Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Scaling behavior of an airplane-boarding model.

An airplane-boarding model, introduced earlier by Frette and Hemmer [Phys. Rev. E 85, 011130 (2012)], is studied with the aim of determining precisely its asymptotic power-law scaling behavior for a large number of passengers N. Based on Monte Carlo simulation data for very large system sizes up to N=2(16)=65536, we have analyzed numerically the scaling behavior of the mean boarding time and other related quantities. In analogy with critical phenomena, we have used appropriate scaling Ansätze, which include the leading term as some power of N (e.g., [proportionality]N(α) for ), as well as power-law corrections to scaling. Our results clearly show that α=1/2 holds with a very high numerical accuracy (α=0.5001±0.0001). This value deviates essentially from α=/~0.69, obtained earlier by Frette and Hemmer from data within the range 2≤N≤16. Our results confirm the convergence of the effective exponent α(eff)(N) to 1/2 at large N as observed by Bernstein. Our analysis explains this effect. Namely, the effective exponent α(eff)(N) varies from values about 0.7 for small system sizes to the true asymptotic value 1/2 at N→∞ almost linearly in N(-1/3) for large N. This means that the variation is caused by corrections to scaling, the leading correction-to-scaling exponent being θ≈1/3. We have estimated also other exponents: ν=1/2 for the mean number of passengers taking seats simultaneously in one time step, β=1 for the second moment of t(b), and γ≈1/3 for its variance.
Are Personal Health Records Safe? A Review of Free Web-Accessible Personal Health Record Privacy Policies

Background Several obstacles prevent the adoption and use of personal health record (PHR) systems, including users’ concerns regarding the privacy and security of their personal health information. Objective To analyze the privacy and security characteristics of PHR privacy policies. It is hoped that identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the PHR systems will be useful for PHR users, health care professionals, decision makers, and designers. Methods We conducted a systematic review using the principal databases related to health and computer science to discover the Web-based and free PHR systems mentioned in published articles. The privacy policy of each PHR system selected was reviewed to extract its main privacy and security characteristics. Results The search of databases and the myPHR website provided a total of 52 PHR systems, of which 24 met our inclusion criteria. Of these, 17 (71%) allowed users to manage their data and to control access to their health care information. Only 9 (38%) PHR systems permitted users to check who had accessed their data. The majority of PHR systems used information related to the users’ accesses to monitor and analyze system use, 12 (50%) of them aggregated user information to publish trends, and 20 (83%) used diverse types of security measures. Finally, 15 (63%) PHR systems were based on regulations or principles such as the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode). Conclusions Most privacy policies of PHR systems do not provide an in-depth description of the security measures that they use. Moreover, compliance with standards and regulations in PHR systems is still low.
A bootstrapping method for development of Treebank

Using statistical approaches beside the traditional methods of natural language processing could significantly improve both the quality and performance of several natural language processing (NLP) tasks. The effective usage of these approaches is subject to the availability of the informative, accurate and detailed corpora on which the learners are trained. This article introduces a bootstrapping method for developing annotated corpora based on a complex and rich linguistically motivated elementary structure called supertag. To this end, a hybrid method for supertagging is proposed that combines both of the generative and discriminative methods of supertagging. The method was applied on a subset of Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in order to annotate its sentences with a set of linguistically motivated elementary structures of the English XTAG grammar that is using a lexicalised tree-adjoining grammar formalism. The empirical results confirm that the bootstrapping method provides a satisfactory way for annotating the English sentences with the mentioned structures. The experiments show that the method could automatically annotate about 20% of WSJ with the accuracy of F-measure about 80% of which is particularly 12% higher than the F-measure of the XTAG Treebank automatically generated from the approach proposed by Basirat and Faili [(2013). Bridge the gap between statistical and hand-crafted grammars. Computer Speech and Language, 27, 1085–1104].
Elevated Intracellular Ca2+ Signals by Oxidative Stress Activate Connexin 43 Hemichannels in Osteocytes

Elevated oxidative stress (OS) during aging leads to bone loss. OS increases intracellular Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i), resulting in cellular damage and death. We show earlier that Cx43 hemichannels open in response to OS, which serves as a protective mechanism for osteocytes. However, the underlying mechanism is unknown. Here, we found that treatment with H2O2 increased [Ca2+]i in osteocytes with [Ca2+]i being primarily derived from an extracellular Ca2+ source. Hemichannel opening induced by OS was inhibited by the depletion of [Ca2+]i with BAPTA-AM, a Ca2+ chelator, suggesting that [Ca2+]i influenced the activity of Cx43 hemichannels. Conversely, blockade of hemichannels had no effect on [Ca2+]i. A biotinylation assay showed that cell surface-expressed Cx43 was increased by OS, which could be inhibited by BAPTA-AM, suggesting that [Ca2+]i is necessary for Cx43 migration to the cell surface in response to OS. Together, these data suggest that increased hemichannel activity induced by OS was likely to be caused by elevated [Ca2+]i through increased Cx43 on the cell surface.
Is There ‘a Point’ to Markets? A Response to Martin

