Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Price sequences, perceived variability, and choice

Purpose – Sequences of prices are becoming more commonplace but there is limited research on their behavioral effects. The purpose of this paper is to determine if a sequence of past prices, and particularly its variance, has a strong effect on choice. Will people pay significantly more for a seller who has a more predictable history of past prices? Design/methodology/approach – Past theory is drawn upon to create predictions regarding how individuals will perceive and value past sequences of prices. One experimental study is conducted to test preference and choice based on past price sequences. Findings – Individuals more frequently choose a vendor with past prices that fall into a predictable pattern, even when doing so results in higher future prices to be paid. Originality/value – This paper not only tests notions that have anecdotal support (e.g. preference for fixed vs floating interest rates, despite the higher cost of doing so), but also demonstrates that a person ' s distaste for perceived variab.
A Clustered based Approach for Energy Efficient Routing in WSNs

Wireless sensor Networks (WSNs) contains a large amount of tiny and low value sensor nodes powered by tiny non reversible batteries and furnish with numerous sensing devices. The cluster-base technique is one among the nice perspectives to reduce energy consumption in WSNs. The lifespan of WSNs is maximized by using the uniform cluster location and leveling the network loading between the clusters. They’ve reviewed numerous energy efficient schemes apply in WSNs of which tend to combined on cluster approach. During this paper this tends to perform intensive simulations of the projected protocol and compare the simulation results with that of the present protocol. The results demonstrate that the projected protocol outperform the existing protocol in terms of various performance metrics together with remaining energy, percentage of alive nodes, percentage of dead nodes and throughput.
The Effects of Intravaginal Clindamycin and Metronidazole Therapy on Vaginal Mobiluncus Morphotypes in Patients With Bacterial Vaginosis

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the effects of treatments for bacterial vaginosis (BV) on vaginal Mobiluncus morphotypes. Study Design: Analyses were performed on Mobiluncus scores from similarly conducted studies evaluating clindamycin vaginal single-dose cream (CVSDC) or metronidazole vaginal gel (MVG) in 55 patients with BV and with Mobiluncus morphotypes at baseline. Results: Both treatment groups demonstrated significant reductions in Mobiluncus score. However, the Mobiluncus score at test-of-cure was lower in the CVSDC than in the MVG group (P = 0.0471). More patients in the CVSDC group than in the MVG group achieved microbiologic (57.5% vs. 26.7%; P = 0.04), clinical (57.5% vs. 26.7%; P = 0.04), and therapeutic cures of BV (45.0% vs. 20.0%; P = 0.09). Conclusion: Clindamycin reduces vaginal Mobiluncus morphotypes to a greater extent than metronidazole in patients with BV; this correlates with a higher BV cure rate.
Attribute-based encryption implies identity-based encryption

In this study, the author formally proves that designing attribute-based encryption schemes cannot be easier than designing identity-based encryption schemes. In more detail, they show how an attribute-based encryption scheme which admits, at least, and policies can be combined with a collision-resistant hash function to obtain an identity-based encryption scheme. Even if this result may seem natural, not surprising at all, it has not been explicitly written anywhere, as far as they know. Furthermore, it may be an unknown result for some people: Odelu et al. in 2016 and 2017 have proposed both an attribute-based encryption scheme in the discrete logarithm setting, without bilinear pairings, and an attribute-based encryption scheme in the RSA setting, both admitting and policies. If these schemes were secure, then by using the implication proved in this study, one would obtain secure identity-based encryption schemes in both the RSA and the discrete logarithm settings, without bilinear pairings, which would be a breakthrough in the area. Unfortunately, the author presents here complete attacks of the two schemes proposed by Odelu et al.
Signs and symptoms of TMJ disorders in adults after adolescent Herbst therapy: a 6-year and 32-year radiographic and clinical follow-up study.

