Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Comparison of Load Balancing Techniques for Hybrid LiFi/RF Networks

Light Fidelity (LiFi) is a recently proposed technology that combines illumination and high speed wireless communication using light emitting diodes (LEDs). Since a LiFi access point (AP) covers a small area, the spatial distribution of data rates achieved by multi-AP LiFi systems fluctuates due to inter-cell interference (ICI). Therefore, hybrid LiFi/RF networks are proposed to provide mobile terminals with better user data rate performance. In such hybrid networks, efficient load balancing (LB) can be a challenge, of which there are three main issues to address: AP assignment (APA), resource allocation (RA) and handover. In this paper, three kinds of LB schemes: the optimisation based scheme, the evolutionary game theory (EGT) based scheme and the fuzzy logic (FL) based scheme are investigated. The analysis shows that the FL based scheme outperforms the other two schemes due to jointly dealing with APA, RA and handover. In addition, for static LB where handover is not considered, the EGT based scheme achieves a close performance to the optimisation based scheme at lower complexity. Finally, general open issues and challenges on this topic are discussed.
The complexity underlying invasiveness precludes the identification of invasive traits: A comparative study of invasive and non-invasive heterocarpic Atriplex congeners

Heterocarpy enables species to effectively spread under unfavourable conditions by producing two or more types of fruit differing in ecological characteristics. Although it is frequent in annuals occupying disturbed habitats that are vulnerable to invasion, there is still a lack of congeneric studies addressing the importance of heterocarpy for species invasion success. We compared two pairs of heterocarpic Atriplex species, each of them comprising one invasive and one non-invasive non-native congener. In two common garden experiments, we (i) simulated the influence of different levels of nutrients and population density on plants grown from different types of fruits and examined several traits that are generally positively associated with invasion success, and (ii) grew plants in a replacement series experiment to evaluate resource partitioning between them and to compare their competitive ability. We found that specific functional traits or competitiveness of species cannot explain the invasiveness of Atriplex species, indicating that species invasiveness involves more complex interactions of traits that are important only in certain ecological contexts, i.e. in specific environmental conditions and only some habitats. Interestingly, species trait differences related to invasion success were found between plants growing from the ecologically most contrasting fruit types. We suggest that fruit types differing in ecological behaviour may be essential in the process of invasion or in the general spreading of heterocarpic species, as they either the maximize population growth (type C fruit) or enhance the chance of survival of new populations (type A fruit). Congeners offer the best available methodical framework for comparing traits among phylogenetically closely related invasive and non-invasive species. However, as indicated by our results, this approach is unlikely to reveal invasive traits because of the complexity underlying invasiveness.
Porcine DJ-1: cloning of PARK7 cDNA, sequence comparison, expression analysis and chromosomal localization

The PARK7 gene encodes a protein, DJ-1, with several functions such as protection of cells from oxidative stress, sperm maturation and fertilization and chaperone activity. Mutations in the PARK7 gene are associated with autosomal recessive early-onset Parkinson’s disease (Parkinsonism). This work reports the cloning and analysis of the porcine (Sus scrofa) homologue of DJ-1. The porcine PARK7 cDNA was amplified by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using oligonucleotide primers derived from in silico sequences. The porcine PARK7 cDNA (SsPARK7) encodes a protein of 189 amino acids which shows a very high similarity to bovine (97%), to human (96%) and to canine (95%) DJ-1. Protein structure comparison of human and porcine DJ-1 sequences revealed that amino acid changes were few between the two species and not likely to alter DJ-1 structure and function. Quantitative real-time RT-PCR detection exhibited SsPARK7 mRNA expression in all analyzed porcine tissues, although at different levels. Furthermore, expression analysis showed that SsPARK7 transcripts could be detected early in embryo development in different brain regions. The PARK7 gene was demonstrated to be located on porcine chromosome 6. Single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis revealed one SNP in the porcine PARK7 gene, giving rise to a silent mutation in exon 6.
Pose reflecting teleoperation using wave variables with wave prediction

This paper deals with the time delay problem in the context of pose based teleoperation using the wave variable approach. Motivated by the problem of performance degradation with increased delays in wave based teleoperation, the paper explores the use of a wave based Kalman predictor to enhance the system performance and robustness. The resulting performance of the teleoperation system in the presence of varying delays is illustrated by simulation studies.
A Pioneer of a New Monetary Policy? Sweden's Price Level Targeting of the 1930s Revisited

