Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Capital-Energy Substitutability Debate: A New Look

Over the last twenty years, many studies have been made of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. The reported estimates are highly variable, and reveal an apparent dichotomy between cross-sectional and time-series studies. The former suggest that capital and energy are substitutes while the latter suggest the converse. All these studies reported Allen partial elasticities of substitution. We suggest that the Morishima elasticity may be a more useful measure for the issues of concern to capital energy substitution. We calculate the Morishima elasticities from parameters estimated in a selection of earlier studies and find no excessive variability, nor any evidence of the time-series/cross-section dichotomy. Capital and energy are Morishima substitutes. Copyright 1995 by MIT Press.
CAN FUTURE STUDIES TRULY PREDICT THE FUTURE? A RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF TWO APPROACHES

Futures Studies are one valuable tool to help businesses develop their Strategic Planning, in their ability to point out environment-induced changes in company policies, goals and actions. Companies and their leaders may discover energies and resources when they achieve a holistic, long range worldview, which helps them foresee, plan for and deal with the changes that will affect their future. The aim of this article is to examine the currentness of two exemplars of Futures Studies with distinct methods: a quantitative study analyzed by Mario Henrique Simonsen, and a qualitative futurology essay by Alvin Toffler based on the analysis of social, economic, technological and political trends and phenomena. A bibliographical research on secondary macroeconomic and sociocultural data supplied evidences for the projected trends. Based on this, the limitations of projection-based methods are discussed, as well as the advantages of using a qualitative or mixed approach when forecasts are made for the long term. It is worth reinforcing that the purpose of Futures Studies is not to predict with absolute precision how tomorrow will be like, but to produce indications so that adequate strategic decisions can be made today in an uncertain and turbulent environment.
Response to ‘High Noon for Microfinance Impact Evaluations’

Abstract Duvendack and Palmer-Jones are critical of analysis and conclusions in Chemin (2008) because they are unable to replicate my results. This response identifies key differences between the two papers, especially regarding the sample and measurement of variables, which imply that Duvendack and Paler-Jones should not be considered as either a replication or a criticism of my work.
The legacy of Professor Nathan Marcuvitz and the field of leaky waves

Prof. Nathan Marcuvitz was one of the pioneers in the area of modern microwave theory, and his seminal contributions laid the groundwork for much of what we today know as modern microwave theory. One important area of microwave theory that he introduced is the area of leaky waves. Although this subject appeared rather puzzling at first, it is now recognized as an essential part of microwave theory. This presentation will overview the role of leaky waves in microwave theory and other fields, highlighting historical developments along the way.
Writer identification based on letter frequency distribution

Lately writer identification problem has become actual due to huge amount of documents in digital form. In the current work an approach based on frequency combination of letters is investigated for solving such a task as classification of documents by authorship. This research examines and compares four different distance measures between a text of unknown authorship and an authors' profile: L1 measure, Kullback-Leibler divergence, base metric of Common TV-gram method (OVG)[8] and certain variation of dissimilarity measure of CNG method which was proposed in [12]. Comparison outlines cases when some metric outperforms others with a specific parameter combination. Experiments are conducted on different Russian and English corpora.
Uncorrelated Locality Preserving Projections

In this paper, we propose a new manifold learning algorithm, called Uncorrelated Locality Preserving Projections, to identify the underlying manifold structure of a data set. ULPP tries to find the subspace that best discriminates different face classes by maximizing the between-class distance, while minimizing the within-class distance. Different from Principal component analysis(PCA)that aims to find a linear mapping which preserves total variance by maximizing the trace of feature variance and locality preserving projections(LPP) that is in favor of preserving the neighborhood structure of the data set. We choose proper dimension of subspace that detects the intrinsic manifold structure for classification tasks. Experiments comparing the proposed algorithm with some other popular algorithms on the JAFFE, AT&T, and Yale databases show that our algorithm consistently outperforms others.
Expression of the genes Emx1, Tbr1, and Eomes (Tbr2) in the telencephalon of Xenopus laevis confirms the existence of a ventral pallial division in all tetrapods

