Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TRADE LIBERALIZATION AND EMPLOYMENT LINKAGES IN THE PACIFIC BASIN

At the 1994 APEC summit in Bogor, Indonesia, it was recommended that trade and investment barriers among the member countries be removed by 2020. Despite general consensus that trade liberalization would accelerate development in this most dynamic trading area, there is very little empirical evidence about the adjustment process which would ensue. In this chapter, a ten-country CGE model is used to estimate the impact of trade liberalization among economies of Pacific Asia and the United States, giving particular attention to the adjustment which would occur in domestic labor markets. Our results elucidate the employment linkages between trading partners and show that the potential for new import demand by developed countries would accelerate employment growth in developing countries. In particular, Pacific trade liberalization could facilitate the emergence of a new reciprocal basis for multilateral gains from trade. Under an expanding system of liberal trade, capital-intensive .
Waldayu and Waldayu Mobile: Modern digital dictionary interfaces for endangered languages

We introduce Waldayu and Waldayu Mobile, web and mobile front-ends for endangered language dictionaries. The Waldayu products are designed with the needs of novice users in mind – both novices in the language and technological novices – and work in tandem with existing lexico-graphic databases. We discuss some of the unique problems that endangered-language dictionary software products face, and detail the choices we made in addressing them.
Some Pitfalls in Large Econometric Models: A Case Study

In this paper, I am going to discuss some of the difficulties in large-scale econometric modeling. As a stalking-horse, I will use the Regional Energy Activity and Demography (READ) model. This model was based on work by Harris and Hopkins (1972); development continued under the aegis of the Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy, Washington, D.C. By 1978, with development still incomplete, costs were estimated at over a million dollars, and a review was undertaken; this preceded any use of the model by the agency. ' As a consequence of the review, work on the model was stopped.
Evaluation of Access Methods to Text Document in Office Systems

This paper compares two different approaches for indexing archived text documents. The first approach is based on inversion of words in the text, the second on the generation of a signature file representing the text content. A system reflecting the word inversion approach is compared against two systems reflecting the signature scanning approach and using, alternatively, superimposed coding and the concatenation of word signatures. Performances are estimated using analytical models of these systems. Characteristics are evaluated in function of office environment requirements. The evaluations derive from a model for estimating the statistical parameters of text archives.This work has been partially developed as part of the EEC ESPRIT project on "Mixed-Mode Message Filing System" in the Office Systems area.
Evaluating the impact of virtualization characteristics on SaaS adoption

ABSTRACT Software as a service (SaaS) is a service model in which the applications are accessible from various client devices through internet. Several studies report possible factors driving the adoption of SaaS but none have considered the perception of the SaaS features and the organization’s context. We propose an integrated research model that combines the process virtualization theory (PVT), the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework and the institutional theory (INT). PVT seeks to explain whether processes are suitable for migration into virtual environments via an information technology-based mechanism as SaaS. The TOE framework seeks to explain the effects of the intra-organizational factors, while INT seeks to explain the effects of the inter-organizational factors on the technology adoption. This research addresses a gap in the SaaS adoption literature by studying the internal perception of the technical features of SaaS and technology, organization, and environment perspectives. Additionally, the integration of PVT, the TOE framework, and INT contributes to the information system (IS) discipline, deepening the applicability and strengths of these theories.
Web Media and Stock Markets : A Survey and Future Directions from a Big Data Perspective

Stock market volatility is influenced by information release, dissemination, and public acceptance. With the increasing volume and speed of social media, the effects of Web information on stock markets are becoming increasingly salient. However, studies of the effects of Web media on stock markets lack both depth and breadth due to the challenges in automatically acquiring and analyzing massive amounts of relevant information. In this study, we systematically reviewed 229 research articles on quantifying the interplay between Web media and stock markets from the fields of Finance, Management Information Systems, and Computer Science. In particular, we first categorized the representative works in terms of media type and then summarized the core techniques for converting textual information into machine-friendly forms. Finally, we compared the analysis models used to capture the hidden relationships between Web media and stock movements. Our goal is to clarify current cutting-edge research and its possible future directions to fully understand the mechanisms of Web information percolation and its impact on stock markets from the perspectives of investors cognitive behaviors, corporate governance, and stock market regulation.
Merge or Not? Learning to Group Faces via Imitation Learning

