Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Climate adaptation imperatives: global sustainability trends and eco-efficiency metrics in four major crops – canola, cotton, maize, and soybeans

Supplying our world's growing nutrition needs in more sustainable ways has become an urgent global imperative, given the constraints of finite resources and the challenges of accelerating climate change. We present national-level eco-efficiency metrics in several representative production countries during the most recent decade (2000–2010) for four important crops: canola, cotton, maize, and soybeans. The metrics address greenhouse gas emissions and the utilization of land, water, and energy – all calculated per unit of production. We group countries based on their level of agricultural intensification and find that high-intensification countries are achieving the highest and yet still increasing levels of eco-efficiency, with these decadal gains: canola (26%), cotton (23%), maize (17%), and soybeans (18%). By stark contrast, low-intensification countries had no change in eco-efficiency during this same decade. Overall, our results suggest large opportunities for additional improvements in the developing world, and that cumulative resource savings through intensification have been significant. For instance, in the case of irrigated maize, if the high- and medium-intensification production countries had only achieved the same irrigation water-use efficiency as in the low-intensification countries, approximately 4 quadrillion (4×1015) more litres of irrigation water would have been consumed during the period 2000–2010.
The Benefits of International Diversification in Bonds

Some institutional investors may be confined (either by policy or by regulation) to holdings in the bond market. In the 1960-80 period, the U.S. stock market dominated the U.S. bond market in terms of risk-adjusted returns. But an internationally diversified portfolio of bonds dominated an internationally diversified stock portfolio. The low correlations across world bond markets allowed U.S. investors to increase their dollar returns at the price of a smaller increase in risk than that required to achieve the same incremental returns from diversification in stocks. The gain from international diversification was substantial. A U.S. investor who diversified across world bond markets could have earned more than double the mean rate of return on a U.S. bond portfolio, at the same risk level. For investors not confined to bonds, the gains from international diversification in bonds and stocks were even more impressive.
Markov Chains with Continuous Components

0. Introduction The structure and solidarity properties of general Markov chains satisfying the measure-theoretic condition of 59-irreducibility, for some <p, are now well known (see, for example, Orey [8], Revuz [11]), and show a striking similarity to these properties for irreducible Markov chains on a countable state space. If the state space is topological then the condition of <pirreducibility is somewhat unnatural; however, it has so far proved difficult to achieve results of the same strength when 53-irreducibility is replaced by other, more topologically motivated, conditions. Several authors have given results bearing some resemblance to the '99-solidarity' properties for Markov chains whose transition probabilities are weakly continuous (see, for example, Foguel [2], Jamison [5], Rosenblatt [13, 14]). In this paper we propose a different form of continuity condition, namely the existence of a continuous component in the transition mechanism of the chain. Our condition is automatically satisfied by strongly Feller chains, i.e. in the special case where the transition probabilities are strongly continuous; but in general it is much weaker than the strong Feller condition. In § 4 we shall show that if this 'continuous component' is non-trivial in suitable ways then certain local topological irreducibility, recurrence or positivity conditions imply the corresponding ^-solidarity properties. These results are analogous to those known for 'spread-out' random walks, and we show in §5 that in fact our continuous component exists for random walks if and only if the increment distribution is spread-out; hence our condition can be seen as an exact generalization of this random walk concept for more general Markov chains. In § 6 we turn to chains which do not necessarily have any topological irreducibility structure. The main theorem of this section, and of the whole paper, states that, when the chain has a suitably non-trivial continuous component and the topology is Tx with a countable basis, the state space admits a decomposition into a countable number of stochastically closed Harris sets (i.e. the restriction of the chain to each
DUTH at SemEval-2017 Task 4: A Voting Classification Approach for Twitter Sentiment Analysis

This report describes our participation to SemEval-2017 Task 4: Sentiment Analysis in Twitter, specifically in subtasks A, B, and C. The approach for text sentiment classification is based on a Majority Vote scheme and combined supervised machine learning methods with classical linguistic resources, including bag-of-words and sentiment lexicon features.
Effects of arsenic trioxide (As2O3) on leukemic cells from patients with non‐M3 acute myelogenous leukemia: studies of cytotoxicity, apoptosis and the pattern of resistance

