Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patterns of molecular diversity in wild stocks of the redclaw crayfish (Cherax quadricarinatus) from northern Australia and Papua New Guinea: impacts of Plio-Pleistocene landscape evolution

SUMMARY 1. Analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA (microsatellites) in 379 individuals, collected from 15 localities in northern Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG), demonstrated that wild redclaw crayfish (Cherax quadricarinatus) populations consist of two highly divergent Australian lineages and two PNG lineages. 2. The disjunction between the two Australian lineages occurs over a distance of approximately 200 km in the south-western corner of the Gulf of Carpenteria. These data conflict with an earlier study that detected no significant differentiation in 23 variable allozyme loci in redclaw sampled from northern Australia, but concur broadly with the previous recognition of two morphologically distinct species (C. quadricarinatus and C. bicarinatus) across northern Australia, and a third species in PNG (C. albertsii). 3. The inferred timing and patterns of divergence evident in the molecular data presented here closely align with a similar pattern reported in a co-distributed freshwater decapod crustacean, and broadly reflect patterns in some vertebrate taxa with similar distributions across northern Australia and PNG. 4. These congruent patterns most probably reflect periodic Plio-Pleistocene land and freshwater connections between Australia and New Guinea.
Armed conflicts and prevailing rank-size patterns in 28 African states

Abstract Refugees fleeing conflict and oppression can affect the population size of cities within a country and neighboring countries. This paper examines how the rank-size rule of cities has changed in 28 countries located in volatile regions of Africa over the past four decades. We estimate two equation models explaining the relationship between spatial/temporal variation in cities and noneconomic factors. Although economic factors remain the principal determinants of urban growth, the prevailing rank-size patterns indicate that noneconomic factors such as armed conflicts are behind the development of most of these cities, particularly those near or bordering conflict areas.
Organization, Programme and Structure: An Analysis of the Chinese Innovation Policy Framework

The paper first identifies the stakeholders involved in the design and implementation of China's innovation policy and compares them with different government systems in selected Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In order to disclose the relative strength and weaknesses inside China's innovation policy framework, we proceed to utilize policy practices in the OECD countries as a guideline to examine China's innovation policy in five categories: reform in the public S&T institutions, financial policy, business innovation support structure, human resource policy and legislative actions. Subsequently, several weak components of the Chinese innovation policy framework are identified and two of them are selected for further analysis: education and human resource policy, and protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Finally, the paper provides some priorities and possible actions for future innovation policy developments in China.
Influence of International Openness on Corporate Environmental Performance in China

This paper examines how international openness influences China's corporate environmental performance. A unique firm-level dataset is constructed by combining two databases: the Annual Industrial Survey and the China GreenWatch Program Rating System. The empirical results obtained from a series of ordered probit models indicate that openness has a positive relation to corporate environmental performance in China. However, the two main market-opening strategies in China, exporting and attracting foreign investment, have different effects on environmental performance. The results reveal that foreign investment plays a substantial and positive role that can support the environmental spillovers in China. However, the effect of exporting is insignificant. The environmental pressure from foreign customers to improve Chinese firms' environmental performance presents a challenge. Our study indicates that China could make environmental quality improvements through increased international openness, as is likely the case for other developing countries.
Towards virtually-addressed memory hierarchies

Current cache hierarchies are indexed in parallel with a TLB but their tags are part of the physical address so that the memory hierarchy is physically addressed. This design faces problems as more concurrency is exploited in the processor core and as the memory demand of emerging applications is growing fast. The traditional TLB does not scale well inside the processor core and its hit rate call be poor for data-intensive applications or scientific applications without much locality. At the same time, given current trends towards computing in memory and in communication interfaces, virtual addresses are needed not just inside the processor but throughout the memory hierarchy. These observations have prompted us to result the problem of moving virtual address translation away from the processor. This paper introduces new ideas to enable the use of virtual addresses throughout the memory hierarchy. The major idea is the replacement of the TLB with a small Synonym Lookaside Buffer (SLB), which scales well because its size depends on the number of addresses, and not on the size of the application or of the physical memory. We also characterize synonym usage, evaluate the amount of cache and SLB flushing due to remapping of addresses, and compare the miss rate of various virtual physical cache organizations for several application domains. These evaluations show that virtually addressed memory hierarchies overall have better performance behavior than physically-addressed memory hierarchies. Finally, we also show how virtually-addressed memory hierarchies facilitate natural, scalable multiprocessor extensions, as well as computing-in-memory in the context of general-purpose computers.
Towards augmented reality in power engineering

