Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Migrants’ Remittances and Financial Development: Macro‐ and Micro‐Level Evidence of a Perverse Relationship

Financial development and financial literacy in developing countries are commonly identified as important conditions for attaining higher rates of investment and economic growth. It has also been argued that migrants’ remittances stimulate financial development in the receiving economy, contributing indirectly to economic growth. Past research has been based almost exclusively on the macro-level relationship between remittances and financial depth. To explore this relationship further, we combine macroeconomic analysis using a cross-country panel dataset with micro-level analysis of households’ uses of financial sector services. From the macroeconomic analysis we find evidence of a negative relationship between remittances and financial deepening in developing countries, once we control for the countries’ legal origin. At the microeconomic level we use household survey data from a recent study of migrants’ remittances in two transition economies, resource rich and relatively more financially developed Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan, to test the relationship between remittances and financial literacy among remittance-receiving households. While we find some supportive evidence, albeit weak, for Kyrgyzstan, in Azerbaijan, the relatively more financially-developed economy, we uncover a strong perverse relationship. Remittances appear to deter the use of formal banking services. Possible reasons are explored and areas for further investigation identified.
Identification of Cellular Processes That Are Rapidly Modulated in Response to Tracheal Occlusion Within Mice Lungs

Lung development progresses through a process reliant on mechanical cell stretch. However, this process is not well defined at the molecular level. Our goal was to globally analyze the transcriptome of fetal mouse lungs following short periods of tracheal occlusion (TO) to identify cellular processes that are rapidly modulated in response to intraluminal stretch increase. Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) was used to examine the global transcriptomic response of mouse prealveolar stage lungs to in vivo TO at 1 and 3 h. SAGE results were extended by histo- and immunochemical examination. Based on the 97 TO-modulated transcripts identified, our results further point out that continuous stretch in developing lungs leads directly to rapid and highly specific phenotypic modifications in a significant proportion of pulmonary cells. We conclude that intraluminal stretch increase during prealveolar stage of lung development induces a critical transition of pulmonary cells phenotype in which there is an increase in α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA)–containing cells along with a relative decrease in lipid-containing cells.
Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War

The profound changes now underway in Europe have been widely viewed as harbingers of a new age of peace. With the Cold War over, it is said, the threat of war that has hung over Europe for more than four decades is lifting. Swords can now be beaten into ploughshares; harmony can reign among the states and peoples of Europe. Central Europe, which long groaned under the massive forces of the two military blocs, can convert its military bases into industrial parks, playgrounds, and condominiums. Scholars of security affairs can stop their dreary quarrels over military doctrine and balance assessments, and turn their attention to finding ways to prevent global warming and preserve the ozone layer. European leaders can contemplate how to spend peace dividends. So goes the common view. This article assesses this optimistic view by exploring in detail the consequences for Europe of an end to the Cold War. Specifically, I examine the effects of a scenario under which the Cold War comes to a complete end. The Soviet Union withdraws all of its forces from Eastern Europe, leaving the states in that region fully independent. Voices are thereupon raised in the United States, Britain, and Germany, arguing that American and British military forces in Germany have lost their principal ruison d'tfre, and these forces are withdrawn from the Continent. NATO and the Warsaw Pact then dissolve; they may persist on paper, but each ceases to function as an alliance. ' As a result, the bipolar structure that has characterized Europe since
Grandparent-Headed Families: Needs and Implications for Social Work Interventions and Advocacy

As the growth of grandparent-headed families continues, increasing numbers of social workers will find themselves dealing with the multitude of issues that these families face. Understanding the needs and concerns of these families is critical for the development of appropriate interventions, which include counseling, support groups, working with schools, and case management. This article discusses specific interventions social workers can use in working with these families. In addition, because their needs and problems are often systemic and not the result of any individual pathology, it stresses (a) the importance of working with grandparents to help them become self-advocates and (b) the role of social workers in changing unresponsive and insensitive policies and systems.
Multiple-Input Multiple-Output System Antenna Subset Selection with HARQ

This paper investigates the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna subset selection combined with space-time coding (STC) in retransmit system, e.g. hybrid automatic repeated request (HARQ). As we know space-time coding (STC), transmit antenna selection (TAS), as well as some receive diversity combining techniques such as selection combing (SC) and maximal ratio combining (MRC) offer considerable diversity gain. Therefore, they are combined in a system named TAS/STBC/HARQ which has been investigated in this paper. The performance of bit error rate (BER) is analyzed in flat fading channel. The numerical results based on the SC and MRC reveal that the scheme achieves great diversity gain. The diversity gain is greater than the MIMO transmit antenna subset selection with STC, when no HARQ is utilized, except for little coding gain loss and larger time delay. Moreover, our system also has the advantage of throughput with turbo encoder.
Open source embedded data logger design for PV system monitoring

