Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seed Market Privatisation and Farmers’ Access to Crop Technologies: The Case of Hybrid Pearl Millet Adoption in India

In India, pearl millet is a typical subsistence crop. Nonetheless, use of hybrid seeds is widespread. The first pearl millet hybrids were introduced in 1965 by the public sector. Yet, starting in the late 1980s, market liberalisation led to an increasing role of private companies in seed development and distribution. Although several studies showed that proprietary pearl millet hybrids are more productive than public hybrids and open-pollinated varieties, the impacts of privatisation on farmers' technology access and overall innovation rates are not yet well understood. This paper analyses the dynamics of adoption using duration models and farm survey data collected in the state of Maharashtra. The results show that education, short distances to main information sources and good market infrastructure speeded up the adoption of pearl millet hybrids. Likewise, the increasing role of private seed companies had a positive and accelerating effect on technology diffusion in the small farm sector. Copyright (c) 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation (c) 2008 The Agricultural Economics Society.
Intravenous infusion of phenytoin relieves neuropathic pain: a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover study.

UNLABELLED Neuropathic pain responds inconsistently to opioids and nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs. However, oral anticonvulsants have a proven analgesic effect on neuropathic pain, but may not be practical in an acute flare-up. Phenytoin was the first oral anticonvulsant used as an analgesic for neuropathic pain. There have been few studies on the parenteral analgesic effect of this drug. In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study of 20 patients with acute flare-ups of neuropathic pain, we compared a 2-h placebo infusion with a 2-h infusion of 15 mg/kg phenytoin. Overall pain, shooting pain, burning pain, paresthesia, numbness, and sensitivity were measured using a 10-cm linear visual analog score. Numbness and sensitivity were reduced in the placebo group during infusion, but not in the 7 days after infusion. In the phenytoin group, there were significant reductions in burning pain (P < 0.05), shooting pain (P < 0.001), sensitivity (P < 0.001), numbness (P < 0.05), and overall pain (P < 0.005) during the infusion period. The reduction in overall pain persisted for 1 day, in sensitivity for 2 days, and in shooting pain for 4 days after infusion. We conclude that IV infusion of 15 mg/kg phenytoin has an analgesic effect in acute flare-ups of neuropathic pain and that this relief outlives both the infusion time and plasma half-life of phenytoin. IMPLICATIONS Oral phenytoin can relieve neuropathic pain. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of IV phenytoin on neuropathic pain. The results indicate that IV phenytoin may be used to treat flare-ups of chronic neuropathic pain.
Price linkages in Pacific tuna markets: implications for the South Pacific Tuna Treaty and the Western and Central Pacific region

A revenue-sharing arrangement is under consideration between the USA and Western and Central Pacific Island Parties. When the ex-vessel price for cannery-grade skipjack tuna is above a minimum price, Pacific Island Parties would share in the increased revenue. This arrangement would provide economic incentives to these island nations to control fishing capacity and thereby increase revenues and economic rents. This potential arrangement raises the issue of which market and species prices to use as a benchmark, Bangkok or Pago-Pago; American Samoa and skipjack or yellowfin tuna. This paper, through a time series analysis of spatial price linkages, finds price leadership for skipjack in Bangkok. Macroeconomic and regional economic implications of enhanced price stability and higher revenues in the region are also discussed.
Too Far to See? Not Really!—Pedestrian Detection With Scale-Aware Localization Policy

A major bottleneck of pedestrian detection lies on the sharp performance deterioration in the presence of small-size pedestrians that are relatively far from the camera. Motivated by the observation that pedestrians of disparate spatial scales exhibit distinct visual appearances, we propose in this paper an active pedestrian detector that explicitly operates over multiple-layer neuronal representations of the input still image. More specifically, convolutional neural nets, such as ResNet and faster R-CNNs, are exploited to provide a rich and discriminative hierarchy of feature representations, as well as initial pedestrian proposals. Here each pedestrian observation of distinct size could be best characterized in terms of the ResNet feature representation at a certain layer of the hierarchy. Meanwhile, initial pedestrian proposals are attained by the faster R-CNNs techniques, i.e., region proposal network and follow-up region of interesting pooling layer employed right after the specific ResNet convolutional layer of interest, to produce joint predictions on the bounding-box proposals’ locations and categories (i.e., pedestrian or not). This is engaged as an input to our active detector, where for each initial pedestrian proposal, a sequence of coordinate transformation actions is carried out to determine its proper x-y 2D location and the layer of feature representation, or eventually terminated as being background. Empirically our approach is demonstrated to produce overall lower detection errors on widely used benchmarks, and it works particularly well with far-scale pedestrians. For example, compared with 60.51% log-average miss rate of the state-of-the-art MS-CNN for far-scale pedestrians (those below 80 pixels in bounding-box height) of the Caltech benchmark, the miss rate of our approach is 41.85%, with a notable reduction of 18.66%.
The ballet automaton: A formal model for human motion

