Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Probabilistic Choice Model for Market Segmentation and Elasticity Structure

Marketing scholars commonly characterize market structure by studying the patterns of substitution implied by brand switching. Though the approach is useful, it typically ignores the destabilizing role of marketing variables (e.g., price) in switching behavior. The authors propose a flexible choice model that partitions the market into consumer segments differing in both brand preference and price sensitivity. The result is a unified description of market structure that links the pattern of brand switching to the magnitudes of own- and cross-price elasticities. The approach is applied in a study of competition between national brands and private labels in one product category.
Social-based traffic information extraction and classification

Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are popular, personal, and real-time in nature. We found that there exists a significant number of traffic information such as traffic congestion, incidents, and weather in Twitter. However, an algorithm is needed to extract and classify the traffic information before publishing (re-tweeting) and becoming useful for others. Traffic information was extracted from Twitter using syntactic analysis and then further classified into two categories: point and link. This method can classify 2,942 traffic tweets into the point category with 76.85% accuracy and classify 331 traffic tweets into the link category with 93.23% accuracy. Our system can report traffic information real-time.
Does the DSGE Model fit the Chinese economy? : a Bayesian and indirect approach

Abstract This thesis makes three main contributions to the literature on Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models in Macroeconomics. As no previous studies have studied the Chinese economy from the perspective of DSGE, the first contribution of this thesis is estimating a DSGE model for China through a Bayesian approach using the Chinese quarterly post-economic reform data representing the main macro-economic time series 1978.Q1-2007.Q4. Second, this thesis adopts a new method of evaluating macro-economic models in its evaluation of the estimated DSGE model for China. Rather than the classical methods used to evaluate a macro-economic model such as the Maximum Likelihood method, the method of Indirect Inference is used to test the DSGE model. This method differs from other methods in its adoption of a VAR as the auxiliary model that mimics reality. A hybrid model is adopted to improve the ability of the DSGE model to replicate real world results and compared to the original New Keynesian version of the DSGE model developed by Smets and Wouters. Third, considering the restrictions that the prior distribution imposed on the estimated parameters of the model in the Bayesian estimation, the estimation method of Indirect Inference is used in the last chapter of this thesis and compared with the Bayesian estimation. The results of the Bayesian estimation are in agreement with most of the existing literature on DSGE models. However, the results of Indirect Inference testing suggest that the adopted DSGE model does not closely resemble the real data, with a Hybrid model with 50% weight on the NK part performing significantly better. Indirect Inference estimation produces the same results and provides a better estimation of the model.
Cointegration and a Test of the Quantity Theory of Money

The main implication of the Quantity Theory of Money is that long-run movements in the price level are determined primarily by long-run movements in the excess of money over real output. This implication is related to the concept of cointegration discussed in Granger (1986), which states cointegrated multiple time series share common long-run movements. It is shown that the general price level is cointegrated with money, real output, and the nominal rate of interest. These economic variables enter a price equation based on the Equation of Exchange. Furthermore, the appearance of this cointegration in the data seems consistent with the presence of Granger-causality from money and real output to the price level. It is also shown that an inflation equation that incorporates the above stated implication of the Quantity Theory of Money predicts quite well the actual behavior of inflation during the past decade or so. These results however hold for M2, not M1, measure of money.
Cultural relativism and ideological policy makers in a dynamic model with endogenous preferences

This paper shows that two societies differing because of the peoplei? ½s initial propensity to devote time and efforts to non-profit activities may never converge. This lack of convergence is interpreted as the tendency of the cultural values and attitudes dominant in each society to perpetuate because of the economic behavior and the social processes that they contribute to elicit. Furthermore, it may not be possible to rank the different steady states toward which these two societies converge according to the Paretian criterion. Finally, the paper examines policies that promote values and attitudes non coincident with those that are currently dominant.
Analysis of the Robustness of Transformerless PV Inverter Topologies to the Choice of Power Devices

Transformerless topologies are employed in single-phase photovoltaic inverter converters due to their small size and low weight. Avoiding the grid-side transformer requires the modulation technique and the basis topology to be accordingly changed in order to mitigate dc current components in the grid side and the leakage current to ground. This paper carries out a sensitivity analysis of the selected transformerless topologies. This analysis investigates the impact of parameter variations depending on the choice of the employed semiconductor devices and detects the device for each topology, which affects the overall efficiency the most as well as the topology that is affected the most by the parameter variations with respect to the efficiency, leakage current, and grid-side dc current component. It is shown that, based on the proposed statistical analysis procedure, the impact of parameter variability can be analyzed with a reduced computational burden. An approach for the simplification of the comparison of the analyzed topologies is presented. As a result, relevant information for engineers selecting the most suitable power devices for the implementation of a certain transformerless topology is provided. The proposed analysis also allows to assess the robustness of the topologies’ performance to the choice of different components when this selections is driven by other factors, such as cost and supply chain management.
The Performance of Hedge Fund Strategies and the Asymmetry of Return Distributions

