Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Time-Varying Risk Premium in the Term Structure of Bulk Shipping Freight Rates

This paper presents a simple argument, based on logic and maritime economic theory alone, for rejecting the applicability of the expectations theory in bulk shipping freight markets. It is shown that the risk premium must be time varying and must, in a systematic fashion, depend upon freight market conditions and the duration of a period time charter. The signs of the risk premium attributable to the various risk factors are derived where possible and the conclusion is drawn that the theoretical net risk premium will usually be negative, but may change for a short-term period charter in a strong freight market. © 2005 LSE and the University of Bath
Multimodal Dialogs With a Conversational Agent

Developing an embodied conversational agent that is able to exhibit a human-like behavior while communicating with other virtual or human agents requires enriching a typical NLG architecture. The purpose of this paper is to describe our efforts in this direction and to illustrate our approach to the generation of an Agent that shows a personality, a social intelligence and is able to react emotionally to events occurring in the environment, consistently with its goals and with the context in which the conversation takes place.
Constant pH Molecular Dynamics in Explicit Solvent with Enveloping Distribution Sampling and Hamiltonian Exchange

We present a new computational approach for constant pH simulations in explicit solvent based on the combination of the enveloping distribution sampling (EDS) and Hamiltonian replica exchange (HREX) methods. Unlike constant pH methods based on variable and continuous charge models, our method is based on discrete protonation states. EDS generates a hybrid Hamiltonian of different protonation states. A smoothness parameter s is used to control the heights of energy barriers of the hybrid-state energy landscape. A small s value facilitates state transitions by lowering energy barriers. Replica exchange between EDS potentials with different s values allows us to readily obtain a thermodynamically accurate ensemble of multiple protonation states with frequent state transitions. The analysis is performed with an ensemble obtained from an EDS Hamiltonian without smoothing, s = ∞, which strictly follows the minimum energy surface of the end states. The accuracy and efficiency of this method is tested on aspartic acid, lysine, and glutamic acid, which have two protonation states, a histidine with three states, a four-residue peptide with four states, and snake cardiotoxin with eight states. The pKa values estimated with the EDS-HREX method agree well with the experimental pKa values. The mean absolute errors of small benchmark systems range from 0.03 to 0.17 pKa units, and those of three titratable groups of snake cardiotoxin range from 0.2 to 1.6 pKa units. This study demonstrates that EDS-HREX is a potent theoretical framework, which gives the correct description of multiple protonation states and good calculated pKa values.
Turbo equalisation: implementation and importance for communication systems

This paper discusses a recent iterative equalisation technique called "turbo equalisation". We specifically aim to develop a general model for a coded interleaved transmission system with a channel with memory. We show the general detection/decoding procedure before elaborating on a new alternative interference canceler-based method to reduce complexity. We use examples from DS/CDMA, and ISI channels to show performance under various situations.
A robust blind source separation algorithm based on generalized variance

To solve the problem of blind source separation, a robust algorithm based on generalized variance is presented by exploiting the different temporal structure of uncorrelated source signals. In contrast to higher order cumulant techniques, this algorithm is based on second order statistical characteristic of observation signals, can blindly separate super-Gaussian and sub-Gaussian signals successfully at the same time without adjusting the contrast function, and the computation burden of it is relatively light. Simulation results confirm that the algorithm is efficient and feasible.
Macroeconomics: Understanding the Wealth of Nations

Preface What is Macroeconomics? The Language of Macroeconomics: Data and Definitions Analytical Overview : Introducing Fundamental Tools The Increasing Wealth of Nations Capital Accumulation and Economic Growth Technological Progress Human Capital, Endogenous Growth and Convergence Unemployment and the Labor Market International Trade The Role of Government Fiscal Policy Money and Prices Consumption Investment Business Cycles Stabilization Policy Monetary Policy Exchange Rate Determination I: Prices and the Real Exchange Rate Exchange Rate Determination II: Nominal Exchange Rates and Currency Crises Exchange Rate Systems and Global Capital Markets Equity Markets The Bond Market Real Estate The Banking Sector Glossary Credits Index
Eating Quality Traits of Hanwoo longissimus dorsi Muscle as a Function of End-Point Cooking Temperature