Face grouping remains a challenging problem despite the remarkable capability of deep learning approaches in learning face representation. In particular, grouping results can still be egregious given profile faces and a large number of uninteresting faces and noisy detections. Often, a user needs to correct the erroneous grouping manually. In this study, we formulate a novel face grouping framework that learns clustering strategy from ground-truth simulated behavior. This is achieved through imitation learning (a.k.a apprenticeship learning or learning by watching) via inverse reinforcement learning (IRL). In contrast to existing clustering approaches that group instances by similarity, our framework makes sequential decision to dynamically decide when to merge two face instances/groups driven by short- and long-term rewards. Extensive experiments on three benchmark datasets show that our framework outperforms unsupervised and supervised baselines.
Cognitive integration of recognition information and additional cues in memory-based decisions

Glöckner and Bröder (2011) have shown that for 77.5% of their participants’ decision making behavior in decisions involving recognition information and explicitly provided additional cues could be better described by weighted-compensatory Parallel Constraint Satisfaction (PCS) Models than by non-compensatory strategies such as recognition heuristic (RH) or Take the Best (TTB). We investigate whether this predominance of PCS models also holds in memory-based decisions in which information retrieval is effortful and cognitively demanding. Decision strategies were analyzed using a maximum-likelihood strategy classification method, taking into account choices, response times and confidence ratings simultaneously. In contrast to the memory-based-RH hypothesis, results show that also in memory-based decisions for 62% of the participants behavior is best explained by a compensatory PCS model. There is, however, a slight increase in participants classified as users of the non-compensatory strategies RH and TTB (32%) compared to the previous study, mirroring other studies suggesting effects of costly retrieval.
THE IMPACT OF MERGER-RELATED REGULATIONS ON THE SHAREHOLDERS OF ACQUIRING FIRMS

In this paper we examine the economic impact of a group of mergerrelated regulatory changes in the securities laws, the tax code, disclosure rules, and accounting principles which occurred during 1966-70. The specific regulations we consider are the Williams Amendments to the securities laws, the 1969 Tax Reform Act, Accounting Principles Board (APB) Opinions 16 and 17, and the SEC's segment disclosure rules. The impact of these changes is estimated by examining rates of return to shareholders of firms that were engaged in acquisitions programs during the period of regulatory change. A widely used procedure for estimating the economic impact of events such as regulatory changes is the aggregation of security return residuals from a "fair return" model such as the market model or CAPM.1 We take an alternative approach which conditions the return-generating process on the presence of regulatory change and employs generalized least squares (GLS) estimation. This approach provides a framework for testing a wide range of hypotheses and offers several advantages in making efficient use of available data. The concern with efficiency arises from three characteristics typically associated with policy event studies:
Developing knowledge and leadership in pre-service teacher education systems

Pre-service teacher education institutions are large and complex organizations, which are notoriously difficult to change. One factor is that many change efforts focus largely on individual pre-service teacher educators altering their practice. We report here on our experience using a model for effecting change, which views pre-service teacher education institutions and educators as a part of a much broader system. We identified numerous possibilities for, and constraints on, embedding change, but focus only on two in this paper: participants’ knowledge of change strategies and their leadership capacities. As a result of our study findings and researcher reflections, we argue that being a leader in an academic area within pre-service teacher education does not equate to leadership knowledge or skills to initiate and enact systems-wide change. Furthermore, such leadership capacities must be explicitly developed if education for sustainability is to become embedded in pre-service teacher education.
Are Potential Effects of SFAS 158 Associated with Firms’ Decisions to Freeze Their Defined Benefit Pension Plans?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the significant clustering of defined benefit (DB) pension plan freeze announcements during 2001-2006 is motivated at least in part by accounting concerns due to the Financial Accounting Standards Board's pending adoption of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 158 (SFAS 158). Design/methodology/approach - Using logistic regression models, the paper compares 147 “freeze firms” with a matched sample of firms that did not announce a DB plan freeze. Empirical models control for other DB plan motives including as a response to stricter contribution requirements under the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and improving the firm's competitive position. Findings - The potential SFAS 158 impact is significantly associated with firms' decisions to freeze their DB plans. Firm profitability is also significantly associated with the freeze decision. However, there is no significant association between cash flow positions or pension plan contributions and the freeze decision. Research limitations/implications - It is possible that economic conditions adversely affecting the funded status of DB plans also motivate the freeze decision. While this study controls for the economic environment, economic factors could exacerbate the potential effect of SFAS 158. Originality/value - This paper considers potential effects of accounting policy by examining its influence on real management actions and has consequences for a variety of stakeholders including investors, creditors, and, importantly, pension beneficiaries and workers, as DB plans represent implicit contracts between firms and their employees.
A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Lifestyle Modification on Metabolic Control in Overweight Children