"We present hedge fund performance estimates that adjust for stale prices, Fama-French risk factors and skewness. We contrast these new performance estimates with traditional performance measures. Using three-factor models to adjust for staleness in prices and to incorporate Fama-French factors along with the Harvey-Siddique (2000) two-factor model that incorporates skewness, we find that for the period 1990-2003, all hedge fund categories achieve above average performance when measured against an aggregate market index. More significantly, however, when we estimate performance at the individual hedge fund level, we discover that only 40 to 47% of the funds are shown to achieve an above average performance over that time period depending on the model used. These results have important implications for investors, endowments and pensions when they choose hedge fund managers. " Copyright 2007 The Authors Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
How Does XBRL Affect the Cost of Equity Capital? Evidence from an Emerging Market

Applying path analysis, we examine how eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) in China affects the cost of equity capital. Using a one-group pre- and post-test design, we find that XBRL reduces the cost of equity capital and that XBRL strengthens the direct linkage of the inverse relationship between financial reporting quality and the cost of equity capital but not the indirect linkage via the mediation of information asymmetry. Our findings also show that XBRL adoption leads to a greater reduction in the cost of equity capital, when there is a high level of corporate governance. Our study contributes to research on XBRL and to practice by documenting how XBRL affects the cost of equity capital.
Multi-stage contests : theory and experiments

In a multi-stage contest known as a two-player race, players display two fundamental behaviors: (1) The laggard will make a last stand in order to avoid the cost of losing; and (2) the player who is ahead will defend his lead if it is threatened. Last stand behavior, in particular, contrasts with previous research where the underdog simply gives up. The distinctive results are achieved by introducing losing penalties and discounting into the racing environment. This framework permits the momentum effect, typically ascribed to the winner of early stages, to be more thoroughly examined. I study the likelihood that the underdog will catch up. I find that neckand-neck races are common when the losing penalty is large relative to the winning prize, while landslide victories occur when the prize is relatively large. Closed-form solutions are given for the case where players have a common winning prize and losing penalty. Chapter 2 then experimentally examines the prediction of last stand behavior in a multi-battle contest with a winning prize and losing penalty, as well as the contrasting prediction of surrendering in the corresponding contest with no penalty. We find varied evidence in support of these hypotheses in the aggregated data, but more conclusive evidence when scrutinizing individual player behavior. Players tend to adopt one of several strategies. We develop a taxonomy to classify player types and study how the different strategies interact. The last stand and surrendering behaviors have implications for winning margins and the likelihood of an upset, which
Measures of Insulin Resistance Add Incremental Value to the Clinical Diagnosis of Metabolic Syndrome in Association With Coronary Atherosclerosis

Background—Whether measures of insulin resistance provide incremental information regarding atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease beyond current National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Adult Treatment Panel III metabolic syndrome (MetSyn) criteria or inflammatory markers is uncertain. Methods and Results—We examined the association of insulin resistance and MetSyn with coronary artery calcification (CAC) in 840 asymptomatic nondiabetic subjects. Both NCEP and World Health Organization–defined MetSyn were associated (ordinal regression odds ratio [OR] and 95% confidence intervals for NCEP-defined MetSyn) with CAC after controlling for age, non-MetSyn risk factors, and plasma CRP levels (OR, 1.93 [1.43 to 2.60], P<0.001) and after further controlling for homeostasis model assessment index (HOMA) (OR, 1.56 [1.14 to 2.15], P=0.006). Conversely, HOMA was significantly associated with CAC after adjusting for age, non-MetSyn risk factors, and CRP levels (OR, 1.62 [1.31 to 2.01], P<0.001) and after further adjusting for NCEP-defined MetSyn (OR, 1.45 [1.16 to 1.82], P=0.007). Addition of HOMA to the NCEP MetSyn significantly improved the association with CAC, but addition of CRP data to MetSyn or HOMA did not. Conclusions—Both MetSyn and HOMA index were associated with coronary atherosclerosis independent of established risk factors, including CRP. These findings support the use of biomarkers of insulin resistance in addition to NCEP MetSyn criteria in assessing cardiovascular disease risk.
A review of demodulation techniques for amplitude-modulation atomic force microscopy

