Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of regional differences on the performance of software firms in the Netherlands

In this paper, we concentrate on how evolutionary economics contributes to a better understanding of the spatial evolution of newly emerging industries. Inspired by evolutionary thinking, four types of explanations are discussed and tested in an empirical analysis of the spatial pattern of the software sector in the Netherlands. Traditionally, agglomeration economies provide an explanation for the spatial concentration of an industry. Firms located in a cluster of similar or related sectors benefit from cost reductions, due to lower transportation costs, a thick labour market, specialised suppliers and information spillovers. An evolutionary approach on agglomeration economies provides an alternative view. It focuses explicit attention on knowledge spillovers as a vehicle of local diffusion of organizational routines or competences from one firm to the other. Such transfers of (tacit) knowledge are facilitated by spatial proximity of firms and a common knowledge base. In addition, an evolutionary approach takes a dynamic perspective on the role of agglomeration economies. During the initial stage of development of a new industry, the surrounding environment is still directed to routines and competences related to existing industries. When the new industry concentrates in a particular area to a considerable degree, a supportive environment (specialized knowledge, labour with specific skills) may gradually come into being, and localization economies may arise. Other evolutionary mechanisms may also provide an explanation for the spatial formation of new industries. We distinguish another three of them. First of all, transfer of knowledge and successful routines between firms in an emerging industry may occur through spin-off dynamics. Secondly, (social) networks may function as effective channels of knowledge diffusion and interactive learning, because they can provide a common knowledge base and mutual understanding and trust. Thirdly, firms in new industries with organizational capabilities that can deal effectively with the lack of required resources (such as knowledge, skills and capital) may become dominant, due to selection and imitation. Based on cross-sectional data gathered among 265 software firms in the Netherlands in 2003, we have tested which factors have influenced the innovative productivity of these firms. Using regression techniques, the outcomes suggest that spin-offs and firms with organizational capabilities perform better, while networks relations do not seem to affect the performance of software firms. Geography matters as well: software firms located in a region with a labour market with more ICT-skills show a higher innovative productivity.
WearSense: Detecting Autism Stereotypic Behaviors through Smartwatches

Autism is a complex developmental disorder that affects approximately 1 in 68 children (according to the recent survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—CDC) in the U.S., and has become the fastest growing category of special education. Each student with autism comes with her or his own unique needs and an array of behaviors and habits that can be severe and which interfere with everyday tasks. Autism is associated with intellectual disability, impairments in social skills, and physical health issues such as sleep and abdominal disturbances. We have designed an Internet-of-Things (IoT) framework named WearSense that leverages the sensing capabilities of modern smartwatches to detect stereotypic behaviors in children with autism. In this work, we present a study that used the inbuilt accelerometer of a smartwatch to detect three behaviors, including hand flapping, painting, and sibbing that are commonly observed in children with autism. In this feasibility study, we recruited 14 subjects to record the accelerometer data from the smartwatch worn on the wrist. The processing part extracts 34 different features in each dimension of the three-axis accelerometer, resulting in 102 features. Using and comparing various classification techniques revealed that an ensemble of 40 decision trees has the best accuracy of around 94.6%. This accuracy shows the quality of the data collected from the smartwatch and feature extraction methods used in this study. The recognition of these behaviors by using a smartwatch would be helpful in monitoring individuals with autistic behaviors, since the smartwatch can send the data to the cloud for comprehensive analysis and also to help parents, caregivers, and clinicians make informed decisions.
Optimal treatment planning in radiotherapy based on Boltzmann transport calculations

A Boltzmann transport model for dose calculation in radiation therapy is considered. We formulate an optimal control problem for the desired dose. We prove existence and uniqueness of a minimizer. Based on this model we derive optimality conditions. The PN discretization in angle of the full model is considered. We show that the PN approximation of the optimality system is in fact the optimality system of the PN approximation. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Searching for Synergism Among Combinations of Drugs of Abuse and the Use of Isobolographic Analysis

It is well known that individuals who abuse drugs usually use more than one substance. Toxic consequences of single and multiple drug use are well documented in the Treatment Episodes Data Set that lists combinations that result in hospital admissions. Using this list as a guide, we focused our attention on combinations that result in the most hospital admissions and searched the PubMed database to determine the number of publications dealing with these toxic combinations. Of special interest were those publications that looked for or used the term synergism in their titles or abstracts, a search that produced an extensive list of published articles. However, a further intersection of these with the term isobole revealed a surprisingly small number of literature reports. Because the method of isoboles is the most common quantitative method for distinguishing between drug synergism and simple additivity, the small number of investigations that actually employed this quantitation suggests that the term synergism is not properly documented in describing the toxicity among these abused substances. The possible reasons for this lack of quantitation may be related to a misunderstanding of the modeling equations. The theory and modeling are discussed here.
Effects of breathing exercises on lung capacity and muscle activities of elderly smokers