OBJECTIVE To analyze radiographic signs of temperomandibular joint (TMJ) osteoarthritis and clinical TMJ symptoms in patients 6 years and 32 years after treatment with a Herbst appliance. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fourteen patients were derived from a sample of 22 with Class II division 1 malocclusions consecutively treated with a banded Herbst appliance at the age of 12-14 years old (T1-T2). The subjects were reexamined after therapy at the ages of 20 years (T3) and 46 years (T4). The TMJs of the 14 patients were analyzed radiographically (conventional lateral tomography at T3 and cone-beam computed tomography at T4) and clinically/anamnestically at T3 and T4. RESULTS Six years after Herbst therapy, signs of osteoarthritis were seen in one patient. At the 32-year follow-up, two additional patients had developed signs of osteoarthritis. At the 6-year follow-up, TMJ clicking was present in two patients, though none of the patients reported TMJ pain. At the 32-year follow-up, six patients had TMJ clicking and one patient had TMJ pain. CONCLUSIONS This longitudinal very-long-term follow-up study after Herbst therapy revealed only minor problems from the TMJ. The TMJ findings 6 years and 32 years after Herbst treatment corresponded to those in the general population. Thus, in the very long term, the Herbst appliance does not appear to be harmful to the TMJ.
Management, Law, and the Pursuit of the Public Good in Public Administration

The tension between managerialism and legalism in public administration has been a recurring theme at Minnowbrook conferences. This tension, increasingly evident in the literature, is couched in the often-conﬂicting values of efﬁciency and performance, on one hand, and legal and democratic values such as accountability, equality, and transparency, on the other hand. Building on conversations we began at Minnowbrook III, we specify a three part proposal through which the legal and managerial approaches to US public administration might be better integrated. At a time when public administrative reforms potentially exacerbate the law management tension, our proposal’s primary implication is the simultaneous achievement of public service delivery that is efﬁcient, effective, and defendable in the US constitutional democracy.
Charter status, ownership type and efficiency in the thrift industry

Deregulation during the 1980s allowed savings and loan associations to undertake many of the same activities as mutual savings banks, so that competition among thrifts increased, and they became more homogeneous in nature. At the same time, according to agency theory, mutual institutions should experience less efficient operations than stock institutions due to differences in monitoring and compensation of management. The purpose of this study, then, is two fold: first, to determine whether mutual savings banks exhibit the same cost behaviour as savings and loans; and second, to determine whether mutual institutions are less cost efficient than stock institutions. To compare cost structures and cost efficiencies, a three input, three output, translog cost frontier is estimated for mutual savings banks, mutual S&Ls, and stock S&Ls. Approximately 1500 observations, restricted to the states in which mutual savings banks are chartered, are extracted from the 1990 OTS data to be used in the estimation. Each type of institution is found to have a unique cost function. The data are then used in a second regression to determine which characteristics are correlated with the inefficiency scores. It appears that mutual savings banks do have a different cost structure than savings and loans. As well, the comparison of stock versus mutual savings and loans reveals that mutuals exhibit cost efficiency, a result that contradicts agency theory.
Volatile earnings growth, the price of earnings and the Value premium

There is little disagreement in the literature that the price of an asset is related to at least two things: the current earnings of the asset, and the anticipated growth of these earnings. In most valuation models, fair price is highly sensitive to future growth estimates – a result often confirmed empirically. Fama and French (1992, 1993, 1998) note the importance of growth on the valuation of assets by demonstrating that ‘value’ firms (having low future growth opportunities) obtain relatively higher risk-adjusted returns than ‘growth’ assets (considered to have high future growth opportunities). The Fama and French result, along with the research it has spawned, suggests that the relationship between growth and price is not yet clearly understood. In this article we further explore the relationship between price and earnings by investigating the role played by higher-order growth terms. Specifically, we examine how the volatility of future earnings growth affects the price of those earnings and whether this relationship provides any insight into the Fama–French ‘Value’ premium. The value of future growth is unobservable and, as Easton (2006, p. 659) comments, ‘the literature provides little guidance as to the appropriateness of any particular assumed rate of growth’. Easton also suggests two approaches for estimating growth: (1) assuming an estimate for earnings growth as a proxy for real GDP growth, and (2) simultaneous estimation of the cost of equity and the long-term growth rate. Damodaran (2002) illustrates the second approach with the estimator
Superconducting Integrated Terahertz Spectrometers

