Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring the hydroelectric regularization capacity of the Brazilian hydrothermal system

The storage capacity (or “regularization capacity”) of a hydro system refers essentially to its capability of transferring excess inflow energy from wet to dry seasons. The Brazilian hydro power system is formed by hundreds of reservoirs capable of multi-year storage capacity. Historically, this has been measured in the Brazilian Power System in terms of the duration of the critical period, which in turn is obtained from optimization models that calculate the firm energy (FE) of hydroelectric systems. These models, however, only represent the hydroelectric system explicitly and do not take into account the synergy between hydro and thermal plants. This synergy can be an important aspect in defining the storage capacity of the hydrothermal system. The objective of this article is: (i) to define a methodology for measuring the regularization capacity of a generation system; (ii) to analyze by this measure the current regularization capacity of the Brazilian system; and (iii) to analyze the impact of the development of large-scale run-of-the-river hydro plants that are in the pipeline to start commissioning in the next years.
Your Day in 'Wiki-Court': ADR, Fairness, and Justice in Wikipedia's Global Community

Wikipedia has quickly become the largest volume of collected knowledge on the planet, but it is also one of the busiest centers for dispute resolution in the world. From small groups of individuals negotiating article changes on “talk pages”, to the involvement of hundreds of people in the formation of the community consensuses needed to implement new policies, to the use of binding arbitration to create final conflict resolutions, the Wikipedia community has developed a complex network of norms and rules that funnel all disagreements and intractable differences through a series of progressively more involved dispute resolution processes. I provide an overview and analysis of the dispute resolution processes used by the community and will look to the successes and limitation of these processes. A number of flaws will be identified including the ability for vocal minorities to dominate the Wikipedia community consensus. A systemic bias will be identified in the behavioural landscape of the community and, finally, it will become apparent that there is room for growth in the website’s inclusiveness, primarily through addressing the logistical realities of a potential user’s access to the time, materials, and knowledge needed to become a contributing member of the Wikipedia community.
From Spatial to Local: The Impact of the European Union on Local Authority Planning in the UK

In 1998 the Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning issued a statement which argued that the European context for planning had been largely missing from the planning system in England. This paper explores the impact of European Union (EU) membership on the practice of local authority planning in the UK. The research was based on nine local planning authorities in England, Scotland and Wales. The results indicate that EU membership has exerted a direct and indirect influence on planning at the local level. A classification of EU influences on local planning activities is developed. The research also indicates that the scope and structure of the UK planning system are being influenced by EU membership. There is considerable emphasis on the role of planning as a tool for sustainable development, and the development of environmental quality standards, coupled with existing policies in the sphere of nature conservation, present a challenge to the traditional approach of the UK planning system of balancing all material considerations.
Perspectives of legal regulation and employment relations at the workplace: Limits and challenges for employee voice

This article examines how employee voice is understood by both scholars of labour law and of industrial relations. While there is a sophisticated literature on employee participation and involvement in employment relations scholarship, there is an absence of consideration of legal perspectives. The article addresses this gap in the literature by first examining how employee voice is used to explain and critique workplace practices in the dominant and emerging employment relations scholarship, and then critically considering how dominant legal theories refer to and confine understandings of employee participation. The article examines each field through its discipline, method, approach, content and limits. It concludes that the scope of these disciplines is very different, and that they might be regarded as fraternal rather than identical twins. Finally, some questions are raised about the challenges for research in developing an interdisciplinary scholarship of employee voice.
UK brokers' characteristics: does size matter?

Abstract This study provides one of the first insights into how UK brokers' institutional characteristics may impact on the forecasting performance of their financial analysts. The study focuses on brokerage house size and finds it to be a significant factor explaining cross sectional variation in forecasting performance. This is consistent with evidence from several recent US studies (Jacob et al. 1997; Clement, 1999). It is likely that this broker-size effect reflects the resources (human, IT) available to brokers' analysts to support them in their activities. It may also reflect larger brokers' superior access to company managers and information. However, this broker-size effect appears to be significant only for forecasts made at horizons of one year or less. The sign of the earnings change being predicted also has a significant impact: for observations where earnings changes are negative, the broker-size effect is larger than for positive changes, though the effect is significant for both cases. In addition, the form of the model employed here suggests diminishing marginal returns to broker size. More generally, this study reiterates the importance of controlling for the most commonly cited explanatory variables for forecast accuracy, and there is evidence that the heavy industry sectors may be more difficult to forecast, echoing the conclusions of UK studies from the 1980s.
Lipocalin-2 plasmatic levels are reduced in patients with long-term type 2 diabetes mellitus.