In this paper we present a discrete event model whose marked language, i.e., sequences of movements, make up canonical warm-up routines in classical ballet. Through composition operations that trim physically infeasible transitions and ensure that the rules of classical ballet are adhered to, a richer model is obtained that supports the generation of free flowing dance sequences in the style of classical ballet. This type of construction not only allows us to produce a rich set of stylized human motions, but it also allows for variations in the "personalities" of these motions through the potential use of different composition specifications.
Establishment of an Effective Acute Stroke Telemedicine Program for Australia: Protocol for the Victorian Stroke Telemedicine Project

Rationale Urgent treatment of acute stroke in rural Australia is problematic partly because of limited access to medical specialists. Utilization of telemedicine could improve delivery of acute stroke treatments in rural communities. Aim The study aims to demonstrate enhanced clinical decision making for use of thrombolysis within 4·5 h of ischemic stroke symptom onset in a rural setting using a telemedicine specialist support model. Design A formative program evaluation research design was used. The Victorian Stroke Telemedicine program was developed and will be evaluated over five stages to ensure successful implementation. The phases include: (a) preimplementation phase to establish the Victorian Stroke Telemedicine program including the clinical pathway, data collection tools, and technology processes; (b) pilot clinical application phase to test the pathway in up to 10 patients; (c) modification phase to refine the program; (d) full clinical implementation phase where the program is maintained for one-year; and (e) a sustainability phase to assess project outcomes over five-years. Qualitative (clinician interviews) and quantitative data (patient, clinician, costs, and technology processes) are collected in each phase. Study outcomes The primary outcome is to achieve a minimum 10% absolute increase in eligible patients treated with thrombolysis. Secondary outcomes are utilization of the telestroke pathway and improvements in processes of stroke care (e.g., time to brain scan). We will report door to telemedicine consultation time, length of telemedicine consultation, clinical utility and acceptability from the perspective of clinicians, and 90-day patient outcomes. Summary This research will provide evidence for an effective telestroke program for use in regional Australian hospitals.
Preparation for success: key themes in the Prime Minister's Initiative for International Education (UK)

In 2006, Tony Blair launched the second phase of his Prime Minister’s Initiative for International Education. , aiming to increase and diversify inward mobility to the UK, to build partnerships at institutional and national level with key target countries and to improve the quality of the international student experience. This paper will look at how a range of UK partners are working to deliver on this latter strand. “Preparation for success” has been identified as fundamental to raising international student satisfaction levels by ensuring students are helped through the initial transition period as quickly and smoothly as possible. Some resources have been focused directly on students, but much of the work is based around developing and sharing best practice in institutions, and improving professional development opportunities and resources for staff working with international students. This paper reports on key developments to date, and directions for the future.
Liquidity Constraints, Household Wealth, and Entrepreneurship

The propensity to become a business owner is a nonlinear function of wealth. The relationship between wealth and entry into entrepreneurship is essentially flat over the majority of the wealth distribution. It is only at the top of the wealth distribution—after the ninety‐fifth percentile—that a positive relationship can be found. Segmenting businesses into industries with high– and low–starting capital requirements, we find no evidence that wealth matters more for businesses requiring higher initial capital. When using inheritances as an instrument for wealth, we find that both past and future inheritances predict current business entry, showing that inheritances capture more than simply liquidity. We further exploit the regional variation in house prices and find that households that lived in regions in which housing prices appreciated strongly were no more likely to start a business than households in other regions.
Toxic Cyanobacterial Bloom Triggers in Missisquoi Bay, Lake Champlain, as Determined by Next-Generation Sequencing and Quantitative PCR

Missisquoi Bay (MB) is a temperate eutrophic freshwater lake that frequently experiences toxic Microcystis-dominated cyanobacterial blooms. Non-point sources are responsible for the high concentrations of phosphorus and nitrogen in the bay. This study combined data from environmental parameters, E. coli counts, high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons, quantitative PCR (16S rRNA and mcyD genes) and toxin analyses to identify the main bloom-promoting factors. In 2009, nutrient concentrations correlated with E. coli counts, abundance of total cyanobacterial cells, Microcystis 16S rRNA and mcyD genes and intracellular microcystin. Total and dissolved phosphorus also correlated significantly with rainfall. The major cyanobacterial taxa were members of the orders Chroococcales and Nostocales. The genus Microcystis was the main mcyD-carrier and main microcystin producer. Our results suggested that increasing nutrient concentrations and total nitrogen:total phosphorus (TN:TP) ratios approaching 11:1, coupled with an increase in temperature, promoted Microcystis-dominated toxic blooms. Although the importance of nutrient ratios and absolute concentrations on cyanobacterial and Microcystis dynamics have been documented in other laboratories, an optimum TN:TP ratio for Microcystis dominance has not been previously observed in situ. This observation provides further support that nutrient ratios are an important determinant of species composition in natural phytoplankton assemblages.
A Study of LDPC Coding and Iterative Decoding System in Magnetic Recording System Using Bit-Patterned Medium With Write Error

