Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
From Parent to Child

How do parents allocate human capital among their children? To what extent do parental decisions about resource allocation determine children's eventual economic success? The analyses in From Parent to Child explore these questions by developing and testing a model in which the earnings of children with different genetic endowments respond differently to investments in human capital. Behrman, Pollak, and Taubman use this model to investigate issues such as parental bias in resource allocations based on gender or birth order; the extent of intergenerational mobility in income, earnings, and schooling in the United States; the relative importance of environmental and genetic factors in determining variations in schooling; and whether parents' distributions offset the intended effects of government programs designed to subsidize children. In allocating scarce resources, parents face a trade-off between equity and efficiency, between the competing desires to equalize the wealth of their children and to maximize the sum of their earnings. Building on the seminal work of Gary Becker, From Parent to Child integrates careful modeling of household behavior with systematic empirical testing, and will appeal to anyone interested in the economics of the family.
Conceptualizing and evaluating the functions of destination marketing systems

This research attempts to propose a conceptual framework in relation to the functions of destination marketing systems (DMS). In addition, efforts are also made to evaluate the effectiveness of each of the functions of the DMS. The objectives of the research are achieved by taking web-based marketing systems of convention and visitor bureaus in the USA as the focus of investigation. It is proposed that a DMS should be composed of four interrelated components: virtual information space (VIS), virtual communication space (VCS), virtual transaction space (VTS), and virtual relationship space (VRS), alternatively termed as the ICTR model. The analysis of the applications in the four components of DMS seems to suggest that destination marketing systems are still in the preliminary stages of development, showing a hierarchical progression of usage and sophistication. It appears that convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs) are performing well in providing and incorporating information-oriented applications but are weak in applications related to transaction and relationship building. The effectiveness analysis of the applications in the four components has also raised issues of serious concern. Suggestions and implications are provided and discussed.
The Cost of Liquidity Services in Listed Options: A Note

SEVERAL RESEARCHERS CLAIM TO have detected inefficiencies in the market for listed put and call options [9, 15, 16, 18, 27]. However, these studies have ignored the implicit costs of dealing with a market-maker. Phillips and Smith [20] estimated these additional costs from quoted bid-asked spreads and concluded that when market-maker costs were added, otherwise profitable trading rules no longer yielded excess returns. On the other hand, a related study by Beebower and Priest [4] finds no such market-maker costs for the NYSE. To resolve the above, data from a private investment partnership (hedge fund) covering 1,894 actual options transactions were analyzed. These trades took place over a one-year period and involved 37,065 contracts with a value of over $10 million. ' Examination of these trades suggest that the percentage cost to the fund for market-maker services is . 54% of the value of the options traded.
Diarrheal disease incidence and morbidity among United States military personnel during short-term missions overseas.

Outpatient medical surveillance of U.S. troops was conducted during 11 different overseas missions between 1981 and 1990. In addition, at the end of each of 18 overseas missions during the same period, a sample of troops was queried regarding illnesses and exposures experienced in the preceding time overseas. Diarrhea was among the leading causes of morbidity during all of these short-term missions. Diarrhea incidence rates were found to be highest during summer months, and were higher during missions to Thailand (median = 25%, range = 20-29%), Latin America (median = 26%, range = 1-43%), and northeastern Africa and southwest Asia (median = 19%, range = < 1-52%). Rates were lowest in troops deployed to the Republic of South Korea (median = 16%, range = 8-27%). During April and May 1990, a focused surveillance and questionnaire study was conducted during a five-week, joint U.S.-Thai military training exercise in central Thailand. Among 2,600 U.S. personnel, diarrheal illness was found to be the most common medical problem for troops (estimated cumulative incidence = 29%). Travel outside of the base of operations and consumption of ice were found to be important risk factors. The 10-year database analyzed for this report is the largest, published summary showing the significant impact of diarrheal diseases on U.S. military forces during short-term deployments to less developed areas.
HYUI: a visual framework for prototyping hybrid user interfaces

