Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do Tougher Bank Capital Requirements Matter? New Evidence from the Eighties

In contrast to existing research, I find that tougher capital requirements were probably not responsible for the increase in capital ratios throughout the 1980s. Banks with low capital ratios tended to mean-revert well before any change in policy, and did not raise their capital ratios any faster after the policy change relative to better-capitalized banks. These conclusions are unchanged when exploiting a natural experiment - the plausibly exogenous elimination of differences across Federal Reserve System membership status in leverage requirements for community banks in 1985. I argue that these results are consistent with the presence of market-based incentives for banks to hold capital so that existing regulatory capital requirements were not binding.
AvrPm2 encodes an RNase‐like avirulence effector which is conserved in the two different specialized forms of wheat and rye powdery mildew fungus

Summary There is a large diversity of genetically defined resistance genes in bread wheat against the powdery mildew pathogen Blumeria graminis (B. g.) f. sp. tritici. Many confer race‐specific resistance to this pathogen, but until now only the mildew avirulence gene AvrPm3 a2/f2 that is recognized by Pm3a/f was known molecularly. We performed map‐based cloning and genome‐wide association studies to isolate a candidate for the mildew avirulence gene AvrPm2. We then used transient expression assays in Nicotiana benthamiana to demonstrate specific and strong recognition of AvrPm2 by Pm2. The virulent AvrPm2 allele arose from a conserved 12 kb deletion, while there is no protein sequence diversity in the gene pool of avirulent B. g. tritici isolates. We found one polymorphic AvrPm2 allele in B. g. triticale and one orthologue in B. g. secalis and both are recognized by Pm2. AvrPm2 belongs to a small gene family encoding structurally conserved RNase‐like effectors, including Avr a13 from B. g. hordei, the cognate Avr of the barley resistance gene Mla13. These results demonstrate the conservation of functional avirulence genes in two cereal powdery mildews specialized on different hosts, thus providing a possible explanation for successful introgression of resistance genes from rye or other grass relatives to wheat.
Pairing Voluntary Movement and Muscle-Located Electrical Stimulation Increases Cortical Excitability

Learning new motor skills has been correlated with increased cortical excitability. In this study, different location of electrical stimulation (ES), nerve, or muscle, was paired with voluntary movement to investigate if ES paired with voluntary movement (a) would increase the excitability of cortical projections to tibialis anterior and (b) if stimulation location mattered. Cortical excitability changes were quantified using motor evoked potentials (MEPs) elicited by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) at varying intensities during four conditions. Twelve healthy subjects performed 50 dorsiflexions at the ankle during nerve or muscle ES at motor threshold (MTh). ES alone was delivered 50 times and the movement was performed 50 times. A significant increase in the excitability from pre- to post-intervention (P = 0.0061) and pre- to 30 min post-intervention (P = 0.017) measurements was observed when voluntary movement was paired with muscle ES located at tibialis anterior. An increase of 50 ± 57 and 28 ± 54% in the maximum MEPs was obtained for voluntary movement paired with muscle-located and nerve-located ES, respectively. The maximum MEPs for voluntary movement alone and muscle-located ES alone were −5 ± 28 and 2 ± 42%, respectively. Pairing voluntary movement with muscle-located ES increases excitability of corticospinal projections of tibialis anterior in healthy participants. This finding suggests that active participation during muscle-located ES protocols increases cortical excitability to a greater extent than stimulation alone. The next stage of this research is to investigate the effect in people with stroke. The results may have implications for motor recovery in patients with motor impairments following neurological injury.
Pharmacy in medieval Islam and the history of drug addiction.

