Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Opportunities for transmission power control protocols in wireless sensor networks

This study investigates the opportunities for transmission power control (TPC) protocols in resource constrained wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The paper begins by creating a generalised model to describe the relationship between transmission power, communication reliability and energy consumption. Applying this model to the performance of state-of-the-art radio hardware, the maximum potential energy savings achievable through the implementation of a TPC protocol are identified. From this, previous assumptions about the limited impact of protocols and mechanisms, such as TPC, which seek to reduce the energy consumed by wireless communication activities through targeting the distance dependent term are disproven. This paper concludes by presenting guidelines on the link conditions which offer the greatest opportunities for a TPC protocol.
Aerosolized anticoagulants ameliorate acute lung injury in sheep after exposure to burn and smoke inhalation

Objective: Acute lung injury is a detrimental complication for victims of burn accidents. Airway obstruction plays an important role in pulmonary dysfunction in these patients. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that aerosolized anticoagulants will reduce the degree of airway obstruction and improve pulmonary function in sheep with severe combined burn and smoke inhalation injury by preventing the formation of airway fibrin clots. Design: Prospective, randomized, controlled, experimental animal study. Setting: Investigational intensive care unit at a university hospital. Subjects: Adult female sheep. Interventions: After 7 days of surgical recovery, sheep were given a cutaneous burn (40% of total body surface, third degree) and insufflated with cotton smoke (48 breaths, <40°C) under halothane anesthesia. After injury, sheep were placed on ventilators and resuscitated with lactated Ringer's solution. Sheep were randomly divided into five groups: sham, noninjured and nontreated (n = 6); control, injured and aerosolized with saline (n = 6); recombinant human antithrombin (rhAT) + heparin, injured and aerosolized with rhAT (290 units for each) and heparin (10,000 units for each) (n = 6); rhAT, injured and aerosolized with rhAT alone (290 units for each; n = 5); and heparin, injured and aerosolized with heparin alone (10,000 units for each; n = 5). rhAT and heparin were aerosolized every 4 hrs, starting at 2 hrs postinjury. Measurements and Main Results: Cardiopulmonary hemodynamics were monitored during a 48‐hr experimental time period. Control sheep developed multiple signs of acute lung injury. This pathophysiology included decreased pulmonary gas exchange and lung compliance, increased pulmonary edema, and extensive airway obstruction. These variables were stable in sham animals. The aerosolization of rhAT or heparin alone did not significantly improve deteriorated pulmonary gas exchange. However, aerosolization of these anticoagulants in combination significantly attenuated all the observed pulmonary pathophysiology. Conclusions: The results provide definitive evidence that aerosolized rhAT and heparin in combination may be a novel treatment strategy for pulmonary pathology in burn victims with smoke inhalation injury.
Variance Reduction for Asian Options

Asian options are an important family of derivative contracts with a wide variety of applications in commodity, currency, energy, interest rate, equity and insurance markets. In this master's thesis, we investigate methods for evaluating the price of the Asian call options with a fixed strike. One of them is the Monte Carlo method. The accurancy of this method can be observed through variance of the price. We will see that the variance with using Monte Carlo method has to be decreased. The Variance Reduction technique is useful for this aim. We will give evidence of the efficiency of one of the Variance Reduction thechniques - Control Variate method - in a mathematical context and a numerical comparison with the ordinary Monte Carlo method.
Persistent Inequalities in Time Use between Men and Women: A Detailed Look at the Influence of Economic Circumstances, Policies, and Culture

The aim of this contribution is to refine explanations for inequalities in the amount of time men and women spend in paid work and housework by breaking down institutional conditions into economic circumstances, policy conditions, and cultural influences. We indicate our expectations for these macro indicators as well as for their interaction with micro level indicators. We expect, for example, that the negative effect on paid work for married women becomes stronger in more masculine countries. Using the Multinational Time Use Archive, we analysed 17 countries in the 1965―1998 period. Multilevel analyses show the importance of institutional conditions for paid work: men and women in highly developed economies and in countries with high rates of child-care facilities do more paid work, although they spend less time on paid work after having children. With respect to the influence of culture, it appears that highly educated and married women in masculine cultures do less paid work, and that married women also do more housework, than their counterparts in more feminine cultures.
The Effect of Perceived Justice and Attributions Regarding Service Failure and Recovery on Post-Recovery Customer Satisfaction and Service Quality Attitudes

