Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The combined effect of signal decorrelation and random noise on the variance of time delay estimation

Tissue motion and elasticity imaging techniques commonly use time delay estimation (TDE) for the assessment of tissue displacement. The performance of these techniques is limited because the signals are corrupted by various factors including electronic noise, quantization, and speckle decorrelation. Speckle decorrelation is caused by changes in the coherent interference among scatterers when the tissue moves relative to the ultrasound beam. In time delay estimation, the effect of noise is usually addressed through the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) term. Decorrelation, often a significant source of error in medical ultrasound, is commonly described in terms of the correlation coefficient. A relationship between the correlation coefficient and the SNR was previously derived in the literature, for identical signals corrupted by uncorrelated random noise. In this paper, we derive the relationship between the peak of the correlation coefficient function and the SNR for two jointly stationary signals when a delay is present between the signals. Recently, an expression for the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) has been derived in the literature for partially decorrelated signals in terms of the SNR and the correlation coefficient. Since the applicability of the CRLB is determined not only by the SNR, but also by the correlation coefficient, it is important to unify the expression for the CRLB for partially correlated signals. In this paper, we derive an expression for the CRLB in term of an equivalent SNR converted from the correlation coefficient using an SNR-p relationship, and show this expression to be equivalent to the expression for CRLB. We also corroborate the validity of the SNR-p expression with a simulation. Using this formulation, correlation measurements can be converted to SNR to obtain a composite SNR. The use of this composite SNR in lieu of those in the CRLB expression in the literature allows the extension of the literature results to the solution of the common TDE problems that involve signal decorrelation.
Complexity in signal transduction

This review is focused on complexity in cell signaling. Signaling experiments have demonstrated that many different stimuli activate the same signaling pathways yet result in different outcomes. Differences in the cellular machinery between cells explain response variation between cell types, but for a single cell type an appealing explanation is still lacking. The kinetic disconnect between cell signal transduction and a cellular action is highlighted; possible explanations for this disconnect, such as a series of cascading autocrine signaling molecules and new research suggesting that cells experience multiple rounds of reactivation in numerous cell signaling pathways, are reviewed. Additionally, evidence that kinase pathways exhibit frequency and amplitude modulation is examined. From this review, a new model of signal transduction is proposed whereby multiple signal transduction pathways are reactivated over time to orchestrate unique outcomes in physiological processes.
Hepatitis C

Abstract This paper examines issues and dilemmas faced by counselors and other health care providers in addressing the needs of active or recovering alcohol and drug users who test positive for HCV. The ambiguities and changing treatment prospects for these patients require education and counseling interventions, elements of which are described in the paper. Motivational enhancement issues are particularly important, to facilitate the patient's commitment to maintain a healthy life style while effective treatments are being developed. The high proportion of recovering staff in addiction treatment settings adds a level of complexity, as their concerns may mirror those of the patients being served, but are rarely addressed systematically within the program.
Stochastic Pricing Dynamics of Hard-to-Borrow Stocks

The 2010 “Quant of the Year” award from RISK Magazine was given to Marco Avellaneda of New York University for his “groundbreaking work on the effect of short-selling restrictions on price dynamics”. He (with coauthor Mike Lipkin) introduced a new stochastic model that explains unusual pricing peculiarities observed in hard-to-borrow stocks. Because of the extreme brevity of their work, many claims were left unsubstantiated and properties left unexplored. Even to this day, the academic community has not expanded or built on the model. The purpose of this paper is to address this knowledge gap by laying the foundation the model and exploring its fundamental properties. This is done by analyzing both its mathematical properties and its effectiveness using real-world data. This paper is split into three main sections. First, the regulatory landscape for short selling and hard- to-borrow stocks is explored. Second, the model is introduced under the motivation of existing SEC regulations. Several properties are explored including: risk neutral and martingale properties; long-term stability; and options pricing. Finally, the practical application of the model is assessed. This is accomplished though an extensive study of micro pricing data of US securities and a Monte Carlo implementation of the model. This paper concludes that the majority of the claims made in the original paper are mathematically correct. It is also shown that implementing the model is burdened by computational and technical limitations that limit its practical effectiveness. Finally, the data indicates that many pricing phenomenon described by the model are infrequently observed. This leads the author to believe that hard-to-borrow pricing phenomenon is infrequently witnessed in the US stock market. Additional research using generally unobtainable data is needed to sufficiently substantiate this claim.
Alendronate and estrogen-progestin in the long-term prevention of bone loss: four-year results from the early postmenopausal intervention cohort study. A randomized, controlled trial.

