Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study of the Complexity and Accuracy of Direction of Arrival Estimation Methods Based on GCC-PHAT for a Pair of Close Microphones

This paper investigates the accuracy of various Generalized Cross-Correlation with Phase Transform (GCC-PHAT) methods for a close pair of microphones. We investigate interpolation-based methods and also propose another approach based on Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). All investigated methods are implemented in C code, and the execution time is measured to determine which approach is the most appealing for real-time applications on low-cost embedded hardware.
High‐gain control without identification: a survey

Three related but distinct scenarios for tracking control of uncertain systems are reviewed: asymptotic tracking, approximate tracking with prescribed asymptotic error bound, tracking with prescribed transient behaviour. A variety of system classes are considered, ranging from finite‐dimensional linear minimum‐phase systems to nonlinear, infinite‐dimensional systems described by functional differential equations. These classes are determined only by structural assumptions, such as stable zero dynamics and known relative degree. The objective is a single (and simple) control structure which is effective for every member of the underlying system class: no attempt is made to identify the particular system being controlled. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Counterfactual Learning from Human Proofreading Feedback for Semantic Parsing

In semantic parsing for question-answering, it is often too expensive to collect gold parses or even gold answers as supervision signals. We propose to convert model outputs into a set of human-understandable statements which allow non-expert users to act as proofreaders, providing error markings as learning signals to the parser. Because model outputs were suggested by a historic system, we operate in a counterfactual, or off-policy, learning setup. We introduce new estimators which can effectively leverage the given feedback and which avoid known degeneracies in counterfactual learning, while still being applicable to stochastic gradient optimization for neural semantic parsing. Furthermore, we discuss how our feedback collection method can be seamlessly integrated into deployed virtual personal assistants that embed a semantic parser. Our work is the first to show that semantic parsers can be improved significantly by counterfactual learning from logged human feedback data.
Is the Level of Financial Sector Development a Key Determinant of Private Investment in the Power Sector?

This paper seeks to assess the extent to which a country's overall level of development and that of its financial sector, in particular, are factors that attract private capital into infrastructure projects. The authors investigate these effects in a 1990-2007 dataset on the power sector in 37 developing countries. The results suggest that economic growth is a key determinant of private investors' investment in infrastructure projects, and that investors tend to take countries governance quality into account in their decisions to invest. The empirical results highlight that the development of the financial sector also plays a significant role in private investors' decisions to enter infrastructure sectors. In particular, the degree of country risk and exchange rate volatility is found to be negatively related to the volume of private sector investment in power projects. Furthermore, when the banking sector and the capital market are separately treated in the analysis, the existence of a well functioning capital market is the main attracting factor. In addition, the existence of an independent energy regulatory authority significantly improves the level of private investors' implication in energy projects. When accounting for the interactions between the overall economic development and the financial sector development variables, the effects of these variables are still significant and the results also confirm the importance of an independent energy sector regulator.
Antigoitrogenic effect of combined supplementation with dl- (cid:225) -tocopherol, ascorbic acid and (cid:226) -carotene and of dl- (cid:225) -tocopherol alone in the rat

The e V ects of the vitamins dl- (cid:225) -tocopherol, ascorbic acid and (cid:226) -carotene, free radical scavengers and lipid peroxi-dation inhibitors, were analyzed in male Wistar rats made goitrous by feeding a low iodine diet (<20 µg iodine/kg) and perchlorate (1% in drinking water) for 4, 8, 16 and 32 days. Groups of control or goitrous rats received for at least 16 days before killing a diet containing 0·6% vitamin E (as dl- (cid:225) -tocopherol acetate), 1·2% vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and 0·48% (cid:226) -carotene, either simultaneously (vitamin cocktail) or separately. This treatment led to a 5-fold increase of vitamin E in the thyroid gland, a 24-fold increase in the liver and a 3-fold increase in the plasma. In control rats, vitamin cocktail administration increased slightly the thyroid weight with little changes in thyroid function parameters. During iodine deﬁciency, administration of the vitamin cocktail or vitamin E alone reduced signiﬁcantly the rate of increase in thyroid weight, and DNA and protein contents, as well as the proportion of [ 3 H]thymidine labeled thyroid follicular cells, but not that of labeled endothelial cells. Plasma tri-iodothyronine, thyroxine, TSH levels, thyroid iodine content and concentration as well as relative volumes of glandular compartments were not modiﬁed. The proportion of necrotic cells rose from 0·5% in normal animals to about 2% after 16 days of goiter development. No signiﬁcant protective e V ect of the vitamins was observed. These results suggest that these vitamins, particularly vitamin E, modulate one of the regulatory cascades involved in the control of thyroid follicular cell growth, without interfering with the proliferation of endothelial cells.
Individual-tree basal area growth models for Scots pine, pubescent birch and Norway spruce on drained peatlands in Finland.