DRUG ADDIcTIoN, especially through the use of poppy (Papaver somniferum Linn.) and hemp (Cannabis sativa Linn.), is the main concern of this paper. Although the use of these two plants in medieval Islam was extensive, yet little has been written on this timely subject by historians of medicine and pharmacology. Consulting contemporary original sources, it is my hope to sketch a history of their spread and consumption and the social, economic, political and medical consequences of their misuse. Other drugs of addiction," which were also in wide use then, will not be dealt with in detail. The places of origin of poppy and hemp are assumed. But it seems probable that poppy was indigenous to Asia Minor and northern Mesopotamia, Persia and India, areas where poppy is still cultivated.2 There is no doubt that the ancient peoples of these regions used it as a remedy to relieve pain and induce pleasure or sleep.3 From these Asian countries, the poppy was brought to Egypt during the 18th Dynasty, if not earlier. Of the two closely related varieties known there, Papaver somniferum and P. rhoeas, the last was reported to have been cultivated in the gardens of the pharaohs, represented in their ornaments, and depicted in ancient
Identification and functional characterization of cDNAs coding for hydroxybenzoate/hydroxycinnamate glucosyltransferases co-expressed with genes related to proanthocyanidin biosynthesis

Grape proanthocyanidins (PAs) play a major role in the organoleptic properties of wine. They are accumulated mainly in grape skin and seeds during the early stages of berry development. Despite the recent progress in the identification of genes involved in PA biosynthesis, the mechanisms involved in subunit condensation, galloylation, or fine regulation of the spatio-temporal composition of grape berries in PAs are still not elucidated. Two Myb transcription factors, VvMybPA1 and VvMybPA2, controlling the PA pathway have recently been identified and ectopically over-expressed in an homologous system. In addition to already known PA genes, three genes coding for glucosyltransferases were significantly differentially expressed between hairy roots over-expressing VvMybPA1 or VvMybPA2 and control lines. The involvement of these genes in PA biosynthesis metabolism is unclear. The three glucosyltransferases display high sequence similarities with other plant glucosyltransferases able to catalyse the formation of glucose esters, which are important intermediate actors for the synthesis of different phenolic compounds. Studies of the in vitro properties of these three enzymes (Km, Vmax, substrate specificity, pH sensitivity) were performed through production of recombinant proteins in E. coli and demonstrated that they are able to catalyse the formation of 1-O-acyl-Glc esters of phenolic acids but are not active on flavonoids and stilbenes. The transcripts are expressed in the early stages of grape berry development, mainly in the berry skins and seeds. The results presented here suggest that these enzymes could be involved in vivo in PA galloylation or in the synthesis of hydroxycinnamic esters.
A strategy for building public service motivation research internationally

As public service motivation research grows qualitatively and quantitatively, some scholars question its appropriateness for international applications. This essay sets out a strategy of convergence for international research and measurement approaches. Studies that assess commonalities in public service motivation content internationally are analyzed in order to develop a broader conceptual and more operational definition as well as consequently a more universal public service motivation construct. Public service motives, according to this review, are based on self-sacrifice and fall into three categories: instrumental, value-based, and identification. The dimensions of the public service motivation construct are refined along the lines of attraction to public participation, commitment to public values, compassion, and self-sacrifice. Researchers are urged to include all of its dimensions within their empirical studies to advance contemporary public service motivation studies.
Algorithms for Complex Shapes with Certified Numerics and Topology Piecewise Linear Kernels for Simultaneous Approximation of Implicit and Mesh Surfaces from Point Cloud Data

We investigate a new method to compute a piecewise linear representation of a surface in R or R from a set of sample points from the surface. As implicit surface functions we use the weighted sum of piecewise linear kernel functions centered at the surface points. For such a function we can partition R or R in such a way that these functions are linear on the subsets of the partition. For each subset in the partition we can then compute the zero level set of the function exactly as the intersection of a hyperplane with the subset. This method works in principle, but is costly for large problems. Furthermore, the resulting mesh representation can be very irregular.
Cachecompress: a novel approach for test data compression with cache for IP embedded cores