This paper describes a pragmatic approach for the design of hybrid user interfaces based on a number of extensions of an existing 3D authoring system. We present the design and realization of a visual framework dedicated to the prototyping of hybrid user interfaces. The rapid development environment was applied in a teaching context during lectures on advanced user interface design. The results showed that our framework provides a suitable tool to quickly design and test hybrid user interfaces.
CONTROL-ORIENTED ANALYSIS OF AEROTHERMOELASTIC EFFECTS FOR A HYPERSONIC VEHICLE By SANKETH BHAT A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science CONTROL-ORIENTED ANALYSIS OF AEROTHERMOELASTIC EFFECTS FOR A HYPERSONIC VEHICLE By Sanketh Bhat December 2008 Chair: Richard C. Lind, Jr. Major: Aerospace Engineering Hypersonic flight is seen as a feasible solution to make space travel faster, safer and more affordable. The design of the Air-breathing hypersonic vehicle is such that there is coupling between the structure and the propulsion system. Therefore, the aerodynamic, propulsion and the structural effects must be accounted to effectively model the vehicle. The vibrations from the structure affect the performance of the vehicle. Hence, vibration attenuation is a critical requirement for hypersonic vehicles. The problems of vibration are compounded by variations in heating during flight. Structural variations resulting from the tremendous heating incurred during hypersonic fight is mitigated by a thermal protection system (TPS); however, such mitigation is accompanied by an increase in weight that can be prohibitive. The actual design of a thermal protection system can be chosen to vary the level of heating reduction, and associated weight, across the structure. Our study examined the design of a Linear Parameter Varying controller for an hypersonic vehicle and describes the process of control-oriented analysis to suggest a better ’Thermal Protection System’ for the vehicle. A Linear Parameter Varying control architecture was used that damps any thermal effects for a range of temperature profiles. Various designs are considered for a representative model to show the large variation in flight dynamics. Simulation results indicate that the proposed methodology may constitute a feasible approach toward the development of a robust Linear Parameter Varying controller to satisfactorily address the issue of temperature effects on the dynamics of the
On Taking the “Alternative” Route

The risk–return characteristics, risk exposures, and performance persistence of various hedge fund strategies remains an area of interest to alternative asset investors. Using a database on hedge fund indices and individual hedge fund managers in a mean–variance framework, results show that a combination of alternative investments and passive indexing provides a significantly better risk–return tradeoff than passively investing in the different asset classes. Moreover, using parametric and non–parametric methods, a reasonable degree of persistence is found for hedge fund managers. This seems to be attributable more to the losers continuing to be losers instead of winners continuing to be winners and highlights the importance of manager selection in case of hedge funds.
Decreased neurotropism of nef long terminal repeat (nef/LTR)-deleted simian immunodeficiency virus

Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection of macaques results in neurological abnormalities similar to those of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated dementia in humans and is a valuable system for the identification of viral neurotropic and neurovirulence factors. The authors recently established an SIV-macaque model where macaques can be infected with wild-type or nef/LTR-deleted SIVmac239 via administration of purified proviral DNA. In this study, the ability of wild-type and nef/LTR-deleted SIV infections to enter the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) and brain was analyzed. In situ polymerase chain reaction (PCR) readily detected SIV gag DNA-positive cells in the mid-frontal gyrus and basal ganglia of the wild-type SIV-infected macaques, but not in nef/LTR-deleted SIV-infected or SIV-uninfected macaques. PCR on extracted DNA confirmed the in situ results, with multiple brain regions of the wild-type SIV-infected macaques positive for both gag and wild-type nef, whereas in the nef/LTR-deleted SIV-infected macaques, nef/LTR and gag DNA were undetectable. Further, macaques infected with nef/LTR-deleted SIV, which later became superinfected with wild-type SIV, also remained negative for SIV DNA in the brain by both in situ and extracted DNA techniques, despite having high levels of SIV RNA both in the CSF and plasma. This study provides evidence of the inability of nef/LTR-deleted SIV to initiate central nervous system (CNS) infection and suggests that, in the brain regions examined, nef/LTR-deleted viruses have either diminished neurotropism or insufficient systemic viral replication for entry into the CNS.
Posttransplant Donor‐Specific Anti‐HLA Antibodies Negatively Impact Pancreas Transplantation Outcome

During a 9‐year follow‐up, 167 consecutive pancreas transplant recipients (152 simultaneous pancreas‐kidney [SPK]) were followed for the detection of posttransplant anti‐HLA antibodies. Forty patients (24%) developed anti‐HLA antibodies, 26 (65%) had donor‐specific antibodies (DSA; 61% anticlass 2) and 14 (35%) non‐DSA (78.6% anticlass 1). More rejection episodes were observed in patients with positive anti‐HLA antibodies than in patients without antibodies (42.5% vs. 11%; p = 0.001), with the highest incidence observed in DSA patients (53.8%). More severe rejections (according to rescue therapy) were observed in DSA patients compared to non‐DSA (p < 0.05) or to negative patients (p < 0.001). Contrasting with the kidney, pancreas graft survival did not differ between patients with or without anti‐HLA antibodies. On the contrary, pancreas and kidney survivals were significantly lower in DSA positive patients (75% for both organs) as compared to non‐DSA positive patients (100% for pancreas and 92% for kidney) or to HLA‐negative patients (91% for pancreas and 89% for kidney). Nontechnical pancreas and kidney graft failures were significantly higher in positive than in negative anti‐HLA patients (32.5% vs. 11%; p < 0.01). Occurrence of posttransplant DSA was an independent risk factor for both pancreas and kidney survival (HR 3.2; p = 0.039) in diabetic transplant recipients.
Finite state machine-based fault tolerance technique with enhanced area and power of synthesised sequential circuits