This research examines the impact of attributions regarding service failure and recovery on the relationship between satisfaction and service quality by studying a service failure in the hospitality industry resulting from overbooking. In addition, the impact of perceived justice on satisfaction and service quality is analyzed. Finally, the ability of superior recovery to completely mitigate the dissatisfaction resulting from low-harm service failure is addressed. In doing so, the relationship between satisfaction and service quality is clarified. Research hypotheses are critically evaluated through the use of a scenario-based experiment. Implications concern the ability of recovery to mitigate the harm caused by failure. Specifically, for managers in the hospitality industry, the study demonstrates a need to balance overbooking as a yield management tool against the need for organizations to assure service quality through reliability in their service products.
Public Opinion and State Action on Same-Sex Marriage

ideologies and beliefs of a state's citi zens, especially with regard to simple, politically salient issues that are the focus of highly visible legislative action. Accord ing to Norrander and Wilcox (1999, 708), "the effect of public opinion is thought to be especially strong on morality policy. " The "debate over first principles" and the "legal sanction of right and wrong" increase issue salience and ease (Mooney 1999, 676, 675). Scholars have documented strong links be tween public opinion and state death pen alty and abortion policy, for instance (Nor rander and Wilcox 1999; Mooney and Lee 2000; Norrander 2000). Three studies of state laws on employment discrimination, same-sex marriage, and sodomy laws have found little
Analysis of a hybrid OFDM synchronization algorithm for power line communication

This paper outlines a hybrid OFDM synchronization technique for powerline communication. Initially, the timing and frequency offset are estimated by searching for the peak of an evaluated metric provided by a reference block transmitted at the beginning of each OFDM frame, and subsequently, autocorrelation properties induced at cyclic prefix on the time domain are exploited to maintain estimates of the timing and frequency offset without the use of a new reference block for synchronization purpose. This strategy is interesting because once a first synchronization of the first OFDM block (the start point of the frame) is accomplished, any loss in spectral efficiency will occur subsequently. Additionally, we propose an interesting strategy with low computational complexity to improve the timing and frequency estimates after synchronization is carried out at the beginning of the frame. Basically, this strategy consists of averaging the peaks spacing between successive peaks of the evaluated autocorrelation metric. Simulation results reveal good performance in PLC scenarios, specially in the cases of occurrences of impulsive noise.
The challenges to create and learn accounting innovations in the public sector

As the major impetus of the public sector reforms is a new managerialism in the public sector, this study focuses on the accounting practices, which might be seen as such or as innovations. The study draws upon two interventionist empirical investigations in applying an evolutionary conceptualisation of change. Creation is regarded as the exchange of information through formal and informal processes by the accounting and the service-oriented professionals. The results show that reporting practices are heavily related to satisfying accountability obligations to selected within-government groups. New contexts emerge out of partly political activities that constitute actors as networks. The emergence of the accountability innovation can be seen as a means of stabilising democracy whilst the operation of the reform provides a sense of reinforced managerial control.
Ebb and flow? Co-integration with structural breaks between emerging markets in the EMEA and USA

In this paper, we try to analyse the long-run relationship between the stock prices of emerging markets in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region and the US market. Our aim is to find out whether these markets provide opportunities for international diversification to US investors. We employ the Gregory and Hansen (GH) (1996) co-integration test, which takes into account the structural breaks to analyse co-movements of the emerging markets in the aforementioned region with the USA over the period 1995-2008 using monthly data. We only find a long-run relationship between stock indices of Israel and the USA.
Ionizing radiation enhances tumor necrosis factor‐related apoptosis‐inducing ligand (TRAIL)‐induced apoptosis through up‐regulations of death receptor 4 (DR4) and death receptor 5 (DR5) in human osteosarcoma cells

Despite improvements in chemotherapy and surgery in the treatment of osteosarcoma (OS), satisfactory results are still difficult to achieve. Novel therapeutic modalities need to be developed for osteosarcoma treatment. The combined effects of tumor necrosis factor‐related apoptosis‐inducing ligand (TRAIL) and ionizing radiation (IR) on human OS cells were investigated. IR and TRAIL treatment synergistically decreased the cell viability and enhanced apoptosis in OS cell lines. IR pretreatment enhances TRAIL‐induced Bid and caspase‐3 activations. Decreases in the expression levels of the antiapoptotic proteins c‐FLIP and XIAP also associated with apoptosis enhancement. Furthermore, IR pretreatment enhanced DR4 and DR5 expressions at the transcription stage. These results can become the basic lines of evidence for the future treatment of OS using TRAIL with IR. © 2009 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 28:739–745, 2010
Public Capital Formation and Regional Development in Spain