BACKGROUND De-regulation of adipocytokines synthesis and secretion appears to be involved in the pathogenesis of different metabolic diseases. AIMS We assessed a possible association between plasmatic levels of lipocalin-2 (LCN2) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), as well as among levels of LCN2 and those of adiponectin, ghrelin, leptin and resistin, in Mexican diabetic patients. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Fifty-three healthy individuals and fifty-three with long-term T2DM were included. Measurements from all patients for BMI, fasting glucose, insulin, lipids and adipocytokine profiles were obtained. RESULTS Comparison of data between the corresponding for diabetic subjects and those of healthy individuals showed significant differences in every anthropometric and metabolic parameter analyzed (P < 0.001). In diabetic subjects, lipocalin-2 and ghrelin plasmatic levels were statistically diminished (P < 0.001) in comparison with the levels registered in healthy subjects. In conclusion, in this study we found that LCN2 plasmatic levels are reduced in Mexican subjects with long-term diabetes and this reduction in circulating concentrations is similar to the one reported for anti-inflammatory adipocytokines, which suggests that lipocalin-2 is somehow involved in insulin resistance and cardiometabolic alterations through an uncharacterized mechanism generated by the inflammation process.
Extraction and reconstruction of retinal vasculature

Information about retinal vasculature morphology is used in grading the severity and progression of diabetic retinopathy. An image analysis system can help ophthalmologists make accurate and efficient diagnoses. This paper presents the development of an image processing algorithm for detecting and reconstructing retinal vasculature. The detection of the vascular structure is achieved by image enhancement using contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization followed by the extraction of the vessels using bottom-hat morphological transformation. For reconstruction of the complete retinal vasculature, a region growing technique based on first-order Gaussian derivative is developed. The technique incorporates both gradient magnitude change and average intensity as the homogeneity criteria that enable the process to adapt to intensity changes and intensity spread over the vasculature region. The reconstruction technique reduces the required number of seeds to near optimal for the region growing process. It also overcomes poor performance of current seed-based methods, especially with low and inconsistent contrast images as normally seen in vasculature regions of fundus images. Simulations of the algorithm on 20 test images from the DRIVE database show that it outperforms many other published methods and achieved an accuracy range (ability to detect both vessel and non-vessel pixels) of 0.91 – 0.95, a sensitivity range (ability to detect vessel pixels) of 0.91 – 0.95 and a specificity range (ability to detect non-vessel pixels) of 0.88 – 0.94.
The dual role of p55 tumour necrosis factor‐α receptor in Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans‐induced experimental periodontitis: host protection and tissue destruction

Inflammatory immune reactions in response to periodontopathogens are thought to protect the host against infection, but may trigger periodontal destruction. Thus, we examined the mechanisms by which the proinflammatory cytokine tumour necrosis factor (TNF)‐α modulates the outcome of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans‐induced periodontal disease in mice. Our results showed that TNF‐α receptor p55‐deficient mice [p55TNF‐knock‐out (KO)] developed a less severe periodontitis in response to A. actinomycetemcomitans infection, characterized by significantly less alveolar bone loss and inflammatory reaction. Real‐time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) demonstrated that levels of chemokines (CXCL1, 3 and 10; CCL3 and 5) and their receptors (CXCR2 and 3, CCR5) were lower in p55TNF‐KO mice, as were matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)‐1, 2 and 9 and receptor activator of nuclear factor kB ligand (RANKL) mRNA levels. However, the absence of the TNF‐α p55 results in an impairment of protective immunity to A. actinomycetemcomitans infection, characterized by increased bacterial load and higher levels of C‐reactive protein during the course of disease. Such impaired host response may be the result of the reduced chemoattraction of lymphocytes, neutrophils and macrophages, and reduced inducible nitric oxide synthase expression (iNOS) and myeloperoxidase (MPO) production in periodontal tissues of p55 TNF‐KO mice. Our results demonstrate the mechanisms involved determining periodontal disease severity by TNF‐α receptor p55, and its role in providing immune protection to A. actinomycetemcomitans periodontal infection.
Information Impact and Allocation Rules in Auctions with Affiliated Private Values: A Laboratory Study

In affiliated private value auctions, each bidder has perfect information regarding own value for the object at auction, but higher values of the item for one bid der make higher values for rivals more likely. The authors report on a series of experiments examining the following predictions: (1) in a first-price auction, public information about rivals valuations incr eases expected revenue, (2) an English auction institution increases expected revenue, (2) an English auction institution increases expect ed revenue compared to a first-price auction, and (3) a second-price auction is isomorphic to an English auction institution. Predictive a dequacy of several ad hoc bidding models are compared with Nash equil ibrium predictions. Copyright 1987 by The Econometric Society.
Management of insomnia.

