Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Efficacy of the Sortino Ratio and Other Benchmarked Performance Measures Under Skewed Return Distributions

This paper will investigate the suitability of existing performance measures under the assumption of a clearly defined benchmark. A range of measures are examined including the Sortino Ratio, the Sharpe Selection ratio (SSR), the Student's t-test and a decay rate measure. A simulation study is used to assess the power and bias of these measures based on variations in sample size and mean performance of two simulated funds. The Sortino Ratio is found to be the superior performance measure exhibiting more power and less bias than the SSR when the distribution of excess returns are skewed.
TRPA1‐expressing primary afferents synapse with a morphologically identified subclass of substantia gelatinosa neurons in the adult rat spinal cord

The TRPA1 channel has been proposed to be a molecular transducer of cold and inflammatory nociceptive signals. It is expressed on a subset of small primary afferent neurons both in the peripheral terminals, where it serves as a sensor, and on the central nerve endings in the dorsal horn. The substantia gelatinosa (SG) of the spinal cord is a key site for integration of noxious inputs. The SG neurons are morphologically and functionally heterogeneous and the precise synaptic circuits of the SG are poorly understood. We examined how activation of TRPA1 channels affects synaptic transmission onto SG neurons using whole‐cell patch‐clamp recordings and morphological analyses in adult rat spinal cord slices. Cinnamaldehyde (TRPA1 agonist) elicited a barrage of excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs) in a subset of the SG neurons that responded to allyl isothiocyanate (less specific TRPA1 agonist) and capsaicin (TRPV1 agonist). Cinnamaldehyde evoked EPSCs in vertical and radial but not islet or central SG cells. Notably, cinnamaldehyde produced no change in inhibitory postsynaptic currents and nor did it produce direct postsynaptic effects. In the presence of tetrodotoxin, cinnamaldehyde increased the frequency but not amplitude of miniature EPSCs. Intriguingly, cinnamaldehyde had a selective inhibitory action on monosynaptic C‐ (but not Aδ‐) fiber‐evoked EPSCs. These results indicate that activation of spinal TRPA1 presynaptically facilitates miniature excitatory synaptic transmission from primary afferents onto vertical and radial cells to initiate action potentials. The presence of TRPA1 channels on the central terminals raises the possibility of bidirectional modulatory action in morphologically identified subclasses of SG neurons.
Schwann cell development, maturation and regeneration: a focus on classic and emerging intracellular signaling pathways

The development, maturation and regeneration of Schwann cells (SCs), the main glial cells of the peripheral nervous system, require the coordinate and complementary interaction among several factors, signals and intracellular pathways. These regulatory molecules consist of integrins, neuregulins, growth factors, hormones, neurotransmitters, as well as entire intracellular pathways including protein-kinase A, C, Akt, Erk/MAPK, Hippo, mTOR, etc. For instance, Hippo pathway is overall involved in proliferation, apoptosis, regeneration and organ size control, being crucial in cancer proliferation process. In SCs, Hippo is linked to merlin and YAP/TAZ signaling and it seems to respond to mechanic/physical challenges. Recently, among factors regulating SCs, also the signaling intermediates Src tyrosine kinase and focal adhesion kinase (FAK) proved relevant for SC fate, participating in the regulation of adhesion, motility, migration and in vitro myelination. In SCs, the factors Src and FAK are regulated by the neuroactive steroid allopregnanolone, thus corroborating the importance of this steroid in the control of SC maturation. In this review, we illustrate some old and novel signaling pathways modulating SC biology and functions during the different developmental, mature and regenerative states
Measurement of the direct-detection responses of a 500-GHz and a 660-GHz waveguide superconducting SIS mixer

