Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Orexigenic Actions of Ghrelin in Goldfish: Feeding-Induced Changes in Brain and Gut mRNA Expression and Serum Levels, and Responses to Central and Peripheral Injections

In this study, we examined (i) the preprandial, postprandial and starvation-induced changes in the preproghrelin mRNA expression and serum ghrelin levels, and (ii) the effects of intracerebroventricular and intraperitoneal administration of ghrelin on food intake in goldfish. Slot blot analysis revealed a significant postprandial decrease in preproghrelin mRNA expression in the hypothalamus (1 and 3 h after feeding) and gut (3 h after feeding). A similar postprandial decrease (1 and 3 h after feeding) in serum ghrelin levels was also detected. In the fish that were unfed at the regular feeding time, the hypothalamic preproghrelin mRNA expression and the serum ghrelin levels remained unchanged, while the preproghrelin mRNA expression in the gut decreased 3 h after the regular feeding time. Starvation increased preproghrelin mRNA expression in the hypothalamus and gut on the 7th day. Serum ghrelin levels were significantly elevated on days 3 and 5 of starvation. Intracerebroventricular injections of n-octanoylated ghrelin-like peptides (gGRL[1–12]) (10 ng/g body weight) and human ghrelin (1 and 10 ng/g body weight) and intraperitoneal injections of n-octanoylated gGRL[1–12] (10 ng/g body weight), gGRL[1–19] (100 ng/g body weight) and human ghrelin (10 and 100 ng/g body weight) stimulated food intake in goldfish. The patterns of synthesis, secretion and actions indicate that ghrelin is an orexigen in goldfish.
Reconsidering Directly Elected Mayors in Ireland: Experiences from the United Kingdom and America

Abstract As part of the proposed modernisation of Irish local government a directly elected mayor with executive powers will be introduced in Dublin in 2011. It is then anticipated that the system of elected mayors will be extended to the whole country. However, it is not known what impact this new form of executive leadership will have on the prevailing system whereby city and county managers are dominant. Drawing from experiences in the United Kingdom and the United States, this paper suggests that Ireland needs clear, unambiguous mayoral models. As a political leader with executive powers it is imperative that the mayor's relationships with both the council and the city/county manager are tightly defined. A US-style recall option would also enhance the Irish system.
Indonesia Current Account Assessment

Indonesia’s current account fell into deficit in late 2011 for the first time since the 1997-8 Asian financial crisis. The current account balance subsequently dropped to -2.78 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012, to -3.27 percent of GDP in 2013, and -2.97 percent of GDP for the first three quarters of 2014, with most of the deterioration happening in the balance in goods and services trade, which averaged 3.1 percent of GDP in the period 2000-2007, and fell to 1.8 percent during 2008-2013. Prior to the 1998 crisis, Indonesia experienced three decades of robust economic growth and reduction in trade barriers, leading to an increase in integration in the global economy. The recent shift into deficit has been based on two structural developments and a combination of adverse exogenous and policy shocks. First, since the early 2000s Indonesia’s economy has grown faster than its major trading partners. Second, while investment growth has been generally strong, gross national saving have stagnated around 32 percent of GDP since 2009, dropping to 30 percent in 2013. The evidence suggests that a current account deficit is normal in the sense that investment needs exceed domestic savings. As long as investments generate sufficient growth, meeting the resulting financing costs should not be a concern. The analysis presented in this report suggests that Indonesia’s recent current account deficit results from the interaction of short, medium, and long run factors that can be grouped into four blocks: external shocks, domestic policies, international integration, and stage of development and demographics.
An indoor AR registration technique based on iBeacons

The existing AR indoor registration technologies based on hardware often have the disadvantage of low registration accuracy. To solve the problem, a new indoor AR registration technology based on iBeacon is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the coordinates of the phone are calculated based on the data received by iBeacons. Secondly, the 3D directions of the phone are obtained based on the acceleration and gravity sensor integrated in the phone. The system could request the corresponding data of the object from the backend server according to the location information and 3D directions. Then, the superposition of virtual image and the target object in the real world is realized. The results show that the new indoor AR registration method proposed in this paper could realize accurate and real-time registration for target objects with high accuracy (error<65pixels) and real-time performance (time<0.5s), which will have a wide application in indoor AR registration in the future.
Energy Flow Analysis During the Tennis Serve