The monitoring system in photovoltaic power generating system is very important and crucial in some cases for evaluating, troubleshooting and in decision making issue. This paper proposes very simple and low cost an embedded data logger with the high reliability and high precision for monitoring PV power generating system. The data logger meets all of the relevant requirements in terms of accuracy included in the International Electro technical Commission (IEC) standards for PV systems. The implementation process, including design and development of the hardware and software, is explained in detail. The electrical and meteorological sensor outputs are first conditioned according to microcontroller analogue to digital converter input needs using precision electronic amplifier and active filter circuits and then digitized and processed using 32 bit ARM Cortex M4 core microcontroller. Some sample deployment and measurement results are also presented to demonstrate the usefulness of the monitoring system.
The Rise and Fall of US Dollar Interest Rate Volatility: Evidence from Swaptions

Interest rate volatility, as implied by swaptions prices, rose in all major economic areas between 2001 and early 2004. The increase was particularly sharp for US rates and was more sizeable for short-term rates and swaptions with short expiration. Since the spring of 2004, US dollar volatilities have declined to the values recorded for euro rates and their term structure has flattened. The rise and fall of US dollar implied volatility reflected changes both in expectations of realised volatility and in the compensation for volatility risk.
CLASH: THE CONCENTRATION-MASS RELATION OF GALAXY CLUSTERS

We present a new determination of the concentration–mass (c–M) relation for galaxy clusters based on our comprehensive lensing analysis of 19 X-ray selected galaxy clusters from the Cluster Lensing and Supernova Survey with Hubble (CLASH). Our sample spans a redshift range between 0.19 and 0.89. We combine weak-lensing constraints from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and from ground-based wide-field data with strong lensing constraints from HST. The results are reconstructions of the surface-mass density for all CLASH clusters on multi-scale grids. Our derivation of Navarro–Frenk–White parameters yields virial masses between 0.53 × 10 15 M ⊙ / h ? > and 1.76 × 10 15 M ⊙ / h ? > and the halo concentrations are distributed around c 200 c ∼ 3.7 ? > with a 1 &sgr; ? > significant negative slope with cluster mass. We find an excellent 4% agreement in the median ratio of our measured concentrations for each cluster and the respective expectation from numerical simulations after accounting for the CLASH selection function based on X-ray morphology. The simulations are analyzed in two dimensions to account for possible biases in the lensing reconstructions due to projection effects. The theoretical c–M relation from our X-ray selected set of simulated clusters and the c–M relation derived directly from the CLASH data agree at the 90% confidence level.
Automatic music mood classification by learning cross-media relevance between audio and lyrics

Automatic analysis of the mood of a piece of music is of great value in music searching, understanding, recommendation and some other music-related applications. Different from most of previous methods that adopted a discriminative mood classification scheme, in this paper, we propose a generative multimodal method for automatically classifying the mood of a piece of music based on effective learning of the relevance (i.e. the joint distribution) between the audio and the lyrics modalities of music. We present effective algorithms for computing the word-to-audio and word-to-word relations in the music as well as a priori probability of lyrics words, which altogether form the multimodal joint distribution that distinctively captures the intrinsic characteristic of one specific music mood. A piece of music is then classified to the mood category that maximizes this joint probability of different modalities of music data. The experiment results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method.
University of Amsterdam at THUMOS Challenge 2014

This notebook paper describes our approach for the action classification task of the THUMOS Challenge 2014. We investigate and exploit the action-object relationship by capturing both motion and related objects. As local descriptors we use HOG, HOF and MBH computed along the improved dense trajectories. For video encoding we rely on Fisher vector. In addition, we employ deep net features learned from object attributes to capture action context. All actions are classified with a one-versus-rest linear SVM.
Rethinking Children and Research

Rethinking Children and Research considers the way people approach research into childhood and children’s lives and examines the debates concerning the forms and goals of such research. Theoretical and practice-based perspectives are discussed in the context of recent key developments in research theory and philosophy of children. Mary Kellet promotes the idea that researchers should listen to the voices and perspectives of children as experts on their own lives, and offers insights and guidance on approaches to research design, implementation and presentation. Recent debates and developments are considered, including ethics, approaching research with children from a child-rights framework, and rethinking the power dynamic within research relationships with children. Rethinking Children and Research is essential for studying childhood and undergraduate or postgraduate level, and will be of interest to all involved with research into childhood and children’s lives in the areas of education, health and social services.
Evaluation of inertia matching of trans-femoral prosthesis based on Riemannian distance