The paper re-examines Swedeni? ½s price level targeting during the 1930s which is regarded as a precursor of todayi? ½s inflation targeting. According to conventional wisdom the Riksbank was the first central bank to adopt price level targeting as the guideline for its activities, although in practice giving priority to exchange rate stabilisation over price level stabilisation. On the basis of econometric analysis (Bayesian VAR) and the evaluation of new archival sources we come to a more skeptical conclusion. Our results suggest that it is hard to reconcile the Riksbanki? ½s striving for a fixed exchange rate with the claim that it adopted price level targeting. This finding has implications for the prevailing view of the 1930s as a decade of great policy innovations.
Incidental Neuroimaging Findings in Nonacute Headache

We studied the frequency and consequences of incidental neuroimaging findings in 400 otherwise healthy, nonacute pediatric headache patients through a retrospective, cross-sectional analysis. We excluded patients with currently recommended clinical criteria to consider diagnostic neuroimaging. We categorized neuroimaging results as normal, remarkable without clinical action, remarkable with clinical follow-up action, and abnormal. One hundred eighty-five of 400 patients (46%) had neuroimaging. Of these, 78.4% of neuroimaging studies were normal, and none was considered abnormal. Also, 21.5% had remarkable findings in the neuroradiology report. The frequency and types of all incidental findings were generally comparable to previous studies. One third of these patients received further consultation or neuroimaging because of incidental findings. In the evaluation of nonacute pediatric headache, overuse of neuroimaging leads to frequent discovery of incidental findings and increased testing. Individualized health care calls for physician-consumer discussions about current indications for neuroimaging, the general frequency of incidental findings, and potential difficulties in their interpretation.
Multinational Enterprises and Foreign Direct Investment: Introduction

This study uses firm-level data on a large sample of European manufacturing firms to investigate the links between opening up foreign affiliates and firms' productivity. The analysis is guided by recent theoretical models of international trade with firm heterogeneity. The paper finds that while only a small share of euro area firms locate affiliates abroad, these firms account for over-proportionally large shares of output, employment and profits in their home countries. They have higher survival rates and their productivity growth is also higher. The strongest contribution is by productivity growth of existing firms with a multinational status rather than entry into the multinational status. finally, there are performance premia for multinationals with a large number of affiliates abroad relative to those with a small number. Copyright 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Financial Intermediaries in the Midst of Market Manipulation: Did They Protect the Fool or Help the Knave?

We examine a fund manager's alleged manipulation of platinum and palladium futures settlement prices. Using benchmarks from parallel electronic markets, we find that the manager's market-on-close trading causes significant settlement price artificiality. Defying predictions that competition among floor traders should limit any artificiality, the artificiality increases in the second half of the alleged manipulation period. Between 35% and 52% of the latter-period artificiality is directly attributable to noncompetitive floor prices. Inflated floor volume contributes a similar proportion to artificiality via the exchange's trade-weighted settlement price formula. We estimate that floor counterparties reaped more than $6.0 million in excess profits.
How Well have Social Protection Schemes in Chile Reduced Household Vulnerability

This paper empirically investigates the impact of Chile's social protection programs called Red de Proteccion Social on household vulnerability during 1996-2006. It makes use of the CASEN (Encuesta de Caracterizacion Socioeconomica Nacional) panel household survey data involving 10,287individuals respondents, aged 15 years and older who were surveyed in the 1996, 2001 and 2006. It adopts the Chaudhuri et al (2002). method for estimating vulnerability and uses the difference-in-difference approach. Since access to the monetary transfers is not random, we use propensity score matching technique to address the problem of selection bias in testing the effect of the monetary transfers provided to targeted recipients under the social protection program. The effect of the programs are also examined on two household groups namely, the transitory poor and the chronic poor. Our results suggest that the impact of the monetary transfers on vulnerability is mixed. It seems to help lower the vulnerability of the transitory poor, but has little impact on the chronic poor. The results are also sensitive to the type of estimation method and difference-in-difference technique used.
Using ISSR markers to study genetic polymorphism of pistachio ( Pistacia vera L . ) in Algeria

Pistacia vera L. is a widely represented tree in Algerian semi-arid regions. It is potentially usable to restore degraded ecosystems. Genetic relationship among the 10 variety was assessed by using six inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) primers. During the ISSR screening, good amplification products were obtained from primers based on guanine-adenine (GA), cytosine-adenine (CA) and GAA repeats. But primers based on cytosine-thyrosine (CT), and CAA repeats produced few large separate bands, so these primers were not selected for the final analysis. The total of 111 bands of which 60 (54.04 %) were polymorphic was amplified by the six primers, with an average of seven bands per primer. The total number of amplified fragments was between five to ten, and the number of polymorphic fragments ranged from four to seven. The range of genetic similarity was from 0.84 to 1 and the constructed unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA), dendrogram classified the tested genotypes into 2 main clusters. The present study showed that there is low genetic diversity among tested cultivars. The present study also showed that ISSR-PCR analysis is quick, reliable and produces sufficient polymorphisms for large-scale DNA fingerprinting purposes. This study reports the first application of the ISSR technique in characterization of Algerian pistachio cultivars original from Syria.
Ownership and Performance in Competitive Environments: A Comparison of the Performance of Private, Mixed, and State-Owned Enterprises

