Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can the Volatility of the Federal Funds Rate Explain the Time-Varying Risk Premium in Treasury Bill Returns?

The implementation of monetary policy through financial markets is widely believed to be an important factor affecting the return on financial assets, particularly the return on short-term government debt. This paper assesses the effects of shocks to monetary policy on Treasury bill returns by fitting a factor-ARCH model with a candidate factor based on innovations in the federal funds rate. We find that positive policy shocks significantly reduce Treasury bill returns and significantly increase the volatility of Treasury bill returns, but that the volatility of policy shocks does not explain the time-varying risk premia in Treasury bill returns.
Capital: The Story of Long-Term Investment Excellence

Foreword. Introduction. Chapter 1. The Founding. Chapter 2. Staying Alive. Chapter 3. the Multiple-counselor System. Chapter 4. Organizing the Core. Chapter 5. Mutual Fund Distribution. Chapter 6. Crossing the Rubicon: Capital Group. Chapter 7. Shareholder Services. Chapter 8. Acquisitions and Start-Ups. Chapter 9. Capital Guardian Trust Company. Chapter 10. Global Investing. Chapter 11. Emerging Markets. Chapter 12. Managing People. Chapter 13. Management. Chapter 14. Compensation. Chapter 15. Investing. Afterword. Appendix I. Summary Statement of Corporate Objectives and Goals. Appendix II. Outline of Basic Managerial Beliefs. Appendix III. Growth of the Capital Group Companies, Inc. Index.
SATELLITE-BASED DROUGHT MONITORING IN KENYA IN AN OPERATIONAL SETTING

Abstract. The University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna (Austria) in cooperation with the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) in Nairobi (Kenya) has setup an operational processing chain for mapping drought occurrence and strength for the territory of Kenya using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) NDVI at 250 m ground resolution from 2000 onwards. The processing chain employs a modified Whittaker smoother providing consistent NDVI “Mondayimages” in near real-time (NRT) at a 7-daily updating interval. The approach constrains temporally extrapolated NDVI values based on reasonable temporal NDVI paths. Contrary to other competing approaches, the processing chain provides a modelled uncertainty range for each pixel and time step. The uncertainties are calculated by a hindcast analysis of the NRT products against an “optimum” filtering. To detect droughts, the vegetation condition index (VCI) is calculated at pixel level and is spatially aggregated to administrative units. Starting from weekly temporal resolution, the indicator is also aggregated for 1- and 3-monthly intervals considering available uncertainty information. Analysts at NDMA use the spatially/temporally aggregated VCI and basic image products for their monthly bulletins. Based on the provided bio-physical indicators as well as a number of socio-economic indicators, contingency funds are released by NDMA to sustain counties in drought conditions. The paper shows the successful application of the products within NDMA by providing a retrospective analysis applied to droughts in 2006, 2009 and 2011. Some comparisons with alternative products (e.g. FEWS NET, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network) highlight main differences.
Toward Current Standards of Donor Right Hepatectomy for Adult-to-Adult Live Donor Liver Transplantation Through the Experience of 200 Cases

Objective:To define the current standards of donor right hepatectomy, including the middle hepatic vein for adult-to-adult live donor liver transplantation. Summary Background Data:Donor morbidity and mortality are inevitable given the ultra-major nature of the donor operation. Results from a matured center could define the true impact of this donor procedure most accurately. Patients and Methods:From May 9, 1996 to April 13, 2005, 200 consecutive donors underwent donor right hepatectomy at the University of Hong Kong Medical Center. All right liver grafts except one included the middle hepatic vein. Donor characteristics, operation time, blood loss, hospital stay, laboratory results, and complications graded by Clavien's classification divided into four eras (each consecutive 50 cases) were compared. Results:Donor characteristics of the four eras were generally comparable. Operative outcomes improved progressively through the four eras. From era 1 to era 4, operation time decreased from 598 minutes (range, 378–932 minutes) to 391 minutes (range, 304–635 minutes). Blood loss also decreased from 500 mL (200–1600 mL) of era 1 to 251 mL (range, 95–595 mL) of era 4. Overall complication rate was 20.5% (41 of 200). Complications rates from eras 1 to 4 were 34%, 16%, 16%, and 16%, respectively. The most common complications were of grade I (24 of 41, 58.5%). A late donor death occurred in era 4 from the development of a duodenocaval fistula 10 weeks postoperation, giving a donor mortality of 0.5% (1 of 200). Conclusions:This study validated the estimated morbidity and mortality of donor right hepatectomy of 20% and 0.5%, respectively. The data provide reference for counseling potential donors and setting the standards of donor right hepatectomy in the current era.
Extracellular Ca2+ Is Required for Fertilization in the African Clawed Frog, Xenopus laevis

