Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modeling Regional Interdependencies Using a Global Error-Correcting Macroeconometric Model

Financial institutions are ultimately exposed to macroeconomic fluctuations in the global economy. This article proposes and builds a compact global model capable of generating forecasts for a core set of macroeconomic factors (or variables) across a number of countries. The model explicitly allows for the interdependencies that exist between national and international factors. Individual region-specific vector error-correcting models are estimated in which the domestic variables are related to corresponding foreign variables constructed exclusively to match the international trade pattern of the country under consideration. The individual country models are then linked in a consistent and cohesive manner to generate forecasts for all of the variables in the world economy simultaneously. The global model is estimated for 25 countries grouped into 11 regions using quarterly data over 1979Q1–1999Q1. The degree of regional interdependencies is investigated via generalized impulse responses where the effects of shocks to a given variable in a given country on the rest of the world are provided. The model is then used to investigate the effects of various global risk scenarios on a bank's loan portfolio.
Comment

Forecast rationality under squared error loss implies various bounds on second moments of the forecasts across different horizons. For example, the mean squared forecast error should be nondecreasing in the horizon. Patton and Timmermann (2011) propose rationality tests based on such restrictions, including interesting new tests that can be conducted without having data on the target variable; that is, these tests can be performed by checking only the “internal consistency” of the “term structure” of forecasts. One of their novel tests that is easily implemented and that performs well in Monte Carlo simulations (in the sense that the actual size is equal to the nominal size and that the power is high) considers the hypothesis of optimal forecast revision in the context of a linear regression of the most recent forecast on the long-horizon forecast and the sequence of interim forecast revisions. That is, it considers the following regression:
Effects of soil type, prepercolation, and ageing on bioaccumulation and toxicity of zinc for the springtail Folsomia candida

Soil properties are a major influence on the bioavailability and toxicity of metals and represent one of the important factors that complicate the extrapolation of results from laboratory tests to field situations. The influence of soil characteristics and way of contamination on the bioaccumulation and toxicity of zinc was investigated for the springtail Folsomia candida, and the applicability of chemical extraction techniques for the prediction of zinc uptake and toxicity was evaluated. Bioaccumulation of zinc in F. candida was related to water‐soluble zinc concentrations, and uptake was dependent on the test soil used. Effects of zinc for F. candida could not be fully explained by bioaccumulation. This indicates that the existence of a fixed internal threshold concentration of zinc above which physiological functions are impaired is not likely for F. candida. In freshly contaminated soils, zinc toxicity was related to organic matter and clay content of the soil; however, the use of these soils overestimated the effects of zinc for F. candida by a factor of 5 to 8 compared to a test soil that was subjected to ageing under field conditions for 1.5 years. Equilibration of the zinc contamination by percolating the soils with water before use in the toxicity experiment strongly reduced the difference in zinc toxicity between laboratory‐treated and aged soils. Water‐soluble concentrations are most appropriate to predict effects of zinc on reproduction of F. candida in soils with unknown contamination histories. For laboratory toxicity tests, it is recommended to percolate soils with water after contamination and to include an equilibration period prior to use to achieve a more realistic exposure situation.
Comment

where φ and are the pdf and cdf of the standard normal distribution. The second term gives the bias, which has the same sign as θ . Table 1 gives the bias values for selected θ for both unadjusted and Bonferroni-adjusted procedures when α = . 05 and m = 200. We see that the bias is quite large for small values of θ and decreases with θ . Some readers may be confused, as indeed I was, by the fact that the estimated FCRs for the unadjusted procedure in example 3 equal exactly 1 minus the corresponding conditional coverage probabilities from example 1 (in particular, the FCR equals 1 when θ = 0), whereas this relation does not hold (in particular, the FCR does not equal 1, but equals .05 when θ = 0) for the Bonferroni-adjusted procedure in example 4. The reason for this is that the ratio VCI/RCI is defined as 0 when RCI = 0; hence the FCR can be expressed as
Comment

