Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
State Politics, Parties, and Policy

Chapter 1 State Politics Today Chapter 2 Electoral Foundations of State Political Systems Chapter 3 Interest Groups and Political Power Chapter 4 The Party Outside Government: The Electoral Party Chapter 5 The Governor as Party Leader and Policy Maker Chapter 6 State Legislatures Chapter 7 The Courts Chapter 8 The Budgetary Process: Spending and Taxing Chapter 9 The Politics of Redistribution: Welfare Policy Chapter 10 Educational Policy in the States Chapter 11 Conclusion
Managed Volatility: A New Approach to Equity Investing

In this study we argue that managed-volatility equity strategies are likely to gain greater acceptance in the marketplace over time. In particular, portfolios created with the goal of maximizing total return while controlling total volatility have historically dominated cap-weighted market portfolios in both risk and return. This dominance is due to the inability of the CAPM beta to explain returns. We conclude that insurance companies as well as other liability-focused institutional investors will increasingly allocate funds to equity strategies that target low total volatility.
Comparison of UWB chipless tags on flexible substrates fabricated using either aluminum, copper or silver

In this paper, metals like aluminum, copper and silver are used to elaborate ultra-wide band (UWB) chipless radio frequency identification (RFID) tags either on bond paper or polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates. Up to 3 different UWB chipless tags designs with an amount of resonators ranging from 3 to 4 and a conductive strip width of 1 mm are fabricated. The tags are measured, its operation validated, and the performance comparisons between different fabrications are provided when available. The magnitudes of the radar cross section (RCS) calculated from the measurements of the scattering parameters, show that no major performance degradation is obtained for same tag designs fabricated with different metals and same substrate. According to market prices, replacing silver by copper a raw material cost reduction of at least 96% is expected, and at least 65% cost reduction replacing copper by aluminum.
Educational and Child Labour Impacts of Two Food-for-Education Schemes: Evidence from a Randomised Trial in Rural Burkina Faso

This paper uses a prospective randomised trial to assess the impact of two food-for-education schemes on education and child labour outcomes for children from low-income households in northern rural Burkina Faso. The two food-for-education programmes under consideration are, on the one hand, school meals where students are provided with lunch each school day, and, on the other hand, take-home rations which provide girls with 10 kg of cereal flour each month, conditional on 90% attendance rate. After the programme ran for one academic year, both programmes increased enrolment by 3–5 percentage points. The scores on mathematics improved for girls in both school meals and take-home rations villages. Conditional on enrolment, the interventions caused attendance to decrease, but this was mainly driven by lower attendance among new enrolees. The interventions also led to adjustment in child labour, with children (especially girls) with access to food-for-education programmes, in particular the take-home rations, shifting away from on farm labour and off-farm productive tasks which possibly are more incompatible with school hours. Copyright 2012 , Oxford University Press.
Surplus Labour, Social Structure and Rural to Urban Migration: Evidence from Indian Data

This paper examines the empirical implications of the Lewis Model with respect to the relationship between the phenomenon of surplus labour in rural areas and out-migration from these areas to urban areas. It does so by using a micro-economic data set of migrants and non-migrants for India. We find strong empirical support for the key prediction of the Lewis Model that rural-urban migration will be influenced by the existence of surplus labour in the rural areas where the migrants originate. We also find that the phenomenon of rural-urban migration is more complex than viewed within a simple Lewis framework. Social structure and the possession of human capital are important determinants of rural-urban migration – individuals from scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and those with little or no education are less likely to migrate to urban areas. Given that scheduled castes and scheduled tribe households along with households with low levels of educational attainment are more likely to be poor, our findings suggest that the poorer households from the surplus labour regions do not seem to migrate to the same extent as the richer ones.Cet article examine les implications empiriques du modèle de Lewis à l'égard des liens entre le phénomène de surplus du travail des zones rurales et l'émigration de ces zones vers les villes. Pour ce faire, il utilise des données microéconomiques sur les migrants et non-migrants dans le cas de l'Inde. Les résultats vont nettement dans le sens du modèle de Lewis, selon lequel les migrations vers les zones urbaines dependent des surplus en main d'œuvre des zones rurales dont les migrants sont originaires. Nous trouvons également que le phénomène des migrations des campagnes vers les villes est plus complexe que ne le montre le modele de Lewis. La structure sociale et le niveau de capital humain sont d'importants déterminants de ces migrations – des membres de castes défavorisées (intouchables) et des autochtones ou des personnes sans ou avec peu de formation sont moins à même de migrer vers les zones urbaines. Ces differentes catégories de ménages étant généralement plus pauvres, nos résultats montrent que ce sont les ménages les plus riches des zones rurales qui sont les plus à même d'émigrer.
Normalized Least Mean Square adaptive noise cancellation filtering for speaker verification in noisy environments

