Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Involuntary excess reserves, the reserve requirements and credit rationing in China

Using a sample of 95 banks that covers the period 2000–2011, this article examines Chinese banks’ credit lending behaviour in response to the changes in the reserve requirement ratio in the presence of involuntary excess reserves (IERs) in the banking system. The study finds that Chinese banks with positive IERs one period after a reserve requirement shock experience a significantly increased credit supply in response to an increase in reserve requirement ratio. However, the reserve requirements have no significant impact on the credit supply in Chinese banks that have negative IERs one period after a reserve requirement shock. This article sheds lights on the effectiveness of Chinese monetary policy, which uses reserve requirements as the primary tool to sterilize excess liquidity and restrain credit expansion.
An ecological fallacy in higher education policy: the use, overuse and misuse of ‘low participation neighbourhoods’

One form of ecological fallacy is found in the dictum that ‘you are where you live’ – otherwise expressed in the idea that you can infer significant information about an individual or their family from the prevailing conditions around their home. One expression of this within higher education in the UK has been the use (and, arguably, overuse and misuse) of ‘low participation neighbourhoods’ (LPNs) over the last 15 years. These are areas that have been defined, from historic official data, as having a lower-than-average propensity to send their young people on to university. These LPNs have increasingly become used within the widening participation and social mobility agendas as a proxy for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who have the potential to benefit from higher education, but who would not attend without encouragement, support and/or incentives. In this article, we explore the various uses to which LPNs have been put by policy makers, universities and practitioners, including the targeting of outreach activities, the allocation of funding and the monitoring of the social mix within higher education. We use a range of official data to demonstrate that LPNs have a questionable diagnostic value, with more disadvantaged families living outside them than within them, while they contain a higher-than-expected proportion of relatively advantaged families. We also use content analysis of university policy documents to demonstrate that universities have adopted some questionable practices with regard to LPNs, although some of these are now being actively discouraged.
Distributed Joint Transmitter-Receiver Beamforming and Power Allocation in MIMO Interference Channel with Interference Alignment

Interference alignment (IA) scheme for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system has been widely studied. In this paper, we introduce a novel metric known as Group-SINR (GSINR), which is also the average SINR per stream of one group under perfect interference alignment. Based on the GSINR characterization, we develop a Max-GSINR algorithm to jointly optimize Transmitter-Receiver (Tx-Rx) beamformers and allocate group power subject to total power constraint. The Max-GSINR algorithm is guaranteed to converge and implementable in a distributed manner in reciprocal channels. Results show that the proposed algorithm achieves higher average SINR per stream under fixed group power allocation, and higher sum rate under uneven group power allocation.
Focus Groups in Social Research

There is an increasing divergence of focus group practice between social researchers and commercial market researchers. This book addresses the key issues and practical requirements of the social researcher, namely: the kinds of social research issues for which focus groups are most and least suitable; optimum group size and composition; and the designing of focusing exercises, facilitation and appropriate analysis. The authors use examples, drawn from their own focus groups research experience, and provide exercises for further study. They address the three main components of composition, conduct and analysis in focus group research and also acknowledge the increasing impact the Internet has had on social research by covering the role and conduct of `virtual focus groups'.
Errors-in-variables modeling in optical flow estimation

Gradient-based optical flow estimation methods typically do not take into account errors in the spatial derivative estimates. The presence of these errors causes an errors-in-variables (EIV) problem. Moreover, the use of finite difference methods to calculate these derivatives ensures that the errors are strongly correlated between pixels. Total least squares (TLS) has often been used to address this EIV problem. However, its application in this context is flawed as TLS implicitly assumes that the errors between neighborhood pixels are independent. In this paper, a new optical flow estimation method (EIVM) is formulated to properly treat the EIV problem in optical flow. EIVM is based on Sprent's (1966) procedure which allows the incorporation of a general EIV model in the estimation process. In EIVM, the neighborhood size acts as a smoothing parameter. Due to the weights in the EIVM objective function, the effect of changing the neighborhood size is more complex than in other local model methods such as Lucas and Kanade (1981). These weights, which are functions of the flow estimate, can alter the effective size and orientation of the neighborhood. In this paper, we also present a data-driven method for choosing the neighborhood size based on Stein's unbiased risk estimators (SURE).
A Dynamic Model of Generalized Social Trust