Hahn, J., and Hausman, J. (2002), “A New Specification Test for the Validity of Instrumental Variables,” Econometrica, 70, 163–189. Hamilton, J. D. , Waggoner, D. F. , and Zha, T. (2007), “Normalization in Econometrics,” Econometric Reviews, 26, 221–252. Kleibergen, F. , and Mavroeidis, S. (2009), “Weak Instrument Robust Tests in GMM and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve,” Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 27, 293–311. Nakamura, E. , and Steinsson, J. (2008), “Five Facts About Prices: A Reevaluation of Menu Cost Models,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123, 1415– 1464. Neely, C. J., Roy, A. , and Whiteman, C. H. (2001), “Risk Aversion versus Intertemporal Substitution: A Case Study of Identification Failure in the Intertemporal Consumption Capital Asset Pricing Model,” Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 19, 395–403. Yogo, M. (2004), “Estimating the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution When Instruments Are Weak,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 86, 797–810.
Visualizing the Behavior of Large Programs

—As High Performance Computing simulations grow more complex, debugging and optimizing them becomes vastly more difﬁcult. This makes it necessary to design visualization tools that help developers understand the behavior of their applications. We propose novel visualizations and effective mechanisms to interact with them to support developer efforts to easily and efﬁciently analyze the behavior of large applications. These visualization techniques address some of the major issues still plaguing program behavior analysis, including reducing human error, improving speed and quality of decision making, and mitigating program size and complexity issues in analyzing behaviors. A case study on HPC programs demonstrates that our methods can help developers efﬁciently explore the behavior of their applications.
Comment

Stan Development Team (2016), “Stan: A C++ Library for Probability and Sampling, (version 2.9.0),” available at http://mc-stan.org. [138,149,151,153] Tan, L. S. L. , and Nott, D. J. (2013), “Variational Inference for Generalized Linear Mixed Models Using Partially Noncentered Parametrizations,” Statistical Science, 28, 168–188. [151] Uhler, C. , Lenkoski, A. , and Richards, D. (2014), “Exact Formulas for the Normalizing Constants of Wishart Distributions for Graphical Models,” unpublished manuscript (arXiv:1406.490). [147] Verbyla, A. P., Cullis, B. R. , Kenward, M. G. , andWelham, S. J. (1999), “The Analysis of Designed Experiments and Longitudinal Data by Using Smoothing Splines” (with discussion), Applied Statistics, 48, 269–312. [149] Wainwright, M. J., and Jordan, M. I. (2008), “Graphical Models, Exponential Families and Variational Inference,” Foundations and Trends in Machine Learning, 1, 1–305. [141] Wand, M. P. (2009), “Semiparametric Regression and Graphical Models,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics, 51, 9–41. [137,140] Wand, M. P. (2014), “Fully Simplified multivariate normal updates in NonConjugate Variational Message Passing,” Journal of Machine Learning Research, 15, 1351–1369. [151] Wand, M. P., and Ormerod, J. T. (2008), “On Semiparametric Regression with O’sullivan Penalized Splines,”Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics, 50, 179–198. [140] Wand, M. P., and Ormerod, J. T. (2011), “Penalized Wavelets: Embedding Wavelets into Semiparametric Regression,” Electronic Journal of Statistics, 5, 1654–1717. [137,140] Wang, S. S. J., andWand,M. P. (2011), “Using Infer.NET for Statistical Analyses,” The American Statistician, 65, 115–126. [149] Winn, J., and Bishop, C. M. (2005), “Variational Message Passing,” Journal of Machine Learning Research, 6, 661–694. [137,138,140] Wood, S. N. (2006), Generalized Additive Models: An Introduction with R, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. [149] Wood, S. N. , Scheipl, F. , and Faraway, F. F. (2013), “Straightforward Intermediate Rank Tensor Product Smoothing in Mixed Models,” Statistics and Computing, 23, 341–3601. [149]
Structure, spatio-temporal dynamics and disturbance regime of the mixed beech–silver fir–Norway spruce old-growth forest of Biogradska Gora (Montenegro)

