Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Commodity Trade and the Carry Trade: A Tale of Two Countries

Persistent differences in interest rates across countries account for much of the profitability of currency carry trade strategies. "Commodity currencies'' tend to have high interest rates while low interest rate currencies belong to exporters of finished goods. This pattern arises in a complete-markets model with trade specialization and limited shipping capacity, whereby commodity-producing countries are insulated from global productivity shocks, which are absorbed by the final goods producers. Empirically, a commodity-based strategy explains a substantial portion of the carry-trade risk premia, and all of their pro-cyclical predictability with commodity prices and shipping costs, as predicted by the model.
Modeling and detection of high impedance faults

High Impedance Faults (HIF) on distribution feeders in a power system are abnormal electrical conditions that cannot be detected and cleared by conventional protection schemes due to its low fault current. In this paper, a detection scheme utilizing the distortion around zero-crossing as a distinguishing feature of HIF is proposed. Documented data from an 18-day program of ignition testing undertaken by HRL at the TCA High Energy Facility (NSW, Australia) has been analysed to determine the distinctive features of HIF. These key features are summarised as arcing phenomenon, randomness and intermittency, and harmonics and distortion. Using these features, a model has been developed and applied in ATP/EMTP (Alternative Transients Program / Electro-Magnetic Transients Program). Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) has been used to extract these identifiable characteristics, using the Modulus Maxima (MM) of wavelet transform to detect the distribution of distortion and discriminate HIF from other faults in the network. The use of this method has performed well within a simulated environment and with field test data and is worthy of further investigation.
Sustaining Fragile Gains: The Need to Maintain Coverage with Long-Lasting Insecticidal Nets for Malaria Control and Likely Implications of Not Doing So

Global commitment to malaria control has greatly increased over the last decade. Long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) have become a core intervention of national malaria control strategies and over 450 million nets were distributed in sub-Saharan Africa between 2008 and 2012. Despite the impressive gains made as a result of increased investment in to malaria control, such gains remain fragile. Existing funding commitments for LLINs in the pipeline to 2016 were collated for 40 sub-Saharan African countries. The population-based model NetCALC was used to estimate the potential LLIN coverage achievable with these commitments and identify remaining gaps, and the Lives Saved Tool (LiST) was used to estimate likely consequences for mortality impact if these gaps remain unfilled. Overall, countries calculated a total need of 806 million LLINs for 2013-16. Current funding commitments meet just over half of this need, leaving approximately 374 million LLINs unfunded, most of which are needed to maintain coverage in 2015 and 2016. An estimated additional 938,500 child lives (uncertainty range: 559,400–1,364,200) could be saved from 2013 through 2016 with existing funding (relative to 2009 LLIN coverage taken as the ‘baseline’ for this analysis); if the funding gap were closed this would increase to 1,180,500 lives saved (uncertainty range: 707,000–1,718,900). Overall, the funding gap equates to approximately 242,000 avoidable malaria-attributable deaths amongst under-fives. Substantial additional resources will need to be mobilized to meet the full LLIN need of sub-Saharan countries to maintain universal coverage. Unless these resources are mobilized, the impressive gains made to date will not be sustained and tens of thousands of avoidable child deaths will occur.
The influence of relational factors on successful succession in family businesses: A comparative study of owner-managers and successors

Family businesses are fast becoming the dominant form of business enterprise in both developing and developed economies and play a vital economic and social role in these economies. As family businesses are a primary contributor to the economic and social well-being of all capitalist societies, their general lack of longevity is a cause for concern. One of the main reasons (if not the single most important reason) of the high failure rate among first- and second-generation family businesses is their inability to manage the complex process of ownership and management succession from one generation to the next. Hence, the primary objective of this study is to identify the relational or human factors that impact on successful succession. The results indicate that the willingness of the successor to take over the family business, the owner-manager’s trust in the successor’s abilities and intentions to manage the business, and the owner-manager’s interest outside the business are important to the success of succession for both owner-managers and successors. Furthermore, the more the successor perceives harmony within the family, the more satisfied the successor will be with the succession process.
Performance-driven placement for dynamically reconfigurable FPGAs

In this article, we introduce a new placement problem motivated by the Dynamically Reconfigurable FPGA (DRFPGA) architectures. Unlike traditional placement, the problem for DRFPGAs must consider the precedence constraints among logic components. For the placement, we develop an effective metric that can consider wirelength, register requirement, and power consumption simultaneously. With the considerations of the new metric and the precedence constraints, we then present a three-stage scheme of partitioning, initial placement generation, and placement refinement to solve the new placement problem. Experimental results show that our placement scheme with the new metric achieves respective improvements of 17.2, 27.0, and 35.9% in wirelength, the number of registers, and power consumption requirements, compared with the list scheduling method.
Io's heat flow from infrared radiometry: 1983–1993