The general physician is the most appropriate person to evaluate and treat patients presenting with the complaint of insomnia. However, there has recently been an overemphasis on the need for patients to be evaluated in sleep disorders clinics, particularly in their sleep laboratories. These sleep laboratory evaluations are expensive and time consuming, and often con­ tribute only minimally to the overall management of the insomniac patient. In fact, they may even detract from the comprehensive psychiatric, neuro­ logical, pharmacological, and general medical approac:h that is necessary for the effective management of insomnia. The primary goal of sleep disor­ ders clinics and their staff should be to supplement and enhance the general physician's ability to evaluate and treat patients with sleep disorders, partic­ ularly insomnia, the most common sleep disorder (1). This review is de­ signed to strengthen the physician's ability to more rationally and effectively evaluate and treat the condition of insomnia in his office practice. Thus, clinical and laboratory findings are presented, the causative factors of in­ somnia are defined, assessment guidelines are delineated, and appropriate treatment methods are reviewed.
Democratizing Bureaucracy: The Political Economy of Environmental Impact Assessment and Air Pollution Prevention Fees in Taiwan

In recent years, as many newly democratized countries have entered the phase of democratic consolidation, scholars' attention has gradually moved from studying the functional and socioeconomic prerequisites of democracy to studying the social and economic consequences of democratization.1 Research, for example, has examined democratization's impact on world peace,2 economic growth,3 and social equality.4 An equally important issue is the impact of democratization on environmental governance.5 A limited number of empirical studies documents the impact of democratization on environmental governance. In a cross-national survey Congleton showed that leaders in democratic regimes were more likely to adopt environmentally friendly policies than their counterparts in authoritarian ones.6 Silva compared environmental policies in Chile before and after its democratic transition and concluded that democratization helped improve the country's environmental protection.7 Similarly, Cole showed how environmental protection in Poland has improved since it began the transition to market democracy.8 If these few empirical studies are indicative of the general trend, the "third wave" of democratization is indeed most welcoming to those who care about global environmental protection. Yet one needs to put this good news in perspective, since much of the comparison was made between the new democracies and their authoritarian past. As documented in many previous studies, authoritarian regimes suffer from many institutional weaknesses, such as regulatory conflicts of interest and lack of public scrutiny of policy processes that make environmental protection difficult.9 It is not surprising that movement away from authoritarianism potentially has a positive impact on environmental protection. Nevertheless, the extent to which this potential can be fully realized remains an open question. Much depends not just on competitive elections and political rights, but also on institutional factors that affect the ways environmental problems are tackled. By definition, democratization is a series of partial institutional adjustments of the political system. '0 Institutional reform intended to create a governing system responsive to environmental interests may not necessarily evolve as expected. Several major obstacles may hinder the representation of environmental interests in newly democratized countries. First, democratic transitions, by definition, involve
Politics and the New American Welfare States

Federal law allows states to create new welfare policies determining who can receive welfare, what types of clients are exempted from new welfare work requirements, and the value of cash benefits. This project tests nine different theoretical explanations of welfare policy to explain why states have reacted differently to this new authority. We test these explanations on Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) policies promulgated between 1997 and 2000. Our findings confirm the strong role of race in TANF politics that Soss et al. (2001) recently reported, but we also find that other constituent characteristics, and institutions, paternalistic goals, and state resources have a consistent influence on welfare policy. These results indicate that different approaches to welfare are attributable to the unique, and very potent, combination of political characteristics in each state.
Shattered power, reconstructed coalitions : an analysis of rural labor unions in Mananhão, Brazil

During the dictatorship (1964-1985), the authoritarian political system enforced the organization of the labor movement by law in Brazil. The government aimed at keeping control of workers' organization by establishing the monopoly of their representation, centralizing control, and imposing a uniform labor structure. One prevalent argument in the literature is that this corporatist and monopolistic union structure would lead unions to be less democratic and less organized. Contrary to this mainstream thought, I found evidence that in spite of the corporatist and monopolistic regime, rural labor unions differed from each other and represented workers successfully in the state of Maranhio, Brazil, because there has been competition among unions and non-union organizations for the union leadership. Evidence presented here shows that in certain contexts the existence of monopoly unions did not constrain change and pluralism, but rather enabled competition among different streams for the union leadership. The existence of one sole labor structure forced worker-related groups to organize and compete for the leadership role within the unions' formal structure, because formal unions had human, financial, and organizational resources, and were the only organizations allowed to represent workers in judicial and administrative arenas. To compete for the leadership of the union, workers created parasyndical organizations, the so-called opposition movements, and ended-up creating internal competition. This internal competition generated a constant pressure on unions' and workers' leadership, fostering responsiveness to workers' demands. Later, during the democratization process in Brazil (after 1985), because the union monopoly persisted, the existence of non-union groups led to specialization of social action functions of the unions and other organizations. These groups included political parties, non-governmental organizations, and the Catholic Church. In the places where there were a variety of such groups, strong external competition between unions and non-union organizations took place and increased the pressure for improved performance of unions and, at the same time, increased the stock of social capital that kept unions responsive to the workers' demands. Thesis Supervisor: Judith Tendler Title: Professor of Political Economy
Liquidity Shocks and the Great Depression: Comment on "The Great Depression and the Friedman-Schwartz Hypothesis"

