Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Technology Transfer in the International Climate Change Negotiations: Assessment of Proposals and Discussion of Open Questions

This study provides an assessment of the state of international negotiations on technology transfer following the UNFCCC meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009. The study identifies areas of consensus and convergence in the negotiations, and it highlights continued sources of controversy. The study evaluates several aspects of a prospective post-Copenhagen agreement on technology transfer against experience and insights contained in the academic literature. It provides guidance for negotiators as they debate how to operationalize and implement an international framework for technology in the wake of the Copenhagen Accord and leading to COP 16 in Mexico. Lastly, it gives an in-depth assessment of two of the remaining areas significant disagreement between Parties – intellectual property rights and monitoring, reporting, and verification – and offers some suggestions for a constructive way forward.
Virtual metering for Virtual PHEV aggregation

Technically sustainable solutions for integration of (PH)EVs in Smart Grid emerge as an important concern. We discuss the need for introduction of Virtual Aggregations supported by implementation of Virtual Meters in power system structures. We advocate our proposal with an evaluation of scenarios based on realistic data. The structure and functionalities of the Virtual Aggregator, as well as proposed enhancements on the Smart Grid side, are presented.
Localization and mobility of glucose-coated gold nanoparticles within the brain.

AIM To identify the localization of glucose-coated gold nanoparticles within cells of the brain after intravascular infusion which may point to the mechanism by which they cross the blood-brain barrier. MATERIALS & METHODS Tissue distribution of the nanoparticles was measured by inductively-coupled-mass spectrometry and localization within the brain by histochemistry and electron microscopy. RESULTS & CONCLUSION Nanoparticles were identified within neurons and glial cells more than 10 μm from the nearest microvessel within 10 min of intracarotid infusion. Their distribution indicated movement across the endothelial cytosol, and direct transfer between cells of the brain. The rapid movement of this class of nanoparticle (<5 nm) into the brain demonstrates their potential to carry therapeutic biomolecules or imaging reagents.
Efficient IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBee standard hardware design for IoT applications

The increasing industrial demand for low data-rate and low power networking protocols for IoT communications from past several years led to the development of ZigBee technology. As a result of advancement in VLSI technologies, development of more power efficient, accurate, and small digital ZigBee transmitter design has become achievable but yet challenging. This paper presents digital design and FPGA PoC implementation for the 2.4 GHz-band digital ZigBee transmitter. The proposed hardware design of the transmitter described by utilizing Verilog Hardware Description Language and the prototype implementation is done by employing Xilinx Vivado 2016.2. The paper demonstrates the design of the four building blocks of an energy efficient digital ZigBee transmitter; i.e. cyclic redundancy check, bit-to-symbol block, symbol-to-chip block, and offset quadrature phase shift keying Modulator. Simulation waveform verifies functionality of the transmitter and its low power and low data-rate suitability for Internet of Things' applications.
Dap1p, a Heme-Binding Protein That Regulates the Cytochrome P450 Protein Erg11p/Cyp51p in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

ABSTRACT Alkylating agents chemically modify DNA and cause mutations that lead to cancer. In the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, resistance to the alkylating agent methyl methanesulfonate (MMS) is mediated in part by Dap1p (damage resistance protein 1). Dap1p is related to cytochrome b 5, which activates cytochrome P450 proteins, elevating the metabolism of lipids and xenobiotic compounds. We have found that Dap1p, like cytochrome b 5, binds to heme and that Dap1p targets the cytochrome P450 protein Erg11p/Cyp51p. Genetic analysis indicates that Erg11p acts downstream of Dap1p. Furthermore, Dap1p regulates the stability of Erg11p, and Erg11p is stabilized in dap1Δ cells by the addition of heme. Thus, Dap1p utilizes heme to stabilize Erg11p, which in turn regulates ergosterol synthesis and MMS resistance. Dap1p homologues have been identified in numerous eukaryotes, including mammals, suggesting that the Dap1p-cytochrome P450 protein pathway is broadly conserved in eukaryotic species.
Somatotopy in the Human Motor Cortex Hand Area. A High‐Resolution Functional MRI Study

Fine‐scale somatotopic encoding in brain areas devoted to sensorimotor processing has recently been questioned by functional neuroimaging studies which suggested its absence within the hand area of the human primary motor cortex. We re‐examined this issue by addressing somatotopy both in terms of functional segregation and of cortical response preference using oxygenation‐sensitive magnetic resonance imaging at high spatial resolution. In a first step, spatial representations of self‐paced isolated finger movements were mapped by using motor rest as a control state. A subsequent experimental design studied the predominance of individual finger movements by using contrasting finger movements as the control task. While the first approach confirmed previous reports of extensive overlap in spatial representations, the second approach revealed foci of differential activation which displayed an orderly mediolateral progression in accordance with the classical cortical motor homunculus. We conclude that somatotopy within the hand area of the primary motor cortex does not present as qualitative functional segregation but as quantitative predominance of certain movement or digit representation embedded in an overall joint hand area.
OMB and the Hazards of Presidential Staff Work