In this paper, low-density parity-check (LDPC) coding and iterative decoding system is studied in the magnetic recording system using a bit-patterned medium (BPM). The magnetic recording system using BPM has a serious problem of requiring precise write synchronization to correctly write the recording sequence on each intended island. In this paper, an error locator using the parity-check matrix of LDPC code is utilized to curb the influence of write error on the iterative decoding process. The performance of the proposed system with the error locator is evaluated by computer simulation for magnetic recording system using BPM with synchronization write error at a recording density of 2 Tb/in2, and it is compared with a conventional Reed-Solomon (RS) encoding and decoding system. The results show that the proposed system provides better performance.
In search of corporate renewal: focus on corporate venturing

Today's changing business environment forces companies to seek continuous corporate renewal and for its part drives the decision to engage in corporate venturing. However, when measured by financial terms, eight out of ten ventures fail. By studying corporate venturing through the management processes, this study defines a framework, which enhances our understanding of the non-financial mechanisms linking corporate venturing and corporate renewal. It defines a framework of strategic corporate venturing, which can help established corporations to use corporate venturing as an engine of corporate renewal.
A new neuron model suitable for low power VLSI implementation

This paper presents a new dynamical neuron model which is appropriate for electronic circuit implementation and its low power, compact VLSI implementation. The neuron circuit consists of one first-order log domain filters, hyperbolic type nonlinear function generator and resetting circuitry. Owing to the log domain design and current-mode operation in a 0.35 μm CMOS process, the circuit occupies low chip area and has very low power consumption during real time scale operation. These features make the circuit suitable for hybrid interface applications and large scale VLSI neuromorphic networks.
Shaping the Crisis Perception of Decision Makers and Its Application to Singapore's Voluntary Contributions to Post-Tsunami Reconstruction Efforts

Decision making is one of the most important stages in the process of policymaking, especially when decision makers face crises. Departing from the policy process framework, this paper focuses on the stage of public policy decision making in terms of perception formulation of decision makers in face of crisis. In this paper, the process and content of perception in decision making have been studied, and contested, along with the principles of new public management. The factors that contribute to perception shaping are decomposed, categorized into mechanisms of driving forces and restraining forces, and embraced by policy subsystem context, along with the decision flow towards an outcome of strategic decision. Building on the conceptual framework, an empirical case study of Singapore Red Cross in 2004 post‐tsunami reconstruction of Aceh Indonesia is presented to compare and contrast the conceptual framework as an example of perception formulation in crisis decision‐making.
Columnar NoSQL CUBE: Agregation operator for columnar NoSQL data warehouse

The emergence of large volumes of data imposed by the major players of the web requires new management models and new data storage architectures and treatment able to find information quickly in a large volume of data. The column-oriented NoSQL (Not Only SQL) database provide for big data the most suitable model to the data warehouse and the structure of multidimensional data in OLAP cube form. However, in the absence of OLAP cube computation operators, we propose in this paper, a new aggregation operator called CN-CUBE (Columnar NoSQL CUBE), which allows data cubes to be computed from data warehouses stored in column-oriented NoSQL database management system. We implemented the CNCUBE operator using the SQL Phoenix interface of HBase DBMS and conducted experiments on a public data warehouse in a distributed environment produced using the Hadoop platform. Thus we have shown that our CN-CUBE operator has OLAP cubes computation times very suitable for NoSQL warehouses.
Differences in Exercise Identity between Secondary Physical Education Students and Athletes.

Texas (USA) public schools require high school students to take one year of physical education to graduate. However, students can meet this requirement by participating on a state sanctioned athletic team for a year. The Texas Education Agency states the physical education curriculum should teach affective attitudes and values that will encourage students to be “physically active and healthy for a lifetime” (TEA, 2010). Only physical education students are exposed to this curriculum that specifically incorporates instruction and knowledge related to physical education and fitness concepts. The purpose of the study was to determine if significant differences existed between physical education students and students who chose to participate in sports regarding exercise identity. Data were collected from 207 students with 151 in the physical education group and 56 athletes with the Exercise Identity Scale (EIS) (Anderson & Cychosz, 1994). Scores on the EIS range from 9 to 63. Higher scores indicate greater exercise identity. The physical education group had an average EIS score of 32.9 and athletes had an average score of 45.4. T-test analysis determined athletes had significantly higher exercise identities than physical education students at the p < . 000 level.
Asset Pricing Using Partially Misspecified Models