This ambitious and intriguing paper by Lawrence Christiano, Roberto Motto, and Massimo Rostagno (2003, this issue of JMCB) (hereafter CMM) addresses the two central questions about the U.S. Great Depression: Why was the Depression so severe (real GNP per adult fell 38% relative to the trend between 1929 and 1933), and why was the recovery from the Depression so weak (output remained 27% below trend in 1939)? CMM propose a provocative answer to the first question and reach conclusions about the second question similar to those in recent studies of New Deal labor and industrial policies. Since the primary contribution of the paper is to propose a new, quantiatively important shock for 1929–33, I will focus my discussion on their analysis of the first question. Because of its remarkable severity and duration, accounting for the Great Depression (1929–33) requires either very large and persistent shocks within a standard business cycle model or an alternative model in which shocks have much larger and more persistent effects than in a standard model. Recent analyses have followed the first approach by identifying abnormally large shocks during the depression and analyzing the consequences of those shocks in standard models. These studies have focused either on productivity shocks (see Cole, Ohanian, and Leung 2003) or shocks that affect the gap between the marginal rate of substitution between consumption and leisure and the real wage (see Bordo, Erceg, and Evans, 2000, Mulligan, 2002). Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (2003) show that a standard business cycle model can account for much of the Great Depression when both of these shocks are included in a standard model, with productivity playing the major role.
Molecular paleontology of transposable elements in the Drosophila melanogaster genome

We report here a superfamily of “cut and paste” DNA transposons called Transib. These transposons populate the Drosophila melanogaster and Anopheles gambiae genomes, use a transposase that is not similar to any known proteins, and are characterized by 5-bp target site duplications. We found that the fly genome, which was thought to be colonized by the P element <100 years ago, harbors ≈5 million year (Myr)-old fossils of ProtoP, an ancient ancestor of the P element. We also show that Hoppel, a previously reported transposable element (TE), is a nonautonomous derivate of ProtoP. We found that the “rolling-circle” Helitron transposons identified previously in plants and worms populate also insect genomes. Our results indicate that Helitrons were horizontally transferred into the fly or/and mosquito genomes. We have also identified a most abundant TE in the fly genome, DNAREP1_DM, which is an ≈10-Myr-old footprint of a Penelope-like retrotransposon. We estimated that TEs are three times more abundant than reported previously, making up ≈22% of the whole genome. The chromosomal and age distributions of TEs in D. melanogaster are very similar to those in Arabidopsis thaliana. Both genomes contain only relatively young TEs (<20 Myr old), constituting a main component of paracentromeric regions.
Soviet-U.S. Joint Ventures: Pioneers on a New Frontier

The Soviet Union's recent embrace of joint ventures as a form of private international cooperation has attracted enormous attention. Despite all the fanfare, few joint ventures have commenced operations. This article probes the negotiations for and operations of sixteen Soviet-U.S. joint ventures that have persevered and commenced operations. These joint ventures are the pioneers on this new frontier.
Stimulation of bone resorption by inflamed nasal mucosa, dermonecrotic toxin-containing conditioned medium from Pasteurella multocida, and purified dermonecrotic toxin from P. multocida

The effects of inflamed nasal mucosa from pigs with atrophic rhinitis (AR), cell extract from Bordetella bronchiseptica, conditioned medium from Pasteurella multocida, and purified dermonecrotic toxin (DNT) from P. multocida on mouse fetal long bones in organ culture were studied. Inflamed nasal "AR mucosa" stimulated the release of 45Ca from prelabeled cultures, while histologically the formation of calcified matrix was impaired as well. B. bronchiseptica cell extract only transiently increased 45Ca release, but also impaired the formation of matrix. 45Ca release was also stimulated by DNT-containing conditioned medium from P. multocida and by purified DNT. The effect of DNT was biphasic: low doses (1 to 25 ng/ml) slightly stimulated bone resorption, higher doses were inhibitory. The stimulatory action of DNT on 45Ca release was accompanied by an increase in numbers of preosteoclasts and osteoclasts. The significance of these findings for the pathogenesis of AR is discussed.