In this review paper, traditional and novel demodulation methods applicable to amplitude-modulation atomic force microscopy are implemented on a widely used digital processing system. As a crucial bandwidth-limiting component in the z-axis feedback loop of an atomic force microscope, the purpose of the demodulator is to obtain estimates of amplitude and phase of the cantilever deflection signal in the presence of sensor noise or additional distinct frequency components. Specifically for modern multifrequency techniques, where higher harmonic and/or higher eigenmode contributions are present in the oscillation signal, the fidelity of the estimates obtained from some demodulation techniques is not guaranteed. To enable a rigorous comparison, the performance metrics tracking bandwidth, implementation complexity and sensitivity to other frequency components are experimentally evaluated for each method. Finally, the significance of an adequate demodulator bandwidth is highlighted during high-speed tapping-mode atomic force microscopy experiments in constant-height mode.
The state of state reform in Latin America

This book examines four major areas of institutional reform: a) political institutions and the state organization; b) fiscal institutions, such as budget, tax and decentralization institutions; c) public institutions in charge of sectoral economic policies (financial, industrial, and infrastructure); and d) social sector institutions (pensions, social protection, and education). In each of these areas, the authors summarize the reform objectives, describe and measure their scope, assess the main outcomes, and identify the obstacles for implementation, especially those of an institutional nature.
Bounded Controllers for Formation Stabilization of Mobile Agents With Limited Sensing Ranges

A constructive method is presented to design bounded cooperative controllers that force a group of N mobile agents with limited sensing ranges to stabilize at a desired location, and guarantee no collisions between the agents. The control development is based on new general potential functions, which attain the minimum value when the desired formation is achieved, and are equal to infinity when a collision occurs. A p-times differential bump function is introduced and embedded into the potential functions to deal with the agent limited sensing ranges. An alternative to Barbalat's lemma is developed to analyze stability of the closed loop system. Extension to formation tracking is also addressed
A Dual Encoder Sequence to Sequence Model for Open-Domain Dialogue Modeling

Ever since the successful application of sequence to sequence learning for neural machine translation systems, interest has surged in its applicability towards language generation in other problem domains. Recent work has investigated the use of these neural architectures towards modeling open-domain conversational dialogue, where it has been found that although these models are capable of learning a good distributional language model, dialogue coherence is still of concern. Unlike translation, conversation is much more a one-to-many mapping from utterance to a response, and it is even more pressing that the model be aware of the preceding flow of conversation. In this paper we propose to tackle this problem by introducing previous conversational context in terms of latent representations of dialogue acts over time. We inject the latent context representations into a sequence to sequence neural network in the form of dialog acts using a second encoder to enhance the quality and the coherence of the conversations generated. The main task of this research work is to show that adding latent variables that capture discourse relations does indeed result in more coherent responses when compared to conventional sequence to sequence models.
B Cell Receptor (BCR) Cross-Talk: IL-4 Creates an Alternate Pathway for BCR-Induced ERK Activation That Is Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase Independent1

IL-4 has pleiotropic effects on B cells. These effects include alteration of subsequent BCR-triggered responses. To identify a molecular basis for this receptor cross-talk, we examined ERK activation and NF-κB induction. We found that treatment with IL-4, but not other cytokines, affected subsequent BCR signaling by creating a new pathway in which the need for PI3K in ERK activation was eliminated. In contrast, the need for PI3K in NF-κB induction was not altered. The new pathway for ERK required time to develop, depended on STAT6, and was blocked by inhibition of macromolecular synthesis. As in the classical pathway, BCR-induced ERK activation in the new, PI3K-independent pathway required MEK and was reflected in c-Raf. Thus, IL-4 promotes an alternate pathway through which BCR is coupled to Raf/MEK/ERK that may function to heighten the responsiveness of B cells during times of immunological stress.
Behavioural rhythm splitting in the CS mouse is related to clock gene expression outside the suprachiasmatic nucleus

CS mice exhibit a spontaneous splitting in the circadian rhythm of locomotor activity under constant darkness, suggesting that they contain two weakly coupled oscillators in the circadian clock system regulating locomotor activity rhythm. In order to clarify whether the two oscillators are located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), a site of the master circadian pacemaker in mammals, circadian rhythms in mRNA of mouse Period genes (mPer1, mPer2 and mPer3) in the SCN and cerebral cortex were examined during rhythm splitting by in situ hybridization. In the SCN, mPer1 and mPer2 showed a circadian rhythm with a single peak in both split and unsplit mice. The rhythms of mPer1 and mPer2 were slightly phase delayed during rhythm splitting in reference to the activity onset, but the phase relationship between the two rhythms was not changed. In the cerebral cortex, the expression of mPer1 and mPer2 underwent the bimodal fluctuation with peaks temporally corresponding to split activity components. The unsplit mice showed the circadian rhythms with a single peak. There was no difference in the mPer3 rhythms in either the SCN or the cerebral cortex between the split and unsplit mice. These results indicate that the circadian oscillations of mPer1, mPer2 and mPer3 in the SCN are not related to the rhythm splitting of CS mice. The split rhythms of the CS mice are suggested to be caused by uncoupling of oscillators located outside the SCN from the SCN circadian pacemaker.
Raman forward scattering of short-pulse high-intensity lasers.