[Purpose] Elderly smokers have a reduced chest diameter due to weakening of the respiratory muscles, and this results in decreased ventilation, leading to a vicious circle. Therefore, the present study investigated the effects of an intervention program to enhance the pulmonary function and muscle activity of elderly smokers. [Subjects and Methods] Participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups or a control (CG) group. The experimental groups performed exercises three times per week for six weeks, whereas the CG performed no exercises. One of the experimental groups performed a Feedback Breathing Exercise (FBE) for 15 minutes, and the other repeated three sets of Balloon-Blowing Exercises (BBE) with sufficient rest of more than one minute between sets. [Results] In the experimental groups, FVC, FEV1/FVC, PEF and muscle activity of the rectus abdominis significantly improved after four weeks, but no significant differences were observed in FEV1 or VC after six weeks. [Conclusion] The results show that FBE and BBE improved the pulmonary functions of elderly smokers, demonstrating the potential benefits of the development of various training methods using balloons, and group programs, including recreational factors, for increasing respiratory muscles strength.
Dynamic Equilibrium of the Housing Market

This paper, derived within a general equilibrium framework, demonstrates that housing price can be explicitly expressed as a combination of an exponential and linear function of housing rental. This model provides an explanation as to why housing appreciation may not match inflation in the long-run steady state. We show that only under a very particular set of conditions, will housing prices grow at a rate greater than the inflation rate. Evidence from the Hong Kong housing market supports the predictions of theory. Our model indicates that the housing market will be in the long-run steady state when the rent-value ratio is equal to the net discount rate.
Pervasive mobile application to assist elderly people with cognitive impairment

Advances in mobile devices and the promise of pervasive/ubiquitous computing have given rise to a vast range of new applications for health care and patient's monitoring. These technologies support the daily life control in patients with some kind disability. This paper presents a pervasive and ubiquitous mobile application for supporting nonpharmacological interventions in aging people suffering diseases that cause cognitive impairment. The main objective of the system presented is supports to the caregivers and health professionals that direct nonpharmacological therapies in patients with early and moderate Alzheimer diseases.
A Fuzzy Database Model for Supporting a Concept-Based Query Evaluation over Disjunctive Fuzzy information

A null value whose exact value exists but is not currently available is termed unknown value in database context. This paper proposes a construct called IP(Implicit Predicate) to handle the unknown values in fuzzy databases including disjunctive information. IP is basically a descriptor associated with an attribute for describing the subtle semantics of the unknown values occurring in the attribute. In this paper we show that the IP construct is a powerful data type capable of not only greatly enhancing the semantic expressiveness of the unknown values, but also incorporating thesauri into databases to perform concept-based match when evaluating queries. The semantic expressiveness of IP includes the capability of effectively exploiting disjunctive fuzzy information as well as representing it. We also propose a query evaluation mechanism involving this IPs to extract exact answers from the disjunctive fuzzy information.
Computational Approaches to Discourse and Document Processing

This introduction tracks the evolution of the definition and role of discourse issues in NLP from the knowledge-intensive "discourse understanding" methods of the 80's to the recent concern with "accessing contents" in vast document bases via data-intensive methods. As text/discourse linguistics moves toward corpus approaches, also in connection with the development of large text bases and of computational instruments, we explore potential new forms of convergence. RESUME. Cette introduction trace l'evolution de la definition et du role des questions discursives en TAL, depuis la « comprehension du discours » des annees 80, avec ses methodes fondees sur la connaissance, jusqu'a l'actuel « acces au contenu » dans de vastes bases de documents a travers des methodes faisant appel a de tres gros volumes de donnees. La linguistique du texte et du discours se tournant de plus en plus vers l'approche corpus, en lien egalement avec le developpement de bases de textes et d'instruments informatiques, de nouvelles formes de convergences se font jour.
Research and Design of Distributed Database Synchronization System Based on Middleware

To solve the problem of data consistency in distributed database system based on Peer-to-Peer model, this paper designed a middleware-based database synchronization system. The system uses middleware to realize database synchronization, through the transaction management module, collision detection module, communication module, transaction execution module to complete the transaction capture, analysis, as well as matters of conflict detection and treatment. Experiment results show that the conflict be detected and treated at local, compared with the two-phase locking (2PL), middleware-based database synchronization system reduces the response time of the transaction, reducing unnecessary traffic, improve the performance of the system.
Streaming FFT Asynchronously on Graphics Processor Units