In this paper, we propose a novel test data compression technique named CacheCompress, which combines selective encoding and dynamic dictionary based encoding. Depending on the number of specified bits, a test data word is either encoded in a single code word or as a lookup in the dictionary. Explicit dictionary initialization is not required since the content of the dictionary is updated during testing. The dictionary itself only contains the most recently used patterns, thus it exhibits a behaviour similar to a cache. Experiments show that our technique achieves higher compression ratio than other recent compression schemes while the dictionary size has been dramatically reduced.
Technological Progress, Income Distribution And Capacity Utilisation: A Computer Simulation-Based Analysis

The paper presents a post-keynesian growth model in which (i) the mark-up rate varies in the long-term due to a misalignment between the actual rate and the 'desired' profit rate; and (ii) the capital-output ratio is not necessarily constant, on the contrary it may shift as a result of the technological progress, which according the Harrod's typology can be neutral, capital saving or capital intensive. We demonstrate that the economic stability is only reached if the technological progress is neutral or capital intensive and the investiment is susceptible to fluctuations in the mark-up rate. After undergoing computer simulations, we noticed that an endogenous transition from a wage-led to a profit-led accumulation regime is feasible. Furthermore, we identified a tendency to the stabilization of the profit rate, conditioned to a high savings out of profits ratio.
A Dual Filtration-Based Multiplex PCR Method for Simultaneous Detection of Viable Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus on Fresh-Cut Cantaloupe

Fresh-cut cantaloupe is particularly susceptible to contamination with pathogenic bacteria, such as Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus. Therefore, development of rapid, yet accurate detection techniques is necessary to ensure food safety. In this study, a multiplex PCR system and propidium monoazide (PMA) concentration were optimized to detect all viable pathogens in a single tube. A dual filtration system utilized a filtration membrane with different pore sizes to enrich pathogens found on fresh-cut cantaloupe. The results revealed that an optimized multiplex PCR system has the ability to effectively detect three pathogens in the same tube. The viable pathogens were simultaneously detected for PMA concentrations above 10 μg/ml. The combination of a nylon membrane (15 μm) and a micro pore filtration membrane (0.22 μm) formed the dual filtration system used to enrich pathogens. The achieved sensitivity of PMA-mPCR based on this dual filtration system was 2.6 × 103 cfu/g for L. monocytogenes, 4.3 × 10 cfu/g for E. coli O157:H7, and 3.1 × 102 cfu/g for S. aureus. Fresh-cut cantaloupe was inoculated with the three target pathogens using concentrations of 103, 102, 10, and 1 cfu/g. After 6-h of enrichment culture, assay sensitivity increased to 1 cfu/g for each of these pathogens. Thus, this technique represents an efficient and rapid detection tool for implementation on fresh-cut cantaloupe.
Prognostic Value of PLAGL1-Specific CpG Site Methylation in Soft-Tissue Sarcomas

Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are rare, complex tumors with a poor prognosis. The identification of new prognostic biomarkers is needed to improve patient management. Our aim was to determine the methylation status of the 118 CpG sites in the PLAGL1 tumor-suppressor gene P1 CpG island promoter and study the potential prognostic impact of PLAGL1 promoter methylation CpG sites in STS. Training cohorts constituted of 28 undifferentiated sarcomas (US) and 35 leiomyosarcomas (LMS) were studied. PLAGL1 mRNA expression was investigated by microarray analysis and validated by RT-qPCR. Pyrosequencing was used to analyze quantitative methylation of the PLAGL1 promoter. Associations between global promoter or specific CpG site methylation and mRNA expression were evaluated using Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient. Cox univariate and multivariate proportional hazard models were used to assess the predictive power of CpG site methylation status. Sixteen CpG sites associated with PLAGL1 mRNA expression were identified in US and 6 in LMS. Statistical analyses revealed an association between CpG107 methylation status and both overall and metastasis-free survival in US, which was confirmed in a validation cohort of 37 US. The exhaustive study of P1 PLAGL1 promoter methylation identified a specific CpG site methylation correlated with mRNA expression, which was predictive for both metastasis-free and overall survival and may constitute the first US-specific biomarker. Such a biomarker may be relevant for identifying patients likely to derive greater benefit from treatment.
Acoustic spectroscopy of magnetic fluids based on transformer oil