Recently, a finite state machine-based fault tolerance technique for sequential circuits based on protecting few states with high probability of occurrence has been proposed. In this study, the authors propose an algorithm that starts with a given state assignment targeting the optimisation of either area or power and generates a state assignment that preserves the original state assignment and satisfies the fault tolerance requirements for the protected states. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in significantly reducing the area and power of synthesised sequential circuits while enhancing their fault tolerance.
New signal conditioning architecture for optimal A/D conversion in digital spectroscopy setups

The paper presents a signal conditioning architecture for optimizing the analog-to-digital conversion operation for digital processing of detected events. Concomitant elimination of saturation occurrence of the A/D converter and minimization of alias effects are achieved with no significant hardware burden and no measurement resolution loss. Also consequent considerable improvements in input signal rate, quantization noise weight reduction, enhancing the linearity properties of the A/D converter are introduced. The technique has been implemented and tested in a digital spectroscopy setup.
Volatility modelling using ARIMA-GARCH models in a hyperinflationary economic environment : the Zimbabwean experience

The use of ARIMA-GARCH-type models for modelling volatility in a hyperinflationaty economic environment is investigated. The robustness and resilience of GARCH type models in forecasting conditional mean and volatility of monthly stock prices of eight counters listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) over the period 1993 to 2004 under the assumption of a skewed Student - t distribution is tested. Symmetric and asymmetric GARCH type models are used. The results suggest that the monthly returns are characterized by an ARMA(0,1) process. This means that shocks to conditional mean dissipate after one period. Empirical results show that ARMA(0,1) - TARCH(1,1) model achieves the most accurate volatility forecasts followed by the ARMA(0,1) - GARCH(1,1) model. These results are useful in financial modeling in unstable and hyperinflationary economies.
Developing the real estate derivative market for Singapore: issues and challenges

Purpose - While the development of real estate derivative contracts has important implications for real estate as an asset class, it has not been widely accepted in Asia. This paper aims to examine the issues involved in developing the real estate derivative market for Singapore. Design/methodology/approach - The concept of real estate derivatives is reviewed. The limitations to the extant real estate index are discussed. Different approaches to constructing real estate indices are discussed in particular reference to the features of the Singapore real estate market. Findings - The Singapore residential market is dominated by public housing, heterogeneity and relatively low turnover. The applicability of repeat sales approach may not be well suited. Geostatistical models appear promising. The commercial real estate market suffers from even lower turnover. The most appropriate commercial real estate index could be similar to that offered by IPD. Several issues were also highlighted. First, the index must pass the stringent scrutiny of academia and experts. Second, the index must be well understood and accepted by the industry. Third, the index must be published in a timely fashion and without biases. Fourth, there must be a trustworthy producer of the index. Research limitations/implications - For an index to be accepted, it must satisfy the issue of fungibility. International investors looking for exposure or hedging strategies are likely to be familiar with established methodologies such as the repeat sales and appraisal-based approaches. Practical implications - Market acceptability of RED. If the experience in Europe is anything to go by, this is not an insurmountable issue that cannot be addressed with education and knowledge dissemination. Originality/value - While real estate derivatives have immense potential and a tremendous growth in its development in Europe has been witnessed, it is clear that the real estate derivative industry is in its infancy. The paper examines the issues peculiar to Singapore with regard to the establishment of real estate derivative contracts. The paper is of interest to policy makers and industry practitioners.
The Design of a Virtual Reality Game for Stroke-Induced Attention Deficits

Hemispatial neglect is a spatial attention deficit that occurs in 25 up to 50% of stroke survivors and has a negative impact on functional recovery. Despite an increased understanding of the mechanisms underlying hemispatial neglect, there is no effective treatment yet. In particular, the transfer of treatment effects to daily life is often missing. A more ecological approach to rehabilitation may therefore produce better treatment effects. Here we present the design of a virtual reality game for stroke patients with spatial attention deficits. Moreover, we present the use of our 'Intervention Logic -- Game Mechanic' model which details how theory-grounded intervention principles were translated into game mechanics and desired treatment outcomes. Additionally, we demonstrate how simulations on the basis of player models aid in designing a dynamic difficulty adjustment algorithm and reduce the need for elaborate gameplay testing.
Seasonality in the Vietnam Stock Index