To investigate the pallial organization and the exact location and extension of the ventral pallium in amphibians, we cloned a fragment of the homeobox XenopusTbr1 (xTbr1) gene and analyzed its expression compared with that of the genes xEomes (Tbr2) and xEmx1 in the telencephalon of the frog Xenopus laevis during embryonic and larval development. The expression of xEmx1 was also analyzed in the adult frog. We compared the expression patterns of these pallial marker genes with that of the subpallial gene xDistal‐less‐4 (xDll4). Our results indicate that the whole pallium of Xenopus expresses the T‐box genes xTbr1 and xEomes (in proliferating cells and/or mantle) during embryonic and larval development, and the expression of these genes is topographically complementary to that of xDll4 in the subpallium. In addition to their massive expression in the pallium, both xTbr1 and xEomes are expressed in a few dispersed cells in the subpallium, which may represent immigrant cells of pallial origin, because these genes are not found in the subpallial proliferating cells. On the other hand, during development xEmx1 is expressed in a large part of the pallium (proliferating and postmitotic cells) except for an area adjacent to the pallio‐subpallial boundary, where xEmx1 is observed only in some mantle cells. This pallial area poor in xEmx1 expression and poor in expression of the subpallial gene xDll4, but expressing the pallial marker genes xTbr1 and xEomes, appears to represent the amphibian ventral pallium, comparable to that described in other vertebrates (Puelles et al. [2000] J. Comp. Neurol. 424:409–438). In the adult frog, the ventral pallium appears to include the rostral part of the lateral amygdalar nucleus as well as a large part of the medial amygdalar nucleus (as defined by Marín et al. [1998] J. Comp. Neurol. 392:285–312). In contrast, the caudal part of the previously termed lateral amygdalar nucleus shows strong xEmx1 expression and may be a lateral pallial derivative. The possible homology of these amphibian amygdalar nuclei is discussed. Finally, expression of xTbr1, xEomes, and xEmx1 is observed in the mitral cell layer of the olfactory bulb from early developmental stages, further supporting that this structure is a pallial derivative. J. Comp. Neurol. 474:562–577, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Skin Decontamination with Mineral Cationic Carrier Against Sarin Determined In Vivo

Skin Decontamination with Mineral Cationic Carrier Against Sarin Determined In Vivo Our Institute's nuclear, biological, and chemical defense research team continuously investigates and develops preparations for skin decontamination against nerve agents. In this in vivo study, we evaluated skin decontamination efficacy against sarin by a synthetic preparation called Mineral Cationic Carrier (MCC®) with known ion exchange, absorption efficacy and bioactive potential. Mice were treated with increasing doses of sarin applied on their skin, and MCC® was administered immediately after contamination. The results showed that decontamination with MCC® could achieve therapeutic efficacy corresponding to 3 x LD50 of percutaneous sarin and call for further research. Kožna dekontaminacija živčanoga bojnog otrova sarina s apsorpcijskim pripravkom u uvjetima in vivo
Agricultural Policy Impact Analysis with Multi-Market Models: A Primer

Many governments intervene directly in agricultural product, in particular food, markets. A quantitative assessment of the impact of the policy changes on the desired objectives is important as it helps inform and shape the policy debate on the reform alternatives and increases transparency of government policy. This paper reviews the literature on multi-market models which offer more accurate ex ante impact analysis than single-market models by including potentially important indirect effects. While fairly complex and requiring large amounts of data multi-market models are however much simpler than computable general equilibrium models. They are typically applied at the sector level and have proven quite popular in particular in agricultural policy reform impact analysis. While more recent work has emphasized the poverty reduction and income distribution objective the models can generate a range of information relevant to policy makers.
Low voltage ride through strategies for SCIG wind turbines in distributed power generation systems

