Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Asset prices in an exchange economy with habit formation

This paper analyzes asset prices in a representative agent exchange economy with habit-forming preferences. For a general class of utility indices and endowment processes, the authors characterize the optimal demand for consumption and derive explicit solutions for the interest rate and asset risk premia. They show that consumption smoothness may obtain even when the interest rate is stochastic. The consumption capital asset pricing model may not hold when the endowment process has stochastic coefficients; asset risk premia are larger under mild assumptions. The interest rate depends on the growth in the standard of living. Malliavin calculus is employed in the analysis. Copyright 1991 by The Econometric Society.
Development of an Oligonucleotide Array for Direct Detection of Fungi in Sputum Samples from Patients with Cystic Fibrosis

ABSTRACT Cystic fibrosis (CF) is the most common inherited genetic disease in Caucasian populations. Besides bacteria, many species of fungi may colonize the respiratory tract of these patients, sometimes leading to true respiratory infections. In this study, an oligonucleotide array capable of identifying 20 fungal species was developed to directly detect fungi in the sputum samples of CF patients. Species-specific oligonucleotide probes were designed from the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of the rRNA operon and immobilized on a nylon membrane. The fungal ITS regions were amplified by PCR and hybridized to the array for species identification. The array was validated by testing 182 target strains (strains which we aimed to identify) and 141 nontarget strains (135 species), and a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 99.2% were obtained. The validated array was then used for direct detection of fungi in 57 sputum samples from 39 CF patients, and the results were compared to those obtained by culture. For 16 sputum samples, the results obtained by the array corresponded with those obtained by culture. For 33 samples, the array detected more fungal species than culture did, while the reverse was found for eight samples. The accuracy of the array for fungal detection in sputum samples was confirmed (or partially confirmed) in some samples by cloning and resequencing the amplified ITS fragments. The present array is a useful tool for both the simultaneous detection of multiple fungal species present in the sputa of CF patients and the identification of fungi isolated from these patients.
Fluorogen‐activating‐proteins as universal affinity biosensors for immunodetection

Fluorogen‐activating‐proteins (FAPs) are a novel platform of fluorescence biosensors utilized for protein discovery. The technology currently demands molecular manipulation methods that limit its application and adaptability. Here, we highlight an alternative approach based on universal affinity reagents for protein detection. The affinity reagents were engineered as bi‐partite fusion proteins, where the specificity moiety is derived from IgG‐binding proteins—Protein A or Protein G—and the signaling element is a FAP. In this manner, primary antibodies provide the antigenic selectivity against a desired protein in biological samples, while FAP affinity reagents target the constant region (Fc) of antibodies and provide the biosensor component of detection. Fluorescence results using various techniques indicate minimal background and high target specificity for exogenous and endogenous proteins in mammalian cells. Additionally, FAP‐based affinity reagents provide enhanced properties of detection previously absent using conventional affinity systems. Distinct features explored in this report include: (1) unfixed signal wavelengths (excitation and emission) determined by the particular fluorogen chosen, (2) real‐time user controlled fluorescence on‐set and off‐set, (3) signal wavelength substitution while performing live analysis, and (4) enhanced resistance to photobleaching. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2014;111: 475–484. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Spatial and Temporal Aggregation for Small and Massive Transmissions in LTE-M Networks

Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication is one of the key technologies to realize Internet of Things (IoT). Since IoT applications are mainly for smart sensing, such as metering, home surveillance, disaster detection, and e-health, their special sensing#x002F;uploading behaviors will result in periodic and#x002F;or event-driven small data transmissions, which may potentially decrease the radio resource efficiency. On the other hand, the widespread deployment of IoT raises the concurrent massive connectivity of IoT devices. How to solve these two problems is a critical issue. In this paper, we investigate an uplink resource allocation problem which considers the periodic, event-driven, and query-based IoT traffic behaviors over LTE-M. The proposed approach takes advantage of data aggregation and both spatial and temporal reuse. Our solution exploits long-term static scheduling for periodic data to ensure the latency and data rate, and employs short-term dynamic scheduling for event-driven, query-based data to improve transmission efficiency. Therefore, both small data and massive connectivity problems are relieved. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed scheme can improve resource efficiency and enlarge network capacity effectively.
Business decision making, production technology and process efficiency