Background The necessity of extracellular Ca2+ for fertilization and early embryonic development in the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis, is controversial. Ca2+ entry into X. laevis sperm is reportedly required for the acrosome reaction, yet fertilization and embryonic development have been documented to occur in high concentrations of the Ca2+ chelator BAPTA. Here we sought to resolve this controversy. Methodology/principal finding Using the appearance of cleavage furrows as an indicator of embryonic development, we found that X. laevis eggs inseminated in a solution lacking added divalent cations developed normally. By contrast, eggs inseminated in millimolar concentrations of BAPTA or EGTA failed to develop. Transferring embryos to varying solutions after sperm addition, we found that extracellular Ca2+ is specifically required for events occurring within the first 30 minutes after sperm addition, but not after. We found that the fluorescently stained sperm were not able to penetrate the envelope of eggs inseminated in high BAPTA, whereas several had penetrated the vitelline envelope of eggs inseminated without a Ca2+ chelator, or with BAPTA and saturating CaCl2. Together these results indicate that fertilization does not occur in high concentrations of Ca2+ chelators. Finally, we found that the jelly coat includes >5 mM of readily diffusible Ca2+. Conclusions/Significance Taken together, these data are consistent with requirement of extracellular Ca2+ for fertilization. Based on our findings, we hypothesize that the jelly coat surrounding the egg acts as a reserve of readily available Ca2+ ions to foster fertilization in changing extracellular milieu.
tacTiles: a low-cost modular tactile sensing system for floor interactions

In this paper, we present a prototype of a spatially resolved force sensing floor surface. The force sensors are based on conductive paper and grouped into modules called tacTiles. Due to the cheap and widely available materials used for tacTiles, the approach is suitable as a low-cost alternative for spatially resolved tactile sensing. The necessary techniques are shared as an open source and open hardware project to provide an affordable tactile sensing for smart environments. As an interactive application of these tacTiles, we present a detection of step direction algorithm used to count steps into and out of a room.
Task-space motion planning of MRI-actuated catheters for catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation

This paper presents a motion planning algorithm for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) actuated catheters for catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation. The MRI-actuated catheters is a new robotic catheter concept which utilizes MRI for remote steering and guidance. Magnetic moments generated by a set of coils wound near the tip are used to steer the catheter under MRI scanner magnetic field. The catheter during an ablation procedure is modeled as a constrained robotic manipulator with flexible joints, and the proposed motion-planning algorithm calculates a sequence of magnetic moments based on the manipulator model to move the tip of the catheter along a predefined trajectory on the surface of the left atrium. The difficulties in motion planning of the catheter are due to kinematic redundancy and underactuation. The proposed motion planning algorithm overcomes the challenges by operating in the task space instead of the configuration space. The catheter is then regulated around this nominal trajectory using feedback control to reduce the effect of uncertainties.
Who Leads Whom : Topical Lead-Lag Analysis across Corpora