This paper presents the direct-detection responses of a 500-GHz and a 660-GHz waveguide superconducting SIS (superconductor-insulator-superconductor) mixer measured with a Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS). The two superconducting SIS mixers adopt the same type of junction tuning circuit (i.e., parallel connected twin SIS junctions), but are of different designs for the junction feed point where RF signals are coupled and then transmitted to the SIS junction tuning circuit and have different mixer design criteria. The experimental results are discussed in detail.
Infant Feeding Practices and Associated Factors Through the First 9 Months of Life in Bavaria, Germany

Objectives: To investigate infant feeding and breast-feeding practices during the first 9 months of life in Bavaria, Germany, in relation to recommendations and to identify factors associated with early feeding of semisolid food. Materials and Methods: Data from 3103 infants throughout Bavaria, Germany, were collected in a prospective cohort study. Questionnaires were administered at the age of 6 days, and 2, 4, 6, and 9 months. Results: There was a considerable variety concerning the time when complementary feeding was introduced. Only 16.4% of the infants ate solid/semisolid food before the age of 5 months. Most of the infants received as their first solid food a mash of vegetable, meat, and potato. Compared to national guidelines fluids were introduced early. More than 37% of the breast-fed infants received additional fluids/formula. The strongest risk factor associated with complementary feeding before the fifth month was breast-feeding duration of less than 4 months (any breast-feeding) with an odds ratio of 8.57 (95% confidence interval 6.16–11.94). Other factors were low level of education, young age of the mother, smoking habit of the mother, and mother not being born in Germany. Conclusions: Further improvements in nutrition of infants may be achieved in 2 ways: promotion of breast-feeding according to current recommendations and better counselling on the correct timing of introduction of semisolid food—especially for parents of not- or short-time breast-fed babies and focused on young mothers with low levels of education.
Edison Schools and the Privatization of K-12 Public Education: A Legal and Policy Analysis

As a response to what is often called a crisis in our urban schools, the last decade has seen a sharp increase in private schools taking responsibility for publicly-funded schools. This essay examines this takeover in the context of one major company, the Edison schools, which operates 150 schools nationwide educating 80,000 students. The essay looks carefully at Edison's performance in the Philadelphia school system, and more broadly at Edison's performance nationwide. The last section of the essay explores the various policy considerations that arise as a result of the move towards privatization.
Subcarrier Combining for an Analog Single-Carrier Transmission

Analog single-carrier transmission with frequency-domain equalization (called analog SC-FDE) was recently proposed in order to improve performance of analog signal transmission. Analog SC-FDE signal spectrum has a complex conjugate relation between lower sideband (LSB) and upper sideband (USB) since analog signal is real-valued. Exploiting this property, the received LSB and USB subcarriers can be combined to obtain an additional frequency diversity gain. In this paper, a subcarrier combining method is proposed to improve the performance of analog SC-FDE. A theoretical analysis of normalized mean square error (NMSE) performance is presented to evaluate the effect of subcarrier combining and is confirmed by computer simulation. It is shown that subcarrier combining improves effectively the NMSE performance in multipath fading channel.
The role of technology and policy in mitigating regional nitrogen pollution

Human activity greatly influences nitrogen (N) pollution in urbanized and adjacent areas. We comprehensively studied the N cycling in an urban–rural complex system, the Greater Hangzhou Area (GHA) in southeastern China. Our results indicated that subsurface N accumulation doubled, riverine N export tripled and atmospheric N pollutants increased 2.5 times within the GHA from 1980–2004. Agriculture was the largest N pollution source to air and water before 2000, whereas industry and human living gradually became the primary N pollution sources with the socioeconomic development. Based on the sensitivity analysis, we developed a scenario analysis to quantify the effects of technology and policy on environmental N dynamics. The fertilization reduction scenario suggested that the groundwater N pollution could decrease by 17% with less than a 5% reduction in crop production; the N effluent standard revision scenario led to a surface water N pollution reduction of 45%; the constructed wetlands implementation scenario could reduce surface water pollution by 43%–64%. Lastly, the technological improvement scenario mitigated atmospheric N pollution by 65%. Technologies play a key role in atmospheric N pollution control, policies mainly contribute to groundwater N pollution control, while technology and policy both work on surface water N mitigation within an urban–rural complex.
Determinants of Construction Sector Activity in Turkey: A Vector Autoregression Approach