A superconducting integrated receiver (SIR) comprises all of the elements needed for heterodyne detection on a single chip. Light weight and low power consumption combined with nearly quantum-limited sensitivity and a wide tuning range of the superconducting local oscillator make the SIR a perfect candidate for many practical applications. For the first time, we demonstrated the capabilities of the SIR technology for remote operation under harsh environmental conditions and for heterodyne spectroscopy at atmospheric limb sounding on board a high-altitude balloon. Recently, the SIR was successfully implemented for the first spectral measurements of THz radiation emitted from intrinsic Josephson junction stacks (BSCCO mesa) at frequencies up to 750 GHz; linewidth below 10 MHz has been recorded in the high bias regime. The phase-locked SIR has been used for the locking of the BSCCO oscillator under the test. To extend the operation range of the SIR well above 1 THz, a new technique for fabrication of high-quality SIS tunnel junctions with gap voltage Vg up to 5.3 mV has been developed. Integration of a superconducting high-harmonic phase detector with a cryogenic oscillator opens a possibility for efficient phase locking of the sources with free-running linewidth up to 30 MHz that is important both for BSCCO mesa and NbN/MgO/NbN oscillators.
Implications of Social Value Orientation and Budget Levels on Group Performance and Performance Variance

ABSTRACT: In this paper I examine the effects of social value orientation (SVO) and group incentive contracts on performance and performance variance. SVO includes three main personality types: prosocials (who value cooperation and equality in outcomes); individualists (who focus upon their own rewards); and, competitors (who seek relative advantage over others, even at their own expense). In an experiment I form groups of participants based on their SVO and assign them to one of three incentive contracts: a piece‐rate contract that pays all employees an equal share of any group output, and two budget‐linear contracts (with a medium and a high budget target) that pay zero compensation below the budget target, an equal share of a bonus if the budget target is met and a piece‐rate for output above the budget target. Group performance is highest for groups of prosocials and lowest for groups with competitors and SVO has a greater effect under a medium rather than a high budget over latter periods of the expe.
DOPAMINE BIOSYNTHESIS FROM L‐TYROSINE AND L‐PHENYLALANINE IN RAT BRAIN SYNAPTOSOMES: PREFERENTIAL USE OF NEWLY ACCUMULATED PRECURSORS 1, 2

Abstract— The biosynthesis of dopamine (DA) from L‐tyrosine (Tyr) and L‐phenylalanine (Phe) was investigated using synaptosomes prepared from the striatum and olfactory tubercle of the rat. The formation of 14CO2 from either carboxyl labeled precursor occurred exclusively within the synaptosome following hydroxylation and subsequent decarboxylation. The optimum pH for the formation of DA was 6.2 and was independent of precursor and tissue source. As pH increased beyond this optimum, synthesis from Tyr declined more rapidly than that from Phe. Synthesis obeyed Michaelis–Menton kinetics when expressed as a function of the specific activity of precursor in the medium. It was characterized by an overall Km (approx 0.9 μM) which was independent of precursor and tissue source, and was considerably lower than the Kt for accumulation of precursor by synaptosomes (15.3 and 13.3 μM for Tyr and Phe, respectively). While each precursor was an uncompetitive inhibitor of DA synthesis from the opposing labeled amino acid, Tyr was a more effective inhibitor of synthesis from Phe (Ki= 1.5 μM) than was Phe an inhibitor of synthesis from Tyr (Ki= 9.2 μM). Tryptophan inhibited synthesis competitively (Ki= 15.2 and 13.2 μM for synthesis from Tyr and Phe, respectively), and DA inhibited non‐competitively (Ki= 1.1 and 0.42 μM for Tyr and Phe, respectively). A model of DA synthesis within the synaptosome is presented which attempts to integrate these data. A major feature of this schema is the proposal that newly accumulated precursor does not mix rapidly with endogenous precursor pools but rather is preferentially converted to DA.
Development Effectiveness: What Have We Learnt?

