Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tax Systems in European Union Countries

Despite recent cuts, the tax-to-GDP ratio in most EU countries remains much higher than in other economies. The tax mix is also different, with high tax wedges on labour and a stronger reliance on consumption and environmentally related taxes. While there is not much room for cutting taxes significantly without downsizing public spending, further re-balancing the tax burden away from labour could contribute to better employment performance. Greater reliance on property taxes, which are low by international standards, less use of reduced VAT rates and tax incentives targeted to specific saving vehicles should be considered. EU countries’ experience in reforming their tax system may also provide useful insights for other regions where international integration is deepening. The free movement of goods, people and capital within the EU area, combined with the advent of the single currency, has also affected the design of national tax systems and has brought to the fore a number of international taxation issues.
A survey on inpainting techniques

Image inpainting is one of the image restoration technique used for reconstruction of lost or damaged region in an image. Images may contain distorted and undesired regions which are to be removed. The main objective of the inpainting algorithm is to replace these regions and fill up the holes in a natural way. The methods used for inpainting includes diffusion based, exemplar-based, hierarchical super-resolution-based and spatial patch blending methods. This paper aims at comparing the various techniques used for inpainting. These methods aim at hole filling and removing the artefacts such as texture garbage, blur effects and unconnected edges.
Bank share prices and stock market integration in Greater China

This paper empirically analyzes the relationship between the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) Composite Index and the indexes of 10 Chinese listed banks. In particular, we try to test whether the listing of these banks has played a role in leading the Chinese stock market boom during 2007. Using daily prices from 1 June 2006 to 15 November 2007, we found that a unidirectional causality relationship existed either way between most bank stock prices and the market index while the bidirectional relationship only identified among five of the ten banks. We also observed that the market indexes of SSE, Hong Kong and Taiwan followed a similar trend, indicating a possible cointegration of the Greater China stock markets, which was in part driven by the listing of Chinese banks.
On‐demand data co‐allocation with user‐level cache for grids

Conventional remote data access middlewares usually provide client applications with either a pre‐staging scheme or an on‐demand access scheme to fetch data. The pre‐staging scheme uses parallel downloads to fetch a completed input file from multiple data sources, even when only a tiny file fragment is required. Such a transfer scheme consumes unnecessary data transmission time and storage space. In contrast, the on‐demand scheme downloads only the required data blocks from a single data source and does not fully utilize the downstream bandwidth of the computing nodes. This paper presents a middleware called ‘Spigot’ that facilitates legacy (grid‐unaware) applications to transparently access remote data by using native I/O function calls. Spigot uses the on‐demand concept to avoid unnecessary data transfer and adopts a co‐allocation download algorithm to improve the data transfer performance. Moreover, it uses the pre‐fetching strategy to reduce the data waiting time by overlapping data acquisition and data processing. It also provides the client application with its own user‐level cache, which is advantageous since a larger cache space is available in comparison with the kernel‐level cache. Further, it is easy to maintain data consistency between Spigot nodes. The experimental results indicate that Spigot achieves superior performance in reducing the data waiting time than the pre‐staging and the on‐demand access schemes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Food Stamps: An Analytical History

Since 1970, annual federal outlays for the food stamp program have increased tenfold from $600 million to the nearly $6 billion currently received by over 18 million recipients. Because eligibility is conditioned only on household income and assets, the program supplements the low wages of the working poor as well as public assistance payments. Food producers and distributors are also enriched. This article provides analysis of the political evolution of food stamps from a device to absorb Depression-era food surpluses into a primarily welfare-oriented program. The quantitative importance of various factors that have contributed to rapid program growth during the seventies is also assessed. The article demonstrates that Congress gradually modified the program to enhance its income supplementation role. The concluding section discusses the likely impact on the food stamp program of the Carter administration reform proposals.
Job Creation and Job Destruction, Worker Reallocation, and Wages

Using Danish firm (workplace) data on employment reallocation merged with individual records, the effects of job creation/destruction and worker reallocation on wages are estimated using fixed effects techniques. After controlling for business cycle fluctuations, job creation is found to increase male wages. The effect of net job creation seems present at all phases of the business cycle. Entry wages as well as wages of low tenure workers appear much more sensitive to idiosyncratic job creation than wages of those who are already employed in a given firm. Except for entry wages, female wages are found insensitive to net job creation.
Hardware acceleration for Just-In-Time compilation on heterogeneous embedded systems