Purpose – This paper aims to analyze the influence of business decision on process efficiency and production technology in the communication equipment and consumer electronics sectors of Indian hardware electronics industry after liberalisation. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on 26 sample firms, belonging to the two sectors of Indian hardware electronics industry with continuous operation from 1993 to 2004. Estimation of the contribution of production technology and process efficiency to output growth is based on stochastic production function. Influence of business decisions on production technology and process efficiency is based on indigenously developed business decision model. Findings – Sectors, in general, fail to achieve improvement in process efficiency in comparison to progress in production technology. The business decisions factors like improve capacity utilization and operational efficiency together with decisions to adopt vertical integration to help sample firms to achieve.
Prediction of Subcellular Location for Apoptosis Proteins by Dual-layer Support Vector Machine Based on Multiple Compositions

The accurate prediction of subcellular location for apoptosis proteins is very helpful for understanding the mechanism of apoptosis and their biological functions. In this paper, a predictive method has been presented by using a dual- layer support vector machine (SVM) based on multiple compositions of a protein including amino acid composition (AAC), dipeptide composition (DPC) and amphiphilic pseudo amino acid composition (Am-Pse-AAC). And the predictive performance of our method is evaluated on two datasets involving the standard dataset ZD98 generated by Zhou and Doctor, and a larger dataset ZW225 generated by Zhang et al. With the jackknife test, the overall accuracies of our method on the two datasets reach 94.90% and 88.44%, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, our method is superior to the previous approaches in terms of predictive accuracy and Matthew's correlation coefficient. All the results indicate that our method can be a complementary tool for the prediction of subcellular location.
A method of three-phase balancing in microgrid by photovoltaic generation systems

Recently, a small-scale power system has been able to perform autonomous or islanding operation with some distributed generators. But in such a microgrid, it is afraid that serious voltage imbalance may be caused by unbalanced loads during the islanding operation. Fortunately, grid interactive inverters of the distributed generators often have some amount of surplus capacity. This paper deals with a three-phase balancing method utilizing the surplus capacity. By the proposed method, the inverters output negative sequence currents to suppress the voltage imbalance within their surplus capacities. Operating characteristics and its effectiveness are confirmed by some simulation results.
A dynamic macroeconomic model of the Nigerian economy with emphasis on the monetary sector

The dynamic nexus between money supply, fiscal deficit, inflation, output and exchange rate management has recently generated much debate in economic literature in Nigeria. To contribute to this debate, this paper uses the co-integration and error correction framework of analysis and also conducts policy simulation experiments to investigate how monetary variables interact with aggregate supply, demand and prices in order to aid stabilization policies. The results show that monetary variables and government finance are linked through government’s net indebtedness to the banking system. The simulation results show that a 20 per cent monetary squeeze would reduce the inflation rate faster than if the reduction in money supply were 10 per cent. This reduction in money supply would also lead to a reduction in output, employment and government expenditure, which may hurt the domestic economy. The paper thus concludes that there is a trade-off between higher GDP growth and inflation in Nigeria.
Tn5384, a composite enterococcal mobile element conferring resistance to erythromycin and gentamicin whose ends are directly repeated copies of IS256

We have identified a 26-kb mobile element from Enterococcus faecalis CH116, designated Tn5384, which confers resistance to erythromycin and to high levels of gentamicin. Tn5384 is a composite element containing three copies of insertion element IS256. Two of the IS256 copies flank the aac6'-aph2" bifunctional aminoglycoside-modifying-enzyme gene in the inverted orientation, forming a structure similar to staphylococcal gentamicin resistance transposon Tn4001. One of the IS256 elements involved in the Tn4001-like structure also forms the left end of Tn5384, the right end of which is a directly repeated insertion of IS256 approximately 23 kb downstream of the leftmost insertion. Insertions of Tn5384 into enterococcal plasmid pLRM1 have been found associated with 8- and 9-bp duplications of the target sequence.
Production of staphylococcal enterotoxins C1 and C2 and thermonuclease throughout the growth cycle

Synthesis of enterotoxins C1 and C2 and thermonuclease throughout the growth cycle was investigated with Staphylococcus aureus type strains FRI137 and FRI361 and S. aureus isolates M5 (C1) and L2 (C2) of animal origin. Both enterotoxins were produced during the exponential growth phase or at the beginning of the stationary phase. The minimal incubation time (7 to 12 h) and the lowest population (10(7) to 2 x 10(9) CFU/ml) associated with detectable enterotoxin (1 to 6.5 ng/ml) were related to the total amount of toxin produced after 24 h. Thermonuclease was detected in all samples whenever enterotoxins were detected. Furthermore, strain FRI137 produced thermonuclease earlier and at lower cell populations than it did enterotoxin C1. Patterns of enterotoxin and thermonuclease synthesis did not correlate. The concentration of toxins increased throughout the growth cycle, while the concentration of thermonuclease remained constant during the last hours of the growth cycle.
Time discounting: Declining impatience and interval effect