Abstract: Arsenic oxide (As2O3) has recently been reported to induce remission in a high percentage of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of As2O3 at therapeutic concentrations on cell viability and apoptosis on leukemic cells from patients with non‐M3 acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and to study the resistance profile compared to conventional AML drugs. Cells from 20 patients were exposed to therapeutic concentrations of As2O3 continuously for 96h. As2O3 reduced the viability in blast cells from all the 20 tested patients compared to unexposed controls (p‐value: 0.02 at 0.05 µM; <0.005 at 1.0 µM and higher concentrations). An increase in the apoptotic rate was also seen after incubation with As2O3. Parallel to the incubation with arsenic the in vitro sensitivity to a number of chemotherapeutic agents commonly used in AML was studied. Correlation coefficients for the in vitro sensitivity were highly significant between the conventional AML drugs except for Ara‐C. For As2O3, all the correlation coefficients were negative and ranged between −0.05 and −0.51. Furthermore, increased P‐gp expression in a multidrug resistant HL‐60 cell line did not decrease the sensitivity to As2O3 as compared to the parental cell line. Neither did a P‐gp‐transfected variant of the K562 cell line show decreased sensitivity to As2O3. We conclude that As2O3 at therapeutic concentrations induces apoptosis and cytotoxic effects in blast cells from patients with non‐M3 AML, and that As2O3 differs from conventional AML drugs with respect to the mechanisms that confer resistance to the drugs.
An Empirical Investigation of Audit Fees, Nonaudit Fees, and Audit Committees*

This study examines the association between audit committee characteristics and the ratio of nonaudit service (NAS) fees to audit fees, using data gathered under the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC's) fee disclosure rules. Issues related to NAS fees have been of concern to practitioners, regulators, and academics for a number of years. Prior research suggests that audit committees possessing certain characteristics are important participants in the process of managing the clientâ€ auditor relationship. We hypothesize that audit committees that are independent and active financial monitors have incentives to limit NAS fees (relative to audit fees) paid to incumbent auditors, in an effort to enhance auditor independence in either appearance or fact. Our analysis using a sample of 538 firms indicates that audit committees comprised solely of independent directors meeting at least four times annually are significantly and negatively associated with the NAS fee ratio. This evidence is consistent with audit committee members perceiving a high level of NAS fees in a negative light and taking actions to decrease the NAS fee ratio.
Content-Based Visual Landmark Search via Multimodal Hypergraph Learning

While content-based landmark image search has recently received a lot of attention and became a very active domain, it still remains a challenging problem. Among the various reasons, high diverse visual content is the most significant one. It is common that for the same landmark, images with a wide range of visual appearances can be found from different sources and different landmarks may share very similar sets of images. As a consequence, it is very hard to accurately estimate the similarities between the landmarks purely based on single type of visual feature. Moreover, the relationships between landmark images can be very complex and how to develop an effective modeling scheme to characterize the associations still remains an open question. Motivated by these concerns, we propose multimodal hypergraph (MMHG) to characterize the complex associations between landmark images. In MMHG, images are modeled as independent vertices and hyperedges contain several vertices corresponding to particular views. Multiple hypergraphs are firstly constructed independently based on different visual modalities to describe the hidden high-order relations from different aspects. Then, they are integrated together to involve discriminative information from heterogeneous sources. We also propose a novel content-based visual landmark search system based on MMHG to facilitate effective search. Distinguished from the existing approaches, we design a unified computational module to support query-specific combination weight learning. An extensive experiment study on a large-scale test collection demonstrates the effectiveness of our scheme over state-of-the-art approaches.
On the Limitations of Monetary Policy

This paper argues that in a homogeneous monetary Real Business Cycle economy where a complete set of nominal contingent claims exist, the requirement to collateralize loans, alone, does not affect the equilibrium allocation when monetary policy is chosen optimally: the Pareto optimal allocation can be supported. Rather, it is the presence of additional inefficiencies such as market incompleteness or heterogeneity of agents that limits the ability of optimal monetary policy, and more precisely, inflation, to support the first best allocation. In our model policy is non-Ricardian or equivalently outside money exists, and the Central Bank trades only in short-term nominally risk-free bonds: as a consequence monetary policy that sets rates of interest and accommodates money demand effectively determines the allocation of prices at equilibrium. A Friedman rule (r=0), which would be optimal in the absence of collateral constraints, here it is not: at the resulting prices collateral constraints bind. A path of prices that avoids binding collateral constraints necessarily involves a non-zero interest rate. The path of prices that supports the Pareto optimal allocation occurs when the collateral constraint binds: a positive inflation tax on money balances is efficient. For interest rates that permit the collateral constraint to bind, a policy of stable inflation (alternatively, money growth) implies that the collateral constraint binds after a sequence of positive (respectively negative) productivity shocks followed by a negative (respectively positive) productivity shock.
μRNG: A 300–950mV 323Gbps/W all-digital full-entropy true random number generator in 14nm FinFET CMOS