We report the following results from a decade of infrared radiometry of Io: (1) The average global heat flow is more than ∼2.5 W m−2, (2) large warm (≤200 K) volcanic regions dominate the global heat flow, (3) small high-temperature (≥300 K) “hotspots” contribute little to the average heat flow, (4) thermal anomalies on the leading hemisphere contribute about half of the heat flow, (5) a substantial amount of heat is radiated during Io's night, (6) high-temperature (≥600 K) “outbursts” occurred during ∼4% of the nights we observed, (7) “Loki” is the brightest, persistent, infrared emission feature, and (8) some excess emission is always present at the longitude of Loki, but its intensity and other characteristics change between apparitions. Observations of Io at M (4.8 μm), 8.7 μm, N (10 μm), and Q (20 μm) with the Infrared Telescope Facility presented here were collected during nine apparitions between 1983 and 1993. These measurements provide full longitudinal coverage as well as an eclipse observation and the detection of two outbursts. Reflected sunlight, passive thermal emission, and radiation from thermal anomalies all contribute to the observed flux densities. We find that a new thermophysical model is required to match all the data. Two key elements of this model are (1) a “thermal reservoir” unit which lowers daytime temperatures, and (2) the “thermal pedestal effect” which shifts to shorter wave-lengths the spectral emission due to the reradiation of solar energy absorbed by the thermal anomalies. The thermal anomalies are modeled with a total of 10 source components at five locations. Io's heat flow is the sum of the power from these components.
Stability effects of frequency controllers and transmission line configurations on power systems with integration of wind power

This thesis investigates the stability effects of the integration of wind power on multimachine power systems. First, the small-signal stability effects of turbine governors connected to synchronous generators in the presence of large-scale penetration of wind and load power disturbances are analyzed. Results suggest that tuning the turbine governors when wind power generation is present can improve the small-signal stability of an interconnected system. Then, the transient stability effects of integrating doubly-fed induction wind turbine generators through different transmission line configurations and at different buses are analyzed. Results show that connecting the wind through transmission lines and to different buses introduces a delay in the oscillatory response of the synchronous generator speed, and bus voltage oscillations are also affected. Results also show that there is no significant effect on the base cases when using different interconnection voltages to connect the wind. Overall, the results can be used by power system operators when making decisions on turbine governor tuning and transmission line configurations when connecting wind farms to existing power systems while optimizing for small-signal and transient stability response. Thesis Supervisor: Kamal Youcef-Toumi Title: Professor of Mechanical Engineering
PreFail: A Programmable Failure-Injection Framework

As hardware failures are no longer rare in the era of cloud computing, cloud software systems must “prevail” against multiple, diverse failures that are likely to occur. Testing software against multiple failures poses the problem of combinatorial explosion of multiple failures. To address this, a tester can write diverse policies that prune down the space of multiple failures while meeting her testing objective. In this paper, we present PREFAIL, a programmable failureinjection framework that enables testers to write a wide range of pruning policies. Using the principle of separation of mechanism and policy, we decouple a failure-injection framework into two components: failure-injection engine and driver. The policies written in the driver decide which failures should be injected by the engine. We define clear abstractions on which the two components interact. We integrate PREFAIL to three cloud software systems, show a wide variety of pruning policies that we can write for them and the speed-ups that we obtain with those policies.
Combinatorics, Probability and Computing Query Complexity of Sampling and Small Geometric Partitions Query Complexity of Sampling and Small Geometric Partitions

In this paper we study the following problem. Discrete partitioning problem (DPP). Let F q P n denote the n-dimensional finite projective space over F q. For positive integer k n, let {A i } N i=1 be a partition of (F q P n) k such that: (1) for all i N, A i = k j=1 A i j (partition into product sets), (2) for all i N, there is a (k − 1)-dimensional subspace L i ⊆ F q P n such that A i ⊆ (L i) k. What is the minimum value of N as a function of q, n, k? We will be mainly interested in the case k = n. DPP arises in an approach that we propose for proving lower bounds for the query complexity of generating random points from convex bodies. It is also related to other partitioning problems in combinatorics and complexity theory. We conjecture an asymp-totically optimal partition for DPP and show that it is optimal in two cases: when the dimension is low (k = n = 2) and when the factors of the parts are structured, namely factors of a part are close to being a subspace. These structured partitions arise naturally as partitions induced by query algorithms. Our problem does not seem to be directly amenable to previous techniques for partitioning lower bounds such as rank arguments, although rank arguments do lie at the core of our techniques.
Sesquiterpene Lactones Downregulate G2/M Cell Cycle Regulator Proteins and Affect the Invasive Potential of Human Soft Tissue Sarcoma Cells

Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) represent a rare group of malignant tumors that frequently exhibit chemotherapeutic resistance and increased metastatic potential. Many studies have demonstrated the great potential of plant-derived agents in the treatment of various malignant entities. The present study investigates the effects of the sesquiterpene lactones costunolide and dehydrocostus lactone on cell cycle, MMP expression, and invasive potential of three human STS cell lines of various origins. Both compounds reduced cell proliferation in a time- and dose-dependent manner. Dehydrocostus lactone significantly inhibited cell proliferation, arrested the cells at the G2/M interface and caused a decrease in the expression of the cyclin-dependent kinase CDK2 and the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27Kip1. In addition, accumulation of cells at the G2/M phase transition interface resulted in a significant decrease in cdc2 (CDK1) together with cyclin B1. Costunolide had no effect on the cell cycle. Based on the fact that STS tend to form daughter cell nests and metastasize, the expression levels of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), which play a crucial role in extracellular matrix degradation and metastasis, were investigated by Luminex® technology and real-time RT-PCR. In the presence of costunolide, MMP-2 and -9 levels were significantly increased in SW-982 and TE-671 cells. Dehydrocostus lactone treatment significantly reduced MMP-2 and -9 expression in TE-671 cells, but increased MMP-9 level in SW-982 cells. In addition, the invasion potential was significantly reduced after treatment with both sesquiterpene lactones as investigated by the HTS FluoroBlock™ insert system.
Language identification with limited resources

Language identification is an important issue in many speech applications. We address this problem from the point of view of classification of sequences of phonemes, given the assumption that each language has its own phonotactic characteristics. In order to achieve this classification, we have to decode the speech utterances in terms of phonemes. The set of phonemes must be the same for all the languages, because the goal is to have a comparable representation of the acoustic sequences. We followed two different approaches using the same acoustic model: we decode the audio using trigrams of sequences of phonemes and equiprobable unigrams of phonemes as language model. Then a classification process based on perplexity is performed.
Antigen-specific T-cell-mediated suppression. I. Induction of L-glutamic acid(60)-L-alanine(30)-L-tyrosine(10) specific suppressor T cells in vitro requires both antigen-specific T-cell-suppressor factor and antigen

A combination of in vitro and in vivo techniques were used to explore the mode of action of both crude and purified suppressive extracts specific for the random copolymer L-giutamic acid(60)-L-alanine(30)-L-tyrosine(10) (GAT- T(s)F) obtained from nonresponder DBA/1 (H-2(q)) mice. Normal DBA/1 spleen cells were incubated under modified Mishell-Dutton culture conditions for 2 days together with crude or purified GAT-T(s)F, and in the presence or absence of free GAT. These cells were then washed extensively and 3 × 10(6) viable cells transferred to syngeneic recipients, which were challenged at the same time with the immunogenic form of GAT complexed to methylated bovine serum albumin (GAT-MBSA). GAT-specific IgG plaque-forming cells (PFC) in the spleen were assayed 7 days later. In agreement with earlier in vitro studies on the action of GAT-T(s)F, it was demonstrated that under these conditions, low concentrations of GAT-T(s)F stimulated the development of cells which, aider transfer, are able to suppress the GAT PFC response to GAT-MBSA. The cells responsible for this suppression were shown to be T lymphocytes by using nylon wool-purified T cells for suppressor cell induction and by eliminating suppressive activity in cells cultured with crude GAT-T(s)F by treatment with anti-Thy 1.2 plus C before transfer. The suppressor T cells act in a specific manner failing to suppress significantly either anti-sheep erythrocyte or trinitrophenyl-ovalbumin primary PFC responses. For the induction of GAT-specific suppressor T cells in culture, a moiety bearing H- 2(K(q) or I(q)) determinants and also GAT, either bound to the crude GAT- T(s)F or added in nanogram amounts to antigen (GAT)-free purified GAT-T(s)F, were both required.
Impacts of Invasive Plants on Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis) Roosting Habitat