The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), which charactered in memory-access-intensive, follows a divide-and-conquer strategy, is one of the most important and heavily used kernel in scientific computing. The newest generation of Graphics Processor Units (GPUs) implement a stream architecture besides acting as powerful massively parallel coprocessor. Fouthermore, the intruduction of APIs for general-purpose computation on GPUs mades GPUs an attractive choice for high-performance numerical and scientific computing. In this work we deal with the implementation of the FFT on a novel NVIDIA GPU, using the CUDA programming model. By optimizing the organiztion of signal data, exploiting the memory hierairchy, and associating the stream to different operations, we efficiently overlap kernel execution and data transfer. Our results indicate a significant performance improvement over GPU-based and CPU-based FFT algorithms. The speedup is 18 percent higher than the original GPU-based on average.
Protecting the family to protect the child: vaccination strategy guided by RSV transmission dynamics.

transmission within family units is common, and natural infection with RSV, especially in very young infants, does not provide solid immunity against reinfection. These data that were collected in rural Kenya are consistent with another household study performed more than 40 years ago in Rochester, New York, that reported 2 months of surveillance data [5]. Although it would be useful to have more data from different geographic and climatic settings, the congruity of these 2 studies suggests the likelihood that these results are a realistic reflection of how RSV is transmitted within family units globally. Importantly, the current study was prospective, employed active surveillance, and used modern diagnostic techniques such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and viral isolate sequencing to confirm temporal transmission patterns. The investigators showed that transmission of an infant’s first RSV infection was most often attributed to school-age children in the household. This report exemplifies the importance of understanding the epidemiological details of how a contagious respiratory pathogen spreads within a community. Indeed, understanding transmission dynamics may be a key factor in defining strategies that can successfully protect infants from RSV infection. In addition to using this information to emphasize the importance of handwashing and avoiding large particle aerosol and fomite transmission, it may be useful to ask how understanding transmission dynamics can inform vaccine development strategies. In particular, we should explore the potential target populations for RSV immunization.
A Cloud Oriented Framework for Scientific Data Processing

Our work concerns the use of cloud computing for data processing. To study the problem, we designed a framework for experimenting with various cloud-computing arrangements. The main goal is a framework that has the ability to automatically track the configuration, providing event management, performance measurement and testing for small-scale cloud computing. We show how such a framework can be integrated and accessed in a practical manner using multiple data processing tools.
On duration dependence and profiling for the unemployed

In the Netherlands, the unemployed are ‘profiled’ to identify and help those with bad job prospects. Our analysis – based on Dutch administrative data of social assistance (SA) and unemployment insurance (UI) beneficiaries for 1989-1996 – suggests that this policy carries with it an important risk: the unemployed that are initially classified as having good job prospects may also become long-term unemployed. Therefore, labour market policies should not rely exclusively on profiling at the start of an unemployment spell, but should also adopt supplemental policies – those that, for instance, encourage search activities of all workers that have spent a certain length of time in unemployment. * For more information, contact Pierre Koning (tel: +31-70-3383489; email: pwck@cpb.nl), or Michiel van Leuvensteijn (tel: +31-70-3383488; email: mvl@cpb.nl) Introduction In the United States, Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services (WPRS) takes preemptive action to help UI beneficiaries shorten their time out of work. A state WPRS identifies those UI recipients who are most likely to exhaust benefit entitlements (in most states after 26 weeks), and refers them to reemployment services. In the Netherlands, profiling occurs at a more decentralised level: local public employment services determine the individual prospects of an unemployed person finding a job. In doing this, they use formal profiling methods, but also use their own (subjective) discretion. In principle, profiling occurs at the moment of entry in UI or SA. Unemployed persons are assigned to four possible ‘phases’; the higher a phase, the lower the prospects for work. Each phase comes with its own special policy instruments. Profiling bears two possible risks. First, it is questionable whether observed, administrative characteristics of the unemployed are sufficient to estimate profiling measures accurately. The second risk is with respect to the exact cause of ‘negative duration dependence’, which is the fact that the probability of an unemployed person finding a job decreases over the unemployed spell (e.g. Abbring, 1997, and van Andel, 1995). Various mechanisms may account for this. Unemployed job seekers may become discouraged, and consequently search less intenrisks structure, we try to take into account these correlation effects. Various factors influence the hazard into work. Some are observed with the data at hand, whereas (most) others are not. For instance, the motivation of an unemployed person, for which the IPR database has no information, has a positive effect on the hazard to work. Differences in individual hazard rates result in a negative duration dependence, observed at an aggregated level. Ideally, one would like to observe all factors that determine these individual differences, in order to correct for them so that unbiased duration dependence remains. However, this situation will not occur when less than all factors are observed. In practice, at least some unobservable heterogeneity will remain.
A Low-Cost Solution for an Integrated Multisensor Lane Departure Warning System