In this paper, we present a speaker verification system based on the hidden Markov models (HMMs) and normalized least mean square (NLMS) adaptive filtering. The aim of using NLMS adaptive filtering is to improve the HMMs performance in noisy environments. A Malay spoken digit database is used for the testing and validation modules. It is shown that, in a clean environment a total success rate (TSR) of 89.97% is achieved using HMMs. For speaker verification, the true speaker rejection rate is 25.3% while the impostor acceptance rate is 9.99% and the equal error rate (EER) is 16.66%. In noisy environments without NLMS adaptive filtering TSRs of between 43.07%-51.26% are achieved for SNRs of 0-30 dBs. Meanwhile, after NLMS filtering, TSRs of between 55.18%-55.30% are achieved for SNRs 0-30 dB.
Energy and spectral efficiency analysis for selective ARQ multi-channel systems

In this paper, we develop selective retransmission schemes for multiple-channel systems. The proposed schemes are selective automatic repeat request with fixed bandwidth (SARQ-FB), selective chase combining with fixed bandwidth (SCC-FB) and selective automatic repeat request with variable bandwidth (SARQ-VB). The main objective of the proposed schemes is to use the available power and bandwidth budget effectively along with the selective retransmission to deliver the required data successfully within a limited number of transmissions. To investigate the performance of each scheme, we first analyze the average spectral and energy efficiency and derive closed form expressions for each scheme. Then, we compare the EE and SE of each scheme through numerical results.
Oil Price Shocks and Real GDP Growth: Empirical Evidence for Some OECD Countries

This paper assesses empirically the effects of oil price shocks on the real economic activity of the main industrialised countries. Multivariate VAR analysis is carried out using both linear and non-linear models. The latter category includes three approaches employed in the literature, namely, the asymmetric, scaled and net specifications. We find evidence of a non-linear impact of oil prices on real GDP. In particular, oil price increases are found to have an impact on GDP growth of a larger magnitude than that of oil price declines, with the latter being statistically insignificant in most cases. Among oil importing countries, oil price increases are found to have a negative impact on economic activity in all cases but Japan. Moreover, the effect of oil shocks on GDP growth differs between the two oil exporting countries in our sample, with oil price increases affecting the UK negatively and Norway positively.
COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF INFORMATION UNDER TWO BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

Information economics models evaluate the value of information under the assumption that decision makers wish to maximize their expected payoff. This assumption has been criticized for not being realistic enough since decision makers usually consider more than one business objective and might be satisficers rather than optimizers. This paper attempts to apply an information economics model to decision situations where two business performance criteria, expected payoff and risk, are considered. In order to overcome the difficulty of unknown trade-off between the two criteria, one criterion is used as an objective to be optimized, while the other is set as a constraint. This may be interpreted as a combination of optimizing and satisficing approaches. It is shown how an information system can be evaluated in terms of both expected payoff and risk. The model suggests the trade-off between the two criteria as an additional trait of an information system. In the last part of the paper, a numerical example illustrates how a comparative evaluation of information structures is performed when risk minimization and expected payoff maximization are concurrently used as business performance criteria.
ABO blood groups and cholera: new observations on specificity of risk and modification of vaccine efficacy.

La protection notablement plus faible de cholera grave observe chez les receveurs du groupe O de vaccins oraux tues contre le cholera montre bien que les distinctions genetiques peuvent expliquer les variations importantes de l'efficacite des vaccins et que les groupes sanguins ABO doivent etre ajoutes a la liste des sous-groupes epidemiologiques pour l'evaluation de l'efficacite des vaccins dans les futurs essais sur le terrain des vaccins contre le cholera
Cross-Saturation in Smooth-Air-Gap Electrical Machines

A detailed analysis of the phenomenon of cross-saturation is presented and it is shown that in a smooth-air-gap quadrature-phase machine this phenomenon is similar to the phenomenon of the demagnetizing effect of cross-magnetizing armature reaction in a d.c. machine. In a quadrature-phase smooth-air-gap machine the resultant air-gap flux density distribution is decreased over one half of the pole-pitch and is increased under the other half of the pole-pitch and due to saturation the decrease is greater than the increase. Thus under saturated conditions, if the resultant m.m. f. distribution is displaced from the magnetic axes of the windings, a change in the quadrature-axis magnetizing current will cause a change of flux linkage in the direct-axis winding and vice versa, a change in the direct-axis magnetizing current will cause a change of flux linkage in the quadrature-axis winding. It is an important result that cross-saturation can also exist if the m.m. f. distributions are assumed to be sinusoidal. A physical derivation of the cross-saturation coupling factor is presented and a test is described which shows the existence of cross-saturation. A theoretical analysis of the experiment gives results which are in good agreement with the experimental results.
ON SOME OF THE MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Entrepreneurship has been played up by the media as a visionary and heroic activity. Individual entrepreneurs have been glorified through media coverage, biographies, and publicity contributing to many government and public misconceptions entrepreneurship. This paper examines some of the myths about entrepreneurship, looking at relevant research and statistics, and paints a very different picture to general public perceptions. The paper then goes on to postulate that entrepreneurship is only part of the firm lifecycle, very little innovation is generated by start-up ventures, there is no common entrepreneurial type of person, people start new businesses for non-rational reasons, very few entrepreneurs actually have high growth ambitions, new firms generally don't survive long, there are no success formulas, entrepreneurs are actually risk averse, successful products don't make successful businesses, new product development rather than invention is needed, and that entrepreneurship doesn't really contribute to economic growth. Before concluding, this paper briefly discusses entrepreneurial education, particularly that in the developing countries of ASEAN.
Broad Spectrum Antimicrobial Biocides Target the FabI Component of Fatty Acid Synthesis*