This study examines seasonality in the Vietnam Stock Market Index over 10 years, since the marketâ€™s establishment on July 28th, 2000 until December 31st, 2010. The study found significant positive returns in April and significant negative returns in July for the VN-Index. Also, the Halloween Effect or Go away in May come back Halloween Day effect is observed in the Vietnam Stock Market Index. The authors posit these results are partially driven by the rainy season in Vietnam where monthly rainfall reaches up to 1000 mm.
Visual analysis and coding of data-rich user behavior

Investigating user behavior involves abstracting low-level events to higher-level concepts. This requires an analyst to study individual user activities, assign codes which categorize behavior, and develop a consistent classification scheme. To better support this reasoning process of an analyst, we suggest a novel visual analytics approach which integrates rich user data including transcripts, videos, eye movement data, and interaction logs. Word-sized visualizations embedded into a tabular representation provide a space-efficient and detailed overview of user activities. An analyst assigns codes, grouped into code categories, as part of an interactive process. Filtering and searching helps to select specific activities and focus an analysis. A comparison visualization summarizes results of coding and reveals relationships between codes. Editing features support efficient assignment, refinement, and aggregation of codes. We demonstrate the practical applicability and usefulness of our approach in a case study and describe expert feedback.
Size Matters: How Scaling Affects the Interaction between Grid and Border Cells

Many hippocampal cell types are characterized by a progressive increase in scale along the dorsal-to-ventral axis, such as in the cases of head-direction, grid and place cells. Also located in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC), border cells would be expected to benefit from such scale modulations. However, this phenomenon has not been experimentally observed. Grid cells in the MEC of mammals integrate velocity related signals to map the environment with characteristic hexagonal tessellation patterns. Due to the noisy nature of these input signals, path integration processes tend to accumulate errors as animals explore the environment, leading to a loss of grid-like activity. It has been suggested that border-to-grid cells' associations minimize the accumulated grid cells' error when rodents explore enclosures. Thus, the border-grid interaction for error minimization is a suitable scenario to study the effects of border cell scaling within the context of spatial representation. In this study, we computationally address the question of (i) border cells' scale from the perspective of their role in maintaining the regularity of grid cells' firing fields, as well as (ii) what are the underlying mechanisms of grid-border associations relative to the scales of both grid and border cells. Our results suggest that for optimal contribution to grid cells' error minimization, border cells should express smaller firing fields relative to those of the associated grid cells, which is consistent with the hypothesis of border cells functioning as spatial anchoring signals.
The Hybrid Stochastic-Local Volatility Model with Applications in Pricing FX Options

This thesis presents our study on using the hybrid stochastic-local volatility model for option pricing. Many researchers have demonstrated that stochastic volatility models cannot capture the whole volatility surface accurately, although the model parameters have been calibrated to replicate the market implied volatility data for near at-the-money strikes. On the other hand, the local volatility model can reproduce the implied volatility surface, whereas it does not consider the stochastic behaviour of the volatility. To combine the advantages of stochastic volatility (SV) and local volatility (LV) models, a class of stochastic-local volatility (SLV) models has been developed. The SLV model contains a stochastic volatility component represented by a volatility process and a local volatility component represented by a so-called leverage function. The leverage function can be roughly seen as a ratio between local volatility and conditional expectation of stochastic volatility. The difficulty of implementing the SLV model lies in the calibration of the leverage function. In the thesis, we first review the fundamental theories of stochastic differential equations and the classic option pricing models, and study the behaviour of the volatility in the context of FX market. We then introduce the SLV model and illustrate our implementation of the calibration and pricing procedure. We apply the SLV model to exotic option pricing in the FX market and compare pricing results of the SLV model with pure local volatility and pure stochastic volatility models. Numerical results show that the SLV model can match the implied volatility surface very well as well as improve the pricing performance for barrier options. In addition, we further discuss some extensions of the SLV project, such as parallelization potential for accelerating option pricing and pricing techniques for window barrier options. Although the SLV model we use in the thesis is not entirely new, we contribute to the research in the following aspects: 1) we investigate the hybrid volatility modeling thoroughly from theoretical backgrounds to practical implementations; 2) we resolve some critical issues in implementing the SLV model such as developing a fast and stable numerical method to derive the leverage function; and 3) we build a robust calibration and pricing platform under the SLV model, which can be extended for practical uses.