This paper studies a robust pricing method using a misspecified model. It is particularly suited if the available model is multi-dimensional (which is increasingly popular in economics and finance), and possibly has good quality along some dimensions of the state variable yet poor quality along other dimensions. Application to the pricing of Treasury options shows a pricing error reduction of over 30% relative to either parametric or nonparametric prices (both in sample and out of the sample), and suggests that the cheapest-to-deliver practice is an important source of misspecification.
Information costs and liquidity effects from changes in the FTSE 100 list

Abstract In this paper we examine the stock price effect of changes in the composition of the FTSE 100 over the time period of 1984–2001. Like the S&P 500 listing studies, we find that the price and trading volume of newly listed firms increases. The evidence is consistent with the information cost/liquidity explanation. This is because investors hold stocks with more available information, implying that they have lower trading costs. This explains the increase in the stock price and trading volume of newly listed stocks to the FTSE 100 List. We find the reverse effect for the deletions from the FTSE 100.
Optimum Single Antenna Full Duplex Using Hybrid Junctions

This paper investigates electrical balance (EB) in hybrid junctions as a method of achieving transmitter-receiver isolation in single antenna full duplex wireless systems. A novel technique for maximizing isolation in EB duplexers is presented, and we show that the maximum achievable isolation is proportional to the variance of the antenna reflection coefficient with respect to frequency. Consequently, antenna characteristics can have a significant detrimental impact on the isolation bandwidth. Simulations that include embedded antenna measurements show a mean isolation of 62 dB over a 20-MHz bandwidth at 1.9 GHz but relatively poor performance at wider bandwidths. Furthermore, the operational environment can have a significant impact on isolation performance. We present a novel method of characterizing radio reflections being returned to a single antenna. Results show as little as 39 dB of attenuation in the radio echo for a highly reflective indoor environment at 1.9 GHz and that the mean isolation of an EB duplexer is reduced by 7 dB in this environment. A full duplex architecture exploiting EB is proposed.
Partial and Iterative Lean Implementation: Two Case Studies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the implementation of lean within two contrasting UK-based organizations; a food manufacturer and a healthcare organization. The different contexts provide insight to the strategic desire for efficiency gains and tactical issues and challenges of lean execution and implementation. Design/methodology/approach – The research questions developed from the review of the literature were tested using evidence from field-based, action research within a food manufacturer and a National Health Service organization. The reported contrasting case studies contribute to the longer term debate on the adoption and adaptation of lean-based “best practice” within organizations. Findings – There are three primary findings: first, that the adoption of lean provides a strategic benefit, as well as providing a basis for a strategy of operational change; second, that partial, as opposed to full, adoption of lean occurs due to external organizational constraints, such as demand p.
Efficient sign coding and estimation of zero-quantized coefficients in embedded wavelet image codecs

Wavelet transform coefficients are defined by both a magnitude and a sign. While efficient algorithms exist for coding the transform coefficient magnitudes, current wavelet image coding algorithms are not as efficient at coding the sign of the transform coefficients. It is generally assumed that there is no compression gain to be obtained from entropy coding of the sign. Only recently have some authors begun to investigate this component of wavelet image coding. In this paper, sign coding is examined in detail in the context of an embedded wavelet image coder. In addition to using intraband wavelet coefficients in a sign coding context model, a projection technique is described that allows nonintraband wavelet coefficients to be incorporated into the context model. At the decoder, accumulated sign prediction statistics are also used to derive improved reconstruction estimates for zero-quantized coefficients. These techniques are shown to yield PSNR improvements averaging 0.3 dB, and are applicable to any genre of embedded wavelet image codec.
Perspectives on the Privatization of Public Schooling in England and Wales

Introduced in the United Kingdom under neo-liberal Conservative administrations, the privatization of public education has been a major theme of the present Labour government’s education policy framework since 1997.Moreover, it has introduced policies that have facilitated the takeover by commercial and notfor-profit enterprises of state education. In this study, the authors examine the neo-liberal political and ideological origins of privatization and the forms it has taken under Conservative and Labour governments. They draw on documentary and interview data to explore Labour’s attachment to a policy direction that seems contradictory to its previous history and traditional values.
Contracting with Private Knowledge of Production Capacity

type="main"> We analyze the design of procurement contracts when the supplier is privately informed about both his innate production capacity (K) and his innate unit cost of production. We identify conditions under which the supplier will strategically employ an inefficient production technology to expand output above K. We also show that when the buyer employs the simple fixed-price cost-reimbursement (FPCR) contracts in the setting examined by Rogerson (2003), the supplier has no incentive to exaggerate K. Furthermore, the buyer can secure with FPCR contracts at least 75% of the surplus she secures with fully optimal contracts.