We suggest that the 'poverty-efficiency' aid allocation is merely a benchmark guide if a donor lacks other information about the country and also the power to change or prevail over government preferences. We argue that in most circumstances donors have only limited scope for the latter and that, while high aid dependence may reduce the fungibility problem and the use of NGOs can by-pass it altogether, such circumstances are not very common. Hence, the main reasons for departing from the benchmark are when the donor has additional information about likely poverty impact, or if poverty reduction is not the objective. Copyright 2004 Royal Economic Society.
The Impact of Network Size and Financial Incentives on Adoption and Participation in New Online Communities

The success of online communities depends heavily on the providers' abilities to motivate potential users to adopt the service and to actively participate. Because research in this field of media economics is rare, especially with regard to newly established communities, this study analyzes what drives community adoption and how direct and indirect financial incentives influence user participation. Extending Ajzen's (1991) Theory of Planned Behavior, this article shows, in 2 empirical studies, that network size significantly affects adoption in newly established communities. The results of the first study indicate a strong effect of indirect financial incentives (saving money) on the intention to adopt. The second study indicates that direct financial incentives (earning money) may well help increase the network's size without altering user motivation through crowding-out effects. It is interesting to note that the presence of direct financial incentives attracts new users, but it does not increase usage.
Estimating Gaussian Markov random field parameters in a nonstationary framework: application to remote sensing imaging

In this paper, we tackle the problem of estimating textural parameters. We do not consider the problem of texture synthesis, but the problem of extracting textural features for tasks such as image segmentation. We take into account nonstationarities occurring in the local mean. We focus on Gaussian Markov random fields for which two estimation methods are proposed, and applied in a nonstationary framework. The first one consists of extracting conditional probabilities and performing a least square approximation. This method is applied to a nonstationary framework, dealing with the piecewise constant local mean. This framework is adapted to practical tasks when discriminating several textures on a single image. The blurring effect affecting edges between two different textures is thus reduced. The second proposed method is based on renormalization theory. Statistics involved only concern variances of Gaussian laws, leading to Cramer-Rao estimators. This method is thus especially robust with respect to the size of sampling. Moreover, nonstationarities of the local mean do not affect results. We then demonstrate that the estimated parameters allow texture discrimination for remote sensing data. The first proposed estimation method is applied to extract urban areas from SPOT images. Since discontinuities of the local mean are taken into account, we obtain an accurate urban areas delineation. Finally, we apply the renormalization based on method to segment ice in polar regions from AVHRR data.
School Travel Plans: Overcoming Barriers to Implementation

Abstract The number of primary school children travelling to school by car has almost doubled in 20 years. A governmental policy response is to introduce school travel plans. The paper raises and discusses important issues identified during a literature review, documentary analysis, and an empirical evaluation of school travel plans. These are: (1) barriers to their implementation, extensiveness and longevity, and (2) the behavioural approach which underpins school travel plan promotional literature. A comparative methods design was used for the empirical evaluation that measured the effectiveness of the travel initiatives operating at three schools. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected using questionnaires and travel diaries (n = 555, ages 7–11 years) and interviews (22 parents, four key persons). The output measures were: ‘levels of walking to and from school’ and ‘awareness and attitudes’ towards initiatives. In one of the schools a Walking Bus scheme operated successfully. The findings from the research form the backdrop for a discussion of potential measures to overcome the social, geographic, and financial restrictions imposed on some schools. A recommendation is made regarding data collection and the analysis of evaluation data. The general conclusion from the review is that a wide variation in the effectiveness of travel initiatives can be expected.
The Utility of Camptothecin as a Synergist of Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki and Nucleopolyhedroviruses Against Trichoplusia ni and Spodoptera exigua