This study analyzes the effects of some major macroeconomic variables on construction sector activity in Turkey by employing a Vector Autoregression (VAR) model from 1990Q1 to 2010Q3. The 4-variable VAR model includes the log of construction sector activity (COACT), the log of real gross domestic product (RGDP), weighted averages of 12-month interest rate on deposit (INT) and the log of banking sector total domestic credits (CRE). According to VAR model impulse response analysis, the sector booms related to a positive one standard deviation shock in RGDP. Thereby, the importance of maintaining economic stabilization is revealed since economic contractions may affect the sector negatively. In addition to this finding, impulse response analysis indicates that a positive one standard deviation shock in INT deteriorates the construction sector activity. Therefore, interest rates should be kept low by the coordination of monetary and fiscal policy. Moreover, impulse response analysis results emphasize that credit supply and demand should be equalized for minimizing default risk. On the other hand, forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD) analysis infers the importance of real gross domestic product, weighted averages of 12-month interest rate on deposit and banking sector total domestic credits in determining construction sector activity.
The Fast Second and Rivalry in Research and Development

In a recent article' F. M. Scherer analyzes the effects of potential imitation on the speed and vigor with which an innovator is likely to carry out projects for the development of new products under various conditions in a duopolistic rivalry. Scherer, by choice, does not explore the case in which imitation is more profitable than innovation; but his models lend themselves readily to discussion of at least some aspects of such a situation. Several years ago one of us first heard the term "fast second" used by the director of an industrial laboratory to describe what he regarded as the inhibiting effects of imitation on the development of new products in his industry. Under the particular product and market conditions of this industry, according to this gentleman, the most profitable strategy in regard to new products was one in which the firm's laboratory concentrated on analysis and "reverse engineering" of competitors' developments and abandoned original R & D of its own. The products of this particular industry are such that they can be analyzed fairly easily, and production processes lend themselves to imitation without lengthy and costly retooling. Most innovations involve new compounds, shapes and coatings, and the improvements can very often be incorporated in variants on the original in ways which make patent infringement suits problematic at best. The products are used as necessary but minor components in a wide variety of manufacturers' equipment.
Predictors of Different Types of Developmental Coordination Problems in ADHD: The Effect of Age, Gender, ADHD Symptom Severity and Comorbidities

It is known that developmental coordination problems in children with ADHD are very common. However, it is not clear whether different subtypes of coordination problems are associated with ADHD comorbidities, inattentiveness severity, and impulsivity/hyperactivity severity. A clinical sample of 122 children and adolescents with ADHD and their parents were interviewed. The parents completed the validated and reliable Farsi version of DCD-Q regarding their children. The internal reliability of the DCD-Q was high for the full scale and the subscales. The confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the fit for the hypothesized factor structure of the DCD-Q was poor. Linear regression analysis indicated that the scores of validated DCD-Q in children with ADHD, except for the fine motor/hand writing score, were not predicted by the variables of gender, handedness, age, inattentiveness score, hyperactivity/impulsivity score, and oppositional defiant behavior score. The fit for the hypothesized factor structure of the DCD-Q is poor in children with ADHD. Fine motor/hand writing was predicted by inattention severity. The other subtypes of developmental coordination problems in children with ADHD cannot be attributed to the variables of gender, inattentiveness severity, hyperactivity/impulsivity severity, comorbidity with separation anxiety symptoms and oppositional defiant behavior score, and handedness.
Role of fat hydrolysis in regulating glucagon-like Peptide-1 secretion.

