Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Money, Payments, and Liquidity

In Money, Payments, and Liquidity, Ed Nosal and Guillaume Rocheteau provide a comprehensive investigation into the economics of money and payments by explicitly modeling trading frictions between agents. Adopting the search-theoretic approach pioneered by Nobuhiro Kiyotaki and Randall Wright, Nosal and Rocheteau provide a logically coherent dynamic framework to examine the frictions in the economy that make money and liquid assets play a useful role in trade. They discuss the implications of such frictions for the suitable properties of a medium of exchange, monetary policy, the cost of inflation, the inflation-output trade-off, the coexistence of money, credit, and higher return assets, settlement, and liquidity. After presenting the basic environment used throughout the book, Nosal and Rocheteau examine pure credit and pure monetary economies, and discuss the role of money, different pricing mechanisms, and the properties of money. In subsequent chapters they study monetary policy, the Friedman rule in particular, and the relationship between inflation and output under different information structures; economies where monetary exchange coexists with credit transactions; the coexistence of money and other assets such as another currency, capital, and bonds; and a continuous-time version of the model that describes over-the-counter markets and different dimensions of liquidity (bid-ask spreads, trade volume, trading delays).
Light supervision in acoustic model training

We present a new light supervision method to derive additional acoustic training data automatically for broadcast news transcription systems. A subset of the TDT corpus, which consists of broadcast audio with corresponding closed-caption (CC) transcripts, is identified by aligning the CC transcripts and the hypotheses generated by lightly-supervised decoding. Phrases of three or more contiguous words, on which both the CC transcripts and the decoder's hypotheses agree, are selected. The selection yields 702 hours, or 72% of the captioned data. When adding 700 hours of selected data to the baseline 141 hour broadcast news training data set, we achieved a 13% relative word error rate reduction. The key to the effectiveness of this light supervision method is the use of a biased language model (LM) in the lightly supervised decoding. The biased LM, in which the CC transcripts are added with heavy weighting, helps in selecting words the recognizer could have misrecognized if using a fair LM.
Conception of ten social determinants of health

Každý clověk by měl mit možnost žit plnohodnotným způsobem. Nicmeně mezi lidmi existuji velke rozdily ve vztahu ke zdravi a cerpani zdravotni pece. Kořeny těchto nerovnosti casto spocivaji v socialně-ekonomických podminkach. Koncepce deseti socialnich determinant zdravi hleda primarni přiciny těchto rozdilů a navrhuje strategie, ktere vedou ke zvýseni rovnosti ve zdravi ve spolecnosti. Mezi významne socialni determinanty, ktere ovlivňuji zdravi jednotlivce, patři socialni gradient (socialni postaveni jedince ve spolecnosti) nebo jeho životni podminky v dětstvi. Ke vzniku řady onemocněni přispiva mira stresu, uzkosti a obav, ktere proživame během života. Take chudoba a socialni vylouceni maji negativni dopad na zdravi clověka. V neposledni řadě stav výživy (ve smyslu jeho nedostatku nebo nadbytku) patři mezi socialni determinanty, ktere maji zavažne zdravotni dopady na lidský organismus. Problematikou socialnich determinant zdravi se dlouhodobě zabýva Světova zdravotnicka organizace (WHO). Ceska republika se zapojuje do řady mezinarodnich projektů, ktere se zabývaji provazanosti mezi socialni situaci a zdravim majoritni i minoritni populace (napřiklad projekt Determine a Mighealthnet). Provazanosti zdravotniho stavu se socialně-ekonomickou situaci se zabýva i Zdravotně socialni fakulta Jihoceske univerzity. Předkladaný clanek je přehledovou studii, jejimž cilem je teoreticky vymezit koncepci deseti socialnich determinant zdravi, předložit vědecke důkazy o aktualnosti dane koncepce, ale i rozvinout diskusi nad dosaženim strategických cilů teto koncepce. Zaroveň upozorňuje na jeji omezeni a rizika. Při resersi clanků bylo cerpano z těchto databazi: ScienceDirect, Scopus, PubMed a Wiley.
Time‐Varying Linkage of Possible Safe Haven Assets: A Cross‐Market and Cross‐Asset Analysis

This paper contributes to apply the time-varying symmetrized Joe-Clayton copula to study the dynamic linkage among possible safe haven assets in the international major markets over the past 34 years. We re-examine four major asset types (long-term government bond, equity index, oil, and gold) and confirm if they are qualified individually as a safe haven asset against the other paired one.
Thai students and their reasons for choosing to study in United Kingdom universities