This article assesses the dilemmas (especially perceptions of politicization) confronting the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as an institutional staff unit that serves both the immediate political needs of an incumbent president and the long-range needs of the presidency. Observers of American politics have long recognized the central role that the OMB plays through its fiscal and legislative clearance, program coordination and development, budget preparation, and to a lesser extent, executive management functions. Indeed, the Office of Management and Budget is the most highly developed administrative coordinating and program review unit in the Executive Office. Recent events, however, have tarnished OMB's image as a once impartial and objective presidential staff agency. During the Watergate period OMB was referred to as the Office of Meddling and Bumbling, an appellation characterizing its almost intolerable interference into the internal management processes of departments and, agencies. Moreover, by the conclusion of the Nixon administration, all perceptions of OMB's neutrality had been dispelled. President Ford's transition team accused OMB of becoming too involved in departmental policy processes and of uncharacteristically politicizing the budgetary decisionmaking process. The Congressional Budget Office, House and Senate budget committees, statutory curbs on impoundment, and confirmation requirements for the OMB Director and Deputy Director were intended by Congress to serve as mechanisms for improving OMB's responsiveness to its non-presidential clients. The charges against Bert Lance did nothing to improve the stature of this once proud presidential staff agency. The perceived politicization of OMB disheartened those who valued OMB's predecessor, the Bureau of the Budget (BOB), as the bastion for "neutral competence" in American government-an American equivalent to the British civil service cadre at Whitehall. ' In its staff capacity, the BOB also faced the danger of overextending its responsibilities into the political and operating levels (the source of OMB's credibility problem) or narrowing its role and viewpoint through concentration on routine details. Nevertheless, from 1921 to 1970 the BOB lived, at times tenuously, with these occupational hazards and, aside from "greeneyeshade" or "abominable no-man" jokes, escaped public notoriety. If a budget director was sometimes used as a presidential fire fighter on pressing political issues, the Budget Bureau as an institution was rarely looked to or perceived as a source of partisan support. The Politicization of OMB: An Ink Blot Test
Efficient fault collapsing via generalized dominance relations

Fault collapsing of a fault-set helps in obtaining smaller test-sets as well as in reducing fault-simulation times. In this paper, we propose two new theorems by making use of the generalized dominance relations exhibited by a pair of faults. In order to learn several unique requirements for the faults in a low-cost manner, we employ a fault-independent analysis and propose heuristics to reduce the number of fault-pair comparisons required. Experimental results on ISCAS85, 89 & 93 benchmarks show that significantly more faults can be collapsed as compared to the existing methods, with smaller run-times in many cases. For most circuits, collapsing to less than 30% of the total number of faults is achieved
Understanding foreign students’ continuance intention toward mobile telecommunication service: an integrative theoretical model

Mobile telecommunications service providers are facing greater pressure to increase continuance intention among their customers. At the same time, the number of foreign students studying Mandarin in Taiwan is increasing. However, there is no research on and discussion of factors affecting these students’ continuance intention in Taiwan’s mobile telecommunications industry. This study therefore uses the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the expectancy disconfirmation model (EDM) to explain the factors affecting foreign students’ intention to continue using mobile telecommunications services. A web-based questionnaire survey is used to collect the primary data, and structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the proposed research model. The empirical results find that the three constructs of TPB (i.e. attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) and the satisfaction construct of EDM have a significant and positive impact on foreign students’ continuance intention toward mobile telecommunications services. This study will enable Taiwan’s mobile telecommunications companies to adjust their marketing strategies to increase foreign students’ continuance intention. To cite this document: Chia-Lin Hsu, Yu-Hsiang Lin, Mei-Fang Chen, and Kamaporn Suraphatchara, " UNDERSTANDING FOREIGN STUDENTS’ CONTINUANCE INTENTION TOWARD MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICE: AN INTEGRATED THEORETICAL MODEL ", International Journal of Electronic Commerce Studies, Vol.9, No.2, pp.93-118, 2018. Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi. org/10.7903/ijecs.1601
The Role of Time in Fast-Food Purchasing Behavior in the United States