Dominic Martin attributes to me and other adherents of the market-failures approach to business ethics a narrow account of justification, focused solely on economic efficiency. On the contrary, I argue the appeal to efficiency and market failure is best seen as a pragmatic, Rawlsian, strategy to find common ground and a shared vocabulary for business ethicists who have long been Balkanized by overly ideological “theories. ” So understood, the market-failures approach is not the reductivist program Martin portrays it to be. Efficiency and the taming of market failures should be seen as one of many grounds (albeit usually the most important) for both regulatory and beyond-compliance norms for business in a capitalist democracy. DOMINIC MARTIN’S MOST challenging criticisms of a recent article of mine can be traced back to vagueness and ambiguity already apparent in the article’s title: “Business Ethics as Self-Regulation: Why Principles that Ground Regulations Should be Used to Ground Beyond-Compliance Norms as Well” (Norman 2011). The weasel word “as” in the title leaves unclear how similar the concepts of ‘busiBusiness Ethics Journal Review SCHOLARLY COMMENTS ON ACADEMIC BUSINESS ETHICS businessethicsjournalreview.com ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Discuss this commentary at http://bejr.co/2014-0204x 1 Duke University. Email: wayne.norman@duke.edu Cite as: Bus Ethics J Rev 2(4): 22–28, http://doi.org/10.12747/bejr2014.02. 04 Edited by Chris MacDonald & Alexei Marcoux
Accounting Returns, Investment Decisions, and the Movie Industry

We empirically examine how managers make capital project choices in the movie industry within the context of several hypotheses suggested by extant theoretical research in accounting and finance. If value or profit maximization is the ultimate motive for the manager, managers choose projects with competitive advantage as such projects would enhance a firm’s returns. On the other hand, agency theories prescribe that managers may choose projects for a variety of private benefits arising from career and other concerns. Our analysis of a large sample of project-level data in the movie industry is consistent with a competitive equilibrium wherein a meaningful determinant of project choice is the trade-off between private benefits and commercial success. Extant theories in finance prescribe that in the absence of capital constraints, managers acting in the interest of a firm‘s shareholders should accept capital projects with a positive net present value. Similarly, theories in accounting recommend that managers should accept projects with accounting returns (revenues divided by costs) greater than zero. Empirical studies on ex-post returns for capital projects, however, are very limited and largely restricted to projects at the firm-level as data are typically only available at the aggregate-level for the entire portfolio of the firm‘s projects, rather than a specific project. In this paper, we examine project-specific empirical evidence on capital projects by looking at project choice in the movie industry. Our motivation for examining investment decisions in the movie industry is that we are able to obtain rich project-by-project data for projects in this industry. Furthermore, our interest in the use of the movie industry as a useful laboratory for testing theories of project choice follows the increased attention to the movie industry by scholars in a variety of disciplines—probably because of the entry of hedge funds as co-financing partners in the movie picture industry. The popular press has been replete with references to this interest (see, for example, Holson 2006 and Kelly 2006). Our selection of the movie projects we choose to examine in our study is guided by the growing scholarly attention to movie ratings given by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to assist parents in making decisions about the appropriateness of a given movie. The major categories given by the MPAA are: G,
Characterization of a Mycobacterium tuberculosis Peptide That Is Recognized by Human CD4+ and CD8+ T Cells in the Context of Multiple HLA Alleles1

The secreted Mycobacterium tuberculosis 10-kDa culture filtrate protein (CFP)10 is a potent T cell Ag that is recognized by a high percentage of persons infected with M. tuberculosis. We determined the molecular basis for this widespread recognition by identifying and characterizing a 15-mer peptide, CFP1071–85, that elicited IFN-γ production and CTL activity by both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells from persons expressing multiple MHC class II and class I molecules, respectively. CFP1071–85 contained at least two epitopes, one of 10 aa (peptide T1) and another of 9 aa (peptide T6). T1 was recognized by CD4+ cells in the context of DRB1*04, DR5*0101, and DQB1*03, and by CD8+ cells of A2+ donors. T6 elicited responses by CD4+ cells in the context of DRB1*04 and DQB1*03, and by CD8+ cells of B35+ donors. Deleting a single amino acid from the amino or carboxy terminus of either peptide markedly reduced IFN-γ production, suggesting that they are minimal epitopes for both CD4+ and CD8+ cells. As far as we are aware, these are the shortest microbial peptides that have been found to elicit responses by both T cell subpopulations. The capacity of CFP1071–85 to stimulate IFN-γ production and CTL activity by CD4+ and CD8+ cells from persons expressing a spectrum of MHC molecules suggests that this peptide is an excellent candidate for inclusion in a subunit antituberculosis vaccine.
The Lending Channel in Emerging Economies: A Look at the International Evidence