Most studies have not distinguished delays from intervals, so that whether the declining impatience really holds has been an open question. We conducted an experiment that explicitly distinguishes between them, and confirmed it at short delay such as less than an 8-week delay. This implies that people make dynamically inconsistent plans. We also found the interval effect that the time discount rate decreases with prolonged intervals. We show that the interval and the magnitude effects are caused because intertemporal choice is made partially based on the differential in reward amount, while Weber’s Law explains neither the delay nor the interval effects sufficiently.
Switching online channel brand to offline channel brand

With the online shops exuding excellent performance to the extent that online native brands are no longer regarded as “white box” anymore. The companies with well-known online native brands also can benefit from the “halo effect” when they try to develop their multi-channel strategy and build their presence in the offline channel. This study uses the four constructs of the UTAUT model, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating condition, trying to realize whether online purchasing system can influence the consumer's brand experience, and following brand experience can affect brand reputation, brand equity and offline brand extension. This study also tries to find the effect of brand reputation, brand equity on offline brand purchase intension. This research tested the construct validity by confirmatory factor analysis, and applied the structural equation modeling to examine the research framework. The final research results reveal social influence is the important role influences the online brand experience, and virtual brand experience significantly positively affects the e-Channel brand reputation, brand equity and the offline brand purchase intention directly. Both brand reputation and brand equity significantly positively affect the consumer purchase intention for its offline brand.
Information Aggregation in a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model

We introduce the information microstructure of a canonical noisy rational expectations model (Hellwig 1980) into the framework of a conventional real businesscycle model. Each household receives a private signal about future productivity. In equilibrium, the stock price serves to aggregate and transmit this information. We find that dispersed information about future productivity affects the quantitative properties of our real businesscycle model in three dimensions. First, households’ ability to learn about the future affects their consumptionsavings decision. The equity premium falls and the riskfree interest rate rises when the stock price perfectly reveals innovations to future productivity. Second, when noise trader demand shocks limit the stock market’s capacity to aggregate information, households hold heterogeneous expectations in equilibrium. However, for a reasonable size of noise trader demand shocks the model cannot generate the kind of disagreement observed in the data. Third, even moderate heterogeneity in the equilibrium expectations held by households has a sizable effect on the level of all economic aggregates and on the correlations and standard deviations produced by the model. For example, the correlation between consumption and investment growth is 0.29 when households have no information about the future, but 0.41 when information is dispersed.
Contribution of a Calcium‐Activated Non‐Specific Conductance to NMDA Receptor‐Mediated Synaptic Potentials in Granule Cells of the Frog Olfactory Bulb

We studied granule cells (GCs) in the intact frog olfactory bulb (OB) by combining whole‐cell recordings and functional two‐photon Ca2+ imaging in an in vitro nose‐brain preparation. GCs are local interneurones that shape OB output via distributed dendrodendritic inhibition of OB projection neurones, the mitral‐tufted cells (MTCs). In contrast to MTCs, GCs exhibited a Ca2+‐activated non‐specific cation conductance (ICAN) that could be evoked through strong synaptic stimulation or suprathreshold current injection. Photolysis of the caged Ca2+ chelator o‐nitrophenol‐EGTA resulted in activation of an inward current with a reversal potential within the range ‐20 to +10 mV. ICAN in GCs was suppressed by the intracellular Ca2+ chelator BAPTA (0.5–5.0 mM), but not by EGTA (up to 5 mM). The current persisted in whole‐cell recordings for up to 1.5 h post‐breakthrough, was observed during perforated‐patch recordings and was independent of ionotropic glutamate and GABAA receptor activity. In current‐clamp mode, GC responses to synaptic stimulation consisted of an initial AMPA‐mediated conductance followed by a late‐phase APV‐sensitive plateau (100–500 ms). BAPTA‐mediated suppression of ICAN resulted in a selective reduction of the late component of the evoked synaptic potential, consistent with a positive feedback relationship between NMDA receptor (NMDAR) current and ICAN. ICAN requires Ca2+ influx either through voltage‐gated Ca2+ channels or possibly NMDARs, both of which have a high threshold for activation in GCs, predicting a functional role for this current in the selective enhancement of strong synaptic inputs to GCs.
Value-added role of internal audit: an Ethiopian case study