The structure and the spatio-temporal dynamics of the mixed beech–silver fir–Norway spruce old-growth forest of Biogradska Gora (Montenegro) have been analysed at different spatial scales: at the landscape scale, using a high-resolution SPOT5 satellite image and at the stand level with an intensive field survey. This remote-sensing approach has been used to obtain a land cover map in order to define the main vegetation types and to detect the large canopy gaps (>150 m2). The structural characteristics have been delineated in a 50-ha study area in which a regular 120-m grid was superimposed over a 1:10,000 raster map and 30 sampling points have been obtained. The forest is characterized by a high volume of living trees (1029.6 m3 ha− 1) and coarse woody debris (420.4 m3 ha− 1) and by small-scale disturbances (individual trees to small groups) with a low incidence of intermediate disturbances (18 forest canopy gaps>150 m2 over 1230 ha). The two approaches have proved useful to delineate the spatio-temporal dynamics. The Biogradska Gora forest dynamics are dominated by very small-scale processes, which are partially autogenic and partially caused by allogenic factors. The influence of large-scale or intermediate disturbances has shown to be negligible.
Fertility and productivity of a podzolic soil as influenced by subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum L.) and superphosphate.

A survey was made of the influence of the use of superphosphate and subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum L.) on podzolic soils formed on granodiorite in the Crookwell district of New South Wales (average rainfall, 32.7 in. per annum). Forty-four paddocks were sampled; they varied from untreated native pasture to paddocks which had been for 26 years continuously under clover and which had received a total of 13 cwt of superphosphate per acre. In all instances there had been no cultivation during treatment, and the land use mas uniformly one of sheep raising, principally for wool but with some emphasis on fat lamb production on highly improved pastures. Criteria used in this study were the changes in yield and botanical composition of the pasture, changes or trends in the chemical composition of the 0-4 in. depth of soil, and the yield of oats produced by each of the soils in pot culture with varying superimposed applications of phosphorus, sulphur, and nitrogen. The native pasture species disappear under the competition by subterranean clover, which gives a fourfold increase in the yield of pasture. Within the limits of experimental error, the phosphorus and sulphur applied as superphosphate, even that applied many years previously, can be accounted for in the surface 4 in. of soil. Losses by removal in wool and carcases are small. The added phosphorus is present in approximately equal amounts as organic phosphorus and readily extractable inorganic phosphorus. The applied sulphur appears to become a part of the organic complex. Eighty-five pounds of nitrogen has been added in the surface 4 in. of soil by rhizobial activity for each hundredweight of superphosphate applied per acre. Initially the most acute deficiencies affecting plant growth on these soils are those of phosphorus and nitrogen, with a less pronounced deficiency of sulphur. After a period of several years of superphosphate and clover, each of these deficiencies is much reduced, the order of the intensity of deficiencies then being nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus. Soil pH falls with superphosphate application at the rate of about 0.06 units per hundredweight of fertilizer per acre, but may reach an equilibrium value at about 5.1. This could be due to the increase in exchange capacity of the soil as a result of the increase in organic matter. A field experiment on two sites also indicated the increase in fertility under subterranean clover pasture and demonstrated the capacity of the improved soils to produce a satisfactory field crop of oats.
15-Hydroxyprostaglandin Dehydrogenase Is Associated with the Troglitazone-Induced Promotion of Adipocyte Differentiation in Human Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Adipocyte differentiation in human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hBM-MSCs) is not as efficient as that in murine pre-adipocytes when induced by adipogenic agents including insulin, dexa- methasone, and 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine (IDX condition). Therefore, the promotion of adipocyte dif- ferentiation in hBM-MSCs has been used as a cell culture model to evaluate insulin sensitivity for anti-diabetic drugs. In hBM-MSCs, PPARγ agonists or sulfonylurea anti-diabetic drugs have been added to IDX conditions to promote adipocyte differentiation. Here we show that troglitazone, a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPARγ) agonist, significantly reduced the levels of anti-adipogenic PGE2 in IDX-conditioned hBM-MSC culture supernatants when compared to PGE2 levels in the absence of PPARγ agonist. However, there was no difference in the mRNA levels of cyclooxygenases (COXs) and the activities of COXs and prostaglandin synthases during adipocyte differentiation in hBM-MSCs with or without troglitazone. In hBM-MSCs, troglitazone significantly increased the mRNA level of 15-hydroxyprostaglandin dehydrogenase (HPGD) which can act to decrease PGE2 levels in culture. These results suggest that the role of PPARγ activation in promoting adipocyte differentiation in hBM-MSCs is to reduce anti-adipogenic PGE2 levels through the up-regulation of HPGD expression.
Regional-scale mean copepod concentration indicates relative abundance of North Atlantic right whales