The paper explores the main directions in which the augmented reality and the Web can change the approach in power engineering and significantly improving it. These innovations facilitate, in a user-friendly way, the availability of real-time data, fast processed information, assistance and guidance at any time and in any place along the entire energy chain. A step-by-step implementation of AR applications is recommended to allow the human adaptation time to the new technology, the evaluation of results and the choosing of best future development. For the beginning, simple AR application should be introduced in student laboratories, on smartphones.
Dissection of Pathways Implicated in Integrin-mediated Actin Cytoskeleton Assembly

A panel of antibodies to the αIIbβ3 integrin was used to promote adhesion of Chinese hamster ovary cells transfected with the αIIbβ3 fibrinogen receptor. While some αIIbβ3 antibodies were not able to induce p125 focal adhesion kinase (p125FAK) tyrosine phosphorylation, all the antibodies equally support cell adhesion but not spreading and assembly of actin stress fibers. Absence of stress fibers was also obtained by plating on antibodies directed to the hamster β1 integrin. In contrast, cells plated on matrix proteins spread organizing actin stress fibers. Treatment with phorbol esters phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) induced cells to spread on antibodies-coated dishes but not to organize actin in stress fibers. The combination of PMA and cytotoxicnecrotizing factor 1 (CNF1), a specific Rho activator, induced cell spreading and organization of stress fibers. PMA or the combination of PMA and CNF1 also increases tyrosine phosphorylation of p125FAK in response to antibodies that were otherwise unable to trigger this response. These data show that: 1) matrix proteins and antibodies differ in their ability to induce integrin-dependent actin cytoskeleton organization (while matrix induced stress fibers formation, antibodies did not); 2) p125FAK tyrosine phosphorylation is insufficient per se to trigger actin stress fibers formation since antibodies that activate p125FAK tyrosine phosphorylation did not lead to actin stress fibers assembly; and 3) the inability of anti-integrin antibodies to trigger stress fibers organization is overcome by concomitant activation of the protein kinase C (PKC) and Rho pathways; PKC activation leads to cell spreading and Rho activation is required to organize actin stress fibers.
TQM and financial performance: are findings of direct effects methodological artefacts?

Whether the relationship between total quality management (TQM) and subsequent financial performance is direct or indirect has been one of the most productive research streams in the quality management literature. The current study adds to this important literature stream by demonstrating that findings of a direct relationship between the two constructs may be due to potential data analytic pitfalls associated with the particular longitudinal research techniques employed. The current study briefly reviews six potential pitfalls. Then, to demonstrate how these pitfalls can potentially compromise research results, the current study analyses the relationship between TQM and financial performance in a panel of 93 publicly traded, US firms that won supplier quality awards in the period 1985–1993. The data set is analysed utilising two alternative research methodologies: cross-sectional analysis utilising a series of t-tests (a popular research approach in this literature stream) that does not address any of the potential pitfalls and MANOVA for repeated measures that addresses all six. The study concludes with practical implications for quality management and top management executives.
The Chinese Work Unit and Transient Labor in the Transition from Socialism

With the coming of economic reform in China, migrant peasant labor has entered industry in large numbers. Unlike such workers in the past-who served as temporaries from the communes contracted to produce in urban state firms, or who remained in the rural areas, toiling for their units in collective small industries (see Walder, 1986: 48-56)-this section of today's "floating population"' is working full-time, and in large numbers, as wage-compensated, individually contracted employees in factories.2 Neither the hiring of these peasants by state firms nor their employment by enterprises in the countryside is new, but today the scale is far larger and the procedures more regularized than before the economic reforms; moreover, there is one element that is altogether novel in the People's Republic of China (PRC): people from the fields are now also finding jobs in the foreign-funded firms (FFFs) that began to appear in China in the 1980s.3 So today we find once(and sometime-)4 farmers in factories of two gross types: those within the state sector, in the old urban state-owned industrial factories, called the danwei (or "work unit"),5 with its well-known panoply of welfare benefits; and those in several types of units outside it: the so-called "collective" town and village enterprises
Deghosting in passive air surveillance systems