How does generalized social trust — a Trustor's willingness to allow anonymous Trustees to make decisions affecting the Trustor's own welfare without an enforceable contract or guarantee, despite the Trustees' incentives to exploit or defraud — come to predominate in a community? This article is organized around a theoretical argument about the dynamics of generalized trust. This argument is deduced from a formal model built on assumptions that are common in the existing literature on trust. We find three results. First, generalized trust and trustworthiness can thrive if reliable credentials allow people to distinguish between trustworthy and untrustworthy partners. Second, under a system of credential-dependent trust, the proportion of trustworthy persons in the population tends to cycle between high and low levels in the long run. Hence, the model may explain the currently observed decline in generalized trust in the United States as a part of a long-term cycle. Finally, trustworthy types can coordinate to dampen the trustworthiness cycle and (under some conditions) maintain trustworthy types as the majority in a society.
Timing Multiple Markets: Theory and Evidence

I extend the classical market timing model of Merton (1981) to the case of multiple risk factors and derive the equilibrium value of a market timer's forecasting ability. This result implies a class of return-based parametric estimators that allow consistent estimation of a portfolio manager's ability to 'time multiple markets. ' I apply these tests to evaluate the performance of 'fund of funds' hedge fund managers and show that, both individually and on aggregate, fund of funds managers do not exhibit timing ability with respect to a variety of hedge fund styles. However, I argue that this result is due to liquidity constraints created by the hedge funds into which these vehicles invest.
A fault-tolerant control strategy for Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy systems

Abstract In this paper, a new active FTC strategy is proposed. First, it is developed in the context of linear systems and then it is extended to Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy systems. The key contribution of the proposed approach is an integrated FTC design procedure of the fault identification and fault-tolerant control schemes. Fault identification is based on the use of an observer. While, the FTC controller is implemented as a state feedback controller. This controller is designed such that it can stabilize the faulty plant using Lyapunov theory and LMIs.
Analysis of HLA A*02 Association with Vaccine Efficacy in the RV144 HIV-1 Vaccine Trial

ABSTRACT The RV144 HIV-1 vaccine trial demonstrated partial efficacy of 31% against HIV-1 infection. Studies into possible correlates of protection found that antibodies specific to the V1 and V2 (V1/V2) region of envelope correlated inversely with infection risk and that viruses isolated from trial participants contained genetic signatures of vaccine-induced pressure in the V1/V2 region. We explored the hypothesis that the genetic signatures in V1 and V2 could be partly attributed to selection by vaccine-primed T cells. We performed a T-cell-based sieve analysis of breakthrough viruses in the RV144 trial and found evidence of predicted HLA binding escape that was greater in vaccine versus placebo recipients. The predicted escape depended on class I HLA A*02- and A*11-restricted epitopes in the MN strain rgp120 vaccine immunogen. Though we hypothesized that this was indicative of postacquisition selection pressure, we also found that vaccine efficacy (VE) was greater in A*02-positive (A*02+) participants than in A*02− participants (VE = 54% versus 3%, P = 0.05). Vaccine efficacy against viruses with a lysine residue at site 169, important to antibody binding and implicated in vaccine-induced immune pressure, was also greater in A*02+ participants (VE = 74% versus 15%, P = 0.02). Additionally, a reanalysis of vaccine-induced immune responses that focused on those that were shown to correlate with infection risk suggested that the humoral responses may have differed in A*02+ participants. These exploratory and hypothesis-generating analyses indicate there may be an association between a class I HLA allele and vaccine efficacy, highlighting the importance of considering HLA alleles and host immune genetics in HIV vaccine trials. IMPORTANCE The RV144 trial was the first to show efficacy against HIV-1 infection. Subsequently, much effort has been directed toward understanding the mechanisms of protection. Here, we conducted a T-cell-based sieve analysis, which compared the genetic sequences of viruses isolated from infected vaccine and placebo recipients. Though we hypothesized that the observed sieve effect indicated postacquisition T-cell selection, we also found that vaccine efficacy was greater for participants who expressed HLA A*02, an allele implicated in the sieve analysis. Though HLA alleles have been associated with disease progression and viral load in HIV-1 infection, these data are the first to suggest the association of a class I HLA allele and vaccine efficacy. While these statistical analyses do not provide mechanistic evidence of protection in RV144, they generate testable hypotheses for the HIV vaccine community and they highlight the importance of assessing the impact of host immune genetics in vaccine-induced immunity and protection. (This study has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov under registration no. NCT00223080.)
Dynamic Server Selection In The Internet