Interaction between carcass quality grade and end-point cooking temperature on eating quality of Hanwoo m. longissimus was investigated. Ten (10) of steers were sampled from a commercial population; carcasses with QG 1++ (n=5) and QG 1 (n=5) were chosen. Samples were cooked by electric oven at 60 or 82℃ and compared with uncooked control samples. The pH was not affected by cooking temperature but decreased the redness after cooking and steaks cooked at 60℃ were more reddish than steaks cooked at 82℃ in both QG groups. Higher cooking temperature greatly (p<0.05) increased the cooking loss, but there was no significant interaction between cooking temperature and QG on the cooking loss. Moisture is negatively correlated with temperature in both QG while the proportionate relationship between crude fat and end-point temperature found in QG 1++. WBSF values were significantly (p<0.05) high for QG 1, while that was significantly (p<0.05) increased when the temperature continues to increase. The increasing quality grade of beef resulted in significant higher (p<0.01) level of TBARS and cooking temperature increased TBARS content. Fatty acid composition was not altered by cooking at both temperatures and also the amount of fat intake was not changed. The current study indicates that eating quality of beef m. longissimus was greatly influenced by end-point temperature being interacted with QG. However, the amount and composition of fat were stable regardless of end-point temperatures. These results will provide a consumer reference to determine cooking conditions and intramuscular fat content.
Influence of schedule on alkylating agent cytotoxicity in vitro and in vivo.

High dose, multiple alkylating agent chemotherapy is being employed in conjunction with autologous marrow transplantation in the clinic. We have investigated the scheduling of several alkylating drugs in an effort to optimize their antitumor effects. In vitro modeling of "continuous" (up to 72 h) versus "bolus" (1 h) exposure in MCF-7 cells showed that for N,N',N"-triethylenethiophosphoramide (thiotEPA), cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(II) (CDDP), 4-hydroperoxycyclophosphamide, carboplatin, and L-phenylalanine mustard (L-PAM) "continuous" exposure yielded essentially the same killing kinetics as "bolus" exposure. For N,N'-bis(2-chloroethyl)-N-nitrosourea (BCNU), however, even with fresh drug additions every 30 min, "bolus" exposure produced superior cytotoxicity. In vivo modeling of "continuous" (three i.p. injections over 9 h) versus "bolus" (single dose) administration of the alkylating agents cyclophosphamide, BCNU, thiotEPA, melphalan, CDDP, and carboplatin was conducted in mice bearing EMT6 tumors, and tumor cell killing as measured by tumor cell survival in vitro was compared with killing of bone marrow (CFU-GM) measured in culture as a representative sensitive normal tissue. With cyclophosphamide there was a considerable increase in the therapeutic index (killing of tumor cells/killing of CFU-GMs) when the same total dose of drug was administered in multiple injections versus a single injection. For BCNU and thiotEPA, smaller increases in therapeutic index were observed. With L-PAM and CDDP, some advantage to multiple versus single dose administration was observed, and for carboplatin a decrease in the therapeutic index was seen. In conclusion, for all six alkylating agents examined, the multiple dose schedule was at least as effective against the tumor as the single dose schedule at all dose levels.
Coverage control technology in mobile sensor networks without localization

All the previous work on self-deployment for coverage control issue of mobile sensor networks assumed that every sensor node can know its exact position by some localization technology. However, all the localization algorithms in WSNs are inexact. In fact, localization error may cause larger self-deployment error. In this paper, we proposed a connectivity degree control algorithm (CDCA) for coverage control in mobile sensor networks. CDCA is a range-free algorithm without localization information in WSNs. The algorithm tries to make the amount of every sensor node's neighbor adjust to being same and get the ideal concentrated coefficient for self-deployment based on nodes' local connectivity information. Simulations demonstrate that CDCA can improve coverage rate and uniformity of connectivity effectively.
A Geographic Analysis about the Spatiotemporal Pattern of Breast Cancer in Hangzhou from 2008 to 2012