An all-digital full-entropy True Random Number Generator (TRNG) with measured 1.3GHz operation and total power consumption of 1.5mW at 0.75V, 25oC is fabricated in 14nm FinFET CMOS. Three independent self-calibrating entropy sources, coupled with pre-extraction correlation suppressors and a real-time BIW extractor enable ultra-low energy consumption of 3pJ/bit, while generating cryptographic-quality keys with measured Shannon entropy up to 0.99999999995 and lower-bound min-entropy >0.99. The 100% digital design enables a compact layout occupying 1088μm2, with scalable operation down to 300mV, while passing all NIST statistical randomness tests.
5‐Ethynyl‐2′‐deoxyuridine labeling detects proliferating cells in the regenerating avian cochlea

The avian cochlea regenerates hair cells following aminoglycoside treatment through supporting cell proliferation. Immunocytochemical labeling of 5‐bromo‐2′‐deoxyuridine (BrdU), a thymidine analog, is a popular nonradioactive marker for identifying cells in the DNA synthesis (S phase) of the cell cycle. However, it requires harsh treatments to denature double‐stranded DNA for the antibody to bind BrdU. We explored a new method using 5‐ethynyl‐2′‐deoxyuridine (EdU) as a thymidine analog and a nonantibody azide/alkyne reaction between EdU and the fluorescent probe. We propose that EdU is as effective as BrdU, but without the requirement for harsh denaturation or the use of antibodies for detection.
Emission inventory assessment for a container vessel

This paper presents estimates of exhaust emissions from a container vessel during its voyages by using current best-practice inventory methodology. Emission estimates are performed for both criteria air pollutants and greenhouse gases. Two approaches, power-based and fuel-based, are applied for emission calculations, where the former involves multiplying power-based emission factors by engine power consumptions and the latter utilizes fuel based emission factors with fuel usage data. With the use of latest emission factors and real data on vessel activity profiles, our emission estimates provide better representation of the actual vessel emission performance. Moreover, good consistency between power-based estimates and fuel-based estimates proves reliability in emission inventory results.
A New Approach to the Economic Theory of Fertility Behavior

A static economic theory of lifetime marital fertility is presented within the context of the economic theory of the family. The theoretical model is developed under a set of restrictive assumptions designed to make it analytically tractable and capable of yielding implications which may be tested with individual data on the number of children born to recent cohorts of American women who have completed their fertility. The model also has implications for child "quality" which is defined as a function of the resources parents devote to each child and for the wifes lifetime market earnings capacity and labor supply. Focus is on fertility as a form of economic behavior fertility demand and the demand for child quality the supply of child services and the allocation of time desired fertility and wifes labor force participation and empirical results. On the basis of the evidence presented it appears that the interaction model captures an important empirical regularity in the cross-section relationship between fertility and measures of husbands income and wifes education that has become apparent in the emergence of a U-shaped relationship between fertility and income. This relationship has been observed in many advanced countries in the past 25 years and was an incipient relation at the lower levels of income and education prevailing in earlier periods. This empirical regularity is also consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model of fertility demand developed in this paper and must therefore be counted as evidence in its favor.
Investigation of the relationship between real exchange rate uncertainty and private investment in Iran: An application of bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH)-M Model with BEKK approach

This paper investigates the relationship between real exchange rate uncertainty and private investment in Iran for the period of 1988 to 2008 by using quarterly data and applying bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (Bivariate GARCH) model in the Iranian economy. We employ this model to examine in a unified empirical framework the interactions between the variables: first, we are interested to know whether there are bidirectional mean spillovers between real exchange rate and private investment. Second, we want to test if real exchange rate uncertainty has a negative impact on investment as predicted by Dixit and Pindyck (1994). Third, we are going to test if private investment uncertainty reduces the level of private investment. The main findings are that there are bidirectional mean spillovers between real exchange rate and private investment. Real exchange rate uncertainty significantly influences private investment and has a negative effect on it. And finally, our empirical evidence shows that private investment uncertainty affects the level of private investment, negatively. Key words: Real exchange rate uncertainty, private investment, bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (Bivariate GARCH) model, Iran.
Text and Voice: Complements, Substitutes or Both?