THE property rights theory of the firm suggests that public enterprises should perform less efficiently and less profitably than private enterprises. However, the existing empirical evidence actually provides weak support for this hypothesis. Most of the evidence is based upon North American "firms" and has compared the performance of matched public and private firms where at least one of the following limitations applies: (1) firms have a natural (spatial) monopoly (namely, electric and water utilities, nonrail transit, fire services, and refuse collection); (2) there is a regulated duopoly (for example, airlines, railroads, nonrail transit, financial institutions); or (3) output is not or cannot be priced by competitive forces (this applies to all of the above plus health-related services). Almost no empirical research has tested the effect of ownership in a competitive environment. In fact, with the exception of two studies that examine Indonesia and Tanzania,' no study has explicitly compared the effect of ownership while controlling for relevant factors.
The Impact of State Welfare Policies on Women's Cohabitation

Marriage and its relation to choices of fertility, work, and welfare receipt have been widely studied, yet little research has focused on nonmarital cohabitation. This paper presents a multinomial logit model of an American woman's major cohabitation options: not cohabiting, cohabiting with a spouse and possibly others, or cohabiting with others but not with a spouse. Because cohabitation has the possibility of alleviating poor women's need for public assistance, I investigate the connection between state welfare policies and the cohabitation choice. The analysis moves beyond the typical measure of welfare generosity--the monthly benefit level--to include two sets of state welfare regulations that affect how cohabitors' contributions to household expenditures may affect the woman's welfare benefit. The use of Census data allows sufficient sample sizes for separate estimation for White and Black women. I find that many personal and state variables substantially alter the choice of cohabitation, but welfare programs generally do not. The strongest impact of welfare programs falls on the choice of marriage, where I find support for the theory that more generous AFDC payments should be associated with fewer marriages. Although the patterns vary by race, the results reveal that other welfare policies do not exert a strong influence on women's choice of cohabitation and marriage.
Learning in owner-managed small firms: Mediating artefacts and strategic space

The authors focus on the way in which owner-managers in smaller firms improve their businesses through the creation of ‘strategic space’. The term ‘strategic space’ refers to the process by which owner-managers are able to access resources, motivation and capability to review existing practices. The starting point is the owner-manager's human capital and their capacity to engage in critical reflection about their business. We highlight three concepts central to the creation of strategic space, first, social capital, which refers to the network relationships that provide access to a wide range of resources and information. Second, absorptive capacity, which describes the way in which organizational members identify, acquire and utilize knowledge from external sources. Third, mediating artefacts, which represent existing knowledge but also facilitate the translation and transformation of understanding within and between communities of practice. This process is essential to the renewal of knowledge and knowing within firms. The contribution this paper makes is to bring together these elements – human and social capital, absorptive capacity and mediating artefacts – to offer a conceptual model that illustrates the mechanism by which owner-managers create strategic space. This model provides a deeper understanding of the evolution of knowledge in smaller organizations.
Programming Features of the Clarion® Multi-Strategy™ Cochlear Implant

Because patient performance with multichannel cochlear implants varies widely, cochlear implant systems must address the diverse needs of patients during the postoperative fitting of the external equipment. This paper describes the processing strategies available with the CLARION® Multi-Strategy™ Cochlear Implant and the different programming features available for optimization of these speech processing strategies. In addition, preliminary data are presented about the frequency of use of various fitting parameters with adult Simultaneous Analog Stimulation (SAS) and Continuous Interleaved Sampler (CIS) patients and pediatric CIS users. The data reveal that many of the programming features available to the clinician are useful with both the adult and pediatric populations and across strategies. The flexibility of both processing strategies and the programming options clearly contribute to the optimization of patient device fittings. Optimized device fittings, in turn, maximize patient performance.
IMPROVED FAST GOLAY ENCODER

There is an increasing demand for efficient and reliable transmission of digital data. A major concern here is the control of errors for reliable reproduction of data. By proper encoding of information to a codeword with the help of Error Correction Codes (ECC), errors induced can be reduced. The (23,12) Golay code is a multiple error correcting binary code capable of correcting an combination of three or few random errors in a block of 23 digits. The (24,12,8) extended Golay code is an extended code of golay code that can be generated by adding a parity check bit to golay code. Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR) based encoding schemes were proposed and implemented in hardware. But due to the high latency and less throughput, its unsuitable for high speed applications. An architecture, without incorporating LFSR that can perform the encoding process is discussed and improvements for reliable functioning of architecture are proposed. Index Terms Error Correction codes, Golay Code, Encoder, LFSR, CRC.
Private Transport and the European Emission Trading System: Revenue Recycling, Public Transport Subsidies, and Congestion Effects