In this work, we study the problem of whether grant proposals lead academic publications in terms of generation of scientific ideas. This is an important computational social sciene question that can help us understand the dynamics of scientific innovation. We propose simple but scalable techniques for lead/lag estimation, based on LDA and time series analysis, that work on any unlabeled textual corpora with temporal information. We perform our analysis on about half a million Computer Science research paper abstracts and 20,000 successful NSF grant proposal abstracts that represent the entire field of Computer Science in the time span of 1991-2008. Our analysis, besides revealing interesting patterns, finds that the lead/lag of scientific papers with respect to grant proposals is highly topic specific.
Attitudes to school life: their influences and their effects on achievement and leaving school

This report investigates students' attitudes to school life. Such attitudes may have implications for students' achievement and other educational outcomes as well as being a measure of educational outcomes in their own right. The study uses data from the first two waves of the 1995 year 9 cohort in the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) project. This study examines three aspects of students' attitudes to school life: possible changes over time, the influence of individual and school-level variables on attitudes; and the effect of these attitudes on achievement and leaving school. The four dimensions of attitudes to school isolated here are students' general satisfaction with school, their attitudes to their teachers, their views on the opportunities their school provides, and their sense of achievement.
Metagenomic Analysis of Bacterial Communities of Antarctic Surface Snow

The diversity of bacteria present in surface snow around four Russian stations in Eastern Antarctica was studied by high throughput sequencing of amplified 16S rRNA gene fragments and shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Considerable class- and genus-level variation between the samples was revealed indicating a presence of inter-site diversity of bacteria in Antarctic snow. Flavobacterium was a major genus in one sampling site and was also detected in other sites. The diversity of flavobacterial type II-C CRISPR spacers in the samples was investigated by metagenome sequencing. Thousands of unique spacers were revealed with less than 35% overlap between the sampling sites, indicating an enormous natural variety of flavobacterial CRISPR spacers and, by extension, high level of adaptive activity of the corresponding CRISPR-Cas system. None of the spacers matched known spacers of flavobacterial isolates from the Northern hemisphere. Moreover, the percentage of spacers with matches with Antarctic metagenomic sequences obtained in this work was significantly higher than with sequences from much larger publically available environmental metagenomic database. The results indicate that despite the overall very high level of diversity, Antarctic Flavobacteria comprise a separate pool that experiences pressures from mobile genetic elements different from those present in other parts of the world. The results also establish analysis of metagenomic CRISPR spacer content as a powerful tool to study bacterial populations diversity.
Sub-diffraction Focusing through Compensated Bilayer of Anisotropic Metamaterials: Theoretical Analysis and Experimental Verification

We analyze the sub-diffraction focusing through compensated bilayer of anisotropic metamaterials as an expansion of the perfect lens configuration, and study the material loss and retardation effect on the image properties. Through rigorous analysis of the electromagnetic wave transmission and numerical calculations of the electromagnetic field distribution, we demonstrate that the anisotropic bilayer lens exhibits a decreased sensitivity to material loss and retardation, therefore has a better image with sub-diffraction resolution than that of the isotropic perfect lens configuration. We also report on the realization of the planar lens of anisotropic compensated bilayer through periodic loaded transmission line metamaterials. We show that the circuit simulation and experimental result verify the sub-diffraction focusing at microwave frequency. The measured half-power beamwidth of the point source image formed by the lens is 0.08 effective wavelengths, which is far beyond the diffraction limit.
RAD51C-Deficient Cancer Cells Are Highly Sensitive to the PARP Inhibitor Olaparib