ABSTRACT We studied the effect of combining microbial pesticides with camptothecin (CPT) on the mortality of two lepidopteran insects: Trichoplusia ni (Hübner) and Spodoptera exigua (Hübner). CPT is an alkaloid that is often used as an anticancer agent. Here, CPT was evaluated as a microbial pesticide synergist of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) and insect baculovirus. The toxicity of CPT and its synergistic effects on two microbial pesticides were studied using the diet overlay method. Bioassay results showed that CPT significantly enhances the toxicity of Bt variety kurstaki to S. exigua and T. ni. In addition, CPT strongly enhanced the infectivity of Autographa californica (Speyer) multinucleocapsid nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV) and S. exigua nucleopolyhedrovirus (SeMNPV). Using light microscopy, we found that CPT disrupts the peritrophic membrane of T. ni larvae and severely affects the structure of the midgut, resulting in an abnormal gut lumen morphology. We speculate that CPT increases toxicity by affecting the permeability of the peritrophic membrane.
On the Physical Limitations of the Interaction of a Spherical Aperture and a Random Field

This paper derives physical limitations on the interactions of antennas exciting TM or TE modes (but not both) and wireless propagation channels. The derivation is based on the spherical vector wave expansion of the electromagnetic field outside a sphere circumscribing the antennas. The result is an extension of the seminal work of Chu on the classical limitations on maximum antenna gain and radiation Q . Rather than maximizing antenna gain in a single direction we obtain physical limitations on the antenna gain pattern, which is directly translated to more condensed parameters, i.e., the instantaneous effective gain Gi and the mean effective gain Ge if instantaneous realizations or correlation statistics of the expansion coefficients of the electromagnetic field are known, respectively. The obtained limitations are on the maximum of Gi/Q and Ge/Q, which establish a trade-off between link gain and Q .
Gene induction for the treatment of methylmalonic aciduria

Methylmalonic aciduria is an autosomal recessive inborn error of the propionate metabolic pathway. One form of this disorder is caused by mutations in methylmalonyl‐coenzyme A mutase (MCM), resulting in reduced levels of enzyme activity. The pharmacological up‐regulation of residual mutase activity is one approach to advance treatment strategies for individuals affected by this disorder. We describe the construction, characterization and use of a cellular genomic reporter assay for MCM expression that will potentially identify therapeutic pharmacological agents for methylmalonic aciduria treatment.
An Integrated Approach for Energy Efficiency Analysis in European Union Countries

This paper evaluates the energy efficiency of EU countries over the period 2000–2010. At the first stage, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used, combining multiple energy consumption data, economic outputs, and environmental factors. The efficiency estimates obtained from the analysis are evaluated in a second stage through a multiple criteria decision aiding methodology (MCDA). The proposed non-parametric approach combining DEA with MCDA enables modeling of the problem in an integrated manner, not only providing energy efficiency estimates but also supporting the analysis of the main contributing factors, as well as the development of a benchmarking model for energy efficiency evaluation at the country level.
Novel EGFR (T790M)-cMET dual inhibitors: putative therapeutic agents for non-small-cell lung cancer.

AIM Different resistance mechanisms, especially, T790M secondary acquired point mutation and in some cases amplification of cMET, have been a major setback for the lung cancer therapies. METHODOLOGY The current in silico study explored the small molecules which can act as putative EGFR (T790M)-cMET dual inhibitors. Databases were first filtered and subsequently cross filtered, initially by thoroughly validated pharmacophore models for both targets. As per score and interactions obtained in docking, the molecules were subjected to molecular dynamics simulations, to study the stability and binding orientations of their complexes with target proteins. CONCLUSION Molecular dynamics simulations predicted three hits to possess good binding affinities and stability for EGFR (T790M) and cMET, which can be claimed to be potential dual inhibitors.