Background Breast cancer (BC) is the most common female malignant tumor. Previous studies have suggested a big incidence disparity among different cities in China. The present work selected a typical city, Hangzhou, to study BC incidence disparity within the city. Methods Totally, 8784 female breast cancer cases were obtained from the Hangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention during the period 2008–2012. Analysis of Variance and Poisson Regression were the statistical tools implemented to compare incidence disparity in the space-time domain (reference group: township residents during 2008, area: subdistrict, town, and township, time frame: 2008–2012), space-time scan statistics was employed to detect significant spatiotemporal clusters of BC compared to the null hypothesis that the probability of cases diagnosed at a particular location was equal to the probability of cases diagnosed in the whole study area. Geographical Information System (GIS) was used to generate BC spatial distribution and cluster maps at the township level. Results The subdistrict populations were found to have the highest and most stable BC incidence. Although town and township populations had a relatively low incidence, it displayed a significant increasing trend from 2008 to 2012. The BC incidence distribution was spatially heterogeneous and clustered with a trend-surface from the southwest low area to the northeast high area. High clusters were located in the northeastern Hangzhou area, whereas low clusters were observed in the southwestern area during the time considered. Conclusions Better healthcare service and lifestyle changes may be responsible for the increasing BC incidence observed in towns and townships. One high incidence cluster (Linping subdistrict) and two low incidence clusters (middle Hangzhou) were detected. The low clusters may be attributable mainly to developmental level disparity, whereas the high cluster could be associated with other risk factors, such as environmental pollution.
Riesgo cambiario y riesgo de tipo de interés bajo regímenes alternativos de tipo de cambio

EN ESTE TRABAJO SE ANALIZA, TANTO DESDE EL PUNTO DE VISTA EMPIRICO COMO DESDE EL PUNTO DE VISTA TEORICO, LA RELACION ENTRE LA EVOLUCION DEL RIESGO DE TIPO DE CAMBIO Y DEL RIESGO DE TIPO DE INTERES ANTE DETERMINADAS MODIFICACIONES RECIENTES EN EL REGIMEN CAMBIARIO DE VARIAS DIVISAS EUROPEAS, CON ESPECIAL ATENCION A LA INFLUENCIA DEL GRADO DE CREDIBILIDAD DE LOS DIFERENTES GRADOS DE COMPROMISO CON LA ESTABILIDAD CAMBIARIA. CONCRETAMENTE, SE EXAMINAN NO SOLO LOS EFECTOS DERIVADOS DE PERTENECER O NO AL MECANISMO DE CAMBIOS DEL SME, SINO TAMBIEN LOS QUE RESULTAN DE LA MAYOR O MENOR AMPLITUD DE LAS BANDAS DE FLUCTUACION DEL MISMO. TOMADOS EN SU CONJUNTO, LOS RESULTADOS EMPIRICOS Y TEORICOS OBTENIDOS MUESTRAN QUE EL EFECTO ESTABILIZADOR DEL SME SOBRE LOS TIPOS DE CAMBIO NO SE DERIVA DE MODO AUTOMATICO DE LA SIMPLE PERTENENCIA AL ACUERDO CAMBIARIO, SINO QUE REQUIERE QUE LA INCORPORACION AL SISTEMA SEA PERCIBIDA COMO SOSTENIBLE POR PARTE DE LOS AGENTES ECONOMICOS. ASIMISMO, LA REDUCCION DEL RIESGO CAMBIARIO POR LA VIA DE UN COMPROMISO FORMAL CON LA ESTABILIDAD CAMBIARIA -COMO LA PERTENENCIA AL SME- ACENTUA EL RIESGO DE TIPO DE INTERES UNICAMENTE EN EL CASO DE AQUELLAS ECONOMIAS EN CUYA EVOLUCION INCIDAN DE MODO NOTABLE LAS PERTURBACIONES QUE AFECTEN AL TIPO DE INTERES DEL PAIS (O PAISES) QUE DESEMPENE EL PAPEL DE ANCLA EN EL ACUERDO CAMBIARIO. POR EL CONTRARIO, PARA LAS ECONOMIAS EN LAS QUE DOMINEN LAS PERTURBACIONES REALES DE DEMANDA, EXISTE UN MARGEN PARA REDUCIR SIMULTANEAMENTE AMBOS TIPOS DE RIESGO. ESE MARGEN SERA TANTO MAYOR CUANTO MAYOR SEA EL GRADO DE CREDIBILIDAD QUE OTORGUEN LOS AGENTES AL MANTENIMIENTO FUTURO DEL COMPROMISO CAMBIARIO.
Bayesian Computation and Stochastic