Fulfilling the new grid codes constitutes one of the main challenges for the wind power industry, that is specially concerned about the new fault-ride-through requirements. Enhancing the operation of wind-turbines in front of grid faults is not only an important issue for new wind farms, but also for the existing ones, as, at the present time, the classical squirrel cage induction generatorpsilas wind turbines still represent a 30% of the wind power production. Reinforcing the operation of such facilities can be performed taking advantage of the increasing number of modern power systems that are linked to the grid by means of power processors. In order to analyse the feasibility of this proposal, this paper test different control strategies to be implemented in a modern variable speed wind turbine, equipped with a synchronous generator and linked to the grid through a full power converter, that permits improving the fault-ride-through capability of a classical fixed speed wind turbine, based on a squirrel cage induction generator, installed in its neighborhood.
Speaker identification for personalized smart TVs

Personalized service is an important feature for smart TVs. To facilitate personalized services, identifying the user is a necessity. This study investigates how to identify a smart TV user from his/her voice, that is, speaker identification (SID). Recognizing the fact that when a user issues a voice command to a smart TV, the signal received by the smart TV would not be only the user's speech but also the background sound mainly from the TV. Sometimes the background sound can be louder than the user's speech, and hence it is detrimental for SID. To improve the SID, we propose two compensating approaches built upon the spectrum subtraction. Our experiment show that both of the proposed compensating approaches improves the SID accuracy noticeably.
Simultaneous localization and mapping using ambient magnetic field

In this paper we propose a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) method that utilizes local anomalies of the ambient magnetic field present in many indoor environments. We use a Rao-Blackwellized particle filter to estimate the pose distribution of the robot and Gaussian Process regression to model the magnetic field map. The feasibility of the proposed approach is validated by real world experiments, which demonstrate that the approach produces geometrically consistent maps using only odometric data and measurements obtained from the ambient magnetic field. The proposed approach provides a simple, low-cost, and space-efficient solution for solving the SLAM problem present in many domestic and swarm robotics application domains.
Future-Supervised Retrieval of Unseen Queries for Live Video

Live streaming video presents new challenges for retrieval and content understanding. Its live nature means that video representations should be relevant to current content, and not necessarily to past content. We investigate retrieval of previously unseen queries for live video content. Drawing from existing whole-video techniques, we focus on adapting image-trained semantic models to the video domain. We introduce the use of future frame representations as a supervision signal for learning temporally aware semantic representations on unlabeled video data. Additionally, we introduce an approach for broadening a query's representation within a pre-constructed semantic space, with the aim of increasing overlap between embedded visual semantics and the query semantics. We demonstrate the efficacy of these contributions for unseen query retrieval on live videos. We further explore their applicability to tasks such as no example, whole-video action classification and no-example live video action prediction, and demonstrate state of the art results.
A comparison of different control methods for injection valves

This paper presents a comparison of different control methods for injection valves. Four control approaches are included: Feedback Linearization, Backstepping, Sliding Mode Control and Lyapunov's Direct Method. The approaches are extended by an adaptive scheme. Control robustness and performance towards noise as well as parameter and system dynamic uncertainty are analysed. Simulation results and a calculation effort evaluation conclude the paper.
Genome‐wide identification, characterization and evolution of cuticular protein genes in the malaria vector Anopheles sinensis (Diptera: Culicidae)