Abstract Invasive plants continue to spread in riparian ecosystems, causing both ecological and economic damage. This research investigated the impacts of common reed, purple loosestrife, riparian shrubland, and riparian woodlands on the quality and quantity of sandhill crane roosting habitat in the central Platte River, Nebraska, using a discrete choice model. A more detailed investigation of the impacts of common reed on sandhill crane roosting habitat was performed by forecasting a spread or contraction of this invasive plant. The discrete choice model indicates that riparian woodlands had the largest negative impact on sandhill crane roosting habitat. The forecasting results predict that a contraction of common reed could increase sandhill crane habitat availability by 50%, whereas an expansion could reduce the availability by as much as 250%. This suggests that if the distribution of common reed continues to expand in the central Platte River the availability of sandhill crane roosting habitat would likely be greatly reduced. Nomenclature: Common reed, Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud. ; purple loosestrife, Lythrum salicaria L. Interpretive Summary: This research demonstrates the suitability of discrete choice modeling for quantifying the impacts of invasive plants on sandhill crane roosting habitat. Moreover, this research successfully applied a discrete choice model to forecast the implications that a spread (unsuccessful management) or contraction (successful management) of the invasive plant common reed (Phragmites australis) could have on the distribution and abundance of sandhill crane roosting habitat. The methods presented in this research could easily be adopted to provide managers with useful information that aids in the management of invasive plants for the benefit of native species' habitat. For example, managers could use the modeling and forecasting methods developed in this project to quantify the degree to which invasive species impact native species' habitat, prioritize the location of invasive plant management, and forecast which invasive species are most likely to impact native species. In addition, the discrete choice model forecasting methods described in this research allow the user to quantify the change in abundance and distribution of native species habitat as a result of invasive species spread or contraction. As the availability of digital land cover data grows and knowledge of invasive species' impacts expands, discrete choice modeling and forecasting simulations based on discrete choice models could be instrumental in aiding a field practitioner's management of invasive plants.
Improving Chinese-English patent machine translation using sentence segmentation

This paper presents a method using sentence segmentation to improve the performance of Chinese-English patent machine translation. In this method, long Chinese sentence was segmented into separated short sentences using some features from the Hierarchical Network of Concepts theory (HNC theory). Some semantic features are introduced, including main verb of CSC (Eg), main verb of CSP (Egp), long NPs and conjunctions. The main purpose of segmentation algorithm is to detect if one CSC can or cannot be a separate sentence. The segmentation method was integrated with a rule-base MT system. The sequence of these short translations was adjusted and the different ways of expressions in both Chinese and English languages also were in consideration. From the result of the experiments, we can see that the performance of the Chinese-English patent translation was improved effectively. Our method had been integrated into an online patent MT system running in SIPO.
Optimum algorithms for two random sampling problems

Several fast new algorithms are presented for sampling n records at random from a file containing N records. The first problem we solve deals with sampling when N is known, and the the second problem considers the case when N is unknown. The two main results in this paper are Algorithms D and Z. Algorithm D solves the first problem by doing the sampling with a small constant amount of space and in O(n) time, on the average; roughly n uniform random variates are generated, and approximately n exponentiation operations are performed during the sampling The sample is selected sequentially and online; it answers an open problem in [Knuth 81]. Algorithm Z solves the second problem by doing the sampling using O(n) space, roughly n ln(N/n) uniform random variates and O(n(1 + log(N/n))) time, on the average. Both algorithms are time- and space-optimum and are short and easy to implement.
Functional Role of Neurotrophin-3 in Synapse Regeneration by Spiral Ganglion Neurons on Inner Hair Cells after Excitotoxic Trauma In Vitro

Spiral ganglion neurons (SGNs) are postsynaptic to hair cells and project to the brainstem. The inner hair cell (IHC) to SGN synapse is susceptible to glutamate excitotoxicity and to acoustic trauma, with potentially adverse consequences to long-term SGN survival. We used a cochlear explant culture from P6 rat pups consisting of a portion of organ of Corti maintained intact with the corresponding portion of spiral ganglion to investigate excitotoxic damage to IHC–SGN synapses in vitro. The normal innervation pattern is preserved in vitro. Brief treatment with NMDA and kainate results in loss of IHC–SGN synapses and degeneration of the distal type 1 SGN peripheral axons, mimicking damage to SGN peripheral axons caused by excitotoxicity or noise in vivo. The number of IHC presynaptic ribbons is not significantly altered. Reinnervation of IHCs occurs and regenerating axons remain restricted to the IHC row. However, the number of postsynaptic densities (PSDs) does not fully recover and not all axons regrow to the IHCs. Addition of either neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) or BDNF increases axon growth and synaptogenesis. Selective blockade of endogenous NT-3 signaling with TrkC–IgG reduced regeneration of axons and PSDs, but TrkB–IgG, which blocks BDNF, has no such effect, indicating that endogenous NT-3 is necessary for SGN axon growth and synaptogenesis. Remarkably, TrkC–IgG reduced axon growth and synaptogenesis even in the presence of BDNF, indicating that endogenous NT-3 has a distinctive role, not mimicked by BDNF, in promoting SGN axon growth in the organ of Corti and synaptogenesis on IHCs.