The responsibility of a vision-based lane departure warning (LDW) system is to alert a driver of an unintended lane departure. Because these systems solely rely on the vision sensor's ability to detect the lane markings on the roadway, these systems are extremely sensitive to the roadway conditions. When a vehicle's LDW system fails to detect lane markers on the roadway, it loses its ability to alert the driver of an unintended lane departure. The goal of this research is to use GPS combined with inertial sensors and a high-accuracy map to assist a vision-based LDW system. GPS navigation systems are available in many automobiles, along with automotive-grade inertial sensors. The low accuracy of a typical GPS receiver found in an automotive navigation system is largely attributed to a position error. This error is too large to allow the GPS receiver to locate a vehicle in a particular lane on a roadway. A method to measure this error using a vision-based LDW system, together with a high-accuracy map, is presented in this paper. With the error known, the accuracy of the GPS receiver is increased to a high-enough level to localize the vehicle on a particular lane. Next, a method fusing GPS/inertial navigation sensor/vision and a high-accuracy map for highway lane tracking is presented. This method provides a backup lateral offset measurement that can be used for LDW when the LDW vision system loses track of the lane markings.
Larval ecology and macroevolution in marine invertebrates

In marine mollusks, planktottophic and nonplanlctotrophie modes of development generally confer different ,. ;ales of larval dispenal, which in tum inHuenee spedes' JC08flphie ranps and genetic population structures. In Late Cretaoenus pstropods, planlrtotrophjc species (as infelTed from larval shell morphologies) exhibit dgnificantly broader JCOgraphic mnses, lonpr species durations, and lower speciltion and extinction ratn than nonplanktotrophic 5pecies; these effects outweigh a variety of adult traits. Nor are the effects of these speciesleyellarval traits reducible to selection at the organismic level, but instead evidently fulfill the requirements of tnle species selection: differences in gemtlc populations structuremediated by modes of larval development-affect the multiplication and survival of species, vary among specie. but rarely within species, and are heritable at the species level. The geographic ond stratigraphic pattern of first appearance of species with respeCt to other members of their clade SU&8e5ts that larval types affect modes as well II rates of evolution, with the genetically-subdivided nonplanktotrophs subjected to a greater variety of processes than the potentially more panmictic planktolrophl. Nonplanktotrnphs have the appropriate population structure for the operation ohhifting balance mechanisms, and their fossil record b consistent with tbis possibility, with first occurrences nested in, but stratigraphically abut· ting, the rangn of related species. However, survival of genera during the end-Cretaceous mass elltinction is unrelated to larval development and several other traits (e.g., species richness) that were inHuential during times of normal, backlJouJld level, of extinction. Instead, taxonomic survivorship is related to the magnitude of the clades' aeosraphic ranges_reo prdless of the geographic range of constituent species. This change in selectivity indicates tbat mass extinctions are not simply intensifications or elltrapoiations of background pro· cesses, but may be indifltrent to the quality of adaptatlon, fitness valuet, or clade confiau· mtions achieved durina background times. The retults presented here suggest that evolu· tionary theory (I) should be more explicitly hierarchical (II al1ued by Gould, Eldredge, Vrba, Solthe, and other5), with selection, drift, and other processcs occurrUtl at a series of focal levels that are neither wholly extrapolations nor w~olly independent of processcs at adjacent levels; and (2) must take into account the alternation of background IIIld mass extinction
Pseudo Noun Incorporation and Argument Structure in Niuean

Pseudo Noun Incorporation in Niuean appears to be a problematic construction for lexicalist theory because it seems to exhibit both morphological and syntactic properties. After considering the basic data and generalizations, this paper examines two possible Lexical-Functional analyses. The first, the PRED ARG analysis, looks to map the incorporated noun phrase to revised view of a-structure. The second, the Lexical Sharing analysis (extending Wescoat 2002), looks to treat the construction as a combination of both a morphological construction and a syntactic one. After considering both analyses, the paper discusses what each contributes to the understanding of Pseudo Noun Incorporation in Niuean.