Background: Energy flow has been hypothesized to be one of the most critical biomechanical concepts related to tennis performance and overuse injuries. However, the relationships among energy flow during the tennis serve, ball velocity, and overuse injuries have not been assessed. Purpose: To investigate the relationships among the quality and magnitude of energy flow, the ball velocity, and the peaks of upper limb joint kinetics and to compare the energy flow during the serve between injured and noninjured tennis players. Study Design: Case-control study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: The serves of expert tennis players were recorded with an optoelectronic motion capture system. The forces and torques of the upper limb joints were calculated from the motion captures by use of inverse dynamics. The amount of mechanical energy generated, absorbed, and transferred was determined by use of a joint power analysis. Then the players were followed during 2 seasons to identify upper limb overuse injuries with a questionnaire. Finally, players were classified into 2 groups according to the questionnaire results: injured or noninjured. Results: Ball velocity increased and upper limb joint kinetics decreased with the quality of energy flow from the trunk to the hand + racket segment. Injured players showed a lower quality of energy flow through the upper limb kinetic chain, a lower ball velocity, and higher rates of energy absorbed by the shoulder and elbow compared with noninjured players. Conclusion: The findings of this study imply that improper energy flow during the tennis serve can decrease ball velocity, increase upper limb joint kinetics, and thus increase overuse injuries of the upper limb joints.
Analyse de la libéralisation des échanges de quotas entre le Québec et l'Ontario dans le secteur laitier

L'objectif de cette etude est d'estimer les fonctions d'offre et de demande & quota de lait & transformation au Quebec et en Ontario et d'evaluer les impacts potentiels d'un marche des quotas entre ces deux provinces. Les fonctions d'offre et de demande sont estimees par la methode des moindres carres a deux etapes et ce, pour quatre marches, soit les marches des quotas produits et non produits dans chaque province. Les resultats montrent que la flexibilitye de la demande est en general plus elevie en valeur absolue que celle de l'offre. Les resultats indiquent de plus que l'offre de quotas est elastique par rapport aux prix. Le modele est utilise pour simuler l'ouverture des marches entre le Quebec et l'Ontario. Les resultats indiquent que si un marche des quotas avait existe en 1992, le Quebec aurait vu son quota de mise en marche augmenter de 3,4 % durant l'annee, au detriment de l'Ontario qui aurait vu le sien diminuer d'environ 5,1%. The objective of this study is to analyze the industrial milk quota market in Quebec and Ontario, and to evaluate the potential impacts of a unique quota market between those two provinces. Supply and demand functions are estimated using two-stage least squares for both used and unused quotas. The results show that the demand flexibility is generally higher in absolute value than the supply flexibility. The results also indicate that supply of quotas is elastic in price. The functions are used to simulate free trade in quotas between the two provinces. If trade barriers had been eliminated in 1992, Quebec would have seen its provincial quota increased by 3·4% while Ontario would have lost 5·1% of its quota.
Extrapolation Bias and the Predictability of Stock Returns by Price-Scaled Variables

Using survey data on expectations of stock returns, we recursively estimate the degree of extrapolative weighting in investors’ beliefs (DOX). In an extrapolation framework, DOX determines the relative weight investors place on recent-versus-distant returns. DOX varies considerably over time. The ability of price-scaled variables to predict the year-ahead equity premium is contingent on DOX. High price-scaled variables are followed by lower returns only when DOX is high. Our findings support extrapolation-based theories of the stock market and the interpretation of price-scaled variables as mispricing proxies. Our results help answer a critical question: when will an overvalued asset experience a correction? Received December 5, 2015; editorial decision June 22, 2017 by Editor Robin Greenwood. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web Site next to the link to the final published paper online.
The Black-Litterman Model Applied on OMXS30

This thesis applies the Black-Litterman (BL) model on the stocks that makes up the Swedish stock index OMXS30 during the year of 2012. Public information in the form of stock recommendations from financial institutions has been used as views in the BL-framework. A method of estimating confidence in these views has been analyzed and further clarified. The testing consists of two BL-portfolios along with two Mean Variance-portfolios, allowing me to compare the performance difference that the BL-model has. The two portfolios differ in terms of short selling restrictions. Although the results show a difference in total returns in favor of the restricted BL-portfolio, no significant difference were found compared to the other portfolios or the stock market index, both in terms of returns and in terms of Sharpe ratios.
Cortical interactions in texture processing: Scale and dynamics