BACKGROUND Up to 3 years of treatment with alendronate, 5 mg/d, prevents postmenopausal bone loss. OBJECTIVE To determine whether the effect of alendronate is sustained at 4 years of treatment and persists after treatment is discontinued. DESIGN Randomized, controlled trial. SETTING United States and Europe. PARTICIPANTS 1609 postmenopausal women 45 to 59 years of age. INTERVENTION Participants were randomly assigned to receive oral alendronate, 5 mg/d or 2.5 mg/d; placebo; or open-label estrogen-progestin. Women in the alendronate groups received alendronate for the first 2 years of the study. Treatment was then continued without change or replaced with placebo for the last 2 years of the study. MEASUREMENTS Annual measurement of bone mineral density. RESULTS By year 4, the bone mineral density of participants in the placebo group had decreased by 1% to 6% (P < 0.001). Four years of treatment with 5 mg of alendronate per day increased bone mineral density at the spine (mean change [+/-SE], 3.8%+/-0.3%), hip (mean, 2.9%+/-0.2%), and total body (mean, 0.9%+/-0.2%) (P < 0.001 overall). By year 4, bone mineral density at most skeletal sites was greater in participants who switched from alendronate to placebo than in those who continuously received placebo. In years 3 and 4, bone loss in participants who switched from alendronate to placebo was similar to that seen during years 1 and 2 in those who continuously received placebo. Compared with 5 mg of alendronate per day, estrogen-medroxyprogesterone acetate produced similar increases in bone mineral density and estradiol-norethisterone acetate produced increases that were substantially greater. CONCLUSIONS Four years of treatment with alendronate or estrogen-progestin prevented postmenopausal bone loss. A residual effect was seen 2 years after alendronate therapy was stopped; however, continuous alendronate treatment was more effective in preventing postmenopausal bone loss than 2 years of alendronate followed by 2 years of placebo.
The global challenge in basic education : why continued investment in basic education is important

Education has played a key role in global economic growth and poverty reduction. These gains are the result of major education investments made in the past by national governments, local governments, individuals, and donor agencies. Many countries have reached essentially full coverage in basic and secondary education and are rapidly expanding the coverage of higher education. The individual benefits of education include higher lifetime earnings, reduced infant mortality, better health status, and reduced vulnerability to exploitation of various kinds. At the aggregate level, greater basic education coverage leads to increased productivity and national income, as well as less tangible benefits, such as improved social cohesion, reduced fertility, and slower growth of public expenditures for social services. The measured returns to basic education, moreover, understate its full returns because these measurements do not include the role of basic education in raising the earnings of individuals who go on to secondary and higher education after completing basic education. This paper documents the importance of continued investment in basic education and argues that investments need to be carefully targeted to address the constraints that limit the coverage and quality of education if they are to provide expected benefits. Part one begins with a discussion of the returns to investment in education. Part two then describes gaps in the coverage and quality of basic education and evaluates some key constraints responsible for those gaps. The conclusion offers a set of recommendations for planning and implementing effective investments in basic education, based on the lessons of global experience.
Arsenic in Glacial Drift Aquifers and the Implication for Drinking Water—Lower Illinois River Basin

The lower Illinois River Basin (LIRB) covers 47,000 km2 of central and western Illinois. In the LIRB, 90% of the ground water supplies are from the deep and shallow glacial drift aquifers. The deep glacial drift aquifer (DGDA) is below 152 m altitude, a sand and gravel deposit that fills the Mahomet Buried Bedrock Valley, and overlain by more than 30.5 m of clayey till. The LIRB is part of the USGS National Water Quality Assessment program, which has an objective to describe the status and trends of surface and ground water quality.
Unveiling the Potentialities Provided by New Technologies: A Process to Pursue Technology Epiphanies in the Smartphone App Industry

When new technologies approach the market, companies usually look for ways to improve existing applications or simply to replace previous technologies. The management literature identifies several strategies for gaining value from technological discontinuities, including improving performance, becoming the cost leader and being the first‐mover, and scholars have identified several managerial practices and processes to leverage these various strategies. Recent literature suggests that there might be something more, namely, discovering new meanings, enabled by the technological discontinuity: a technology epiphany. No research has yet tried to understand what companies could do to actually develop such innovations. This paper aims to identify a process companies could adopt to pursue a technology epiphany strategy. Employing a case study approach, we investigate the navigation apps industry, both turn‐by‐turn and marine, to understand how companies manage the technology discontinuity embedded in smartphones. Comparing several players in the two industries, we first demonstrate that the rise of a new market leader is not related to a traditional strategy but to a technology epiphany. Finally, we propose a five‐step process to pursue a technology epiphany strategy.
Angiogenesis , Metastasis , and the Cellular Microenvironment FMNL 2 Enhances Invasion of Colorectal Carcinoma by Inducing Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition

FMNL2 is a member of diaphanous-related formins that control actin-dependent processes such as cell motility and invasion. Its overexpression in metastatic cell lines and tissues of colorectal carcinoma has been associated with aggressive tumor development in our previous study. But its specific role in cancer is largely unknown. Here we report that FMNL2 is involved in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) maintenance in human colorectal carcinoma cells. A positive correlation between FMNL2 and vimentin expression and an inverse correlation between FMNL2 and E-cadherin expression were found in colorectal carcinoma cell lines and cancer tissues. Specific knockdown of FMNL2 led to an epithelial-state transition, confirmed by the cobblestone-like phenotype, upregulation of E-cadherin, a-catenin, and g-catenin, and downregulation of vimentin, snail, slug. Loss of FMNL2 expression lowered the ability of TGF-b to induce cell invasion and EMT, as shown by morphology and the expression levels. Upregulation of vimentin, slug, snail, downregulation of E-cadherin and activation of receptor-Smad3 phosphorylation were observed in M5 and MDCK cells induced by TGF-b, whereas altered expression of these markers was not obvious in FMNL2-depleting M5 cells. High levels of activation of p-MAPK and p-MEK, but not p-PI3K and p-AKT, were observed in SW480/FMNL2þ cells compared with control cells. Treatment with U0126 could abrogate the activation of p-MAPK and p-MEK, whereas LY294002 treatment had no effect on the PI3K/AKT pathway. In conclusion, these findings identify a novel EMT and tumor promoting function for FMNL2,which is involved in TGF-b–induced EMT and colorectal carcinoma cell invasion via Smad3 effectors, or in collaboration with MAPK/MEK pathway. Mol Cancer Res; 8(12); 1579–90. 2010 AACR.
A PROPOSAL OF A GENERAL CLASSIC EQUILIBRIUM OF PRICES WITH CIRCULATING CAPITAL SUBJECT TO OFFER DIFFERENT QUALITIES

This paper seeks to suggest a contribution to propose a classical general equilibrium system of prices with circulating capital to be expected to offer different qualities, by including probabilities for the inputs can come effectively to the development of products. Its background contributions came from Sraffa s contribution (1960), Cuevas (2001), Montoya and Montoya (2005), and Montoya and Montoya (2007). The paper resumes the main contributions leading to a system like the one proposed, then seeks to introduce in the analysis the problem of considering the qualities, inspired by Von NeumannMorgenstern s utility function used in information economics, and finally insinuates a proposal and sets out briefly the main implications of the same. Keyword: classical economics, circulating capital, price formation. JEL Codes: A1, B4, E3
Stochastic Growth and Factor Income Risk

Abstract This paper examines the effects of aggregate factor income risk in a tractable version of the stochastic Romer endogenous growth model. Labor supply is endogenous. The presence of labor income risk unambiguously increases savings and growth due to precautionary motives. Households not only underaccumulate but also work less along the balanced growth path of the competitive economy when compared with the Pareto-efficient allocation. The paper also discusses distributive disturbances for the case of inelastic labor supply. Here, growth effects are negative for empirically plausible correlations of the underlying shocks.
Communication of Private Information and the Valuation of Initial Public Offerings in Singapore

This study examines a sample of 108 initial public offerings in Singapore between 1987 and 1993, and documents the effects of four channels of entrepreneurial communication, that is, retained ownership, audited report, auditor choice and underwriter choice on the valuation of new issues. Our results indicate that retained ownership and book value of equity are significantly and positively associated with the valuation of initial public offerings in Singapore. Underwriter choice and auditor choice are not significant in explaining the valuation of initial public offerings. Issues listed on the Main Board are valued higher than those on Sesdaq (Stock Exchange of Singapore Dealing and Automated Quotation). Firms choosing the auction system are valued higher than those choosing the fixed system. This paper provides evidence on the valuation of new issues in an emerging market in the Asia‐Pacific region. The results are of interest to investors, investment bankers and companies seeking a listing on the Singapore Stock Exchange. We provide some insights on how new issues in the Singapore market are valued.
A Random Field LIBOR Market Model

A random field LIBOR market model (RFLMM) is proposed by extending the LIBOR market model, with interest rate uncertainties modeled via a random field. First, closed‐form formulas for pricing caplet and swaption are derived. Then the random field LIBOR market model is integrated with the lognormal‐mixture model to capture the implied volatility skew/smile. Finally, the model is calibrated to cap volatility surface and swaption volatilities. Numerical results show that the random field LIBOR market model can potentially outperform the LIBOR market model in capturing caplet volatility smile and the pricing of swaptions, in addition to possessing other advantages documented in the previous literature (no need of frequent recalibration or to specify the number of factors in advance). © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 34:580–606, 2014
Efficient on-line fault-tolerance for the preconditioned conjugate gradient method