Digital Audio/Video Broadcasting (DAB/DVB-T) is already available in a large area of Europe. The advantage of using these signals for passive air surveillance is the disposability of a large range of illuminators sending an easily decodeable digital broadcast signal. In the considered multi-static scenario, one observer provides bistatic Time Difference of Arrival (TDoA), Doppler and (with limited quality) also azimuth measurements. The main task of target tracking is to handle ghosts that arise due to problems of association between illuminators, targets and measurements. To prevent enumeration and maintaining of all association possibilities, a decision criteria needs to be found to discriminate ghosts quickly and efficiently. In this paper we try to give a general understanding of the characteristics of ghosts; we derive two different Deghosting criteria and compare their performance with respect to Monte-Carlo simulations.
Verifying the Miles and Snow strategy types in Australian small- and medium-size enterprises

In this paper we set out to verify the existence of Miles and Snow strategy types in Australian small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) through objective classification. Australian SMEs, in particular, are interesting as they are reported to have some unique characteristics, with as many as 70% following a low growth or life-style pathway. While numerous empirical studies have been conducted to validate the existence and characteristics of the Miles and Snow strategy types in different domains for both larger and smaller enterprises, these studies typically rely on a subjective, ‘self-typing’ approach. In this study we employ a more objective approach by identifying measures from existing survey data that capture the strategic dimensions proposed by Miles and Snow. We use these objective measures in a K-means cluster analysis to identify four different strategic groups. Three of the groups correspond to the three ‘viable’ Miles and Snow strategy types of Defender, Prospector and Analyser; however, we also identify a ‘Static’ strategy type that constitutes 42% of SMEs in the sample.
Temporal recovery of activities of daily living in the first year after ischemic stroke: a prospective study of patients admitted to a rehabilitation unit.

BACKGROUND The ability to perform basic activities of daily living (ADL) independently is a marker of functional recovery after a stroke. However, there few studies documenting their long-term recovery. OBJECTIVE To document temporal recovery of activities of daily living (ADL) and establish predictors of ADL in a cohort of ischemic stroke patients in the first year after stroke. METHODS Prospective cohort study of 163 patients with first-ever ischemic stroke admitted to a rehabilitation centre. The Modified Barthel Index (MBI) was used to measure the patient's ability to perform the following 10 ADLs: feeding, grooming, dressing, bathing, toileting, bladder and bowel continence, transfers, ambulation and stair climbing. It was assessed on rehabilitation admission, discharge, and at 3, 6 and 12 months after stroke. The Motricity Index was used to measure motor power of the hemiplegic limb. RESULTS The mean age was 63.8 (10.7) years, with 111 males and 52 females. The mean total MBI scores on rehabilitation admission, rehabilitation discharge, 3, 6 and 12 months after stroke were 41.3 (24.6), 72.9 (20.5), 88.4 (18.6), 90.5 (17.2) and 84.2 (20.4) respectively. Median scores of feeding, grooming, toileting, bladder/bowel continence, transfers and ambulation plateaued by 3 months after stroke. Median scores of dressing and stair climbing plateaued at 6 months and that for bathing, 12 months after stroke. None of the patients were functionally independent (defined as MBI score of 100) on rehabilitation admission, but this improved to 8.6% on discharge, and 32.1%, 41.4% and 50.3% at 3, 6 and 12 months after stroke respectively. The MBI and Motricity scores were strongly correlated at all periods of follow up (r = 0.67 to 0.69, p < 0.0001). Univariate analysis showed that age, neglect, a cortical stroke, admission MBI, NIHSS, Motricity Index and Abbreviated Mental Score scores were predictors of functional independence at 12 months after stroke. On logistic regression, only age remained significant, younger patients being more likely than older patients to be functionally independent. CONCLUSION Most recovery of ADL occurs by 3 months after stroke. For individual ADLs, dressing, stair climbing and bathing appear to take a longer time to recover. Older age was a negative predictor of functional dependence at 12 months after stroke.
Trend Following and Expected Return

Trend following strategies have the reputation of being the holy grail of investment. This paper investigates the trend following strategy both from a theoretical and empirical perspective. This article also discusses conditional expected return and the drawdown with Value at Risk (VaR). VaR will not tell you how likely you are to experience changes in expected return for the securities in your portfolio. Such a number is very easy to estimate historically but not so easy to forecast i.e. how do you detect the next Bernard Madoff?
Hours Worked: Long-Run Trends