This thesis seeks to consider Thai students and their reasons for choosing to study in United Kingdom universities. The numbers of overseas students studying at higher education institutions in the United Kingdom is rising, with a notable increase in the number of students from South-East Asia. The advantages of overseas degrees to individuals, include a facility with English language, enhanced employment and promotion prospects, and increased social status. A study of Thai students studying in the United Kingdom has been used to explore the reality of these advantages for individual students and the resulting social and cultural tensions
Interaction of Sleep Duration and Sleep Quality on Hypertension Prevalence in Adult Chinese Males

Background Previous studies demonstrated conflicting results about the association of sleep duration and hypertension. Given the potential relationship between sleep quality and hypertension, this study aimed to investigate the interaction of self-reported sleep duration and sleep quality on hypertension prevalence in adult Chinese males. Methods We undertook a cross-sectional analysis of 4144 male subjects. Sleep duration were measured by self-reported average sleep time during the past month. Sleep quality was evaluated using the standard Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Hypertension was defined as blood pressure level ≥140/90 mm Hg or current antihypertensive treatment. The association between hypertension prevalence, sleep duration, and sleep quality was analyzed using logistic regression after adjusting for basic cardiovascular characteristics. Results Sleep duration shorter than 8 hours was found to be associated with increased hypertension, with odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of 1.25 (95% CI, 1.03–1.52) for 7 hours, 1.41 (95% CI, 1.14–1.73) for 6 hours, and 2.38 (95% CI, 1.81–3.11) for <6 hours. Using very good sleep quality as the reference, good, poor, and very poor sleep quality were associated with hypertension, with odds ratios of 1.20 (95% CI, 1.01–1.42), 1.67 (95% CI, 1.32–2.11), and 2.32 (95% CI, 1.67–3.21), respectively. More importantly, further investigation of the association of different combinations of sleep duration and quality in relation to hypertension indicated an additive interaction. Conclusions There is an additive interaction of poor sleep quality and short sleep duration on hypertension prevalence. More comprehensive measurement of sleep should be performed in future studies.
Expression of a kallikrein-like protease from the snake venom: engineering of autocatalytic site in the fusion protein to facilitate protein refolding.

In order to circumvent the difficulty encountered in the expression and purification of the recombinant products in E. coli system, we have developed a novel and facile method of removing the polyhistidine tag from target proteins after heterologous gene expression. The expression of a serine protease (Tm-5) from Taiwan habu (Trimeresurus mucrosquamatus) is taken as an exemplar to illustrate the basic rationales and protocols involved. In place of an enterokinase recognition site, a polyhistidine tag linked to an autocatalyzed site based on cleavage specificity of the serine protease flanking on the 5'-end of Tm-5 clone sequence was engineered before protein expression in E. coli system. Renaturation of the fusion protein after expression revealed that the recombinant protease had refolded successfully from the inclusion bodies. Upon autocleavage of the expressed protease, the polyhistidine tag with additional amino acid residues appended to the N-terminus of the coding sequence is found to be removed accordingly. The protein expressed and purified by this new strategy possesses a molecular weight of approximately 28,000 in accord with the expected value for this venom protease. Further characterization of the recombinant protein employing a variety of techniques which include immunoblot analysis, RP-HPLC, ESI-MS, and N-terminal amino acid sequencing all shows indistinguishable properties to those of the isolated native protease. Most noteworthy is that the recombinant Tm-5 protease also exhibits amidase activity against N-benzoyl-Pro-Phe-Arg-p-nitroanilide, a unique and strict substrate for native Tm proteases reported previously.
Role-Based Access Control in Geological Database Web System

Security is an important aspect in Web development, and the access control and authorization is the key problem in Web security. The core idea of role-based access control (RBAC) is to implement safe access of data by allocating proper roles to the users to indirectly connect users with access permissions. RBAC is introduced to the geological system permission management by classifying and arranging geological data and constructing the data classification directory tree. A role-based permission management project in the system application layer is proposed in this paper, and the geological database Web system that is accordance with organization management custom of geological mining company is realized using . NET technology, which improves the efficiency of permission management and insures the data security. Key words—RBAC; permission management; geological data; Web system
Appraisal pitfalls and the training implications: part 1

The problems of operating employee appraisal schemes effectively are identified in this two‐part article. Appraisal of formal appraisal schemes suggests that most do not operate satisfactorily. Multipurpose schemes can be cumbersome and include conflicting objectives. The feedback process can also cause major problems. Such problems can be exacerbated with schemes of 360‐degree appraisals, according to their complexity and the role conflicts that they precipitate. In the second part of the article, the level of organisational investment needed for schemes to operate effectively is considered. The ways in which competencies, self‐appraisal and peer audit can be constructively used are examined. The crucial link between formal and informal appraisal processes is considered as is the importance and skills involved in an informal appraisal. Finally, the way in which the training needs of appraisees need to be realistically identified and assessed is also explained.
Contribution of horizontal gene transfer and deletion events to development of distinctive patterns of fimbrial operons during evolution of Salmonella serotypes

