next, we created Croatian WordSim353 and RG65 corpora for a basic evaluation of word similarities. We compared created corpora on two popular word representation models, based on Word2Vec tool and fastText tool. Models has been trained on 1.37B tokens training data corpus and tested on a new robust Croatian word analogy corpus. Results show that models are able to create meaningful word representation. This research has shown that free word order and the higher morphological complexity of Croatian language influences the quality of resulting word embeddings.
Treatment of X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency by in utero transplantation of paternal bone marrow.

Severe combined immunodeficiency is a congenital syndrome due to various genetic abnormalities that cause susceptibility to infection, failure to thrive, lymphoid hypoplasia, very low levels of T lymphocytes, and hypogammaglobulinemia.1,2 Untreated, the disorder is usually fatal within the first year of life. We report the successful treatment of a fetus with the X-linked variant of severe combined immunodeficiency by the in utero transplantation of paternal bone marrow that was enriched with hematopoietic cell progenitors. Case Report The patient, 11 months old at this writing, is the second son of a 28-year-old woman known to carry a mutation found in .
A possible relationship between Toxoplasma gondii and schizophrenia: A seroprevalence study

Objective. Schizophrenia is a pervasive neuropsychiatric disease of uncertain etiology. We aimed to investigate a possible association between Toxoplasma gondii infection and schizophrenia in this study. Method. We selected individuals with schizophrenia (n=88) and tested them with commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for anti-Toxoplasma IgG and IgM antibodies and compared these seropositivity rate to those of controls without psychiatric disease (n=88). Results. The rate of IgG antibody in the schizophrenia patients (47.7%) was higher than the control groups (20.4%) (P<0.001). We did not find any anti-Toxoplasma IgM seropositivity in both schizophrenia patients and control group. In schizophrenic patients with and without anti-Toxoplasma IgG groups statistical analysis did not reveal any correlation between demographic variables and Toxoplasma infection. Conclusion. Our findings supported previous studies indicate that T.gondii may play a role in etiopathogenesis in some cases of schizophrenia.
Energy Consumption, CO2 Emissions, and Economic Growth: A Moral Dilemma

In this study we examine the dynamic interrelationship in the output-energy-environment nexus by applying panel vector autoregression (PVAR) and impulse response function analyses to data on energy consumption (and its subcomponents), carbon dioxide emissions and real GDP in 106 countries classified by different income groups over the period 1971-2011. Our results reveal that the effects of the various types of energy consumption on economic growth and emissions are heterogeneous on the various groups of countries. Moreover, causality between total economic growth and energy consumption is bidirectional, thus making a case for the feedback hypothesis. However, we cannot report any statistically significant evidence that renewable energy consumption, in particular, is conducive to economic growth, a fact that weakens the argument that renewable energy consumption is able to promote growth in a more efficient and environmentally sustainable way. Finally, in analysing the case for an inverted U-shaped EKC, we find that the continued process of growth aggravates the greenhouse gas emissions phenomenon. In this regard, we cannot provide any evidence that developed countries may actually grow-out of environmental pollution. In the light of these findings, the efficacy of recent government policies in various countries to promote renewable energy consumption as a means for sustainable growth is questioned. Put differently, there seems to be a moral dilemma, between high economic growth rates and unsustainable environment and low or zero economic growth and environmental sustainability.
Development of improved triggered vacuum switches

Triggered vacuum switches (TVS) are being evaluated for use in energizing electrical loads that require rapid and efficient switching of currents on command as well as the ability to interrupt at current zero crossing. Relatively few switching alternatives are available at the high currents (>250 kA) and voltages (>10 kV) needed. The TVSs used in recent pulsed power systems have demonstrated an ability to switch significant currents and interrupt at the zero current crossing, but they are not yet as effective as desired. In particular, higher current operation and faster dielectric recovery would be beneficial. The intent of this research is to expand the understanding of the physics of the vacuum switch (especially the opening phase) and to extend the operating parameters.
The Bank Lending Channel: A FAVAR Analysis