This paper uses a vector autoregression (VAR) approach to evaluate the effects of public investment on private sector performance in Spain. Empirical results suggest that public investment positively affected private investment, employment, and output at both aggregate and regional levels. The regions that benefited the most from public investment in the last two decades were Cataluna, Madrid, and Pais Vasco. These regions are among the largest economic areas in the country and among the ones with the highest GDP per capita. Accordingly, public investment, while an important factor for aggregate economic growth, has also been a source of increasing regional asymmetries. Copyright 1999 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
The Effects of Audit Quality and Consequence Severity on Juror Evaluations of Auditor Responsibility for Plaintiff Losses

This study investigates whether providing higher quality audits increases auditors' chances of avoiding legal liability. Negligence rules hold auditors responsible for plaintiff losses only when the quality of the audit provided fails to meet standards of care. The results of my experiment suggest that the ex post observed consequences of audit failure can affect the standards of care to which jurors hold auditors. Specifically, participants serving in the role of jurors assessed higher standards of care for auditors when the consequences of audit failure were more severe. Furthermore, when the consequences of audit failure were more severe, participants' evaluations of the auditor did not depend on the quality of the audit provided—auditors who provided higher quality audits were evaluated just as negatively as those who provided lower quality audits. In contrast, when audit failure led to only moderately negative consequences, auditors who provided higher quality audits received more favorable evaluatio.
Ending Access as We Know It: State Welfare Benefit Coverage in the TANF Era

Much of the quantitative literature evaluating welfare reform focuses on caseloads. In order to contextualize caseload declines, the current study examines a closely related measure of welfare coverage: the ratio of children receiving welfare assistance to children in poverty. A multilevel model approach is employed to investigate state-level factors that have contributed to declines in coverage. The findings suggest that welfare coverage has fallen the most in states with higher levels of coverage prereform, ideologically conservative governments, Republican governors, and larger proportions of African American welfare recipients. In addition, this study identifies specific policies and administrative practices that are associated with falling coverage and reveals a substantial erosion of the traditionally countercyclical relationship between unemployment and welfare provision since reform. By the late 2000s, the policy choices that embody welfare reform have produced both historically low levels of welfare coverage nationally and unprecedented diversity in benefit accessibility across states.
How the Gold Standard functioned in Portugal: an analysis of some macroeconomic aspects

Portugal was the first country in Europe to join Great Britain in the Gold Standard, in 1854, having abandoned the principle of free gold convertibility in 1891. By elucidating the historical choice of the Gold Standard by the Portuguese authorities, and analysing its macroeconomic behaviour, we prove that it is a mistake to compare different monetary systems with the same indicators. Our examination of demand, supply and monetary shocks in the context of a Vector Autoregression (VAR) model confirm the idea of appropriate application of the principles of classical economics to the Gold Standard in Portugal. We also prove that the principles of demand management were not compatible with the functioning of the Gold Standard.
Integration among USA, UK, Japanese and Australian securitised real estate markets: an empirical exploration

We empirically explore integration among US, UK, Japanese and Australian securitised real estate markets and their interdependencies from the global stock market based on dynamic conditional correlation analysis and conditional return‐volatility beta methodology. Results imply that international links have been increasing over time, especially for the largest securitised real estate markets and the global stock market, although their integration process has been much slower than among the corresponding stock markets and from the global stock market. In addition, the conditional return‐volatility beta analyses indicate the four real estate securities markets do not share the same volatility process. Our analyses and results have important implications for international real estate portfolio diversification.
When do Chief Marketing Officers Affect Firm Value? A Customer Power Explanation

Recent discussions in academic literature and the business press often paint an unflattering picture of the contributions of chief marketing officers (CMOs) to the financial value of their firms. Some even suggest that CMOs, despite being the marketing leaders in firms, have little or no effect on firm performance. However, formal empirical research on the impact of CMOs on financial performance is scarce. This article presents conceptual arguments and empirical evidence about this controversial issue. The authors suggest that CMOs are far from irrelevant to the financial performance of firms. However, the impact of CMOs on financial performance is highly contingent on the managerial discretion available to them. Focusing on the role of customer power in limiting the managerial discretion available to CMOs, this study identifies individual and firm-specific conditions in which CMOs contribute more or less to firm value. Analyses of abnormal stock returns associated with the appointment of CMOs provide support for the hypothesized effects of customer power and managerial discretion.
0 Hypoglycemia Prevention in Closed-Loop Artificial Pancreas for Patients with Type 1 Diabetes