Text messaging has become an important revenue component for European and Asian mobile operators. We develop a simple model of demand for mobile services incorporating the existence of call externalities and network effects. We show that when incoming messages and calls stimulate outgoing communications, services that are perceived as substitutes, such as mobile text and voice, may evolve into complements in terms of the price effect when the network size becomes large. We estimate the demand for text messaging in the Norwegian market and find that the cross-price effect of voice depends on the network size. Voice is a substitute for text messages for small network sizes, and a complement for large network sizes.
Two visual systems in one brain: Neuropils serving the principal eyes of the spider Cupiennius salei

Principal (anterior median) eyes of the wandering spider Cupiennius are served by three successive neuropils, the organization of which is distinct from those serving secondary eyes. Photoreceptors terminate in the first optic neuropil amongst second order neurons with overlapping dendritic fields. Second order neurons terminate at various depths in anterior median eye medulla where they are visited by bush‐like dendritic trees of third order projection neurons. These supply tracts which extend into the “central body. ” This crescent‐shaped neuropil lies midsagittally in the rear of the brain near its dorsal surface. It is organized into columns and it supplies both columnar and tangential efferents to other brain centers. The supply to and organization of the “central body” neuropil is reminiscent of retinotopic neuropils supplying the lobula of insects. Channels to the “central body” comprise one of two concurrent visual pathways, the other provided by the secondary eyes supplying the “mushroom body. ” We suggest that principal eye pathways may be involved in form and texture perception whereas secondary eyes detect motion, as is known for jumping spiders. Our data do not support Hanström's classical view that the “central body” is specifically associated with web‐building, nor that it is homologous to its namesake in insect brains. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
An updated pooled analysis of glutathione S-transferase genotype polymorphisms and risk of adult gliomas.

OBJECTIVE Glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) are multifunctional enzymes that play a crucial role in the detoxification of both the endogenous products of oxidative stress and exogenous carcinogens. Recent studies investigating the association between genetic polymorphisms in GSTs and the risk of adult brain tumors have reported conflicting results. The rationale of this pooled analysis was to determine whether the presence of a GST variant increases adult glioma susceptibility by combining data from multiple studies. METHODS In our meta-analysis, 12 studies were identified by a search of the MEDLINE, HIGHWIRE, SCIENCEDIRECT and EMBASE databases. Of those 12, 11 evaluated GSTM1, nine evaluated GSTT1 and seven evaluated GSTP1 Ile105Val. Between-study heterogeneity was assessed using χ2-based Q statistic and the I2 statistic. Crude odds ratios (ORs) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to estimate the association between GSTM1, GSTT1 and GSTP1 polymorphisms and the risk of adult gliomas. RESULTS The quantitative synthesis showed no significant evidence to indicate an association exists between the presence of a GSTM1, GSTT1 or GSTP1 Ile105Val haplotype polymorphism and the risk of adult gliomas (OR, 1.008, 1.246, 1.061 respectively; 95% CI, 0.901-1.129, 0.963-1.611, 0.653-1.724 respectively). CONCLUSIONS Overall, this study did not suggest any strong relationship between GST variants or related enzyme polymorphisms and an increased risk of adult gliomas. Some caveats include absence of specific raw information on ethnic groups or smoking history on glioma cases in published articles; therefore, well-designed studies with a clear stratified analysis on potential confounding factors are needed to confirm these results.
Should Shareholders have a Greater Say Over Executive Pay?: Learning from the US Experience

Executive pay arrangements in Britain's publicly quoted companies have been subjected to much criticism in recent years. Proposals that shareholders should have a greater direct say over managerial remuneration have been a by-product of the concerns expressed. Debate on this point, however, has been largely speculative. This is because there is little evidence available in the United Kingdom indicating how shareholders would exercise any new powers they might be given. This paper addresses the evidentiary gap by drawing upon the experience in the United States, where empirical work indicates that shareholder voting only operates as a potential check when pay arrangements deviate far from the norm. In a British context, these findings imply that implementing the shareholder-oriented reforms that have been canvassed recently would fail to address fully the concerns raised by critics of executive pay.
A comparison of student attitudes and perceptions before and after an introductory interprofessional education experience

Abstract There is increasing acknowledgement that interprofessional education (IPE) holds promise for preparing health professionals as collaborative-ready practitioners. The effects of IPE on learning outcomes are critical in determining the value of such programs. Attitudes are recognized as a significant element in developing behaviors. This study was designed to determine attitudes and perceptions of students toward collaborative learning in an interprofessional context. Three hundred and five students completed a questionnaire regarding attitudes and perceptions toward interprofessional collaboration before and after an introductory IPE course. Also 202 graduating health professional students without IPE completed the same questionnaire. The questionnaire included questions from the University of West England Interprofessional Questionnaire (UWE IQ) and Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS). Independent samples t-tests revealed significant positive changes before and after the IPE course for UWEIQ IP-Learning subscale (p = 0.012) and RIPLS (p = 0.05). This study provides some evidence that students who participate in an introductory IPE course early in their professional preparation not only keep positive attitudes toward interprofessional learning, but improve them. As a result, they are expected to be more engaged in learning this important knowledge that should help them to become interprofessional collaborative-ready practitioners.