The broad spectrum antibacterial properties of 2-hydroxydiphenyl ethers have been appreciated for decades, and their use in consumer products is rapidly increasing. We identify the enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase (fabI) component of the type II fatty acid synthase system as the specific cellular target for these antibacterials. Biologically active 2-hydroxydiphenyl ethers effectively inhibit fatty acid synthesis in vivo and FabI activity in vitro. Resistant mechanisms include up-regulation of fabI expression and spontaneously arising missense mutations in the fabI gene. These results contradict the view that these compounds directly disrupt membranes and suggest that their widespread use will select for resistant bacterial populations.
Efficacy with a replication-selective adenovirus plus cisplatin-based chemotherapy: dependence on sequencing but not p53 functional status or route of administration.

Replication-selective adenoviruses are being developed as novel anticancer therapeutics. Clinical trials with dl 1520, an E1B-Mr 55,000 gene-deleted adenovirus (ONYX-015), have demonstrated selective viral replication and biological activity in head and neck and ovarian carcinomas, but durable objective responses were not demonstrated. However, clinical results suggested potentially synergistic interactions with platinum-containing chemotherapy. To better characterize and optimize this interaction, we carried out combined modality treatment with ONYX-015 and cisplatin-based chemotherapy in three nude mouse-human tumor xenograft models with differing tumor locations or p53 functional status. Superior efficacy was demonstrated with combination therapy over either agent alone in all three models, independent of the route of ONYX-015 administration (intratumoral or i.p.). Virus replication was not demonstrably inhibited by cisplatin plus 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy. To assess the role of p53 function or cisplatin resistance in this interaction, we treated ovarian carcinomas that were matched except for p53 functional status (A2780, A2780/CP70). Combination therapy led to improved survival over either agent alone in both the p53(-) and the p53(+) carcinomatosis models. Efficacy was highly dependent on the sequencing of the agents; treatment with ONYX-015 prior to, or simultaneously with, chemotherapy was significantly superior to chemotherapy followed by ONYX-015. These results support further evaluation of replication-selective adenoviruses and cisplatin-based chemotherapy in clinical trials.
Manufacturing managers' perceptions of functional power in manufacturing organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine differences in manufacturing managers' perceptions of functional area power in manufacturing organizations to address the perception in the literature that manufacturing has little if any power in the organization.Design/methodology/approach – Survey data gathered from 129 manufacturing executives in the USA are used to examine their perceptions of differences in functional power in manufacturing firms. Relative rankings of functional areas for four types of power – position, expertise, resource, and political – are used to examine perceived differences, and the relationship between power and the role of the manufacturing executive in strategic decision making.Findings – Contrary to prior assertions in the manufacturing strategy literature, it was found that the manufacturing and marketing areas are perceived by manufacturing managers to be the most powerful functions, switching in their dominant roles depending upon the type of power. In addition, a relat.
TRADITIONAL AUTHORITY, INSTITUTIONAL MULTIPLICITY AND POLITICAL TRANSITION IN KWAZULU- NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA

Adherents of tradition argue that customary institutions in Africa and the traditional leaders that uphold them have a stabilizing influence, particularly given the inadequacies of many post-colonial African states. It is suggested that this remains the case for South Africa as well and that chieftaincy, though tainted by its association with segregation and apartheid, has nevertheless provided continuity of governance, particularly in rural areas where there were scant alternative structures. Opponents see the return to tradition as a regressive step that undermines progress towards democratic consolidation in Africa generally and in South Africa more particularly. In many respects these concerns are not new and reflect careful historical debate in South Africa that remains relevant in informing and understanding the contemporary period. With this in mind this paper explores the institution of ubukhosi, or chieftainship, in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), where resurgent tradition is particularly vociferous, but also part of a longer history exhibiting both continuities and discontinuities. Against this background it considers whether the recognition of traditional authorities and the powers and functions accorded to them in South Africa, and more particularly KZN, constitutes a potential faultline of crisis in South Africa's fragile emergent democracy or a site of stability in a politically volatile province. The question is framed by recourse to institutional theory and is answered by setting the contemporary experience of 'negotiating tradition' in KwaZulu-Natal against a background of apartheid government, resistance and political violence in the province.
Construction methods for modulated pole machines