The current chapter addresses the problem of hypoglycemia in type 1 diabetes from biomedical and control engineering points of view. It gives a general introduction to the artificial pancreas system, and the risk of hypoglycemia in closed-loop insulin treatment. Then, it provides a review on the state of the art in hypoglycemia control, and the recent approaches in dealing with hypoglycemia in closed-loop artificial pancreas systems. Next, different control techniques that can be used to minimize the risk of hypoglycemia and improve the control outputs are presented. Since the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT), tight glycemic control has been established as the control objective in the treatment of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) (DCCT Research Group (1993)), except if some contraindication exists. However, there still lacks a universal, efficient and safe system able to normalize the glucose levels of patients. The intensive insulin therapy required to achieve the tight glycemic control, based on the injection of basal and bolus insulin to reproduce its physiological secretion, has as counteraction an increase in the risk of significant and severe hypoglycemia with all their consequences. Therefore, hypoglycemia is considered as one of the major limiting factors in achieving tight glycemic control in T1DM (Cryer (2008)). With the inability of conventional therapy to achieve satisfactory glycemic control, and the development in continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems and the increasing use of insulin pumps, the idea of developing an artificial pancreas is viewed as the ideal solution for glycemic control in T1DM (Bequette (2005); Hovorka et al. (2006); Kumareswaran et al. (2009)). The artificial pancreas is an automated closed-loop system that maintains blood glucose levels within the desired range and prevents hypoglycemia, while minimizing or eliminating the need for patient intervention. The artificial pancreas replaces the β-cells functions in glucose sensing and insulin delivery. It consists of three main components (Figure 1): a glucose sensor to measure glucose concentration, a pump for insulin delivery, and a closed-loop control algorithm to bridge between the glucose measurements and the dose of insulin to be delivered. As other medical devices, the architecture of closed-loop 11
A Printed Single-Layer UWB Monopole Antenna With Extended Ground Plane Stubs

In this letter, a compact coplanar-waveguide-fed single-layer printed antenna with an ultrawideband (UWB) rectangular monopole radiator etched with a half-elliptical slot is presented. Collaborating with the UWB radiator, two symmetrical open-circuit stubs are extended from the ground plane to jointly achieve an ultrawideband impedance match with a compact size. The proposed antenna is fabricated and tested in an anechoic chamber, showing an ultrawide operating frequency range from 3.7 to 10.1 GHz with a quasi-omnidirectional gain from 2.0 to 7.3 dBi. With the advantages of a reduced size, an improved voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR), and a monolayer configuration without any back ground plane, the proposed antenna can be used in a wide range of UWB applications.
Use of Variable-Number Tandem Repeats To Examine Genetic Diversity of Neisseria meningitidis

ABSTRACT Repetitive DNA motifs with potential variable-number tandem repeats (VNTR) were identified in the genome of Neisseria meningitidis and used to develop a typing method. A total of 146 meningococcal isolates recovered from carriers and patients were studied. These included 82 of the 107 N. meningitidis isolates previously used in the development of multilocus sequence typing (MLST), 45 isolates recovered from different counties in Norway in connection with local outbreaks, and 19 serogroup W135 isolates of sequence type 11 (ST-11), which were recovered in several parts of the world. The latter group comprised isolates related to the Hajj outbreak of 2000 and isolates recovered from outbreaks in Burkina Faso in 2001 and 2002. All isolates had been characterized previously by MLST or multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE). VNTR analysis showed that meningococcal isolates with similar MLST or MLEE types recovered from epidemiologically linked cases in a defined geographical area often presented similar VNTR patterns while isolates of the same MLST or MLEE types without an obvious epidemiological link showed variable VNTR patterns. Thus, VNTR analysis may be used for fine typing of meningococcal isolates after MLST or MLEE typing. The method might be especially valuable for differentiating among ST-11 strains, as shown by the VNTR analyses of serogroup W135 ST-11 meningococcal isolates recovered since the mid-1990s.
A critical appraisal of higher education and economic development in India

Today, the stark reality is that even after 62 years of independence, India still has not been able to ensure a minimum quality of life to its citizens. The million-dollar question confronting India is whether leading economic power with poor show of human development can present a model of sustainable, equitable and inclusive growth that the nation aspires for? Certainly not, there is a need for some turn around strategies, which primarily include a change in the education system. Education which is a pre-requisite for all type of development recipes is presently in a bad shape in India. Why is India still a developing country? What is stopping it from becoming a developed country? These questions strike the mind every time when one considers the state of India’s educational system. Therefore, this research paper throws light on the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of higher education in India. Key words: Economic system, higher education, human development.
Do Extended Unemployment Benefits Lengthen Unemployment Spells?

In response to the recession of 2007–2009, the maximum duration of U.S. unemployment insurance (UI) benefits was extended to an unprecedented 99 weeks. We exploit variation in the timing and size of the UI benefit extensions across states to estimate their overall impact on unemployment exits, comparing the most recent and prior extension episodes. We find a small but statistically significant increase in labor force attachment due to extended UI in both periods with little or no impact on job finding. Despite these small estimates, extended benefits can account for a substantial share of the increase in long-term unemployment.