Embedded systems are increasingly complex and heterogeneous to deal with increasing performance requirements along with wider ranges of application domains. The architecture of such systems often includes different kinds of computing resources and accelerators (DSPs, GPUs, etc.). Thus, application developers are facing important portability issues to adapt their software code to take maximum advantage of available processing elements. Consequently, software stacks rely more and more on virtualization technologies, leveraging Just-In-Time compilation to maximize performance of applications. Nevertheless, the efficiency of Just-In-Time compilation depends on the ability to compensate its overhead with execution speedups of generated code. In this paper, we propose a solution based on a dedicated processor with specialized instructions for critical functions to improve efficiency of code generators. These specialized instructions provide an average 5× speedup on manipulations of associative arrays and dynamic memory allocation. Based on the LLVM framework, we show a 15% overall speedup on code generator's execution time. Because our specialized instructions are hidden behind standard libraries, we also argue that these instructions may be transparently reused for a wider range of applications.
Novel Type V Staphylococcal Cassette Chromosome mec Driven by a Novel Cassette Chromosome Recombinase, ccrC

ABSTRACT Staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) is a mobile genetic element composed of the mec gene complex, which encodes methicillin resistance, and the ccr gene complex, which encodes the recombinases responsible for its mobility. The mec gene complex has been classified into four classes, and the ccr gene complex has been classified into three allotypes. Different combinations of mec gene complex classes and ccr gene complex types have so far defined four types of SCCmec elements. Now we introduce the fifth allotype of SCCmec, which was found on the chromosome of a community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strain (strain WIS [WBG8318]) isolated in Australia. The element shared the same chromosomal integration site with the four extant types of SCCmec and the characteristic nucleotide sequences at the chromosome-SCCmec junction regions. The novel SCCmec carried mecA bracketed by IS431 (IS431-mecA-ΔmecR1-IS431), which is designated the class C2 mec gene complex; and instead of ccrA and ccrB genes, it carried a single copy of a gene homologue that encoded cassette chromosome recombinase. Since the open reading frame (ORF) was found to encode an enzyme which catalyzes the precise excision as well as site- and orientation-specific integration of the element, we designated the ORF cassette chromosome recombinase C (ccrC), and we designated the element type V SCCmec. Type V SCCmec is a small SCCmec element (28 kb) and does not carry any antibiotic resistance genes besides mecA. Unlike the extant SCCmec types, it carries a set of foreign genes encoding a restriction-modification system that might play a role in the stabilization of the element on the chromosome.
Poly(A) polymerase purified from HeLa cell nuclear extract is required for both cleavage and polyadenylation of pre-mRNA in vitro

We have partially purified a poly(A) polymerase (PAP) from HeLa cell nuclear extract which is involved in the 3'-end formation of polyadenylated mRNA. PAP had a molecular weight of approximately 50 to 60 kilodaltons. In the presence of manganese ions, PAP was able to polyadenylate RNA nonspecifically. However, in the presence of magnesium ions PAP required the addition of a cleavage and polyadenylation factor to specifically polyadenylate pre-mRNAs that contain an intact AAUAAA sequence and end at the poly(A) addition site (precleaved RNA substrates). The purified fraction containing PAP was also required in combination with a cleavage and polyadenylation factor and a cleavage factor for the correct cleavage at the poly(A) site of pre-mRNAs. Since the two activities of the PAP fractions, PAP and cleavage activity, could not be separated by extensive purification, we concluded that the two activities are contained in a single component, a PAP that is also required for the specific cleavage preceding the polyadenylation of pre-mRNA.
‘Never on a Sunday’: Economic incentives and short-term sick leave in Sweden

Using a longitudinal data for about 1800 persons observed between 1986 and 1991, this study investigates the incentive effects on short-term sickness spells of two important regime changes in the social insurance system in Sweden implemented in 1987 and 1991. The results indicate that the rules influenced people's decisions about when to report the beginning and ending of sickness spells. The 1991 reform, which reduced the replacement rate, had a stronger effect on reducing the duration of short-term absences than the 1987 reform, which restricted the payment of sickness cash benefit to only scheduled workdays.
How budget constraints impact consumers' response to discount presentation formats

Purpose – This research aims to study how buyers' budget constraints influence buyers' perceptions of discounts presented in a dollars‐off versus percentage‐off format. A comparison of perceptions of discount format under budget constraints is missing from the past literature. The current research aims to fill this gap.Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on two experiments. In the first experiment, a study by Kahneman and Tversky is replicated and extended by including budget constraints. In the second experiment participants are given either a high or a low budget and then asked to compare objectively equivalent discounts that are presented in either dollars‐off or percent‐off terms. Participants' willingness to buy is recorded and used to gauge the efficacy of the discount formats under budget constraints.Findings – The research extends previous findings derived from the psychophysics of pricing. It demonstrates that, although it is believed that the attractiveness of an absolute discoun.
Evaluation of ten manual resuscitators across an operational temperature range of -18 degrees C to 50 degrees C.