Meals, snacks, and beverages purchased at fast-food restaurants account for an increasingly large share of a typical American’s food budget and have been blamed for Americans’ expanding waistlines and poor diet quality. This study uses data from the 2003-11 American Time Use Survey to examine the effects of time-use behaviors, prices, sociodemographic characteristics, labor force participation, and prices on fast-food purchasing patterns in the United States before and after the Great Recession. Fast-food purchasers spend less time sleeping, doing housework, eating and drinking, and watching television than nonpurchasers, and more time traveling from place to place. They also tend to have higher incomes and higher education levels. While the time that Americans spent eating out at all restaurants declined during and after the 2007-09 recession, the share of the population eating at fast-food restaurants on a given day stayed fairly constant, seemingly unaffected by the economic downturn, but the share for sit-down restaurants declined.
Synaptogenesis in the primary visual cortex of the tree shrew (Tupaia belangeri)

The primary visual cortex of the tree shrew is characterized by the lack of ocular dominance columns. The two eyes are represented in sublayers of laminae 3 and 4. In an earlier study using the transneuronal transport we observed that the geniculate afferents from the two eyes do not initially overlap and then segregate into their appropriate sublaminae. The final distribution pattern can already be observed during the early postnatal period. Since segregation and elimination of afferent terminal branches do not seem to take place, we wanted to investigate whether or not an overproduction of synapses can be observed as in several other animals. We examined layers 3B, 3C, 4A, and 4B, which receive afferents from the retina via the lateral geniculate nucleus, from P5 to maturity by using the electron microscope. The brain tissue was excised in the region where the central vision is represented in adult animals. Then we determined the density of synapses per 100 μm2 neuropil for each of the four sublayers at the ages P5, P15, P19, P23, P31, and P42 and in the adult animal (AD). In determining the neuropil we measured the size of two additional compartments, i.e., the compartments consisting of perikarya and of blood vessels. At a higher resolution we determined the fraction of Gray type I and type II synapses in each sublamina and in each developmental stage.
User Association Based Cooperative Energy-Saving Mechanism in Heterogeneous 5G Access Networks

To reduce the energy consumption in heterogeneous 5G access networks, we propose a cooperative energy-saving mechanism based on user association (UA-CESM). Joint processing (JP) and centralized resource scheduling are introduced into the mechanism to solve inadequate coverage problem caused by base-station (BS) dormancy by means of cooperative BS selection and BS state control. First, the number of candidate dormant BSs is obtained on the basis of statistical traffic valley. Second, for heterogeneous cellular networks with relays, a BS selection model is designed to find cooperative BS set and a candidate dormant BS group. Finally, an energy-saving optimization strategy based on bipartite graph is proposed to realize user association from candidate dormant BSs to appropriate cooperative BSs. The simulation results show that the average rate of edge users is increased by 92.5%, and the coverage can be compensated without extra transmission power in the proposed mechanism.
THE RATING AGENCIES IN THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

The internationalization of the economy, the integration of national markets for goods, services and capital, the internationalization of production and generally augmentation of international movement of factors of production and the growing economic interdependence in recent decades have caused a rapid increase in the construction and use of indicators for assessing countries. Typically the comparative evaluation of countries is conducting, using simple or complex indicators, based on quantitative and / or qualitative variables. The results of comparative evaluation of counties usually concern the policy makers, markets and public opinion. The concentration of information in an index seems to have a practical significance and facilitate comparison between countries. From the position that a country conceives in the list of evaluation has certain economic and political implications. The different evaluation systems (indicators) of countries have however advantages and disadvantages. Many organizations for example publish indicators for the competitiveness of countries. Widely known indicators are competitiveness of World Economic Forum (WEF, Geneva) and the Institute for Management Development (IMD, Lausanne). There are also indicators of corruption, bureaucracy and regulations, investment climate, political risks and security risks. Agencies and organizations like the World Bank, IMF, EU and the OECD publish indicators often for a number of specific issues. The indicators and assessment methods of countries are often the basis for empirical economic research, data useful for counseling policy and guide action. For governments evaluation of countries is an important form of information. The advantage is that the indicators reflect complex relationships of world economy. The advantage is at the same time the disadvantage. And this is because they provide only general information. The aim of this article is to evaluate the importance of rating agencies to the configuration of world economy. For this reason, we will study the historical development of rating agencies and the causes of this development. The article also examines the issue of interest conflict and the potential impacts to state economies. Finally, it is examined the impact of rating agencies to international economic crisis.
The 2007-9 Financial Crisis: an Endogenous-Money view*

This paper addresses two structural failings underlying the development of the situation that led to the 2007–9 financial crisis, that is to say, the absence (i) of a structural divide concerning banking activities, and (ii) of an institution for the international settlement of cross-border transactions. The huge crisis of finance-dominated capitalism that resulted thereby calls for all banks to departmentalize their operations in order to be transparent, according to the object of those payments that they carry out for their own sake or their clients’. The source of inspiration in this regard is the “Bank Act” (1844) requiring the Bank of England to separate all of its activities into an issue department and a financial department. In the spirit of Keynes’s Plan (1942), this paper also calls for the creation of an institution issuing an international currency, requiring that any country, including the United States, finally pays for all its net commercial imports in disposing of claims that provide their holders with the right to withdraw a part of current or future output of the surrendering country. The result of these monetary-structural reforms will be a domestic and an international payments system whose workings are in line with the (endogenous) nature of bank money.
The Renin‐Angiotensin System Normal Physiology and Changes in Older Hypertensives