CONTEXT Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is produced by specialized cells in the gut and secreted in response to carbohydrates and lipids. The mechanisms regulating fat-stimulated GLP-1 release have, however, not been clarified in detail. AIM We aimed to investigate the effect of intraduodenal (ID) fat hydrolysis on GLP-1 release and test whether the signal is mediated through cholecystokinin (CCK)-1 receptors. DESIGN AND SETTING Thirty-four healthy, male ambulatory volunteers were studied in three consecutive, randomized, double blind, crossover studies. INTERVENTION There were three interventions: 1) 12 subjects received an ID fat infusion with or without orlistat, an irreversible inhibitor of gastrointestinal lipases, in comparison with vehicle; 2) 12 subjects received ID sodium oleate (C18:1), ID sodium caprylate (C8:0), or ID vehicle; and 3) 10 subjects received ID sodium oleate with and without the CCK-1 receptor antagonist dexloxiglumide or ID vehicle plus iv saline (placebo). The effect of these treatments on GLP-1 concentrations and CCK release was quantified. RESULTS The following results were reached: 1) ID fat induced significant increase in GLP-1 concentrations (P < 0.004), and inhibition of fat hydrolysis by orlistat abolished this effect; 2) sodium oleate significantly stimulated GLP-1 release (P < 0.008), whereas sodium caprylate was ineffective compared with controls; and 3) dexloxiglumide administration abolished the effect of sodium oleate on GLP-1. ID fat or sodium oleate significantly stimulated plasma CCK (P < 0.006 and P < 0.004) compared with saline, whereas sodium caprylate did not. CONCLUSION Generation of long-chain fatty acids through hydrolysis of fat is a critical step for fat-induced stimulation of GLP-1 in humans; the signal is mediated via CCK release and CCK-1 receptors.
Nonfarm Activity and Rural Household Income: Evidence from Philippine Microdata

This article presents the response of Shelley Feldman to the comment made by Oded Stark on her paper "The impact of non-farm activity on income in a Philippine upland village". Feldman notes that Stark missed three major points made in the paper. First it was argued in the paper that interpretations of the effects of remittance income on income inequality may be more complex than previously has been assumed. Second this complexity was examined among a relatively small sample population and both a modified Lorenz curve and a Gini coefficient decomposition were used and the methodological contribution of Lerman and Yitzhaki acknowledged. Third the importance of skepticism about the benefits of remittance income was appreciated concluding that given a nonuniversalistic pattern of remittance effects it is critical to design policies that are place- and time-specific. Feldman further explains that the inequality effects of remittances were carefully emphasized rather than focusing on their poverty alleviation effects.
Control of Markovian jump discrete-time systems with norm bounded uncertainty and unknown delay

This paper studies the problem of control for discrete time delay linear systems with Markovian jump parameters. The system under consideration is subjected to both time-varying norm-bounded parameter uncertainty and unknown time delay in the state, and Markovian jump parameters in all system matrices. We address the problem of robust state feedback control in which both robust stochastic stability and a prescribed H/sub /spl infin// performance are required to be achieved irrespective of the uncertainty and time delay. It is shown that the above problem can be solved if a set of coupled linear matrix inequalities has a solution.
MEASURING WELFARE, POVERTY AND INEQUALITY*

A class of poverty measures is identified, the members of which satisfy strong monotonicity and transfer conditions. These measures are closely related to indices of income inequality based on the notion of a mean-equivalent income. A restriction on the class of admissible measures allows poverty to be interpreted in terms of the loss in mean-equivalent income resulting from the fact that some people are poor. Copyright 1987 by Royal Economic Society.
Legal issues and information on natural hazards