UNLABELLED Because of the temperature extremes encountered during emergency resuscitation and transport in the field, we sought to evaluate the performance and safety of 10 adult resuscitators (5 permanent units: Hope 4, Laerdal, Lifesaver, Mark 3, and PMR; and 5 disposable units: BagEasy, Code Blue, CPR Bag, DMR, and SPUR) across an operational temperature range of -18 degrees C to 50 degrees C. METHOD We tested the devices against the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Standard F-920 and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Standard 8382. We tested each resuscitator by using a lung model, the Bio-Tek VT-1 Ventilator Tester. RESULTS All of the resuscitators met the ventilation requirements for VT and F (600 mL X 20) and I:E less than 1:1 except the SPUR at -18 degrees C. Standards ASTM F-920 and ISO 8382 specify a fractional delivered oxygen concentration (FDO2) of greater than or equal to 0.85 with attachments and greater than or equal to 0.40 without attachments at oxygen flow of 15 L/min and VE of 7.2 L/min (600 mL X 12). Nine resuscitators met Standards ASTM F-920 and ISO 8382 for FDO2 with attachments at 21 degrees C and 50 degrees C, but only 3 units (Code Blue, DMR, and PMR) passed at -18 degrees C. At 21 degrees C, the Hope 4 had an FDO2 of 0.77 +/- 0.03, which was significantly lower (p less than 0.001) than that of the other 9 resuscitators, all of which were greater than or equal to 0.93. Nine resuscitators met the FDO2 standard without attachments. All 10 resuscitators passed the tests for valve function after contamination with simulated vomitus (at an oxygen flow of 30 L/min) and for backward leakage. At the ventilation pattern recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA) (800 mL X 12) the PMR's mean FDO2 dropped to 0.86 +/- 0.03 because of air leaking into the bag where it attaches to the patient-valve assembly. All 10 resuscitators passed the test for mechanical shock at 21 degrees C and 50 degrees C, but 3 units failed at -18 degrees C. CONCLUSION We conclude that only the Code Blue and DMR meet the ASTM and ISO standards for operator-powered adult resuscitators across the operational temperature range of -18 degrees C to 50 degrees C.
Technology Diffusion and Aggregate Dynamics

This paper develops and analyzes a macroeconomic model in which aggregate growth and fluctuations arise from the discovery and diffusion of new technologies; there are no exogenous aggregate shocks. The temporal behavior of aggregates is driven by individuals' efforts to innovate and/or make use of others' innovations. Parameters describing preferences, production possibilities, and learning technologies are estimated using post-war U.S. data. The model delivers predicted aggregates that grow and fluctuate much like the data. They key features of post-war growth are explained by new technologies that differ in terms of the magnitude of their improvement over existing methods and the difficulty of acquiring them. The model implies a negative trend in technological dispersion, and that the generally lower growth witnessed during the last two decades is the result of new technologies offering comparatively minor or less broadly applicable improvements. Data on the growing and fluctuating share of engineering Ph.D.s support the model's technological interpretation of the growth facts, and data on patent applications and adult schooling are consistent with the notion that newer technologies are more specific and proprietary. (Copyright: Elsevier)
Robots Don't Get Sick or Get Paid Overtime, but Are They a Profitable Option for Milking Cows?

Mason Dixon Farms, a dairy known worldwide for its adoption and innovation of new technologies, is considering the purchase of forty robotic milking units to service its 2,000 cow herd. The purchase requires a $6 million investment plus any additional buildings and equipment necessary. Their alternative is a $1 million carousel milking parlor. This case asks students to assess Mason Dixon's decision by performing a capital budgeting analysis. One of Mason Dixon Farms' explicit objectives is to reduce its use of milking laborers. The results allow students to draw conclusions about the value of reducing labor management under this scenario. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press.
Inferring Trade Direction from Intraday Data

This paper evaluates alternative methods for classifying individual trades as market buy or market sell orders using intraday trade and quote data. The authors document two potential problems with quote-based methods of trade classification: quotes may be recorded ahead of trades that triggered them, and trades inside the spread are not readily classifiable. These problems are analyzed in the context of the interaction between exchange floor agents. The authors then propose and test relatively simple procedures for improving trade classifications. Copyright 1991 by American Finance Association.
Delivering a MOOC for literature searching in health libraries: evaluation of a pilot project

In an era when library budgets are being reduced, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC's) can offer practical and viable alternatives to the delivery of costly face-to-face training courses. In this study, guest writers Gil Young from Health Care Libraries Unit - North, Lisa McLaren from Brighton and Sussex Medical School and Liverpool University PhD student Michelle Maden describe the outcomes of a funded project they led to develop a MOOC to deliver literature search training for health librarians. Funded by Health Education England, the MOOC was developed by the Library and Information Health Network North West as a pilot project that ran for six weeks. In particular, the MOOC target audience is discussed, how content was developed for the MOOC, promotion and participation, cost-effectiveness, evaluation, the impact of the MOOC and recommendations for future development. H. S.
Adaptively Attending to Visual Attributes and Linguistic Knowledge for Captioning