Management plans to reduce human-caused deaths of North Atlantic right whales Eubalaena glacialis depend, in part, on knowing when and where right whales are likely to be found. Local environmental conditions that influence movements of feeding right whales, such as ultradense copepod patches, are unpredictable and ephemeral. We examined the utility of using the regional-scale mean copepod concentration as an indicator of the abundance of right whales in 2 critical habitats off the northeastern coast of the United States: Cape Cod Bay and Great South Channel. Right whales are usually found in Cape Cod Bay during the late winter and early spring, and in the Great South Channel during the late spring and early summer. We found a significant positive relationship between mean concentration of the copepod Calanus finmarchicus in the western Gulf of Maine and the frequency of right whale sightings in the Great South Channel. In Cape Cod Bay we found a significant positive relationship between the mean concentration of other copepods (largely Pseudocalanus spp. and Centropages spp.) and the frequency of right whale sightings. This information could be used to further our understanding of the environmental factors that drive seasonal movement and aggregation of right whales in the Gulf of Maine, and it offers a tool to resource managers and modelers who seek to predict the movements of right whales based upon the concentration of copepods.
Book Reviews

Abstract Nonparametric Curve Estimation: Methods, Theory and Applications. Sam Efromovich. New York: Springer, 1999. ISBN 0-387-98740-1. xiii + 411 pp. $74.95. Reviewed by M. C. Jones Monte Carlo Methods in Bayesian Computation. Ming-Hui Chen, Qi-Man Shao, and Joseph G. Ibrahim. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2000. ISBN 0-3879-8935-8. xiii + 386 pp. $79.95. Reviewed by Ram Tiwari The Spectral Analysis of Time Series (2nd ed.). Lambert H. Koopmans. New York: Academic Press, 1995. ISBN 012419251-3. xvi + 366 pp. $39.95. Reviewed by Harry Hurd Fourier Analysis of Time Series: An Introduction. Peter Bloomfield. New York: Wiley, 2000. ISBN 0-471-88948-2. xiv + 261 pp. $79.95. Reviewed by David S. Stoffer Empirical Modeling in Economics: Specification and Evaluation. Clive W. J. Granger. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-521-66208-7. xii + 99 pp. $49.95. Reviewed by Hermann Garbers State-Space Models With Regime-Switching: Classical and Gibbs Sampling Approaches With Applications. Chang-Jin Kim and Charles R. Nelson. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. ISBN 0-262-11238-8. xii + 297 pp. $40.00. Reviewed by Sylvia Frühwirth-schnatter Reliability Modeling, A Statistical Approach. Linda C. Wolstenholme. Boca Raton, FL: Chapman and Hall/CRC, 1999. ISBN 1-58488-014-7. xvi + 256 pp. $85.00 (H); $39.95 (P). Reviewed by William J. Padgett Statistical Analysis in Climate Research. Hans von storch and Francis W. Zwiers. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-521-45071-3. x + 484 pp. $110.00. Reviewed by Robert B. Lund Scan Statistics and Applications. Joseph Glaz and N. Balakrishnan (Eds.). Boston: BirkhSuser, 1999. ISBN 0-8176-4041-X. xxi + 324 pp. $79.95 (H). Reviewed by Sreenivasa Rao Jammalamadaka Resampling Methods: A Practical Guide to Data Analysis. Phillip I. Good. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8176-4091-6. xii + 269 pp. $59.95. Reviewed by Tim Hesterberg Modern Graph Theory. Béla Bollobás (Ed.). New York: Springer-Verlag, 1998. ISBN 0-387-98488-7. xiv + 394 pp. $34.94. Reviewed by Persi Diaconis Markov Chains: Gibbs Fields, Monte Carlo Simulation, and Queues. Pierre Brémaud. New York: New York, 2000. ISBN 0-387-98509-3. xviii + 444 pp. $49.95. Reviewed by Laurent Saloff-coste Sample-Path Analysis of Queueing Systems. M. El-Taha and S. Stidham, Jr. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1999. ISBN 0-7923-8210-2. xii + 295 pp. $115.00. Reviewed by K. Sigman Introduction to Matrix Analytic Methods in Stochastic Modeling. G. Latouche and V. Ramaswami. Philadelphia: ASA and SIAM, 1999. ISBN 0-89871-425-7. xiv + 334 pp. $49.50. Reviewed by Tomasz Rolski Large Deviations Techniques and Applications (2nd ed.). Amir Dembo and Ofer Zeitouni. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1998. ISBN 0-387-98406-2. xvi + 396 pp. $59.95. Reviewed by Uwe Schmock
Stay‐green: A consequence of the balance between supply and demand for nitrogen during grain filling?