Childhood obesity is associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus. We aimed to determine the effects of lifestyle modification programs on fasting plasma glucose (FPG) levels in overweight children. We queried six relevant electronic databases and manually searched for studies published before December 2016. Overweight/obese children who underwent a lifestyle modification for more than 6 months were included. A total of 3923 children from eight randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included. Compared with the control group, the lifestyle modification group had significantly lower FPG levels by 1.3 mg/dL. The mean differences were significantly decreased for both secondary outcomes; BMI z-score decreased by 0.16 units and insulin levels decreased by 2.4 mU/L. The metaregression showed that the follow-up duration was associated with FPG levels and BMI and insulin levels and half year is a suitable follow-up duration for this population. This study showed that lifestyle modification programs may be effective in reducing the FPG levels of overweight/obese children. Further high-quality RCTs with longer follow-up periods are needed to evaluate the long-term effect of this complementary approach for diabetes mellitus prevention on overweight/obese children.
FACTS: Fuzzy assessment and control for temperature stabilization: Regulating global carbon emissions with a fuzzy approach to climate projections

This work presents a new approach for assessing the climate system and for stabilizing the temperature and other climate parameters. FACTS, as we call it, is a fuzzy inference system that overview certain climate state, and is able to generate the CO2 emissions reduction needed to implement in order to stabilize the temperature. FACTS was constructed using a neural network optimization process along with data generated by a classical emissions pathfinder. Then, it was embedded in MAGICC6, a simple climate model that was forced by the four Representative Concentration Pathways until and ultimately stabilized by the proposed methodology.
A 1V Wide Tuning Range VCO for UHF DTV Tuner

This paper presents a low power wide tuning range 0.18 mum CMOS voltage-controlled oscillator. The VCO is oscillating at 1.5 times of the LO frequency to reduce the size of tank inductor. Capacitor bank switching is adopted to increase the VCO tuning range. To ensure oscillation at low frequency band, the bias current is adjusted automatically with respect to oscillation frequency. The frequency coverage of the CMOS VCO is from 675 MHz to 1275 MHz, and the tuning range is 62%. The operation supply voltage and power consumption of the VCO are 1V and 5 mW, respectively. The measured phase noise is - 98 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz offset.
DOMINIONS AND PRIMITIVE POSITIVE FUNCTIONS

Abstract Let A ≤ B be structures, and ${\cal K}$ a class of structures. An element b ∈ B is dominated by A relative to ${\cal K}$ if for all ${\bf{C}} \in {\cal K}$ and all homomorphisms g, g' : B → C such that g and g' agree on A, we have gb = g'b. Our main theorem states that if ${\cal K}$ is closed under ultraproducts, then A dominates b relative to ${\cal K}$ if and only if there is a partial function F definable by a primitive positive formula in ${\cal K}$ such that FB(a1,…,an) = b for some a1,…,an ∈ A. Applying this result we show that a quasivariety of algebras ${\cal Q}$ with an n-ary near-unanimity term has surjective epimorphisms if and only if $\mathbb{S}\mathbb{P}_n \mathbb{P}_u \left( {\mathcal{Q}_{{\text{RSI}}} } \right)$ has surjective epimorphisms. It follows that if ${\cal F}$ is a finite set of finite algebras with a common near-unanimity term, then it is decidable whether the (quasi)variety generated by ${\cal F}$ has surjective epimorphisms.
Structure and genotypic plasticity of the Campylobacter fetus sap locus

The Campylobacter fetus surface layer proteins (SLPs), encoded by five to nine sapA homologues, are major virulence factors. To characterize the sapA homologues further, a 65.9 kb C. fetus genomic region encompassing the sap locus from wild‐type strain 23D was completely sequenced and analysed; 44 predicted open reading frames (ORFs) were recognized. The 53.8 kb sap locus contained eight complete and one partial sapA homologues, varying from 2769 to 3879 bp, sharing conserved 553–2622 bp 5′ regions, with partial sharing of 5′ and 3′ non‐coding regions. All eight sapA homologues were expressed in Escherichia coli as antigenic proteins and reattached to the surface of SLP– strain 23B, indicating their conserved function. Analysis of the sap homologues indicated three phylogenetic groups. Promoter‐specific polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) and sapA homologue‐specific reverse transcription (RT)‐PCRs showed that the unique sapA promoter can potentially express all eight sapA homologues. Reciprocal DNA recombination based on the 5′ conserved regions can involve each of the eight sapA homologues, with frequencies from 10−1 to 10−3. Intragenic recombination between sapA7 and sapAp8, mediated by their conserved regions with a 10−1−10−2 frequency, allows the formation of new sap homologues. As divergent SLP C‐termini possess multiple antigenic sites, their reciprocal recombination behind the unique sap promoter leads to continuing antigenic variation.
Time-Varying Comovement of KOSPI 200 Sector Indices Returns