We examine the role of commercial banks in monetary transmission in a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR). A FAVAR exploits a large number of macroeconomic indicators to identify monetary policy shocks, and we add commonly used lending aggregates and lending data at the bank level. While our results suggest that the bank lending channel (BLC) is stronger than previously thought, this feature is not robust. In addition, our results indicate a diffuse response to monetary innovations when individual banks are grouped according to asset sizes and loan components. This suggests that other bank characteristics could improve the identification of the BLC.
A randomized controlled trial of treatments for co-occurring substance use disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is common among people with substance use disorders, and the comorbidity is associated with negative outcomes. We report on a randomized controlled trial comparing the effect of integrated cognitive-behavioral therapy (ICBT) plus standard care, individual addiction counseling plus standard care and standard care alone on substance use and PTSD symptoms. DESIGN Three-group, multi-site randomized controlled trial. SETTING Seven addiction treatment programs in Vermont and New Hampshire, USA. PARTICIPANTS/CASES Recruitment took place between December 2010 and January 2013. In this single-blind study, 221 participants were randomized to one of three conditions: ICBT plus standard care (SC) (n = 73), individual addiction counseling (IAC) plus SC (n = 75) or SC only (n = 73). One hundred and seventy-two patients were assessed at 6-month follow-up (58 ICBT; 61 IAC; 53 SC). Intervention and comparators: ICBT is a manual-guided therapy focused on PTSD and substance use symptom reduction with three main components: patient education, mindful relaxation and flexible thinking. IAC is a manual-guided therapy focused exclusively on substance use and recovery with modules organized in a stage-based approach: treatment initiation, early abstinence, maintaining abstinence and recovery. SC are intensive out-patient program services that include 9-12 hours of face-to-face contact per week over 2-4 days of group and individual therapies plus medication management. MEASUREMENTS Primary outcomes were PTSD severity and substance use severity at 6 months. Secondary outcomes were therapy retention. FINDINGS PTSD symptoms reduced in all conditions with no difference between them. In analyses of covariance, ICBT produced more favorable outcomes on toxicology than IAC or SC [comparison with IAC, parameter estimate: 1.10; confidence interval (CI) = 0.17-2.04; comparison with SC, parameter estimate: 1.13; CI = 0.18-2.08] and had a greater reduction in reported drug use than SC (parameter estimate: -9.92; CI = -18.14 to -1.70). ICBT patients had better therapy continuation versus IAC (P<0.001). There were no unexpected or study-related adverse events. CONCLUSIONS Integrated cognitive behavioral therapy may improve drug-related outcomes in post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers with substance use disorder more than drug-focused counseling, but probably not by reducing post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms to a greater extent.
Initiating forces and success factors of born global firms

Within the context of an increasing speed of internationalisation of many firms, this article intends to identify initiating forces and success factors of born global firms in a conceptual way. After reviewing the relevant literature, a conceptual framework is developed which integrates the positions of the market-based and the resource-based views. Based on this framework, hypotheses about initiating forces and success factors of born global firms are derived. Moreover, the impact of moderating management instruments – such as human resource management, coordination and subsidiary control – are discussed.
Impact of Management and Innovation Capabilities on Performance: Are Cooperatives Different?

The principal purpose of this study is to evaluate if management and innovation capabilities differ between cooperatives and investor‐owned firms (IOF). We do also want to analyze if those differences, in case they exist, cause different business performance levels. The fieldwork is based on a sample representative of the population of Basque industrial firms comprising 861 firms, 44 of them cooperatives. The results of our analysis are contrary to Social Economy literature statements. Basque industrial cooperatives are in a situation of competitive parity to investor‐owned firms and do not differ in management and innovation capabilities. The large size of Basque industrial cooperatives, environmental factors, networking and the help of the supra‐structure of Mondragon Corporation are explored as possible causes of those results.
Supply chain responsiveness: a logistics integration perspective and impact on firm performance

Supply chain responsiveness is the key characteristic of many dominant and dynamic supply chain capabilities viz. agility, robustness and resilience. Only few investigations have been executed for exploring this construct. Further, studies have argued that logistics capabilities need to be integrated at a supply chain for developing supply chain capabilities like supply chain agility. Accordingly, the current investigation aims to explore empirically the influence of dominant logistics capabilities on supply chain responsiveness. Further, the current investigation also explores the impact of supply chain responsiveness on firm performance (operationalised across two dimensions viz. operational performance and relational performance). Data collected from 203 logistics and supply chain professionals from Indian manufacturing firms largely support our proposed relationships. Findings largely support the proposed relationships.