A PARP inhibitor is a rationally designed targeted therapy for cancers with impaired DNA repair abilities. RAD51C is a paralog of RAD51 that has an important role in the DNA damage response. We found that cell lines sensitive to a novel oral PARP inhibitor, olaparib, had low levels of RAD51C expression using microarray analysis, and we therefore hypothesized that low expression of RAD51C may hamper the DNA repair process, resulting in increased sensitivity to olaparib. Compared with the cells with normal RAD51C expression levels, RAD51C-deficient cancer cells were more sensitive to olaparib, and a higher proportion underwent cell death by inducing G2–M cell-cycle arrest and apoptosis. The restoration of RAD51C in a sensitive cell line caused attenuation of olaparib sensitivity. In contrast, silencing of RAD51C in a resistant cell line enhanced the sensitivity to olaparib, and the number of RAD51 foci decreased with ablated RAD51C expression. We also found the expression of RAD51C was downregulated in cancer cells due to epigenetic changes and RAD51C expression was low in some gastric cancer tissues. Furthermore, olaparib significantly suppressed RAD51C-deficient tumor growth in a xenograft model. In summary, RAD51C-deficient cancer cells are highly sensitive to olaparib and offer preclinical proof-of-principle that RAD51C deficiency may be considered a biomarker for predicting the antitumor effects of olaparib. Mol Cancer Ther; 12(6); 865–77. ©2013 AACR.
RANKING THE SCHOLARLY IMPACT OF NEW JERSEY COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES IN THE FIELD OF PSYCHOLOGY

With new research published every day, it becomes increasingly difficult to evaluate scholarly impact in a field of study. To address this problem, Hirsch (2005) developed the h index to express the impact of a researcher in a way that balances his or her volume and quality of output. Hirsch defined h as the largest number such that h papers have received at least h citations each. This index spurred the development of others that have been applied to measuring the impact of individuals, journals, and research topics. This study uses the h index and four of its variants to measure and rank the impact of New Jersey colleges and universities on the discipline of psychology. A principal component analysis showed that the h index and the four variants studied here all appear to measure one variable, scholarly impact. They do so in more useful ways than a variety of simpler measures such as the total number of papers published, the total number of citations, or the average number of citations per paper. The rankings produced in this study reveal trends for New Jersey institutions’ impact on psychological science, and this project suggests the feasibility and utility of follow-up studies that apply the h index and its variants to a broader range of institutions, fields of study, or both.
Ordering the Cytochrome c–initiated Caspase Cascade: Hierarchical Activation of Caspases-2, -3, -6, -7, -8, and -10 in a Caspase-9–dependent Manner

Exit of cytochrome c from mitochondria into the cytosol has been implicated as an important step in apoptosis. In the cytosol, cytochrome c binds to the CED-4 homologue, Apaf-1, thereby triggering Apaf-1–mediated activation of caspase-9. Caspase-9 is thought to propagate the death signal by triggering other caspase activation events, the details of which remain obscure. Here, we report that six additional caspases (caspases-2, -3, -6, -7, -8, and -10) are processed in cell-free extracts in response to cytochrome c, and that three others (caspases-1, -4, and -5) failed to be activated under the same conditions. In vitro association assays confirmed that caspase-9 selectively bound to Apaf-1, whereas caspases-1, -2, -3, -6, -7, -8, and -10 did not. Depletion of caspase-9 from cell extracts abrogated cytochrome c–inducible activation of caspases-2, -3, -6, -7, -8, and -10, suggesting that caspase-9 is required for all of these downstream caspase activation events. Immunodepletion of caspases-3, -6, and -7 from cell extracts enabled us to order the sequence of caspase activation events downstream of caspase-9 and reveal the presence of a branched caspase cascade. Caspase-3 is required for the activation of four other caspases (-2, -6, -8, and -10) in this pathway and also participates in a feedback amplification loop involving caspase-9.
D‐brane instantons in 4D supersymmetric string vacua

We review some aspects of D‐instantons in intersecting D‐brane models. In particular, we present applications of the recently proposed instanton calculus to computations of charged matter superpotential couplings and corrections to the gauge kinetic function in the low energy effective action of type IIA orientifolds. As an interesting byway, we also discuss how one‐loop corrections to the gauge kinetic function can be deduced from gauge threshold corrections in the type IIA setting.
Dose-Dependent Cytotoxic Effects of Boldine in HepG-2 Cells—Telomerase Inhibition and Apoptosis Induction