Information is fundamental to natural hazards management yet councils and other authorities suggest that they are reluctant to provide specific information about risks such as flood or fire risk, to property owners or prospective purchasers. This reluctance arises from a fear that they will be liable to pay damages if the release of the information has adverse consequences, for example by reducing the market value of the affected property. This article will look at Australian law to identify whether authorities would owe a duty of care to homeowners not to disclose risk information; and whether authorities owe a legal duty to disclose known risk information. It will be shown that there is no legal impediment to releasing reasonably accurate hazard information. Failure to do so will distort the property market and the potential liability to subsequent purchasers could be much greater than any risk of legal liability to current owners. Local councils should be proactive in identifying and warning of risk so people can make informed decisions about how they will prepare for and deal with the risks that they face. Releasing hazard information is key to developing resilient communities and sharing responsibility for hazard management.
The Two-Body Problem: Dual-Career-Couple Hiring Practices in Higher Education

Approximately eight of every ten academics have spouses or partners who are working professionals, and almost half of these partners are academics as well. In fact, dual-career academic couples are so prevalent that "the two-body problem" has become a common way of referring to the situation. Increasingly, intense competition to hire the best faculty forces institutions to assist dual-career couples in finding suitable employment for the accompanying spouse or partner. The authors of The Two-Body Problem examine policies and practices used by colleges and universities to respond to the needs of dual-career couples within the economic, legal, and demographic contexts of higher education. Using data from an extensive survey of public and private universities as well as in-depth case studies of institutions representing distinctive approaches to this problem, the authors find that the type of institution-its location, size, governance, mission, and resource availability-is a critical factor in determining dual-career employment options. The Two-Body Problem describes various accommodation models in depth and provides valuable information for college and university administrators responsible for hiring faculty and supporting their performance.
High-Resolution Mapping of a Fruit Firmness-Related Quantitative Trait Locus in Tomato Reveals Epistatic Interactions Associated with a Complex Combinatorial Locus1[W][OA]

Fruit firmness in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is determined by a number of factors including cell wall structure, turgor, and cuticle properties. Firmness is a complex polygenic trait involving the coregulation of many genes and has proved especially challenging to unravel. In this study, a quantitative trait locus (QTL) for fruit firmness was mapped to tomato chromosome 2 using the Zamir Solanum pennellii interspecific introgression lines (ILs) and fine-mapped in a population consisting of 7,500 F2 and F3 lines from IL 2-3 and IL 2-4. This firmness QTL contained five distinct subpeaks, Firs.p.QTL2.1 to Firs.p.QTL2.5, and an effect on a distal region of IL 2-4 that was nonoverlapping with IL 2-3. All these effects were located within an 8.6-Mb region. Using genetic markers, each subpeak within this combinatorial locus was mapped to a physical location within the genome, and an ethylene response factor (ERF) underlying Firs.p.QTL2.2 and a region containing three pectin methylesterase (PME) genes underlying Firs.p.QTL2.5 were nominated as QTL candidate genes. Statistical models used to explain the observed variability between lines indicated that these candidates and the nonoverlapping portion of IL 2-4 were sufficient to account for the majority of the fruit firmness effects. Quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction was used to quantify the expression of each candidate gene. ERF showed increased expression associated with soft fruit texture in the mapping population. In contrast, PME expression was tightly linked with firm fruit texture. Analysis of a range of recombinant lines revealed evidence for an epistatic interaction that was associated with this combinatorial locus.
Cope's rule in cryptodiran turtles: do the body sizes of extant species reflect a trend of phyletic size increase?

Cope's rule of phyletic size increase is questioned as a general pattern of body size evolution. Most studies of Cope's rule have examined trends in the paleontological record. However, neontological approaches are now possible due to the development of model‐based comparative methods, as well as the availability of an abundance of phylogenetic data. I examined whether the phylogenetic distribution of body sizes in extant cryptodiran turtles is consistent with Cope's rule. To do this, I examined body size evolution in each of six major clades of cryptodiran turtles and also across the whole tree of cryptodirans (n = 201 taxa). Extant cryptodiran turtles do not appear to follow Cope's rule, as no clade showed a significant phyletic body size trend. Previous analyses in other extant vertebrates have also found no evidence for phyletic size increase, which is in contrast to the paleontological data that support the rule in a number of extinct vertebrate taxa.