Title of Dissertation: THE LENDING CHANNEL IN EMERGING ECONOMIES: A LOOK AT THE INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE Francisco Vazquez, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Dissertation Directed By: Professor Carmen Reinhart, Department of Economics This thesis studies the role of banks in the transmission of nominal shocks into credit markets in emerging countries. It builds on the lending channel hypothesis, which states that, due to imperfections in capital markets, banks may not be able to completely offset a negative shock to deposits with other sources of finance. As a result, they may choose to cut credit, affecting the financing possibilities of bankdependent firms and amplifying the effects of monetary shocks on economic activity. Empirical work on the lending channel in emerging countries is scarce. This thesis argues that, since the mechanism relies on the presence of imperfections in capital markets, it should be expected to be stronger in emerging countries. Therefore, looking at the cross-country evidence provides a source of variation that has not been previously exploited in the literature. The thesis is divided in three chapters. The first develops a model of the lending channel in a small open economy to study how differences in the severity capital market imperfections affect the power of the mechanism. The second takes of the model to the data, using a bank-level panel dataset of 832 banks in 27 countries during 1986-1998. The chapter tests for systematic cross-sectional differences in the response of loan growth to monetary conditions across banks of various characteristics and across developed and emerging countries. The third chapter further looks at the evidence from emerging markets, using differences in bank ownership to proxy for unobserved financial constraints facing banks. In particular, it builds on the presumption that foreign banks operating in emerging markets are less financially constrained than domestic. The test exploits a novel bank-level dataset comprising 1565 banks in 20 emerging countries during 1989-2001, to look for systematic differences across domestic and foreign banks. The results obtained are supportive of the existence of a lending channel mechanism that is stronger in emerging countries. On the other hand, the behavior of domestic and foreign banks is not found to be markedly different, which may imply that foreign banks in emerging countries are prevented from freely resorting to upstream financing from their mother institutions. THE LENDING CHANNEL IN EMERGING ECONOMIES: A LOOK AT THE INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE
The effect of amplified spontaneous emission on the measurement of the multiplet state distribution of ground state oxygen atoms

Amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) is a process which competes with laser‐induced fluorescence (LIF) in three level systems. This was demonstrated in the case of oxygen atoms, for which both ASE and LIF were observed at 845 nm. Ground state oxygen atoms were generated by photodissociating O2, SO2, and NO2 in a pump and probe experiment. Both nascent and thermalized O(3Pj‘) atoms were measured using two‐photon LIF at 226 nm. The fine structure populations deduced from the 845 nm (3p3Pj’→3s3S) emission were considerably hotter than the distributions obtained from the 130 nm (3s3S→2p3P) transition. A kinetic model is developed showing that the distributions observed at 845 are distorted by ASE, which selectively depletes the populations of atoms originating from more highly populated multiplet levels.
Procedural Aspects of Tax Fairness: A Content Analysis of Canadian Tax Jurisprudence

ABSTRACT: We undertake a directed content analysis of Canadian tax jurisprudence to analyze procedural, interpersonal, and informational fairness, and their respective criteria, in the tax context. To facilitate our analysis, we apply Colquitt's (2001) theoretical framework of fairness. Consistent with this framework, we find 198 cases that contain procedural fairness, 34 cases that contain interpersonal fairness, and 37 cases that contain informational fairness. Furthermore, we identify seven criteria of procedural tax fairness (accuracy, bias, consistency, compatibility, correctibility, representativeness, voice), three criteria of interpersonal tax fairness (respect, propriety, timeliness), and four criteria of informational tax fairness (justification, truthfulness, full disclosure, taxpayer technical competence). Implications for taxpayers, tax authorities, and tax researchers are discussed.
Experimental Setup and Configuration for Joint Attention in CASIR

The aim of this report is to present the experimental equipment, setup and configuration to be used within the scope of the CASIR project, designed with the purpose of studying the influence of automatic (i.e. involuntary) attentional processes in social interaction with robots. A detailed description of the architecture will be presented, namely in what regards the hardware and computational resources supporting the robotic active head to be used as the prototypical robotic agent used throughout the project. Moreover, the configuration of the experimental space will be described, focussing on its potential for enacting the intended human-robot interaction (HRI) scenarios.
An Empirical Study of Forex Risk Management Strategies