Only certain serotypes of Salmonella represent 99% of all human clinical isolates. We determined whether the phylogenetic distribution of fimbrial operons would account for the host adaptations observed for Salmonella serotypes. We found that three fimbrial operons, fim, lpf, and agf, were present in a lineage ancestral to Salmonella. While the fim and agf fimbrial operons were highly conserved among all Salmonella serotypes, sequence analysis suggested that the lpf operon was lost from many distantly related lineages. As a consequence, the distribution of the lpf operon cannot be explained easily and may be a consequence of positive and negative selection in different hosts for the presence of these genes. Two other fimbrial operons, sef and pef, each entered two distantly related Salmonella lineages and each is present only in a small number of serotypes. These results show that horizontal gene transfer and deletion events have created unique combinations of fimbrial operons among Salmonella serotypes. The presence of sef and pef correlated with serotypes frequently isolated from common domesticated animals.
Free-hand sketch based image and video retrieval

We present an overview of our work to date on a sketch based retrieval of image and video. We present a fast technique for extracting motion trajectories from videos and a Viterbi matching approach for retrieving video clips using free-hand sketched queries. For sketch based image retrieval, we introduce a depiction invariant image descriptor Gradient-Field-HOG (GF-HOG) that encapsulates local spatial structure in the sketch and facilitates efficient codebook based image retrieval driven by free-hand sketched queries. We further enhance the system with semantic information by incorporating user's search context.
Beacon Vector Routing : Towards Scalable Point-to-Point Routing in Deeply Embedded Networks

In this paper we study the problem of point-to-point routing in deeply embedded wireless networks, and propose a novel algorithm, Beacon Vector routing, that is scalable, works with local information, and does not depend on geographic or pre-configured information. Our approach uses a greedy algorithm similar to Geographic Routing for choosing the next-hop when forwarding. A coordinate system is build, based on network connectivity, in which each node knows its distance (in network hops) to a set of reference nodes. When given a destination (a vector of distances), a node chooses as its next-hop the neighbor with the ‘closest’ distances to the reference nodes. We describe our prototype implementation of BV Routing in TinyOS, and some measurements both in simulation and on real hardware. We also discuss alternative implementation options, and future steps.
Discrete equations and the singular manifold method

The Painleve expansion for the second Painleve equation (PII) and fourth Painleve equation (PIV) have two branches. The singular manifold method therefore requires two singular manifolds. The double singular manifold method is used to derive Miura transformations from PII and PIV to modified Painleve type equations for which auto-Backlund transformations are obtained. These auto-Backlund transformations can be used to obtain discrete equations.
An IP3R3- and NPY-Expressing Microvillous Cell Mediates Tissue Homeostasis and Regeneration in the Mouse Olfactory Epithelium

Calcium-dependent release of neurotrophic factors plays an important role in the maintenance of neurons, yet the release mechanisms are understudied. The inositol triphosphate (IP3) receptor is a calcium release channel that has a physiological role in cell growth, development, sensory perception, neuronal signaling and secretion. In the olfactory system, the IP3 receptor subtype 3 (IP3R3) is expressed exclusively in a microvillous cell subtype that is the predominant cell expressing neurotrophic factor neuropeptide Y (NPY). We hypothesized that IP3R3-expressing microvillous cells secrete sufficient NPY needed for both the continual maintenance of the neuronal population and for neuroregeneration following injury. We addressed this question by assessing the release of NPY and the regenerative capabilities of wild type, IP3R3+/−, and IP3R3−/− mice. Injury, simulated using extracellular ATP, induced IP3 receptor-mediated NPY release in wild-type mice. ATP-evoked NPY release was impaired in IP3R3−/− mice, suggesting that IP3R3 contributes to NPY release following injury. Under normal physiological conditions, both IP3R3−/− mice and explants from these mice had fewer progenitor cells that proliferate and differentiate into immature neurons. Although the number of mature neurons and the in vivo rate of proliferation were not altered, the proliferative response to the olfactotoxicant satratoxin G and olfactory bulb ablation injury was compromised in the olfactory epithelium of IP3R3−/− mice. The reductions in both NPY release and number of progenitor cells in IP3R3−/− mice point to a role of the IP3R3 in tissue homeostasis and neuroregeneration. Collectively, these data suggest that IP3R3 expressing microvillous cells are actively responsive to injury and promote recovery.
Reliable device-free user localization using multichannel radio transceivers

The device-free localization of people and objects in indoor environments is a key technology for ambient assisted living scenarios. For the detection of users no mobile hardware need to be worn. The technology keeps the privacy of the user and thus, it gains a high user acceptance. Looking at performance metrics like detection and false alarm rates, a solution relying on a single-channel signal strength sensor is not sufficient. With a multichannel transceiver and up to eight redundant signal strength values for each pair of reference nodes, the probability of user detection can be increased significantly. Experiment results for the localization of a user in a single-room apartment are used to validate the advantageous performance of the multichannel approach.
Activism via Social Networking: A case study of Urban Indian Women Facebook Users