Visual content description has been attracting broad research attention in multimedia community because it deeply uncovers intrinsic semantic facet of visual data. Most existing approaches formulate visual captioning as machine translation task (i.e., from vision to language) via a top-down paradigm with global attention, which ignores to distinguish visual and non-visual parts during word generation. In this work, we propose a novel adaptive attention strategy for visual captioning, which can selectively attend to salient visual content based on linguistic knowledge. Specifically, we design a key control unit, termed visual gate, to adaptively decide "when" and "what" the language generator attend to during the word generation process. We map all the preceding outputs of language generator into a latent space to derive the representation of sentence structures, which assists the "visual gate" to choose appropriate attention timing. Meanwhile, we employ a bottom-up workflow to learn a pool of semantic attributes for serving as the propositional attention resources. We evaluate the proposed approach on two commonly-used benchmarks, i.e., MSCOCO and MSVD. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of our proposed approach compared to several state-of-the-art methods.
Environmental Management in Operations: The Selection of Environmental Technologies*

Manufacturing firms have given management of the natural environment higher priority as public awareness and scrutiny has increased. To help understand management's role in this process, a basic conceptual model of environmental management within operations is developed. The model proposes that the general orientation of operations managers on environmental issues ranges from proactive to reactive, and this is intrinsically related to the investment pattern in environmental technologies. Results from an empirical validation of this model are presented for a sample of plants from the furniture industry. Three distinct groups were identified based on the linkage between environmental management orientation and investment in environmental technologies. Counter to the prescriptive environmental literature, which recommends that proactive orientation should emphasize pollution prevention (i.e., fundamental product and process changes), proactive managers implemented a balanced portfolio that also included a sizable proportion of pollution control technologies (i.e., traditional end-of-pipe controls and remediation). Contextual factors also differentiate among these three groups, thus suggesting options for senior management to assist plant managers to become more proactive and to improve environmental performance.
The Unification of the Colombian Stock Market: A Step Towards Efficiency–Empirical Evidence

ABSTRACT The empirical evidence presented in this study shows that there has certainly been a structural change in the Colombian stock market since the merger of the three regional Exchanges (Bolsas) into the Colombian Stock Exchange (Bolsa de Valores de Colombia). This change has been reflected in a greater level of efficiency in that market. Regarding individual assets, the findings coincide with Samuelson (1998) in the sense that the stock market is micro-efficient but macro-inefficient, which means that the efficient market hypothesis performs better for individual stocks than for the aggregated price indexes of the market. RESUMEN. La evidencia empírica presentada en este estudio muestra que realmente operó un cambio estructural en el mercado accionario colombiano a partir de la fusión de las tres Bolsas regionales en la Bolsa de Valores de Colombia. Este cambio se ha reflejado en un mayor nivel de eficiencia de este mercado. En cuanto a los activos individuales, los hallazgos coinciden con Samuelson (1998) en el sentido de que el mercado bursátil es micro-eficiente pero macro-ineficiente, es decir, que la hipótesis de la eficiencia del mercado se cumple mejor para acciones individuales que para los índices de precios agregados del mercado. RESUMO. A evidência empírica apresentada neste estudo mostra que, sem dúvida, tem ocorrido uma mudança estrutural no mercado de ações colombiano, a partir da fusão das três Bolsas de Valores regionais, dando origem à Bolsa de Valores de Colombia. Esta mudança refletiu o alto nível de eficiência deste mercado. Quanto aos ativos individuais, percebe-se a coincidência com Samuelson (1998), no sentido de que o mercado de ações é micro-eficiente, mas também é macro-ineficiente, ou seja, que a hipótese de um mercado eficiente atua melhor para as ações individuais do que para os índices de preços agregados do mercado.
Optimal Inventories for an (S − 1, S) System with No Backorders

This paper considers the problem of finding optimal stock levels for an inventory system with Poisson demands, arbitrary replacement time distribution, and emergency handling of shortages at a premium cost. The ordering policy is assumed to be of the (S - 1, S) type, i.e., a replacement item is ordered as soon as a unit of stock is used. A criterion for selecting the optimal stock level is formulated by minimizing the expected cost per unit time in steady state. Based on the fact that the probability of shortage for this model is given by the Erlang loss formula, it is possible to derive an approximate stocking level formula, which appears to be accurate over a wide range of parameter values. Comparisons with other related models and determination of achieved service levels are also discussed.