There are a variety of strategies which are designed to manage foreign exchange risk. Each of them, however, is constructed under specific assumptions, for a specific risk profile. It is often the case that several strategies are applicable to a given scenario. The question arises as to which strategy would be expected to yield the best results in a given scenario. The current study addresses this issue empirically, using a set of simulated foreign exchange cash flows to compare the profits resulting from the use of different foreign exchange risk management strategies. The risk management strategies considered for the study are: forward currency contacts, currency options, and cross-currency hedges. The study analyzes and evaluates these foreign exchange risk management strategies to find out which of the strategies is appropriate in particular situations.
Non-Parametric Estimation of the Periodic Signal Parameters in the Frequency Domain

Parameters estimations of periodic signals ( ) g t , where frequency of the investigated component is the key parameter, play a fundamental role in a variety of applications: impedance measurement, power quality estimation, radar, A/D testing, etc. The problem of evaluating the spectral performance of a given periodic signal reduces to the parameter estimation of each spectral component (frequency, amplitude, and phase) in the presence of noise. Estimation methods can be classified as parametric (D’Antona & Ferrero, 2006) and nonparametric (Agrež, 2002). Parametric methods are model-based and have very good selectivity and statistical efficiency, but require computationally intensive algorithms and very good ‘model agreement’ with a real multi-component signal. For this reason, such methods are unsuitable for many estimation problems. A better approach is to use nonparametric methods, which estimate the spectral parameters of interest by evaluating first the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of the signal and then the parameters of the particular component. As we are dealing with periodic signals, the integral frequency transformation with the kernel j ft e− 2π is, in principle, the best approximation to periodicity of the signal. Analysis of the frequency spectrum provides the opportunity to see systematic periodicities in the presence of the reduced random noise by integration. Many of these estimations are based on coherent sampling; that is, on the accurate synchronization of the signal and the sampling rate, and on the collection of a number of samples belonging to an integer number of the signal periods. However, the normal situation for signal parameter estimation is non-coherent, or quasi-coherent sampling, and in such a sampled signal there can also be spurious components. When failing to observe an integer number of periods of even a single tone, the tone energy is spread over the whole frequency axis, and the leakage from neighboring components can significantly bias estimations of the component parameters.
Making Sense of Measurement for Small Organizations

The key to successful measurement programs is to make the metrics meaningful and tailor them to the organization-however small it might be. Here the author explains how he helped three small companies reduce the time spent handling change requests, correcting errors, and generating system versions and production releases. Both the developers and customers appreciated the improved practices.
The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on the Customer Commitment and Trust in the Retail Sector

The present paper aims at confirming the influence of CSR policies on building up customer relationship through improving trust and commitment, and at the same time to study the influence of these values on satisfaction and loyalty. To achieve this purpose, a causal model that establishes the relationship between those variables has been developed and empirically tested. In order to verify the proposed hypothesis a structured survey was developed. The survey was given to a sample of 501 customers (valid responses) of modern distribution retail stores (supermarkets and hypermarkets) in Spain. All hypotheses are supported, thus confirming that the consumer perception on CSR policies carried out by the retailer influence on trust and consumer commitment to the company. As these variables affect satisfaction and loyalty, these results also confirm the indirect influence of CSR on customer satisfaction, through these relational variables. Therefore CSR is an essential tool for developing a long-standing relationship between the customer and the company. The originality is that there are very few works that address the study of the relationship between CSR and relational variables commitment and trust. The sample, consumers of retail establishments, is another originality. And the value is that CSR improves the competitiveness of retailing companies through the relational variables.
A 1.8-V 40-mW Wide-Band CMOS Synthesizer for Cable Tuner Applications

A 1.8-V wide-band CMOS synthesizer for cable tuner applications is designed in a 0.18-mum CMOS process. A ring oscillator with switched-capacitor arrays is employed to achieve a wide operating frequency range from 160 MHz to 648 MHz. The measured phase noise is -104.16 dBc/Hz and -110 dBc/Hz at frequency offsets of 10 kHz and 1 MHz respectively. The spur performance is less than -64 dBc at 4-MHz offset. The measured IQ phase mismatch is less than 0.1 degree, and the image rejection measured with on-chip mixers is more than 61dB. The synthesizer dissipates 40mW from a single 1.8-V supply. The core chip area is 2 mm2
A two-stage suboptimal approximation for variable compliance and torque control

Variable-stiffness actuator is a very appealing mechatronic design that combines the efficiency of stiff actuator in free space with the consistency of elastic actuation in contact. The control of such an actuation system remains a challenge due to its non-linearity and by the fact that it doubles the number of control inputs. In this paper, we propose an original control strategy to compute the whole-body movement of a complex variable-stiffness robot during dynamic task execution. Operational space control is first used to compute both the joint torque and stiffness from operational references. A non-linear model-predictive controller is then proposed to track at higher frequency these references on each joint separately. The effectiveness of this approach is then validated on two models of real actuator with adjustable stiffness, and finally on an explosive motion to make a humanoid robot jump.