Models for individual-tree basal area growth were constructed for Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), pubescent birch (Betula pubescens Ehrh.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst. ) growing in drained peatland stands. The data consisted of two separate sets of permanent sample plots forming a large sample of drained peatland stands in Finland. The dependent variable in all models was the 5-year basal area growth of a tree. The independent tree-level variables were tree dbh, tree basal area, and the sum of the basal area of trees larger than the target tree. Independent stand-level variables were stand basal area, the diameter of the tree of median basal area, and temperature sum. Categorical variables describing the site quality, as well as the condition and age of drainage, were used. Differences in tree growth were used as criteria in reclassifying the a priori site types into new yield classes by tree species. All models were constructed as mixed linear models with a random stand effect. The models were tested against the modelling data and against independent data sets.
Topic-based Vector Space Model

This paper motivates and presents the Topic-based Vector Space Model (TVSM), a new vector-based approach for document comparison. The approach does not assume independence between terms and it is flexible regarding the specification of term-similarities. Stopword-list, stemming and thesaurus can be fully integrated into the model. This paper shows further how the TVSM can be fully implemented within the context of relational databases. This facilitates the use of this approach by generic applications. At the end short comparisons with other vector-based approaches namely the Vector Space Model (VSM) and the Generalized Vector Space Model (GVSM) are presented.
Empirical Evidence on Inflation and Unemployment in the Long Run

We examine the relationship between inflation and unemployment in the long run, using quarterly US data from 1952 to 2010. Using a band-pass filter approach, we find strong evidence that a positive relationship exists, where inflation leads unemployment by some 3 to 3 1/2 years, in cycles that last from 8 to 25 or 50 years. Our statistical approach is atheoretical in nature, but provides evidence in accordance with the predictions of Friedman (1977) and the recent New Monetarist model of Berentsen, Menzio, and Wright (2011): the relationship between inflation and unemployment is positive in the long run.
Expressed Turnover Intention: Alternate Method for Knowing Turnover Intention and Eradicating Common Method Bias

Employees are the building blocks and valuable assets in an organization. Organizational researchers and practitioners have shown a burgeoning attention to satisfy and retain key performer as the cost of leaving a job is very high for the employing organizations. Discovering turnover intention in its formation stages is very crucial, not only to resist its’ piled up effect but also to control the actual turnover in the future. Most of the times, management is not aware of the employee’s quit intention because employees don’t show their intention explicitly until they actually leave the organization. However, majority of the times employees share their feeling with their colleagues or other close work mates. Based on positive relationship at work, we argued that the individuals who work together normally share their feelings with their close colleagues regarding their decision of leaving or staying (expressed turnover intention) with the current employer. Therefore, the objective of the current study is to investigate the relationship between turnover intention and expressed turnover intention. Furthermore, we offer a new perspective to data collection from other sources, which will assist us in shortening the questionnaire, also minimizing the common method bias and knowing the quit intention from other source. Finally, theoretical and practical implications along with direction for future studies are also discussed.
RECOGNITION WITH ACOUSTIC AND LEXICAL FEATURES

In this paper we explore one of the key aspects in building an emotion recognition system: generating suitable feature representations. We generate feature representations from both acoustic and lexical levels. At the acoustic level, we first extract low-level features such as intensity, F0, jitter, shimmer and spectral contours etc. We then generate different acoustic feature representations based on these low-level features, including statistics over these features, a new representation derived from a set of low-level acoustic codewords, and a new representation from Gaussian Supervectors. At the lexical level, we propose a new feature representation named emotion vector (eVector). We also use the traditional Bag-of-Words (BoW) feature. We apply these feature representations for emotion recognition and compare their performance on the USC-IEMOCAP database. We also combine these different feature representations via early fusion and late fusion. Our experimental results show that late fusion of both acoustic and lexical features achieves four-class emotion recognition accuracy of 69.2%.
Electoral Gender Quotas