Linear system solvers are key components of many scientific applications and they can benefit significantly from modern heterogeneous computer architectures. However, such nano-scaled CMOS devices face an increasing number of reliability threats, which make the integration of fault tolerance mandatory. The preconditioned conjugate gradient method (PCG) is a very popular solver since it typically finds solutions faster than direct methods, and it is less vulnerable to transient effects. However, as latest research shows, the vulnerability is still considerable. Even single errors caused, for instance, by marginal hardware, harsh operating conditions or particle radiation can increase execution times considerably or corrupt solutions without indication. In this work, a novel and highly efficient fault-tolerant PCG method is presented. The method applies only two inner products to reliably detect errors. In case of errors, the method automatically selects between roll-back and efficient on-line correction. This significantly reduces the error detection overhead and expensive re-computations.
Quantal analysis of excitatory synapses in rat hippocampal CA1 In Vitro during low‐frequency depression

1 We have performed a detailed quantal analysis of excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) evoked by minimal extracellular stimulation in the CA1 region of slices of adult rat hippocampus maintained in vitro. 2 EPSPs were evoked at 2–5 Hz, and the eight that were analysed all showed at least a 50 % depression of mean peak amplitude during recording. 3 EPSP amplitude fluctuations were analysed by three methods: the use of amplitude frequency histograms with clear and reliable peaks where available, graphs of the EPSP (coefficient of variation)−2 against EPSP mean, and analysis of EPSP mean and standard deviation assuming simple binomial statistics with the number of release sites (N) kept constant but the quantal size (Q) and the release probability (Pr) allowed to vary over time. 4 The results of the three analysis procedures were in good agreement. Seven EPSPs showed a substantial reduction in the mean number of quanta released per trial, and in three cases this was the predominant mechanism of the depression. Five EPSPs showed a substantial decrease in Q. Values for N ranged between 3 and 18, with a median of 6; Pr ranged between 0.14 and 0.81 and Q between 66 and 275 μV. 5 We used the Q estimates from the binomial method to correct the recorded EPSP amplitudes for changes in quantal size over time. For seven out of the eight EPSPs, this rescaling procedure allowed histograms with clear peaks to be obtained from longer runs of data, or improved the sharpness of the peaks in histograms from all the recorded data. The improvement in peak sharpness was assessed using an autocorrelation‐based method. The correction was much less successful if the Q estimates were obtained with a variant of the binomial method in which Pr was held constant and N was allowed to vary. 6 The only simple explanation for the success of the correction procedure is that changes in quantal size were a major factor in obscuring peaks in histograms based on large numbers of trials, and that the quantal size estimates from the binomial method with N held constant were reasonably accurate. 7 We conclude that transmission at these synapses was quantal with relatively low quantal variance, but repetitive stimulation often induced substantial changes in the quantal parameters that might prevent the success of conventional quantal analysis approaches.
Inverted Yield Curve and Performance of Stocks of Different Market Capitalizations

This paper investigates in the context of the Indian markets the linkage between the effects of an inverted yield curve and the performance of stocks of different market capitalizations i.e. the small, big and mid-cap stocks for the period 2007–09. An attempt was made to find out if there is any particular stock group that performed significantly well during the period of inverted yield curve and more specifically if there is a ‘Big Firm Effect’ associated with the Yield Curve Inversion wherein the Big-cap stocks outperform the mid and the small stocks in the post inversion period. The study indicates that in the case of Indian markets there is no Big firm Effect associated with the inverted yield-curve phenomenon which is unlike the results of the studies based on the US market. Thus the investors in the Indian market should be careful while taking any investment decision based on the inverted yield curve phenomenon as its role and implications are quite different here in India as opposed to the developed markets like the USA.
Congestion Costs and Congestion Pricing for the Twin Cities

This report offers an economic analysis of the impact of road pricing. Optimal pricing of congested roads would produce substantial revenues and efficiency gains. However, the direct effect road pricing would be to make most drivers worse off, particularly those with low incomes. In the Twin Cities, pricing all congested roads optimally would generate $1.50 - $1.75 in revenues for each dollar of additional costs to travelers. The revenues offer a source of potential funding to compensate those who lose while leaving appreciable toll revenues for highway improvements and other public purposes. The authors believe that unless such toll-revenue redistribution occurs, opposition to road pricing will be substantial. Researchers calculated network equilibria for a variety of congestion pricing and analyzed these potential income distributional effects.