Authors' rejoinder to discussion We thank the discussants for their contributions and insights, and for raising numerous interesting points. We shall respond to these as best we can, though obviously there are many questions for which, as yet, only partial solutions exist. We shall also try to rectify some misunderstandings that have arisen as a result of possible ambiguities in the paper. Our response is organized primarily by topic, rather than by discussant. We are grateful to Charles Geyer for guidance on L 2 theory and to Eugene Seneta for telling us about ergodic coeecients. \On being Bayesian" Separation of concerns We have pondered Geyer's call for a separation of concerns, particularly between philosophy and computational technology, and agree that the aim is an attractive one, but have come to a diierent conclusion, because in this case there are interactions that are too strong to be discounted. For example, the agricultural experiment in Section 5 of the paper is concerned with ranking and selection in comparing 75 varieties of spring barley. We contend that here it is a point of philosophy that the Bayesian paradigm provides an approach that is more useful than { indeed, we would say vastly superior to { any non-Bayesian approach. However, even in quite straightforward formulations, it is exceedingly diicult to implement a fully Bayesian analysis without MCMC. The simultaneous credible regions in the paper provide another example and the story is the same much more generally, with researchers now able to choose their models freely and hence argue the philosophical and practical advantages of a Bayesian approach. Whilst of course we recognize the importance and intellectual standing of the long debate about philosophies of inference at a more fundamental level, nevertheless it is surely true that some of the main historical objections to Bayesian inference have included the diiculty of computation, the need to approximate, the necessity to use stylized priors, and the inability to assess the impact of arbitrary assumptions in prior speciications. MCMC answers these objections amazingly well, and indeed also allows one to perturb the likelihood function. For those of us who were closet Bayesians, or at least are open-minded enough to discover what the paradigm can provide, MCMC does remove reasons not to be Bayesian. Geyer's claim that similar progress has been made in likelihood inference is surely grossly overstated. Integration is central to the Bayesian paradigm but runs into …
UPON TYPE, FREQUENCY AND SOME CLINICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOTIC SYMPTOMS IN ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

SUMMARY: Various psychotic disorders develop often at different stages of the disease. A comprehensive approach of type, frequency and clinical aspects of the psychotic disorders patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can optimize management of these conditions in patients with dementia. We examined 120 patients with probable AD. The routine clinical examination and observation were used to delineate the most common psychotic symptoms. Delusions, found in the explored patients were predominantly paranoid. The delusions are often short lived and lack complexity of that seen in schizophrenia. In number of cases they are difficult to be distinguished from confabulations. Hallucinations were mostly verbal, visual and tactile. Misidentification syndromes were identified in a considerable number of patients. They are often disputable or have been classified as delusions or hallucinations, depending on interpretation of psychotic phenomena. We discuss different forms of misidentification. The presence of psychotic symptoms predicts the occurrence and frequency of different forms of aggression and destructive behavior.
Unions and Discriminatory Hiring: Evidence from New Zealand

This study examines the effects of unions on employer compliance with antidiscrimination legislation in New Zealand, using a sample of 227 employers. The results do indicate that unions do reduce discriminatory practices. More specifically, higher levels of unionization do increase the level of employer compliance. However, other union characteristics, such as union size and strike propensity, appeared to have no influence on employer practice.
A hybrid approach to assessing data quality

: Various techniques have been proposed to enable organizations to initiate procedures to assess and ultimately to improve the quality of their data. The utility of these assessment techniques (ATs) has been demonstrated in different organizational contexts. However, while some of the ATs are geared towards specific application areas and are often not suitable in different applications, others are more general and therefore do not always meet specific requirements. To address this problem we propose the Hybrid Approach to assessing data quality, which can generate usable ATs for specific requirements using the activities of existing ATs. A literature review and bottom-up analysis of the existing data quality (DQ) ATs was used to identify the different activities proposed by each AT. Based on example requirements from an asset management organization, the activities were combined using the Hybrid Approach in order to generate an AT which can be followed to assess an existing DQ problem. The Hybrid Approach demonstrates that it is possible to develop new ways of assessing DQ which leverage the best practices proposed by existing ATs by combining the activities dynamically.
Design of High Gain Wideband Ku-Band Antenna Using Vertical Slits and Slots