Thirteen cuticular protein (CP) families have been recognized in arthropods. In this study, 250 Anopheles sinensis CP genes were identified and named based on genome and transcriptome sequences. They were classified into 10 families based on motifs and phylogenetic analyses. In 11 other insect species, nine had CP numbers > 150 while Apis mellifera and Tribolium castaneum had CP numbers less than 52. The CPs of eight species occupied > 1.4% of the total genomic gene number, whereas in three species the CPs occupied < 1%. The phylogenies for each CP family in An. sinensis were constructed and discussed. The 250 CPs each had 1–8 exons with 144 CPs (57.6%) having two exons. The intron length ranged from 66–3888 bp with 174 introns (54.0%) being 66–100 bp long. Except for two CPs on two contigs, 248 CPs were mapped onto 28 scaffolds with 136 genes (54.4%) restricted to five scaffolds. A total of 107 CPs were clustered and located at 27 loci. The CPR family had the conserved motif GSYSLVEPDGTVRTV. The RR‐1 subfamily had an additional 21 amino acid (aa) motifs with the YVADENGF sequence that is common in insects. The RR‐2 subfamily had an additional 50 aa motifs with two additional regions RDGDVVKG and G‐x(3)‐VV. A comparison with 115 orthologous counterparts of An. gambiae CPs suggested purifying selection for all of these genes. This study provides basic information useful for further studies on biological functions of An. sinensis CPs as well as for comparative genomics of insect CPs.
Preconceptual Zika virus asymptomatic infection protects against secondary prenatal infection

Pregnant women, and their fetal offspring, are uniquely susceptible to Zika virus and other microbial pathogens capable of congenital fetal infection. Unavoidable exposure to Zika virus in endemic areas underscores the need for identifying at-risk individuals, and protecting expecting mothers and their fetal offspring against prenatal infection. Here we show that primary Zika virus asymptomatic infection in mice confers protection against re-infection, and that these protective benefits are maintained during pregnancy. Zika virus recovery was sharply reduced in maternal tissues and amongst fetal concepti after prenatal challenge in mothers with resolved subclinical infection prior to pregnancy compared with mice undergoing primary prenatal infection. These benefits coincide with expanded accumulation of viral-specific antibodies in maternal serum and fetal tissues that protect against infection by the identical or heterologous Zika virus genotype strains. Thus, preconceptual infection primes Zika virus-specific antibodies that confer cross-genotype protection against re-infection during pregnancy.
The size effect of a port on the container handling efficiency level and market share in internation transshipment flow

This study examines the relationship between the size of a port, its efficiency increase and the performance growth in the transshipment market. The hypothesis tested is that the bigger size of a port would increase the market share of the port in container transshipment; only when the size effect guarantees better ‘relative’ container handling efficiency in competing port system where the port belongs. To verify the hypothesis, this study carries out two analyses. First, the overall efficiency change of major Asian ports is examined through stochastic frontier analysis (SFA)—this produces the relative efficiency indices of the ports. Second, the relationship between efficiency indices and container transshipment volumes is studied through panel data analysis. From these analyses, it is observed that larger Asian ports show better cargo handling efficiency in relative terms; they also record bigger market share in container transshipment, while the size effect of the ports starts to play a factor when the annual container throughput reaches 5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU).
[Effects of tangshen recipe on the homocysteine metabolism of patients with diabetic nephropathy].

OBJECTIVE To observe the effects of Tangshen Recipe (TR) on the homocysteine (Hcy) metabolism of patients with diabetic nephropathy. METHODS 64 patients with diabetic nephropathy were randomly assigned to two groups, 32 in each. Those in the Western medicine treatment group (Group A) received insulin and orally took anti-diabetic drugs, while those in the TR group (Group B) received insulin and orally took TR (consisting of astragalus, raw rehmannia root, sanchi root, euonymus branchlet, rhubarb, bitter orange, and dogwood fruit, etc. 4 g/package). Six months was taken as one therapeutic course. Another 48 healthy volunteers were recruited as the control group. Eight intermediate metabolites of the homocysteine metabolism in plasma were quantitated before treatment, three months and six months after treatment. The in vivo changes of each metabolite after treatment were analyzed. RESULTS Compared with the healthy control group, contents of cysteine (Cys), Hcy, s-adenosylmethionine (SAM), and SAH significantly increased in Group A and B before treatment. Contents of methionine (Met), glutathione (GSH), and Cys-gly decreased significantly, showing statistical difference (P<0.05). Patients' in vivo contents of Cys, Hcy, SAM, and SAH significantly decreased, while contents of Met, GSH, and Cys-gly significantly increased after three and six months of treatment when compared with before treatment in the same group (all P<0.05). No statistical difference existed in contents of SAH, SAM, and GSH of Group A and B after six months of treatment when compared with the healthy control group (P>0.05). No adverse reaction occurred in Group A and B. CONCLUSIONS Treatment of insulin and TR showed similar favorable effect to Western medicine in treatment of diabetic nephropathy. It could improve in vivo hypomethylation and oxidative stress.
Editorial: Advances in Emotion Regulation: From Neuroscience to Psychotherapy