Plant metabolites are valuable sources of novel therapeutic compounds. In an anti-telomerase screening study of plant secondary metabolites, the aporphine alkaloid boldine (1,10-dimethoxy-2,9-dihydroxyaporphine) exhibited a dose and time dependent cytotoxicity against hepatocarcinoma HepG-2 cells. Here we focus on the modes and mechanisms of the growth-limiting effects of this compound. Telomerase activity and expression level of some related genes were estimated by real-time PCR. Modes of cell death also were examined by microscopic inspection, staining methods and by evaluating the expression level of some critically relevant genes. The growth inhibition was correlated with down-regulation of the catalytic subunit of telomerase (hTERT) gene (p < 0.01) and the corresponding reduction of telomerase activity in sub-cytotoxic concentrations of boldine (p < 0.002). However, various modes of cell death were stimulated, depending on the concentration of boldine. Very low concentrations of boldine over a few passages resulted in an accumulation of senescent cells so that HepG-2 cells lost their immortality. Moreover, boldine induced apoptosis concomitantly with increasing the expression of bax/bcl2 (p < 0.02) and p21 (p < 0.01) genes. Boldine might thus be an interesting candidate as a potential natural compound that suppresses telomerase activity in non-toxic concentrations.
Nonholonomic Motion Planning of Mobile Robot with Ameliorated Genetic Algorithm

The optimal motion planning problem of mobile robot system with nonholonomic constraints amounts to the optimal control problem of nonlinear system. The kinematic and dynamic equations of the mobile robot can be set up according mechanical and control theory. After stepping into the problem, some shortcomings in choosing the specific genetic operator for the current used Genetic Algorithm (abbreviated as GA) have turned up. In this paper, a new method of mobile robot path planning based on the Ameliorated Genetic Algorithm (abbreviated as AGA) is presented. Compared with GA, the ameliorated one can improve system¿s motion precision with specific crossover operator of AGA operations. The effectiveness of the optimal motion planning problem of mobile robot system is demonstrated by the numerical simulation. And AGA has also been proven to have good convergence, higher operative speed and improved accuracy.
Robust Output Feedback Controller Scheme for a Class of Uncertain Nonlinear Systems

Abstract In this study, we present a new continuous output feedback type controller mechanism for the tracking problem of a class of uncertain nonlinear systems. The proposed strategy requires the uncertainties of the dynamical system to be first order differentiable and achieves semi-global asymptotic tracking when only the system outputs are measurable. The Controller design is based on a Lyapunov-type stability argument. Simulation studies on a two link planar robotic system are presented to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed strategy.
The Web and Social Networks

The sheer volume of Web data, together with its low signal-to-noise ratio, make it difficult for text-based search engines to locate high-quality pages. Analyzing the links between Web sites has dramatically improved the Web search experience and spawned research into the Web's link structure. This research includes graph-theoretic studies of connectivity, which have shown the Web to have strong similarities with social networks. Self-similarity is pervasive in social networks. While researchers have observed Web self-similarity in other contexts, finding a fractal structure in a graph theoretic setting adds further evidence to the Web's small-world social nature. Thus, researchers seek to explain and exploit the human behavior implicit in the Web's evolving structure. How can we combine the power of Web networks with networks resulting from other human activity? Accomplishing this goal represents knowledge management's key challenge and opportunity.
Privacy Preserving Updates to Sliced Anonymous Data Bases

Privacy is the main concern in the present world. Privacy is becoming an increasingly important issue in many data mining applications in various fields like medical research, intelligence agencies, hospital records maintenance etc. Suppose there exsists an anonymous database (e.g. containing medical records) then the objectives include how to still preserve the privacy while updates are being made into the current anonymous database by preserving the privacy of the user and confidentiality of the database. It is required to ensure that the database is still anonymous after the update. In this paper the database is made anonymous by slicing approach and then updates are made to the sliced database. Slicing overcomes the disadvantages of k-anonymity. Keywords—slicing, confidentiality, generalization, k-anonymity, privacy, SMC.