The evolution of the modern wireless communication system has increased the demand of antennas, which can work on number of frequencies and should have large bandwidth to accommodate more number of channels. A high gain, wide band Ku-band antenna is realized and simulated using ADS (Advance Design Systems) simulation tool. The purposed design uses inset feed for proper impedance matching. The designed antenna has width of the patch, Wp = 49.4mm and length of the patch, Lp = 41.4mm. Taconic TLY-5 dielectric substrate is used as a substrate layer, which has dielectric constant of 2.2, and height of dielectric substrate is 1.6mm. The advantages of the resultant configurations are a) design is simple b) high Gain c) the structure remains single layer and single patch d) large bandwidth e) miniaturized size. The designed antenna provides 3.72 GHz bandwidth ranges from 11.86 GHz to 15.58 GHz at-10dB return loss. For Ku-band it can be used for terrestrial microwave and radar, especially police traffic speed-detector.
Genetic and chemical modulation of spastin-dependent axon outgrowth in zebrafish embryos indicates a role for impaired microtubule dynamics in hereditary spastic paraplegia

SUMMARY Mutations in the SPAST (SPG4) gene, which encodes the microtubule-severing protein spastin, are the most common cause of autosomal dominant hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP). Following on from previous work in our laboratory showing that spastin is required for axon outgrowth, we report here that the related microtubule-severing protein katanin is also required for axon outgrowth in vivo. Using confocal time-lapse imaging, we have identified requirements for spastin and katanin in maintaining normal axonal microtubule dynamics and growth cone motility in vivo, supporting a model in which microtubule severing is required for concerted growth of neuronal microtubules. Simultaneous knockdown of spastin and katanin caused a more severe phenotype than did individual knockdown of either gene, suggesting that they have different but related functions in supporting axon outgrowth. In addition, the microtubule-destabilising drug nocodazole abolished microtubule dynamics and growth cone motility, and enhanced phenotypic severity in spast-knockdown zebrafish embryos. Thus, disruption of microtubule dynamics might underlie neuronal dysfunction in this model, and this system could be used to identify compounds that modulate microtubule dynamics, some of which might have therapeutic potential in HSP.
Topological Synergies for Grasp Transfer

In this contribution, we propose a novel approach towards representing physically stable grasps which enables us to transfer grasps between different hand kinematics. We use a low dimensional topologically inspired coordinate representation which we call topological synergies, and which is motivated by the topological notion of winding numbers. We address the transfer problem as a stochastic optimization task and carry out motion planning in our topologically inspired coordinates using the Approximate Inference Control (AICO) framework. This perspective allows us to compute not only the final grasp itself, but also a trajectory in configuration space leading to it. We evaluate our approach using the simulation framework PhysX. The presented experiments, which develop further recent attempts to use topologically inspired coordinates in robotics, demonstrate that our approach makes it possible to transfer a large percentage of grasps between a simulated human hand and a 3-finger Schunk hand.
Error rate performance comparison of coherent and subcarrier intensity modulated optical wireless communications

A detailed analysis and comparison is carried out for optical wireless communications (OWCs) with coherent and subcarrier-intensity-modulation-based systems, which are the two major implementations for detection-threshold-free operation without irreducible error floors. Error rate performance is studied for communications with binary phase-shift keying, differential phase-shift keying, and noncoherent frequency-shift keying over weak-to-strong (gamma-gamma distributed) turbulence conditions. Series-form error rate expressions are also derived for diversity reception schemes, including maximum ratio combining, equal gain combining, and selection combining. Based on our analysis, it is found that coherent OWC systems typically outperform subcarrier intensity modulation systems, with 24-30 dB improvements in sensitivity, mainly due to their elimination of thermal and background noise effects. The performance improvements of coherent systems are confirmed through numerical studies. The findings can offer significant benefits for future OWC systems that are subject to transmitted power limitations.