Abstract As distributed information services like the World Wide Web become increasingly popular on the Internet, problems of scale are clearly evident. A promising technique that addresses many of these problems is service (or document) replication. However, when a service is replicated, clients then need the additional ability to find a ``good'''' provider of that service. In this paper we report on techniques for finding good service providers without a priori knowledge of server location or network topology. We consider the use of two principal metrics for measuring distance in the Internet: hops, and round-trip latency. We show that these two metrics yield very different results in practice. Surprisingly, we show data indicating that the number of hops between two hosts in the Internet is {\em not\/} strongly correlated to round-trip latency. Thus, the distance in hops between two hosts is not necessarily a good predictor of the expected latency of a document transfer. Instead of using known or measured distances in hops, we show that the extra cost at runtime incurred by dynamic latency measurement is well justified based on the resulting improved performance. In addition we show that selection based on dynamic latency measurement performs much better in practice that any static selection scheme. Finally, the difference between the distribution of hops and latencies is fundamental enough to suggest differences in algorithms for server replication. We show that conclusions drawn about service replication based on the distribution of hops need to be revised when the distribution of latencies is considered instead.
A quite unreasonable state of affairs: Corporate Social Responsibility and the John Lewis Partnership

On the surface the subjects of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Critical Management Studies (CMS) seem to be closely related. Both are concerned with reflecting on the impact of management and organisation on employees, the wider community and the environment. Both suggest that there may be a need for organisations to take responsibility for and account of people other than shareholders and both have used the concept of accountability to suggest that organisations may need to do more than just comply with the legal framework.
Structure of the Proteus vulgaris HigB-(HigA)2-HigB Toxin-Antitoxin Complex*

Background: Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems play a crucial role in bacterial survival during stress. Results: Structures of the P. vulgaris HigBA complex reveal novel structural features such as the HigB and HigA interaction and the solvent accessibility of the HigB active site. Conclusion: Antitoxin HigA interacts with toxin HigB in a novel manner. Significance: Our results emphasize that antitoxins are a structurally diverse class of proteins. Bacterial toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems regulate key cellular processes to promote cell survival during periods of stress. During steady-state cell growth, antitoxins typically interact with their cognate toxins to inhibit activity presumably by preventing substrate recognition. We solved two x-ray crystal structures of the Proteus vulgaris tetrameric HigB-(HigA)2-HigB TA complex and found that, unlike most other TA systems, the antitoxin HigA makes minimal interactions with toxin HigB. HigB adopts a RelE family tertiary fold containing a highly conserved concave surface where we predict its active site is located. HigA does not cover the solvent-exposed HigB active site, suggesting that, in general, toxin inhibition is not solely mediated by active site hindrance by its antitoxin. Each HigA monomer contains a helix-turn-helix motif that binds to its own DNA operator to repress transcription during normal cellular growth. This is distinct from antitoxins belonging to other superfamilies that typically only form DNA-binding motifs upon dimerization. We further show that disruption of the HigB-(HigA)2-HigB tetramer to a HigBA heterodimer ablates operator binding. Taken together, our biochemical and structural studies elucidate the novel molecular details of the HigBA TA system.
The Analysis of an Investment Risk Within Emerging Capital Markets. The Case of the Warsaw Stock Exchange

The purpose of the paper is to show that the three-factor Fama-French model can be a good instrument for analysis of investment risk on emerging capital markets if, because of the relatively small number of quoted companies, for calculation of the SMB and HML values we applied division of all companies into four portfolios (contrary to Fama – French who propose division of all companies into six portfolios). The usefulness of the above concept was verified on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The models estimated with the Generalized Least Squares Method on monthly data within the period 1994 – 2008 have the signs of coefficients which are consistent with those of the Fama-French three-factor model and there is no autocorrelation of disturbances and no ARCH effect. Models are relatively high adjusted. Estimated coefficients are also robust. The models fully confirm the thesis posed by Fama and French that in addition to market risk there are two other risk factors which influence the return on investment. These are: risk associated with investing in small companies and risk connected with investing in companies undervalued by the market.
Randomized Trial of Single-Dose Intramuscular Dexamethasone Compared With Prednisolone for Children With Acute Asthma