The long‐term effects of angiotensin (ANGII) on arterial pressure regulation appear to be closely linked to volume homeostasis, via the renal‐pressure natriuresis mechanism, both in normal humans and in older hypertensives. In response to disturbances such as increased sodium intake, suppression of ANGII and aldosterone formation greatly amplifies the effectiveness of the pressure natriuresis mechanism, thereby preventing large increases in body fluid volumes and minimizing the rise in blood pressure needed to maintain sodium balance. When ANGII levels are inappropriately elevated, the antinatriuretic effects of ANGII cause increased arterial pressure, which then serves to maintain sodium and water balance via the pressure natriuresis mechanism. The primary intrarenal and extrarenal mechanisms by which ANGII controls renal excretion and arterial pressure include: (1) a direct effect of ANGII on tubular sodium transport; (2) a preferential constrictor action of ANGII on efferent arterioles, which increases sodium reabsorption by altering peritubular capillary physical forces (efferent arteriolar constriction also prevents excessive decreases in glomerular filtration rate when renal perfusion is compromised, such as in renal artery stenosis); and (3) extrarenal effects of ANGII, including stimulation of aldosterone secretion. Current evidence suggests that the direct effects of ANGII on the kidney are quantitatively more important than indirect effects mediated by aldosterone. In older hypertensives, plasma renin activity and aldosterone concentration are often suppressed, perhaps due to loss of functional nephrons and increased sodium chloride delivery to the macula densa of the remaining nephrons. The observation that converting enzyme inhibition lowers arterial pressure in older hypertensives, even when plasma renin activity is normal or slightly reduced, suggests that even small amounts of ANGII may be important in maintaining arterial pressure.
Association of protein with the cell wall of Streptococcus mutans

Cell walls from Streptococcus mutans were prepared by conventional technique and subjected to a series of extraction procedures involving classical protein solvents. The extracted walls contained several non-peptidoglycan amino acids and were also amenable to radiolabeling with [125I]sodium iodide and chloramine T. The cell walls could be chemically modified with tetranitromethane and diazo-1H-tetrazole, suggesting the presence of tyrosine or histidine or both. Flourescence spectra of the walls revealed the presence of either tyrosine or tryptophan. Several proteases, including pronase, trypsin, subtilisin, and proteinase K, removed some of the label from the walls. In contrast, treatment of the walls with salts or denaturants did not result in the solubilization of label. When the walls were solubilized with mutanolysin and subjected to chromatography, three peaks of radioactivity with apparent molecular weights of 73,000, 39,000, and 9,600 were observed. Wall digests subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed a single band of radioactivity corresponding to an apparent molecular weight of 79,000. Isoelectric focusing of labeled wall digest gave rise to two major bands of radioactivity with isoelectric points of approximately 2.4 and 5.6. The results suggest that the cell wall of S. mutans contains tightly and possibley covalently bound polypeptide molecules. We propose that the cell wall polypeptides of S. mutans serve as factors in the attachment of the bacteria to smooth surfaces.
The contribution of oxidative stress in apoptosis of human‐cultured astroglial cells induced by supernatants of HIV‐1‐infected macrophages

Apoptosis of neurons and astrocytes has been found in patientsundergoing AIDS dementia complex. We demonstrated that supernatantsfrom human primary macrophages (M/M) infected by HIV‐1 lead humanastroglial cells to oxidative stress, as shown by elevated levels ofmalondialdehyde, and then to apoptosis. Electron microscopy ofastrocytes shortly incubated with HIV‐1‐infected M/M supernatantsshowed apoptotic blebbing, cytoplasmic loss, and chromatincondensation. Apoptosis was antagonized by pretreating astrocytes withthe nonpeptidic superoxide dismutase (SOD) mimetic M40401 but notwith anti‐HIV‐1 compounds, thus showing that apoptosis of astrocytesdriven by HIV‐1‐infected M/M supernatants is mainly mediated byabnormal production of superoxide anions without relationship to HIV‐1replication in such cells. Overall results support the role ofoxidative stress mediated by HIV‐1‐infected M/M as one of the leadingcauses of neurodegeneration in patients with HIV‐1 and suggest the useof nonpeptidic SOD mimetics to counteract HIV‐1‐related neurologicaldisorders.