The structural changes in transformer oil–based magnetic fluids with magnetite nanoparticles, FeO·Fe2O3, of different diameters upon the effect of an external magnetic field were studied by acoustic spectroscopy. The corresponding changes of the acoustic wave attenuation as a function of magnetic field were measured. Over the linear increasing magnetic field, the interaction between the magnetic field and the magnetic moments of the nanoparticles led to the aggregation of magnetic nanoparticles and following chain or cluster formation. These structures enlarged with the magnetic field and this process had the influence on the value of the acoustic attenuation. The remarkable changes in the acoustic attenuation were also observed in the magnetic fluid subjected to a jumped magnetic field observed for a given time. After the back change of magnetic field to zero, the attenuation drastically decreases because the lifetime of big clusters is in this case small. The anisotropy of the acoustic attenuation in external magnetic field was measured and analyzed at various temperatures, and the cluster radius, the number density of the colloidal nanoparticles, and some other parameters of magnetic nanoparticles could be determined from experimental results.
The Electrical Properties of Auditory Hair Cells in the Frog Amphibian Papilla

The amphibian papilla (AP) is the principal auditory organ of the frog. Anatomical and neurophysiological evidence suggests that this hearing organ utilizes both mechanical and electrical (hair cell-based) frequency tuning mechanisms, yet relatively little is known about the electrophysiology of AP hair cells. Using the whole-cell patch-clamp technique, we have investigated the electrical properties and ionic currents of isolated hair cells along the rostrocaudal axis of the AP. Electrical resonances were observed in the voltage response of hair cells harvested from the rostral and medial, but not caudal, regions of the AP. Two ionic currents, ICa andIK(Ca), were observed in every hair cell; however, their amplitudes varied substantially along the epithelium. Only rostral hair cells exhibited an inactivating potassium current (IA), whereas an inwardly rectifying potassium current (IK1) was identified only in caudal AP hair cells. Electrically tuned hair cells exhibited resonant frequencies from 50 to 375 Hz, which correlated well with hair cell position and the tonotopic organization of the papilla. Variations in the kinetics of the outward current contribute substantially to the determination of resonant frequency. ICa andIK(Ca) amplitudes increased with resonant frequency, reducing the membrane time constant with increasing resonant frequency. We conclude that a tonotopically organized hair cell substrate exists to support electrical tuning in the rostromedial region of the frog amphibian papilla and that the cellular mechanisms for frequency determination are very similar to those reported for another electrically tuned auditory organ, the turtle basilar papilla.
Rapid and effective speaker adaptation of convolutional neural network based models for speech recognition

Recently, we have proposed a novel fast adaptation method for the hybrid DNN-HMM models in speech recognition [1]. This method relies on learning an adaptation NN that is capable of transforming input speech features for a certain speaker into a more speaker independent space given a suitable speaker code. Speaker codes are learned for each speaker during adaptation. The whole multi-speaker training dataset is used to learn the adaptation NN weights. Our previous work has shown that this method is quite effective in adapting DNNs even when only a very small amount of adaptation data is available. However, the proposed method does not work well in the case of convolutional neural network (CNN). In this paper, we investigate the fast adaptation of CNN models. We first modify the speaker code based adaptation method to better suit to the CNN structure. Moreover, we investigate a new adaptation scheme using speaker specific adaptive nodes output weights. These weights scale different nodes outputs to optimize the model for new speakers. Experimental results on the TIMIT dataset demonstrates that both methods are quite effective in terms of adapting CNN based acoustic models and we can achieve even better performance by combining these two methods together.
Modern money and banking