Objectives: To compare the clinical efficacy of single-dose intramuscular (IM) dexamethasone phosphate to a 5-day course of oral prednisolone for the treatment of moderate asthma exacerbations in young children discharged from the emergency department (ED). Methods: We performed a prospective, randomized trial in children aged 18 months to less than 7 years with asthma who presented to the ED with a clinical asthma score of 3 to 7 on a 9-point scale. Children were randomized to 1 dose of IM dexamethasone (0.6 mg/kg, maximum 15 mg) or oral prednisolone (2 mg/kg, maximum 50 mg) once daily for 5 days. The primary outcome, measured only for patients discharged from the ED, was change in asthma score from ED presentation to 4-day follow-up examination, as assessed by a physician masked to group assignment. We assessed secondary clinical course outcomes by a structured interview at 4 and 14 days. Results: Eighty-eight patients were appropriately randomized to dexamethasone and 93 to prednisolone. Group characteristics were similar at baseline. Among those discharged from the ED, 62 (90%) of 69 and 64 (90%) of 74 patients in the dexamethasone and prednisolone groups, respectively, were reassessed at 4 days for the primary outcome. The mean change in total asthma score at 4-day follow-up was 3.6 in the dexamethasone group and 3.4 in the prednisolone group (difference, 0.2; 95% confidence interval, −0.4 to 0.7). Of patients initially discharged, 5.9% of dexamethasone patients and 4.1% of prednisolone patients were admitted before the 2-week follow-up (difference, 1.8%; 95% confidence interval, −5.4% to 9.0%). Conclusions: A single dose of IM dexamethasone showed no clinically meaningful difference in outcomes compared with a 5-day course of oral prednisolone for the treatment of moderate acute asthma exacerbations in young children who are discharged from the ED.
Destination Branding and Images: Perceptions and Practices from Tourism Industry Professionals

The intensified competition among convention cities has created an increasing interest for cities to better understand how to market themselves as a convention destination. A city's image is one of the highest indicators of its success as a convention location. It becomes imperative for each city to specifically analyze its strengths and weaknesses. Because there is a lack of literature regarding medium-sized convention cities, this study compares Knoxville, Tennessee to other similarly populated cities in the southeastern United States. The perceived importance of city attributes and the tourism professional's perception of the strengths and weaknesses of the particular city as a convention destination are based on the years of experience of the tourism professional in the industry and participants' demographic characteristics. The sample of the study was industry professionals that attended the Tennessee Governor's Conference on Tourism held in Knoxville in September 2006. Implications from this study may be used to improve the competitive position of Knoxville as a convention destination.
Revising rationality: the use of ‘Nudge’ approaches in neoliberal education policy

This article argues that the concept of rationality is undergoing significant revision in UK education policy-making, influenced by developments in several academic fields. This article focuses on the take up of behavioural economics in policy as one aspect of this revision of the concept of rationality, discussing how this has happened and its implications. Framed by a wider debate regarding the significance of a ‘crisis’ in neoliberal approaches to social change, behavioural economics suggests that a reliance on rational choice is insufficient and individuals need to be ‘nudged’ to make good choices. This revision and its impact on the subject of policy, the policy-maker and policy technologies are examined, and the discussion is supported by two illustrations from school choice and youth service policy texts from the 2000s. The potential use of ‘nudge’ theory in education is also considered with respect to the Conservative–Liberal Democrat government’s use of behavioural economics. In conclusion, we argue that the use of these ideas in policy, alongside others, marks a revision of the neoliberal idea of a rational chooser as the aim of policy-making, of which education policy sociology should take account.
Information, Investment, and the Stock Market: A Study of Investment Revision Data of Japanese Manufacturing Industries

We examined investment behavior in the Japanese manufacturing industry using investment revision data to analyze investment behavior from a fresh angle. We tested the martingale investment hypothesis and then the q-theory of investment by looking at the response of stock return and investment to news arriving at firms. The martingale hypothesis was accepted at early stage of investment planning, but not at later stages. We also found evidence for the validity of the q-theory hypothesis. Investment was responsive to profit rate revision and sales revision, but stock return responded only to profit rate revision. Further investigation revealed that investment was also motivated by expansion of market share for sales, especially for industries with rapid technological progress. J. Japanese Int. Economies 22 (4) (2008) 663-676.
Dynamic Pricing, Advanced Metering, and Demand Response in Electricity Markets

In this monograph, we present an overview and analysis of the possible approaches to bringing an active demand side into electricity markets. In section I, we describe the ways in which economic incentives can be introduced on the demand side. We discuss the fundamental economics of establishing these incentives and the economic loss from systems that lack demand-side participation, and we analyze the effect of these incentives on the efficiency and competitiveness of the market. In section II, we move from the fundamentals to specific issues of implementing time-varying prices. We begin by describing illustrative Realtime Pricing and Critical Peak Pricing tariffs that are in use today. We then address the actual development of dynamic retail prices. In section III, we examine the ways in which customers respond to time-varying and dynamic prices. We discuss both the potential responses that are envisioned by those who study optimization of power use and the actual responses that have taken place in pilot and long-term programs. We conclude in section IV by advocating much wider use of dynamic retail pricing, under which prices faced by end-use customers can be adjusted frequently and on short notice to reflect changes in wholesale prices and the supply/demand balance.