Emotions are the gift nature gave us to help us connect with others. Emotions do not come from out of nowhere. Rather, they are constantly generated, usually by stimuli in our interpersonal world. They bond us to others, guide us in navigating our social interactions, and help us care for each other. We love our partner, we get angry with a friend, we feel sad for the loss of a parent, and so on. Paraphrasing Shakespeare “Our relationships are such stuff as emotions aremade of. ” Within our relationships, emotions express our needs and desires. When problems happen in our relationships, emotions arise to help us fixing such problems (Frederickson, 2013). However, sometimes emotions can become dysregulated and pathology begin. It is now widely accepted that almost all forms of psychopathologies are associated with specific dysregulated emotions or dysregulatory mechanisms (Grecucci et al., 2016a). If it is true that problems occur within relationships, it is also true that the solution occurs there. We are hurt in a relationship, and we are healed in a relationship. That is why and how psychotherapy works. Emotions that becomes dysregulated inside our relationships, can become regulated in an ad hoc designed therapeutic relationship where the therapist helps the client to express, face and regulate her/his emotions, and channel them into healthy actions. The idea behind this research topic is to gather contributions for the first time from both affective neuroscientists and psychotherapists to shed light on the ways our emotions become dysregulated in life and can become regulated through psychotherapy. We present novel approaches and strategies to regulate emotions that are strongly grounded in affective neuroscience and experimental research. We strongly believe it is time that researchers in affective science and clinicians make a collective effort to deepen the understanding and the practice of how emotions can be usefully elaborated in clinical settings. The Topic is divided in two sections, the first more experimental and the second more clinical.
Mining numerical traces to extract recurrent activities Application to mobile data analysis

Description: The constant growth of the number of connected devices, mobile phones and intuitive and natural human-machine interfaces has resulted in the democratization of ubiquitous computing and cyberphysical systems. In such systems, physical and logical sensors provide a huge amount of data that describes users' activity as well as supplementary contextual information. Assuming that context data is a strong indicator of user habits, mining numerical traces, i.e. context data sequences, to extract repetitive patterns should enable to model user activity.
Relative Influence of the Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV) Type 2 p5 Element for Recombinant AAV Vector Site-Specific Integration

ABSTRACT The p5 promoter region of the adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV-2) rep gene has been described as essential for Rep-mediated site-specific integration (RMSSI) of plasmid sequences in human chromosome 19. We report here that insertion of a full-length or minimal p5 element between the viral inverted terminal repeats does not significantly increase RMSSI of a recombinant AAV (rAAV) vector after infection of growth-arrested or proliferating human cells. This result suggests that the p5 element may not improve RMSSI of rAAV vectors in vivo.
A Compact Broadband Direct Coaxial Line to SIW Transition

In this letter, a novel coaxial line to substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) broadband transition is presented. The transition is designed by connecting the inner conductor of a coaxial line to an open-circuited SIW. The configuration directly transforms the TEM mode of a coaxial line to the fundamental TE10 mode of the SIW. A prototype back-to-back transition is fabricated for X-band operation using a 0.508 mm thick RO 4003C substrate with dielectric constant 3.55. Comparison with other reported transitions shows that the present structure provides lower passband insertion loss, wider bandwidth and most compact. The area of each transition is 0. 08λg2 where λg is the guided wavelength at passband center frequency of f0 = 10.5 GHz. Measured 15 dB and 20 dB matching bandwidths are over 48% and 20%, respectively, at f0.