Several cases of digital activism via social networking sites (SNS) have recently appeared worldwide which specifically address women’s issues. These instances point to the fact that women are active on the Internet and use SNSs (such as Facebook) to promote causes and garner support for issues as varied as feminine sexuality, health and social agency. SNS, perhaps for the first time in the history of communication technology, is a communication tool that is used as extensively by women as men. One explanation for this may be found in the chatty nature of interaction that takes place on SNS, amounting to information exchange that verge on gossip but is not thereby less effective for activist purposes. Gossip need not be flippant and spiteful, but can rather gratify the actor and serve her self-interest, which is very similar to her experience when she engages in a quick chat on Facebook, irrespective of where she or her friend is located. Overcoming geographical and temporal limits, SNS as a ‘virtual public sphere’ facilitates genderbased activism, using tactics akin to the consciousness-raising groups of the second-wave feminist movement. This thesis investigates the uses of SNS by women for political purposes, and asks, first, whether this form of cyber-activism actually has an impact on society and, second, which political issues it is able to address most successfully. To explore this research question, I take up India as a case study because it is a developing country with a high level of technological penetration, especially amongst the urban populations, boasting the second highest usage of mobile Internet in the world. Even low-end mobile phones are enabled with data access options and SNS can now be accessed in vernacular languages. While digital activism is unfolding in urban India via the mobile Internet, in non-urban areas activists are resorting to simple cellular handsets. Thus, this development in mobile telephony has the potential to overcome the socioeconomic and linguistic diversity of the country’s population and make SNS available to the masses, which in turn can connect millions of users instantly and efficiently. It is not surprising then that Indian SNS-users are quite active in promoting causes online and garnering public support on socio-economic and political issues.
Modeling the Enhancement Effect of Countercurrent on Acceleration Perception in Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation

Galvanic vestibular stimulation induces virtual acceleration sensation and is expected to be applied in computer games to improve their reality. The acceleration sensation can be enhanced by giving countercurrent which consists of an opposite current part and a forwarding current part. Conventionally, however, the degree of the enhancement is uncontrollable. This study reports that the effect of countercurrent can be modeled by an electrical circuit containing a capacitor and resistors. To model the effect of the countercurrent on the acceleration perception, we investigated the relation between the parameters: the duration and the strength of the opposite current part, of the countercurrent and strength of acceleration perception. The results of our study show that the strength of the acceleration sensation induced by the countercurrent stimulation has a nonlinear correlation with the duration of the opposite current, and the characteristics of the enhancement effect can be estimated using a CR circuit model.
Bim: a novel member of the Bcl‐2 family that promotes apoptosis

Certain members of the Bcl‐2 family inhibit apoptosis while others facilitate this physiological process of cell death. An expression screen for proteins that bind to Bcl‐2 yielded a small novel protein, denoted Bim, whose only similarity to any known protein is the short (nine amino acid) BH3 motif shared by most Bcl‐2 homologues. Bim provokes apoptosis, and the BH3 region is required for Bcl‐2 binding and for most of its cytotoxicity. Like Bcl‐2, Bim possesses a hydrophobic C‐terminus and localizes to intracytoplasmic membranes. Three Bim isoforms, probably generated by alternative splicing, all induce apoptosis, the shortest being the most potent. Wild‐type Bcl‐2 associates with Bim in vivo and modulates its death function, whereas Bcl‐2 mutants that lack survival function do neither. Significantly, Bcl‐xL and Bcl‐w, the two closest homologues of Bcl‐2, also bind to Bim and inhibit its activity, but more distant viral homologues, adenovirus E1B19K and Epstein–Barr virus BHRF‐1, can do neither. Hence, Bim appears to act as a ‘death ligand’ which can only neutralize certain members of the pro‐survival Bcl‐2 sub‐family.
Année académique 2008-2009 Working paper 09 / 01 Organizational performance of olympic sport governing bodies . Dealing with measurement and priorities

It is widely recognized that the performance measurement of organizations should help them in their strategic decisions and in their capacity to evaluate their successes. This measurement is, however, lacking in sport governing bodies from the French speaking Community of Belgium (n = 56). This paper proposes a model to measure organizational performance by considering strategic objectives distributed among five main dimensions of sport, customers, communication and image, finance and organizational which are measured by quantitative performance indicators. The focus of the paper is on the governing bodies of Olympic sport (n = 27) and the model measures their missions and systemic goals. In addition, the priority the Chairs of 13 Olympic sport governing bodies attach to each dimension and each strategic objective is assessed. Finally, there is a discussion of the comparison of their priorities and their organizational performance, which leads to the identification of four strategic orientations.