From 2012 onwards, the European Emission Trading System regulates the carbon emissions of electricity generation, refineries, energy intensive production, and aviation. Beside the fuel efficiency regulation of cars, there exists no European approach of carbon regulation in the private transport sectors. However, half of the income of allowance auctioning has to be used for implementing environmental improving policies including public transport subsidies. Using a Computable General Equilibrium model of the German economy, we show that exempting transport from carbon pricing but recycling revenues via public transport subsidies is welfare enhancing. By including congestion effects into the model we show that such a recycling scheme has the potential of negative gross cost of carbon regulation by reducing congestion and global pollution externalities.
A graphene-on-gap modulator with high modulation efficiency

We propose a high efficient graphene-on-gap modulator (GOGM) by employing the hybrid plasmonic effect, whose modulation efficiency is ∼8-folds larger than that of present graphene-on-silicon modulator (GOSM) (∼0.1 dB / μm). The proposed modulator has the advantage of short modulation length ∼3.6 μm, relatively low insertion loss ∼0.32 dB and larger modulation bandwidth ∼0.48 THz. Moreover, an efficient taper coupler has been designed to convert the quasi-transverse electric (TE) mode of conventional silicon waveguide to the hybrid plasmonic mode of GOGM, with a high coupling efficiency of 91%. This study may promote the design of high-performance on-chip electro-optical modulator.
An improved algorithm for smoke layer identification in building fire condition

The smoke layer identification is an important issue in building fire hazard analysis. The existing ways of smoke layer recognition are reviewed, and a new smoke layer recognition means based on Otsu method and its 2D refinement are presented in this paper. All the methods are tested in an implementation case, and the obtained smoke layer regions are compared. The result indicates that the Otsu method is more adaptable and credible than the existing methods, and its 2D refinement inherits the advantages of original Otsu method, with enhanced capability of reflecting the smoke motion trends. The 2D Otsu method is suitable for smoke layer recognition.
Arabidopsis bZIP16 Transcription Factor Integrates Light and Hormone Signaling Pathways to Regulate Early Seedling Development[C][W][OA]

This work identifies of bZIP16 as a transcriptional repressor regulating the expression of PIL5, RGL2, and genes influencing light, GA, and ABA signals. It indicates that bZIP16 is a newly identified G-box binding transcription factor integrating light and hormone pathways to promote seed germination and hypocotyl elongation during the early stages of Arabidopsis seedling development. Transcriptomic adjustment plays an important role in Arabidopsis thaliana seed germination and deetiolation in response to environmental light signals. The G-box cis-element is commonly present in promoters of genes that respond positively or negatively to the light signal. In pursuing additional transcriptional regulators that modulate light-mediated transcriptome changes, we identified bZIP16, a basic region/Leu zipper motif transcription factor, by G-box DNA affinity chromatography. We confirmed that bZIP16 has G-box–specific binding activity. Analysis of bzip16 mutants revealed that bZIP16 is a negative regulator in light-mediated inhibition of cell elongation but a positive regulator in light-regulated seed germination. Transcriptome analysis supported that bZIP16 is primarily a transcriptional repressor regulating light-, gibberellic acid (GA)–, and abscisic acid (ABA)–responsive genes. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis revealed that bZIP16 could directly target ABA-responsive genes and RGA-LIKE2, a DELLA gene in the GA signaling pathway. bZIP16 could also indirectly repress the expression of PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTOR3-LIKE5, which encodes a basic helix-loop-helix protein coordinating hormone responses during seed germination. By repressing the expression of these genes, bZIP16 functions to promote seed germination and hypocotyl elongation during the early stages of Arabidopsis seedling development.
Stress, personal coping resources, and psychiatric symptoms: an investigation of interactive models.

In the last ten years, there has been considerable interest in the moderating influence of coping resources on the effects of stress; research has focused mainly on environmental coping resources, such as social support. This paper explores possible interactions between stressors, both acute and chronic, and personal coping resources; interactions are estimated separately for schizophrenic, depression and anxiety symptom clusters. Personal coping resources are conceived of in terms of individual dispositions that may have consequences for either the amount of typical coping effort expended or coping ability. Two related dispositional characteristics are considered: fatalism and inflexibility. Both low fatalism and low inflexibility are found to have a strong moderating influence on the impact of stress, but, perhaps more important, these effects depend both on the type of stress and the symptom outcome considered. These findings are interpreted in terms of a general contingency theory for the role of socialfactors in explaining psychiatric disorder, emphasizing the differences between the types of symptoms involved.