Abstract We investigate the neural computations underlying pattern processing with stimuli based on textures balanced for spatial frequency content (and second-order correlations) but not for higher-order correlations (Julesz et al. 1978). Interchange between two such isodipole textures produces a robust human visual evoked potential (VEP). The difference in population activity driven by two isodipole textures is quantified by the antisymmetric component of the VEP. Statistical properties of the textures eliminate contributions from linear mechanisms to the antisymmetric VEP. The dependence of the antisymmetric VEP on check size and fourth-order correlation statistics is used to test nonlinear models for the underlying neural computations. Linear summation, followed by a simple nonlinearity (such as rectification, saturation, or threshold), is inconsistent with the data. More elaborate models, in which a second nonlinear stage combines the output of local nonlinear mechanisms, are consistent with the data, provided that an appropriate spatial scale is chosen for the second stage of processing. For checks 4 min or smaller, the deduced interaction length is 10–15 min. For checks larger than 4 min, the interaction length is proportional to check size.
LiveBench‐6: Large‐scale automated evaluation of protein structure prediction servers

The aim of the LiveBench experiment is to provide a continuous evaluation of structure prediction servers in order to inform potential users about the current state‐of‐the‐art structure prediction tools and in order to help the developers to analyze and improve the services. This round of the experiment was conducted in parallel to the blind CAFASP‐3 evaluation experiment. The data collected almost simultaneously enables the comparison of servers on two different benchmark sets. The number of servers has doubled from the last evaluated LiveBench‐4 experiment completed in April 2002, just before the beginning of CAFASP‐3. This can be partially attributed to the rapid development in the area of meta‐predictors (consensus servers). The current results confirm the high sensitivity and specificity of the meta‐predictors. Nevertheless, the comparison between the autonomous (not meta) servers participating in the last CAFASP‐2 and LiveBench‐2 experiment and the current set of autonomous servers demonstrates that progress has been made also in sequence structure fitting functions. In addition to the growing number of participants, the current experiment marks the introduction of new evaluation procedures, which are aimed to correlate better with functional characteristics of models. Proteins 2003;53:542–547. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Vascular Pathophysiology in Hearing Disorders

Abstract The inner ear vasculature is responsible for maintenance of the blood-labyrinth barrier, transport of systemic hormones for ion homeostasis, and supplying nutrients for metabolic functions. Unfortunately, these blood vessels also expose the ear to circulating inflammatory factors resulting from systemic diseases. Thus, although the inner ear blood vessels are critical for normal function, they also facilitate pathological mechanisms that result in hearing and vestibular dysfunction. Despite these numerous critical roles of inner ear vasculature, little is known of its normal homeostatic functions and how these are compromised in disease. The objective of this review is to discuss the current concepts of vascular biology, how blood vessels naturally respond to circulating inflammatory factors, and how such mechanisms of vascular pathophysiology may cause hearing loss.
Report: A collaborative effort in developing the integrated coastal resources management project for Ecuador

Abstract The University of Rhode Island, through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), is beginning a pilot project in integrated coastal resource management in Ecuador. This five‐year effort will be an attempt to develop a problem‐oriented program for a nation that as yet has no coastal management legislation. The initial steps emphasize placing provincial level CRM problems in their historical and socioeconomic context and building consensus on the objectives for a management program. Shrimp mariculture is a dominant concern in Ecuador and is also a focus for initial efforts in problem definition.
Skills audits — a framework for local economic development

Summary Skill creation and utilisation are important to local economic development as they represent an area in which local authorities have a track record of intervention and some very real powers, through their ability to influence parts of the training infrastructure. There is, of course, no direct causal link between changes to the training system and local economic performance. Fine‐tuning the training infrastructure to meet identified needs in the labour market must be recognised as a necessary not a sufficient condition for creating or retaining jobs. In providing an organising framework for a skills audit we have emphasised the four dynamic elements of a local skills pool: utilised skills, under‐utilised skills, and the depletion and replenishment of skills. From our initial run through of the framework several factors already emerge as important considerations ‐‐ the need to try to establish an age profile of skilled workers, the desirability of providing a . local technology profile and the need .
Living on the Margins: Comparing Older Private Renters and Older Public Housing Tenants in Sydney, Australia

An increasing number of older Australians are dependent on the private rental market for their accommodation. Through the use of semi-structured in-depth interviews, the life circumstances of older renters (65 plus) in both public housing and private rented accommodation in Sydney are explored and compared. Using Amartya Sen's concepts of capabilities and functionings, the study illustrates that due mainly to lower accommodation costs and greater security of tenure, the public housing tenants interviewed had far greater capability to live a life they valued. In contrast, most interviewees in the private rental market were struggling financially and were extremely anxious about their security of tenure. Their capacity to control their present and their future was very limited.
Carbon Monoxide Diffusing Capacity in Newborn Infants