Electoral gender quotas have become the subject of a growing literature in comparative politics, with the potential to affect how scholars study a wide range of electoral and representative processes. Yet, debates have emerged over how to define and categorize these policies, with implications for the ability to compare cases and draw broader conclusions about their impact in countries around the globe. Reviewing these perspectives, this article draws on work on concept formation to propose a pragmatic approach, focused on matching typologies to research questions. It emphasizes the advantages of this solution for promoting cumulative research and concludes with some thoughts for future research on gender quotas and comparative politics.
Organic Food for Youth in Public Settings: Potentials and Challenges. Preliminary Recommendations from a European Study

This report contains presentations from the four explorative work packages in iPOPY. The iPOPY project – innovative Public Organic food Procurement for Youth – is one of eight transnational research programs initiated by the 11 European countries participating in the CORE Organic I funding body network. iPOPY aims at increasing the consumption of organic food among young people, especially in school meal settings but also elsewhere, e.g. at music festivals. We work towards this goal by studying how organic food as well as the organic concept in general has been introduced in public food serving settings in various countries, and what may be the most promising approaches. Italy, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Germany are the countries being studied. The iPOPY work packages explore policy issues, supply chain organization and the impact of certification, the users’ perceptions and participation in the food system, and the health impacts of organic food implementation. By June 2010, iPOPY will be completed. Hence, this report is linked to the last iPOPY seminar arranged during the BioFach Trade Fair in Nuremberg, Germany. We arranged similar seminars also in 2008 and 2009. These seminars presented the situation with respect to organic school meals in many different European countries (2008) and in more detail in iPOPY countries as well as some relevant cases (2009). Proceedings are available from the 2009 seminar (Nolting et al 2009), and all presentations from the 2008 seminar are found on the iPOPY website, www.ipopy. coreportal.org. In the seminar in 2010, we will draw a link from iPOPY results to the municipality of Nuremberg, which has ambitious aims as to becoming an Organic Model City (BioModellstadt). This includes far reaching goals for the share of organic and regional food served in public schools and kindergartens. Further, the project results will be linked to the general situation for school meals in Europe. For this presentation, no written paper is available, but we will present the slides on the website. From the project we present preliminary recommendations and conclusions from the four explorative work packages.
Health Insurance and the Demand for Medical Care: A Case Study from China

Standard insurance theory expects that expenditures and coverage should be positively correlated, for two main reasons: first, high risky individuals prefer to choose a more generous coverage (selection effect); second, a more extensive coverage may increase health costs (incentive effect). We try to empirically separate the selection effect and incentive effect on the health care expenditures with a novel Chinese dataset. With our estimation, we do find the evidences of selection effect, but fail to find the incentive effect. Besides, we also find some evidences of Physician-Induced Demand.
The Future of Europe: Reform or Decline

Unless Europe takes action soon, its further economic and political decline is almost inevitable, economists Alberto Alesina and Francesco Giavazzi write in this provocative book. Without comprehensive reform, continental Western Europe's overprotected, overregulated economies will continue to slow -- and its political influence will become negligible. This doesn't mean that Italy, Germany, France, and other now-prosperous countries will become poor; their standard of living will remain comfortable. But they will become largely irrelevant on the world scene. In The Future of Europe, Alesina and Giavazzi (themselves Europeans) outline the steps that Europe must take to prevent its economic and political eclipse. Europe, the authors say, has much to learn from the market liberalism of America. Europeans work less and vacation more than Americans; they value job stability and security above all. Americans, Alesina and Giavazzi argue, work harder and longer and are more willing to endure the ups and downs of a market economy. Europeans prize their welfare states; Americans abhor government spending. America is a melting pot; European countries -- witness the November 2005 unrest in France -- have trouble absorbing their immigrant populations. If Europe is to arrest its decline, Alesina and Giavazzi warn, it needs to adopt something closer to the American free-market model for dealing with these issues. Alesina and Giavazzi's prescriptions for how Europe should handle worker productivity, labor market regulation, globalization, support for higher education and technology research, fiscal policy, and its multiethnic societies are sure to stir controversy, as will their eye-opening view of the European Union and the euro. But their wake-up call will ring loud and clear for anyone concerned about the future of Europe and the global economy.
Extending the similarity theory for atmospheric boundary layers : contribution from background stratification

The structure of the atmospheric boundary layer has traditionally been described using only surface fluxes and the Coriolis parameter. We review here the proposal of Kitaigorodskii (1988) and Kitaigorodskii and Joffre (1988) that the background stratification of the atmosphere can influence the overall properties of the boundary layer through the process of entrainment. Theoretical predictions have been successfully compared to various data sets.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Sticking to plans : capacity limitation or decision-making bias ?