A method to quantify the matching of inertia property of a trans-femoral prosthesis to a given user's skill will be explored for better design of the prosthesis. Advancements in the mechanism and the control method of trans-femoral prostheses have drastically improved the gait of amputees. However, realization of a natural gait has not been investigated in detail even though such smooth gait is important to increase the amputee's activities of daily living (ADL). Inertia of the prosthesis plays an important role in natural and smooth gaits during the swing phase. We suppose that goodness of gait or easiness of walking is strongly related to effective use of the prosthesis inertia. In this paper, we will attempt to quantify matching of inertia property of the prosthesis to a given user's skill / condition from the effective use of the prosthesis inertia during gait in the swing phase. Gaits of an expert prosthesis user will be measured by changing inertia properties. Effective use of inertia property of the prosthesis in gait is evaluated by closeness of the gait to the inertia-induced motion using inertia-induced measure. In addition gait of a novice prosthesis user will be measured to compare with the expert's results.
Gendered Social Learning, Nonfamily Institutions, and Attitudes About Recourse After Partner Violence

Objective: To provide the first study in Vietnam of how gendered social learning about violence and exposure to nonfamily institutions influence women’s attitudes about a wife’s recourse after physical intimate partner violence (IPV). Method: A probability sample of 532 married women, ages 18 to 50 years, was surveyed in July through August, 2012 in M&U1EF9; Hào district. We fit a multivariate linear regression model to estimate correlates of favoring recourse in 6 situations using a validated attitudinal scale. We split attitudes toward recourse into 3 subscales (disfavor silence, favor informal recourse, favor formal recourse) and fit 1 multivariate ordinal logistic regression model for each behavior to estimate correlates of favoring recourse. Results: On average, women favored recourse in 2.8 situations. Women who were older and had witnessed physical IPV in childhood had less favorable attitudes about recourse. Women who were hit as children, had completed more schooling, worked outside agriculture, and had sought recourse after IPV had more favorable attitudes about recourse. Conclusions: Normative change among women may require efforts to curb family violence, counsel those exposed to violence in childhood, and enhance women’s opportunities for higher schooling and nonagricultural wage work. The state and organizations working on IPV might overcome pockets of unfavorable public opinion by enforcing accountability for IPV rather than seeking to alter ideas about recourse among women.
Can Inter-Industry Wage Differentials Justify Strategic Trade Policy?

This paper examines the relationship between labor market imperfections and trade policies. The available evidence suggests that pervasive industry wage differentials of up to 20 percent remain even after controlling for differences in observed measures of workers' skill and the effects of unions. Theoretical analysis indicates that given non-competitive wage differentials of this magnitude policies directed at encouraging employment in high-wage sectors could significantly enhance allocative efficiency. For the United States and other developed countries, such policies are more likely to involve export promotion than import substitution. Increased international trade flows (at least through 1984) have been associated with increased employment in high-wage U.S. manufacturing industries relative to low-wage U.S. manufacturing industries.
How the Interaction Between Formal and Informal Institutional Constraints Determines the Investment Growth of Firms in Egypt

This study examines important issues regarding the effect of the legal system and financial institutions on the economic activity of private firms in Egypt. These are reviewed in the context of the interaction of formal and informal institutional constraints. The study shows that this effect is more complex than it is reported to be by the current literature. Moreover, it demonstrates that this effect is determined by the type of relationship there is between formal institutions like legal systems and informal institutions such as corruption and cronyism. Furthermore, corruption (and cronyism) could, in the short run, substitute for the deficiencies of formal institutions like the legal system and help improve investment growth of firms. However, this is not sustained in the long term and it appears that corruption could negatively affect this economic activity through its deteriorating effect on the enforcement mechanism of the legal system and financial institutions. This study contends that more focus on commitment-enhancing institutions should be taken first to support reformed legal and financial institutions. The article concludes with organizational and managerial implications, hence solidifying the link between the law, and economic and organizational analysis.
Convergence and Divergence of Sovereign Bond Spreads: Theory and Facts from Latin America

The aim of this paper is to identify the macroeconomic determinants of sovereign bond spreads in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico and discuss the economic policies underlying the divergent fortunes experienced by these countries over 1993-2001. Based on a consistent theoretical framework (unlike a bulk of the former literature), we derive and empirically test those determinants, namely: a) real GDP growth; b) gross capital inflows in GDP terms, and c) the debt service burden, also measured as percentage of GDP. Our econometric analysis suggests that a permanent change in the former variables have a more significant and robust impact than transitory shocks do on spreads. It also stresses that financial contagion or risk-aversion variables have some meaningful role in explaining default premia across different emerging market crises.
CSDP and the Ghent Framework: The Indirect Approach to Permanent Structured Cooperation?