Abstract This paper employs dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) model to examine time-varying comovementin the Korean stock market with a focus on the ﬁnancial industry. Analyzing the daily returns of KOSPI 200eight sector indices from January 2008 to December 2013, we ﬁnd that stock market correlations signiﬁcantlyincreased during the GFC period. The Financial Sector had the highest correlation between the Constructions-Machinery Sector; however, the Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples sectors indicated a relativelylower correlation between the Financial Sector. In terms of model ﬁtting, the DCC with t distribution model con-cludes as the best among the four alternatives based on BIC, and the estimated shape parameter of t distributionis less than 10, implicating a strong tail dependence between the sectors. We report little asymmetric eﬀect incorrelation dynamics between sectors; however, we ﬁnd strong asymmetric eﬀect in volatility dynamics for eachsector return.Keywords: Dynamic conditional correlation model, asymmetry, tail dependence, ﬁnancial crisis,KOSPI 200 sector index.
Energy efficient wireless sensor networks utilizing adaptive dictionary in compressed sensing

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are fundamental blocks of Internet of Things (IoT) which made it to proliferate into many real-time diversified applications. Typically, WSN nodes are small and battery powered devices. Hence, energy efficient data aggregation method which maximizes the network lifetime is the paramount importance. Compressed Sensing (CS) is one of the approaches proves to be very promising for energy efficient data aggregation in WSN. The sparsity of the sensor data can change significantly due to their time varying nature and it affects the recovery of the measured signal. Most of the existing CS aided data aggregation methods for WSN are neither optimized nor address the issue of change in data sparsity, which demands additional energy to maintain low reconstruction accuracy. Thus, variation in the sparsity of the sensor data makes data aggregation to be energy inefficient that inherently reduces network lifetime. To overcome this, we propose an optimal method for CS-WSN where we use a dictionary as a sparsifier that learns with adaptive sparse training data. The proposed method achieves minimum reconstruction error by accounting changes in the data sparsity while data can be delivered to the sink with low energy consumption thereby improving energy efficiency.
SEM/EDS characterisation of dusty deposits in precipitation and assessment of their origin

Detailed scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) analysis of dusty material in rainfall residue, deposited and collected on February 19 th 2014 in Ljubljana, was carried out with the intention to characterise it according to its chemical and mineral composition and to assess its origin. The material consists of poorly sorted and sharp-edged particles of mostly very fine-grained silt and clay fractions, which is consistent with long-range aerial transport. Particles are represented by illite, chlorite and kaolinite group clay minerals, quartz, feldspars, carbonates, accessory minerals and secondary Fe-oxy-hydroxide minerals. Quantities of minerals and illite/ kaolinite ratio (4.5) correspond to dusts in rainfall residues originating from Moroccan Atlas, while chlorite/kaolinite ratio (2.8) agrees better with dust from central Libya. The element ratios Al/Si, Ca/Al, K/Ca, Mg/Al, Fe/Al and (Ca+Mg)/Fe in the studied dusty deposit are in good agreement with ratios in dusts from rainfall residues originating from Morocco and northern Mauritania. This was also confirmed by the trajectories of cloud movement that caused precipitation with dusty deposit, although the back trajectory HYSPLIT simulation of air masses indicated northern Mauritania, central Niger, southern Algeria, southwestern and central Libya as the most possible source regions.
Offer pricing of Australian industrial initial public offers

In the present paper we examine the setting of offer prices for Australian industrial initial public offers (IPOs) by fixed price offers. Our investigation focuses on the associations between offer prices and both market prices and accounting based measures of intrinsic value. Fixed-price offers are less likely to be influenced by the canvassing of market demand when compared to the US setting, where book-builds are typically used. We conclude that while Australian industrial IPOs are underpriced, they are not systematically undervalued. Contrary to research undertaken by Purnanandam and Swaminathan in the US book-build setting, we do not conclude that Australian IPOs are systematically overvalued. As part of our analysis, we develop an empirical model of offer prices based on interviews with several leading Australian stockbrokers involved in setting them. Finally, using the ratio of offer price to intrinsic value measure, we find some evidence that undervaluation is positively related to underpricing.