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to draw inferences – from the results of an Ethiopian public sector corporation (for-profit) case study – on how the attributes of a value-adding internal audit department would vary among organisations. Design/methodology/approach - The case study strategy is employed. The internal audit function of a public sector corporation was examined using an analytical framework derived from the literature. Research evidence was gathered distributing questionnaires to managers and internal auditors, conducting a semi-structured interview with the internal audit department manager, and reviewing documents. Findings - The results highlight that traditional/compliance audit is dominant in the organisation studied as contrasted with value-added auditing. The paper concludes that goals and strategies pursued and the level of risk faced by organisations to which internal audit provides service, appear to shape the attributes of a value-adding internal audit department. The study also demonstrates that the quality of strategic planning for, and marketing of, internal audit would influence the extent to which an appropriate value-added profile is attained in a particular context. Research limitations/implications - Since a single unit of analysis is examined, universal generalisability of the findings cannot be claimed. Also, the research design assumed that the unit of analysis investigated falls within the scope of internal audit departments considered in the literature that served as a basis to develop the analytical framework and data collection instruments. Originality/value - The paper is expected to inspire conclusive follow-on research on the role of internal audit in Ethiopia, or other countries with similar settings.
Taxonomy and Classification Scheme for Artificial Space Objects

Abstract : As space gets more and more populated, a classification scheme based upon scientific taxonomy is needed to properly identify, group, and discriminate space objects. Using artificial space object taxonomy also allows for scientific understanding of the nature of the space object population and the processes, natural or not, that drive changes of an artificial space object class from one to another. In a first step, an ancestral-dynamic hierarchical tree based on a priori knowledge is established, motivated by taxonomy schemes used in biology. In a second step, available orbital element data has been clustered. Therefore, a normalization of a reduced orbital element space has been established to provide a weighting of the input values. The clustering in the five dimensional normalized parameter space is divided in two sub-steps. In a first sub-step, a pre-clustering in a modified cluster-feature tree has been applied, to initially group the objects and reduce the sheer number of single entities, which need to be clustered. In a second sub-step a Euclidean minimal tree algorithm has been applied, to determine arbitrarily shaped clusters. The clusters also allow determination of a passive hazard value for the single clusters, making use of their closest neighbors in the minimal tree and the radar cross section of the cluster in question.
Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates

Regressions explaining the wage rates of white males, black males, and white females are used to analyze the white-black wage differential among men and the male-female wage differential among whites. A distinction is drawn between reduced form and structural wage equations, and both are estimated. They are shown to have very different implications for analyzing the white-black and male-female wage differentials. When the two sets of estimates are synthesized, they jointly imply that 70 percent of the overall race differential and 100 percent of the overall sex differential are ultimately attributable to discrimination of various sorts.
Decision making and satisfaction with care in the pediatric intensive care unit: Findings from a controlled clinical trial

Objective To facilitate critical decision making and improve satisfaction with care among families of patients in a pediatric intensive care unit. Design Prospective observational study followed by a nonrandomized controlled trial of a clinical intervention to identify conflicts and facilitate communication between families and the clinical team. Setting The pediatric intensive care unit of a Boston teaching hospital. Patients A total of 127 patients receiving care in the pediatric intensive care unit in 1998–1999 and their families. Interventions Interviews were conducted with surrogates and decisionally capable older children concerning the adequacy of information provided, understanding, communication, and perceived decisional conflicts. Findings were relayed to the clinical team, who then developed tailored follow-up recommendations. Measurements and Main Results A survey administered to surrogates at baseline and day 7 or intensive care unit discharge measured satisfaction with care. Information on patient acuity and hospital stay were extracted from medical records and hospital databases. Wilcoxon rank-sum tests and incidence rate comparisons were used to assess the impact of the intervention on satisfaction and sentinel decision making, respectively. Incidence rates of care plan decision making, including decisions to adopt a comfort-care-only plan and decisions to forgo resuscitation, were lower among families who received the intervention. The intervention did not significantly affect satisfaction with care. Conclusions Prospectively screening for and intervening to mitigate potential conflict did not increase decision making or parental satisfaction with the care provided in this pediatric intensive care unit.
Distributed support vector machines: An overview

As an important tool for data mining, support vector machines (SVMs) have obtained considerable attention in the area of pattern recognition. Recently distributed algorithms especially the distributed support vector machines (DSVMs) are getting increasing attention with the widespread of networks of interconnected devices. In this paper, the state of the art of DSVMs is first reviewed. The idea, advantage and shortcoming of the existing DSVMs including the cascade SVMs, incremental SVMs, distributed parallel SVM, consensus-based SVM etc are analysed. Then the research problem and some open issues related to the distribution of SVM algorithms are presented. The compressed sensing is pointed out to be promising for future research direction for SVM based distributed learning system especially in energy and bandwidth strictly limited sensor networks.