Raman forward scattering of short-pulse relativistic-intensity laser pulses is investigated. Differential equations which model the instability for arbitrarily large pump strengths are derived. Exact solutions are obtained for a set of physically relevant initial conditions. The growth rate is found to asymptotically approach zero for ultrarelativistic laser intensities. The relevance of the results to present experiments and the limitations of the quasistatic equations are discussed
Robust Sliding Mode Control Design for a Quadratic Boost Converter

DC-DC converters with high step up gain are acquiring much significance with increase in renewable energy applications. Among them cascade boost derived converters with single active switch are of more interest. In the cascade boost family, quadratic boost converter is the best trade-off when circuit complexity and modulator saturation is considered. Hence, a robust controller design to obtain output voltage regulation in a quadratic boost converter with high dc gain is proposed in this paper. The proposed controller has an outer loop Proportional-Integral (PI) compensator in an outer loop that operates over the output voltage error and sets the current reference value of the sliding surface. The inner loop is based on sliding mode control whose sliding surface is defined for the input inductor current. The analysis of the proposed control loop is performed by means of the equivalent control method and robustness is analysed in depth taking into account the parameter variation related with the operation of the converter in different equilibrium points. Simulations results are presented to validate the approach for a (20-100) W quadratic boost converter stepping-up a low dc voltage (15-25)V DC to a 400V DC level. 
Political Connections and Firm Performance in Chinese Companies

This study uses panel data analysis to examine the relationship between political connections and firm performance in Chinese firms from 2004 to 2008. We define firm‐level political connections and demonstrate a robust result for the positive relationship between political connections and firm performance. In addition, we integrate the effects of ownership structure, related‐party transactions and political connections into our analysis and continue to show a positive relationship. We show that political connections dampen the negative effect on firm value of related‐party transactions. Finally, we demonstrate channels through which the benefits of political connections are realized in terms of greater cash holdings, larger long‐term loans, lower financing costs, larger sales and lower sales costs. Our results indicate that state‐owned and non‐state‐owned enterprises use political connections equally effectively to enhance performance.
Intravenous Immunoglobulin Therapy in Primary Vasculitides

Vasculitis is defined as chronic blood vessel inflammation confirmed by histologic evidence. The typical course of the disease may lead to blood vessel stenosis/occlusion causing organ ischemia, or to thinning of the blood vessel which results in aneurysm formation or hemorrhage. Although in 1994 the American College of Rheumatology introduced morphological and histopathological classification criteria for the most common forms of vasculitides at the Chapel Hill Consensus Conference (CHCC) (Jennette et al., 1994), vasculitides are generally divided into two main categories. Primary vasculitides represent the first group, are the entities of unknown cause in which blood vessel inflammation is the pathologic basis of tissue injury. Secondary vasculitides constitute the second, heterogeneous and much bigger group, in which inflammatory process occurs in association with an underlying disease or exposure. The pathophysiology of the vasculitides is based on immunologic mechanisms. These mechanisms appear to play an active role in mediating the inflammatory response, but precise mechanisms still remain poorly understood. Although the primary events that initiate this process remain largely unknown, recent investigations have brought us closer to understanding some of the critical pathways involved in disease and provided a rationale for the study of novel therapeutic agents (Langford, 2010). Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) represents one of the novel alternative choices for the treatment as the standard regimen and IVIG has now become an important option in a number of clinical indications beyond primary immunodeficiency, including vasculitides.
Two-Season Subsistence Farming, Urban Food Subsidies and Optimal Agricultural Policy

This paper extends the household production literature by developing and analyzing a two-season model of subsistence farm choices wherein the two seasons correspond to times of planting and harvest. Qualitative properties of optimal farm production and storage choices are characterized. In addition, given a government policy of subsidizing urban grain consumption, the government's problem of choosing an optimal (welfare-maximizing) agricultural policy is developed. Under plausible conditions, the optimal policy takes a form that is often observed in developing countries, namely, farm output prices set below relevant international levels and price subsidies provided to farm inputs in both grain production and storage. Copyright 1993 by Royal Economic Society.