For 200 years the average number of hours worked per worker declined, both in the market place and in the home. Technological progress is the engine of such transformation. Three mechanisms are stressed: (i) The rise in real wages and its corresponding wealth effect; (ii) The enhanced value of time off from work, due to the advent of time-using leisure goods; (iii) The reduced need for housework, due to the introduction of time-saving appliances. These mechanisms are incorporated into a model of household production. The notion of Edgeworth-Pareto complementarity/substitutability is key to the analysis. Numerical examples link theory and data.
Microbiological aspects of public health planning and preparedness for the 2012 Olympic Games

SUMMARY Although communicable diseases have hitherto played a small part in illness associated with Olympic Games, an outbreak of infection in a national team, Games venue or visiting spectators has the potential to disrupt a global sporting event and distract from the international celebration of athletic excellence. Preparation for hosting the Olympic Games includes implementation of early warning systems for detecting emerging infection problems. Ensuring capability for rapid microbiological diagnoses to inform situational risk assessments underpins the ability to dispel rumours. These are a prelude to control measures to minimize impact of any outbreak of infectious disease at a time of intense public scrutiny. Complex multidisciplinary teamwork combined with laboratory technical innovation and efficient information flows underlie the Health Protection Agency's preparation for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. These will deliver durable legacies for clinical and public health microbiology, outbreak investigation and control in the coming years.
Research on Interval Prediction of Nonlinear Chaotic Time Series Based on New Neural Networks

Based on nonlinear prediction ideas of reconstructing phase space, this paper presents a time delay BP neural network model, whose generalization is improved utilizing Bayesian regularization. Furthermore the model is applied to forecast the import and export trades in an industry. The results show that the improved TDNN model has excellent generalization capabilities, which can not only learn the historical curve, but efficiently predict the trend of trade development. In contrast to conventional evaluation of forecasts, we assess the model by calculating the nonlinear characteristics of the predicted and original time series besides analyzing the precision of forecasting. The estimated values demonstrate that the dynamics of the system producing the original series has been reasonably captured in this model
Self-Fulfillment Expectations, Speculation Attacks, and Capitol Controls

This paper examines the endogenous implementation of capital controls in the context of a fixed exchange rate regime. It is shown that if there exists a non-zero probability that the policymaker's response to a speculative attack on official foreign reserves will be the introduction of controls, such an attack may occur even when current and expected monetary policy is consistent with a permanently viable, control-free fixed exchange rate regime. Consequently, capital controls may be the outcome of self- fulfilling expectations rather than the result of imprudent economic policies.
Using Knowledge, Skill and Ability (KSA) Data to Identify Career Pathing Opportunities: An Application of Job Analysis to Internal Manpower Planning

Job analytic methodology was used to identify knowledge, skill and ability (KSA) dimensions of four classes of jobs (secretarial/clerical, managerial/administrative, professional/technical and service). The KSA's were then identified as either selection or training criteria (critical for the development of selection tests or training programs). The feasibility of establishing career paths between the secretarial/clerical jobs (source jobs) and the managerial/administrative jobs (target jobs) was evaluated by comparing the selection and training criteria of the source job to the critical (important) knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) of the target jobs. It was found that when the critical KSAs for the managerial/administrative positions were rated using job analysis techniques, they significantly correlated with the content identified as part of the secretarial/clerical jobs. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of the KSAs identified as important for performance in the managerial/administrative jobs were also identified as important for the performance in the secretarial/clerical jobs. Further, 81% of the target jobs' KSAs not found to be source job selection criteria were found to be source job training criteria. The implications are that job analysis methodology can be used to identify possible career paths, and that career paths can be established between secretarial/clerical jobs and entry level administrative/managerial jobs.
Text Mining Analysis of the Reconstruction Plans after the Great East Japan Earthquake

On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred off the coast of Sanriku, Japan. It is important to build a sustainable society through the reconstruction process rather than simply restoring the infrastructure. To compare the goals of reconstruction plans of quake-stricken municipalities, Japanese language morphological analysis was performed by using text mining techniques. Frequently-used nouns were sorted into four main categories of “life”, “disaster prevention”, “economy”, and “harmony with environment”. Because Soma City is affected by nuclear accident, sentences tagged to “harmony with environment” tended to be frequent compared to the other municipalities. Results from cluster analysis and principle component analysis clearly indicated that the local government reinforces the efforts to reduce risks from radiation exposure as a top priority. Keywords—Eco-friendly reconstruction, harmony with environment, decontamination, nuclear disaster.