The modulated pole machine (MPM) is known to offer high torque density utilizing permanent magnets and a three dimensional flux pattern. However, their construction requires a departure from conventional coil wound teeth formed of lamination stacks which can be a challenge. In this paper three construction techniques for MPM stators are compared: pure soft magnetic composite, pure lamination and a hybrid of the two. Simulation and practical knowledge of the build of each of these machines, including torque capability and mechanical tolerances is presented and discussed. Using the methods proposed here, it is shown that the pure laminate MPM machine has the potential to offer the greatest torque per kg of active material, yet it is the hybrid machine which delivers the highest absolute torque.
Dispersion Characteristics Analysis of Multilayer Microstrip Lines with Finite Ground Plane

A full-wave analysis of microstrip with a finite ground plane is developed using the Green's functions of a multilayer geometry not backed by a ground plane. A two-dimensional Method of Moment (MoM) is used to derive the current distribution on each metallization including the finite ground plane. The calculated dispersion characteristics for coplanar strips are compared to the available experimental data where good a agreement is obtained. Then, the effect of the finite ground plane on the microstrip propagation characteristics is rigorously analysed. Finally, some experimental measurements of microstrip resonator with a limited ground plane are achieved and compared with the theoretical results.
Topology-Aware Data Aggregation for Intensive I/O on Large-Scale Supercomputers

Reading and writing data efficiently from storage systems is critical for high performance data-centric applications. These I/O systems are being increasingly characterized by complex topologies and deeper memory hierarchies. Effective parallel I/O solutions are needed to scale applications on current and future supercomputers. Data aggregation is an efficient approach consisting of electing some processes in charge of aggregating data from a set of neighbors and writing the aggregated data into storage. Thus, the bandwidth use can be optimized while the contention is reduced. In this work, we take into account the network topology for mapping aggregators and we propose an optimized buffering system in order to reduce the aggregation cost. We validate our approach using micro-benchmarks and the I/O kernel of a large-scale cosmology simulation. We show improvements up to 15× faster for I/O operations compared to a standard implementation of MPI I/O.
Characterization of the Stringent Response and relBbu Expression in Borrelia burgdorferi

ABSTRACT The stringent response is a global bacterial response to nutritional stress mediated by (p)ppGpp. We previously found that both noninfectious Borrelia burgdorferi strain B31 and infectious B. burgdorferi strain N40 produced large amounts of (p)ppGpp during growth in BSK-H medium and suggested that the stringent response was triggered in B. burgdorferi under these conditions. Here we report that (p)ppGpp levels in B. burgdorferi growing in BSK-II or BSK-H medium are not further increased by nutrient limitation or by serine hydroxamate-induced inhibition of protein synthesis and that the presence of (p)ppGpp during growth of N40 in BSK-H medium is not associated with decreased 16S rRNA synthesis. Decreased 16S rRNA synthesis was associated with the decreased growth rate of N40 seen during coculture with tick cells, which are growth conditions that were previously shown to decrease (p)ppGpp levels. One-half as much of the mRNA of the gene encoding the Rel protein of B. burgdorferi (relBbu) was produced by B31 as by N40 during in vitro growth (2 ± 0.5 and 4 ± 0.8 fg of relBbu mRNA/ng of total Borrelia RNA, respectively). Although the amounts of N40 relBbu mRNA were identical during growth in vitro and in rat peritoneal chambers, they were markedly decreased during growth in nymphal ticks. In contrast to the lack of change in relBbu mRNA levels, larger amounts of a 78-kDa protein that was cross-reactive with antibodies to Bacillus subtilis RelBsu were detected in immunoblots of N40 lysates after growth in rat peritoneal chambers than after growth in vitro. Differences in the level of production of (p)ppGpp between B31 and N40 could not be explained by differences in relBbu promoters since identical transcriptional start sites 309 nucleotides upstream from the B31 and N40 relBbu ATG start codon and identical σ70-like promoters were identified by primer extension and sequencing analysis. relBbu complemented an Escherichia coli CF1693 relA spoT double mutant for growth on M9 minimal medium, and the transformed cells produced relBbu mRNA. These results indicate that relBbu is functional and that its transcription and translation and production of (p)ppGpp are affected by environmental conditions in strains N40 and B31. They also suggest that in B. burgdorferi, an organism with few rRNA operons that grows slowly, the role of (p)ppGpp may differ from the classic role played by this molecule in E. coli and that (p)ppGpp may not be responsible for growth rate control.