Retention of green leaf area in grain sorghum under post-anthesis drought, known as stay-green, is associated with greater biomass production, lodging resistance and yield. The stay-green phenomenon can be examined at a cell, leaf, or whole plant level. At a cell level, the retention of chloroplast proteins such as LHCP2, OEC33 and Rubisco until late in senescence has been reported in sorghum containing the KS19 source of stay-green, indicating that photosynthesis may be maintained for longer during senescence in these genotypes. At a leaf level, longevity of photosynthetic apparatus is intimately related to nitrogen (N) status. At a whole plant level, stay-green can be viewed as a consequence of the balance between N demand by the grain and N supply during grain filling. To examine some of these concepts, nine hybrids varying in the B35 and KS19 sources of stay-green were grown under a postanthesis water deficit. Genotypic variation in delayed onset and reduced rate of leaf senescence were explained by differences in specific leaf nitrogen (SLN) and N uptake during grain filling. Matching N supply from age-related senescence and N uptake during grain tilling with grain N demand found that the shortfall in N supply for grain filling was greater in the senescent than stay-green hybrids, resulting in more accelerated leaf senescence in the former. We hypothesise that increased N uptake by stay-green hybrids is a result of greater biomass accumulation during grain filling in response to increased sink demand (higher grain numbers) which, in turn, is the result of increased radiation use efficiency and transpiration efficiency due to higher SLN. Delayed leaf senescence resulting from higher SLN should, in turn, allow snore carbon and nitrogen to be allocated to the roots of stay-green hybrids during grain filling, thereby maintaining a greater capacity to extract N from the soil compared with senescent hybrids.
Predicting Hospital Readmission using Unstructured Clinical Note Data

Hospital readmission is costly for hospitals and is associated with worse outcomes for patients. Many readmissions are avoidable if patients receive further care during their initial admission. Therefore, a predictive model that can indicate whether a patient is likely to be readmitted is very valuable. A convolutional neural network architecture proposed by Zerveas et al. achieves state-of-the-art results in mortality prediction. This work explores the eﬀective-ness of Zerveas et al. ’s model in predicting hospital readmission. My results indicate that this model is much more eﬀective in predicting hospital readmissions for the subset of patients with heart failure than for the overall dataset of patients with any disease. Furthermore, discharge summaries tend to improve the model’s ability to predict readmission, especially in shorter-term time frames.
Control of black wattle (Acacia mearnsii De Wild.) seedlings with Garlon herbicide applied by backpack mistblower

Abstract Black wattle (Acacia mearnsii De Wild) has great economic value for South Africa, but also poses a tremendous threat to our natural ecosystems once it “escapes” from plantations into the surrounding grassland and watercourses, often forming dense, impenetrable thickets that displace the natural vegetation and hamper water flow. The herbicide Garlon 4 (triclopyr butoxy ethyl ester 480 g/í EC) is registered in South Africa for foliar treatment of black wattle by knapsack or tractor mounted boom sprayer only. These are the most commonly used methods for controlling massive seedling regeneration after initial clearing or fire. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a backpack mistblower and different mixtures of Garlon 4 as an alternative method for treating extensive stands of black wattle seedlings. The currently registered concentrations for knapsack application of 0.25% – 0.75% in water, and a reduced concentration of 0.125% were all found to provide commercially acceptable levels of control. Backpack mistblowers have many advantages over knapsack sprayers for treating large areas and the good results obtained with very low concentrations of Garlon 4 implies improved cost-benefit, with less negative impact on the environment.