Extract: In order to test the role of diffusing capacity in determining the arterial oxygen tension of newborn infants, pulmonary diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide (DLco) was measured in 21 healthy infants ranging in birth weight from 765 to 4,720 g. DLco in infants without respiratory distress correlated well with lung volume (r = 0.76, P < 0.001). A smaller correlation (r = 0.39, P < 0.01) was obtained between DLco and arterial oxygen tension. DLco per unit volume of lung is similar when healthy premature infants, full term infants, and normal adults are compared.The wide range of normal values obtained in resting infants and the lack of correlation with arterial oxygen tensions are similar to observations made in adults.Speculation: Diffusion “block” was not demonstrable in this study, even in infants with mild hypoxemia. These data, in conjunction with other studies reviewed in this report, suggest that lung volume plays a critical role in the level of arterial oxygen tension in newborn infants.
JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR BEHAVIOR OF HUMANS IN VARIABLE-INTERVAL SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT'

During Phase I, human subjects pressed a button for monetary reinforcement in five variable-interval schedules, each of which specified a different frequency of reinforcement. The rate of responding was an increasing, negatively accelerated function of reinforcement frequency; the data conformed closely to Herrnstein's equation. During Phase II, the same five schedules were in operation, but in addition a concurrent variable-interval schedule (B) was introduced, responses on which were always reinforced at the same frequency. Response rate in component A increased while the response rate in B decreased, as a function of the reinforcement frequency in component A. Relative response rates in the two component schedules matched the relative frequencies of reinforcement. Comparing the absolute response rates in component A during Phase I and Phase II it was found that introduction of the concurrent schedule did not affect the value of the theoretical maximum response rate, but did increase the value of the reinforcement frequency needed to obtain any particular submaximal response rate.
A Portfolio Approach to Fossil Fuel Procurement in the Electric Utility Industry

study is to inject a novel approach to fossil fuel procurement, and to determine to what extent the utility industry has been an efficient utilizer of scarce resources. The implications of this study have relevance to the managers of the utility industry, to the public regulatory commissions and to students of the industry. Section I deals briefly with some of the characteristics of the industry and indicates the relationship of portfolio theory to fossil fuel mix. Section II reviews the methodology and data used in the study, while Section III contains the empirical results and an analysis of them. A theoretical extension is introduced in Section IV where the notion of the Capital Market Line as it applies to fuel diversification is interpreted. Section V contains a summary and implications of the paper.
Estimates of the Returns to Quality and Coauthorship in Economic Academia

Salaries of academic economists are studied to determine if individuals receive differential returns to publishing articles of varying quality and to coauthored versus single-authored articles. Estimates based on detailed data and a flexible nonlinear least-squares procedure indicate that substantial returns to quality exist and that an individual's return from a coauthored paper with n authors is approximately 1/n times that of a single-authored paper.
Regulatory reform and productivity growth in the UK's public utilities

The reforms in the regulation of the UK'nationalised industries over the last decade are examined and the extent to which they have been successful in achieving one of their declared aims – that of increasing the efficiency of the enterprises' operations – is considered. To achieve this the productivity performance of nine of the largest enterprises over the last twenty years was analysed. The results show that the rate of productivity growth has been significantly higher during the 1980s, compared with the preceeding decade. It is concluded that a large part of the observed upturn in productivity is a result of changes in efficiency.
WOAH: Preliminaries to Zero-shot Ontology Learning for Conversational Agents

The present paper presents the Weighted Ontology Approximation Heuristic (WOAH), a novel zero-shot approach to ontology estimation for conversational agents development environments. This methodology extracts verbs and nouns separately from data by distilling the dependencies obtained and applying similarity and sparsity metrics to generate an ontology estimation configurable in terms of the level of generalization.
Are Trade Preferences More Effective than Aid in Supporting Exports? Evidence from the ‘Everything But Arms’ Preference Scheme

This study examines the effect of the ‘Everything But Arms’ (EBA) trade preferences regime on exports from the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) to the European Union (EU). With this aim, an augmented gravity model is estimated for exports from the 79 ACP countries to the EU‐15 for the time period of 1995—2013 using panel data techniques. The results are used to quantify the effect of the eligibility for EBA preferences on the export performance of the ACP least developed countries (LDCs) and to relate it to the impact of official development assistance on exports. In addition to their separate effects, the combined impact of EBA and aid flows is examined. The main results do not provide evidence for an additional positive effect of the EBA agreement on the export performance of the ACP LDCs. However, receiving aid shows a significant and positive effect on exports from EBA‐eligible ACP countries to the EU‐15, supporting an EU development strategy that includes both sorts of assistance, aid and trade preferences.