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In vitro cytotoxic study for partially purified L- asparaginase from fresh leaves, unripe and ripe fruits of Withania somnifera plant

This work aimed to study the cytotoxic effect of L-asparaginase isolated from local Withania somnifera plant on lymphocyte leukemia cells. To achieve this goal, L-asparaginase was purified from W. somnifera fruits by two purification steps, ion-exchange chromatography using DEAE-cellulose and gel filtration chromatography using Sephadex G-150, and the study utilized an in vitro evaluation for the cytotoxic effect of the partially purified L-asparaginase with concentrations ranging (12.5 to 100 μg/ml) in a two fold serial dilutions on some cell suspension culture including, acute lymphocyte leukemia and chronic lymphocyte leukemia culture at different concentrations (12.5 to 100 μg/ml) and different exposure time of treatment (24, 48 and 72 h). This two purification steps raised the specific activity from 1.73 U/mg in crude extract to 2.29 U/mg after ion-exchange and 10.5 U/mg after gel filtration; the purification fold was 1.32 after ion-exchange and 6.06 after gel filtration, the enzyme recovery was 56% after two purification steps and the results, pointed that acute lymphocyte leukemia culture showed highest sensitivity toward the cytotoxic effect (62.3±0.9%) of the partial purified L-asparaginase (100 μg/ml) than other culture after 48 h in a dose dependent manner, and highest cytotoxic inhibitory effect (73.2±1.6%) after 48 h of exposure on chronic lymphocyte leukemia culture, while healthy lymphocyte culture showed novel behavior. The lowest concentration of cell treatment gave the most significant (P< 0.01) inhibitory effect. The conclusion is that there is enough evidence to support the claim that Lasparaginase from W. somnifera may be considered chemotherapeutic agent against cancer, such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia and lymphosarcoma. Keywords : Acute lymphocyte leukemia (ALL), chronic lymphocyte leukemia (CLL), L-asparaginase, cytotoxic assay.
An interior point method based optimal power flow

This paper deals with the solution of an optimal power flow (OPF) problem by the interior point method (IPM). The latter is the most fashionable approach of this nonlinear programming problem due to its speed of convergence and ease handling of inequality constraints. Two interior point algorithms are presented and compared, namely the pure primal-dual and the predictor-corrector respectively. Several implementation aspects of these IPM algorithms are equally discussed. The OPF is formulated in rectangular coordinates which confers some significant advantages because generally its objective and constraints are quadratic functions. Among the large variety of OPF objectives, emphasis is put on two classical ones: the minimization of generation cost and the minimization of active power losses. The solution obtained by both algorithms prove to be robust for the above OPF sub-problems as well as for a full OPF applied to the former objective, which is unanimously recognized as the hardest problem to solve. Finally, numerical results on three test systems ranging from 60 to 300 buses are provided.
Investigating the Andromeda stream — II. Orbital fits and properties of the progenitor

We construct test-particle orbits and simple N-body models that match the properties of the giant stellar stream observed to the south of M31, using the model of M31’s potential derived in the companion paper by Geehan et al. (2005). We introduce a simple approximation to account for the difference in position between the stream and the orbit of the progenitor; this significantly affects the best-fitting orbits. The prog enitor orbits we derive have orbital apocenter ∼ 60 kpc and pericenter ∼ 3 kpc, though these quantities vary somewhat with the current orbital phase of the progenitor which is as yet unknown. Our best combined fit to the stream and galaxy properties implies a mass within 125 kpc of M31 of (7.4±1.2)×10 11 M⊙. Based on its length, width, luminosity, and velocity disper sion, we conclude that the stream originates from a progenitor satellite with mass Ms ∼ 10 9 M⊙, and at most modest amounts of dark matter; the estimate of Ms is again correlated with the phase of the progenitor. M31 displays a large number of faint features in its inner halo wh ich may be progenitors or continuations of the stream. While the orbital fits are not constrai ned enough for us to conclusively identify the progenitor, we can identify several plausible candidates, of which a feature in the planetary nebula distribution found by Merrett et al. is the most plausible, and rule out several others. We make predictions for the kinematic properties of the successful candidates. These may aid in observational identification of the progenitor ob ject, which would greatly constrain the allowed models of the stream.