Part 1: Introduction: evolution and change in money and banking money and its functions money - present and future. Part 2: Financial instruments and markets, and institutions: consumption and savings over time financial instruments and markets depository financial institutions interest rates. Part 3: Depository institutions and their environments: the economic behaviour of depository institutions practical management of depository institutions regulation of depository institutions consequences of regulation and deregulation the successes and failures of deposit insurance the thrift crisis. Part 4: Central banking, monetary policy and the federal reserve: depository institutions and the money supply process the federal reserve system the payments system and the role of the Fed the Feds instruments of monetary policy. Part 5: Monetary theory: the classical foundations of monetary theory macroeconomic nuts and bolts money in the traditional macroeconomic systems basic Keynesian theories of money, prices, and real output rational expectations and modern monetary theory recent developments in monetary policy. Part 6: Monetary stabilization policy: ultimate objectives of monetary policy intermediate target of monetary policy monetary policy operating procedures rules versus discretion in monetary policy. Part 7: International money and finance: markets for foreign exchange the international financial and monetary system promises and pitfalls of international policy coordination.
Studying the Impact of Social Structures on Software Quality

Correcting software defects accounts for a significant amount of resources such as time, money and personnel. To be able to focus testing efforts where needed the most, researchers have studied statistical models to predict in which parts of a software future defects are likely to occur. By studying the mathematical relations between predictor variables used in these models, researchers can form an increased understanding of the important connections between development activities and software quality. Predictor variables used in past top-performing models are largely based on file-oriented measures, such as source code and churn metrics. However, source code is the end product of numerous interlaced and collaborative activities carried out by developers. Traces of such activities can be found in the repositories used to manage development efforts. In this paper, we investigate statistical models, to study the impact of social structures between developers and end-users on software quality. These models use predictor variables based on social information mined from the issue tracking and version control repositories of a large open-source software project. The results of our case study are promising and indicate that statistical models based on social information have a similar degree of explanatory power as traditional models. Furthermore, our findings suggest that social information does not substitute, but rather augments traditional product and process-based metrics used in defect prediction models.
Optimum design of broad-beam microstrip reflectarray

The reflectarray's elements arrangement for generating an arbitrary phase distribution in the antenna aperture and thus a wide beamwidth of far field pattern are presented. The desired phase delay of reflectarray elements, which are duplicated the same radiating aperture as parabolic backscatters, are determined on the construction of the curvature of a shaped backscatter surface with the help of Snell's law for beam forming to cover a broad area. The method of moment (MoM) and the infinite-array are applied to calculate reflection phase characteristic. The optimized feed distance is calculated from the aperture efficiency with considering feed blockage efficiency and has investigated the influence of the feed position on the -3 dB beamwidth and gain performance. Having confirmed the validity of this approach, the X-band antenna prototype is designed and developed. This reflectarray is tested experimentally and shows good performance.
Over Expression of Wild Type or a Catalytically Dead Mutant of SIRTUIN 6 Does Not Influence NFκB Responses

SIRT6 is involved in inflammation, aging and metabolism potentially by modulating the functions of both NFκB and HIF1α. Since it is possible to make small molecule activators and inhibitors of Sirtuins we wished to establish biochemical and cellular assays both to assist in drug discovery efforts and to validate whether SIRT6 represents a valid drug target for these indications. We confirmed in cellular assays that SIRT6 can deacetylate acetylated-histone H3 lysine 9 (H3K9Ac), however this deacetylase activity is unusually low in biochemical assays. In an effort to develop alternative assay formats we observed that SIRT6 overexpression had no influence on TNFα induced nuclear translocation of NFκB, nor did it have an effect on nuclear mobility of RelA/p65. In an effort to identify a gene expression profile that could be used to identify a SIRT6 readout we conducted genome-wide expression studies. We observed that overexpression of SIRT6 had little influence on NFκB-dependent genes, but overexpression of the catalytically inactive mutant affected gene expression in developmental pathways.