The move, with the Lisbon Treaty, from a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) to a Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) must mean more than a change of name. This article pleads for a creative use of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), the new mechanism in the area of defence offered by the Lisbon Treaty. Building on the continued will of European Union (EU) Member States to pursue the transformation of their armed forces towards expeditionary operations, notably by exploiting opportunities for further pooling and sharing of capabilities, we propose a Permanent Capability Conference as a high-level political platform to generate effective military convergence. Systematic alignment of national defence planning through such a permanent and structured process at the strategic level will enable each Member State to focus its defence effort on the right capabilities, to do away with redundant capabilities, to make maximal use of pooling and specialization, and to contribute to multinational projects to address Europe's strategic capability shortfalls. In times of austerity, there is no alternative to European cooperation if Europe wants to remain militarily relevant.
Induction of HA‐1‐specific cytotoxic T‐cell clones parallels the therapeutic effect of donor lymphocyte infusion

Summary. Donor lymphocyte infusions (DLI) can induce a graft‐versus‐leukaemia (GvL) reaction in patients with relapsed disease. However, the mechanisms involved in remission induction are not completely known. A patient with chemotherapy‐refractory relapse 1 year after human leucocyte antigen (HLA)‐identical, unrelated stem cell transplantation (SCT) for bcr/abl‐positive common acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) received a DLI from the original donor, and achieved complete cytogenetic and molecular remission concomitantly with extensive graft‐versus‐host disease (GvHD). Seven CD8+, donor‐derived, alloreactive T‐cell clones were generated by stimulating post‐DLI remission cells with the patient's pretransplant mature dendritic cells. The minor histocompatibility antigen (mHag) recognized by these T‐cell clones was identified as HA‐1, a mHag associated with acute GvHD after SCT. Our finding provides evidence of HA‐1‐associated GvL effects after DLI that paralleled the eradication of full‐blown, chemotherapy‐refractory ALL relapse after allogeneic SCT.
Carboxy‐terminal domain mediates assembly of the voltage‐gated rat ether‐à‐go‐go potassium channel

The specific assembly of subunits to oligomers is an important prerequisite for producing functional potassium channels. We have studied the assembly of voltage‐gated rat ether‐à‐go‐go (r‐eag) potassium channels with two complementary assays. In protein overlay binding experiments it was shown that a 41‐amino‐acid domain, close to the r‐eag subunit carboxy‐terminus, is important for r‐eag subunit interaction. In an in vitro expression system it was demonstrated that r‐eag subunits lacking this assembly domain cannot form functional potassium channels. Also, a ∼10‐fold molar excess of the r‐eag carboxy‐terminus inhibited in co‐expression experiments the formation of functional r‐eag channels. When the r‐eag carboxy‐terminal assembly domain had been mutated, the dominant‐negative effect of the r‐eag carboxy‐terminus on r‐eag channel expression was abolished. The results demonstrate that a carboxy‐terminal assembly domain is essential for functional r‐eag potassium channel expression, in contrast to the one of Shaker‐related potassium channels, which is directed by an amino‐terminal assembly domain.
A superparallel image filtering digital-pixel-sensor employing a compressive multiplication technique

A full-pixel parallel image filtering architecture is developed based on the digital-pixel-sensor. A compressive multiplication technique is employed to accelerate the processing speed. As a result, speed-ups from 3.2 to 5.2 were achieved for Gaussian kernels ranged from 5×5 to 15×15 in scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) algorithm. A 108 × 96-pixel sensor was designed using a 0.18 μm CMOS process in a 5 mm×5 mm chip. By simulating the sensor at 100 MHz, the image filtering times for 5×5, 7×7, and 9×9 Gaussian kernels in the SIFT algorithm are 34 μs, 49 μs, and 83 μs, respectively. Such a high processing speed is very important for achieving the real-time performance when filtering high resolution images with large kernels.
Trade Effects of Regional Integration in Imperfect Competition: Evidence from the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA)

This article aims to provide new insights into trade effects of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA), using an imperfect competition framework. The model combines the new gravity model approach with supply-demand export equations in imperfect competition. In this regard, the role of scale economies, product varieties and expectations is explored. Facing the lack of international data on scale economies, we also develop a translog production system which makes it possible to obtain reliable estimates of this factor. For a more rigorous treatment of the endogeneity problem in the model, we make use of an instrumental GMM panel estimator. Results show limited effects of GAFTA on regional trade in imperfect competition, due to market segmentation and the predominance of inter-industry trade. In addition, the fitted intra-GAFTA trade values are far beyond the actual ones. This suggests that GAFTA countries could benefit from deeper regional trade integration. In this regard, the Arab Spring creates new opportunities to reinforce trade integration as a means of grasping additional trade gains in this area.