Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Viscosity Solutions on Lagrangian Manifolds and Connections with Tunnelling Operators

We consider a geometrical approach to constructing viscosity solutions to Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations. This takes the Lagrangian manifold M on which the characteristic curves for the Cauchy problem lie and forms a viscosity solution V as the minimum of the generating functions of the branches of M lying over state space. This construction is well-known in the case of finite time variational problems. However, recent work in the literature has shown that it also works for infinite time (i.e. stationary) problems, provided the resulting function V is locally Lipschitz. This last condition is satisfied naturally in the finite time case, but is not obvious in the stationary case. We describe how, for Hamiltonians convex in the momentum variable, the local Lipschitz property follows from some natural assumptions on M, where M is of arbitrary dimension. We then discuss connections with idempotent analysis in particular that V is the log-limit of a canonical tunnelling operator constructed using a 1/h-Laplace type transform and with the concept of a graph selector from symplectic topology. Lastly we extend the construction of V to apply to non-convex Hamiltonians. 1. Constructing a viscosity solution from a Lagrangian manifold Define phase space to be the real 2n-dimensional vector space with coordinates (x, p) where x ∈ R and p ∈ R. Let M be a Lagrangian submanifold of phase space. This means that M is an n-dimensional submanifold of phase space on which the canonical two-form dp∧ dx vanishes. It follows that the one form pdx is locally exact on M . For later use, we note some further consequences of the Lagrangian property, all of which can be found in standard references on symplectic geometry such as [11, 13]. Let I denote a subset of the set {1, . , n} and Ī denote its compliment. Let x denote the set of coordinates {xi : i ∈ I} and pĪ denote the set {pk : k ∈ Ī}. Then it follows from the Lagrangian property that, at any point on M , there exists a collection of indices I such that (x , pĪ) form a local system of coordinates on M . 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 49L25, 53D12, 35B40; Secondary 81Q20.
Trading Economics: A Guide to Economic Statistics for Practitioners and Students

A practical guide to understanding how key economic and market statistics drive financial market trends The recent global financial crisis stressed the need for economists who understand how key economic and market statistics drive financial market trends and how to mitigate the risks for businesses that those trends affect. Trading Economics provides guidance for navigating key market figures in a convenient and practical format. Emphasizing the link between economic data and market movements, this book analyzes surveys, economic growth statistics, inflation, labor markets, international trade, monetary and fiscal indicators, and their relevance in financial markets. It bypasses complex terminology to offer a hands-on, accessible introduction to financial statistics and how to profit from them. Offers clear illustrations and an easy-to-read layout to teach you how to trade profitably in financial markets and minimizes risk for your business Written Trevor Williams and Victoria Turton, authoritative public figures with experience working on the New York Stock Exchange Includes a website featuring a blog and new surveys as they develop accompanies the book Complete with worked examples and updated information, Trading Economics is an essential, comprehensive guide to understanding every aspect of financial market trends and how to navigate them to your advantage.
Le transport de marchandises et la croissance économique

The link between transport and economic growth is nowadays understood behind the so-called issue of coupling. Transport intensity or transport elasticity to economic production are generally used to assess the link. In this paper, road freight intensity is decomposed into four factors. A European panel data estimation of these four factors isolates levels of coupling and levels of decoupling. We observe two factors of coupling (i. e. the rise of the average distance of transport and the increasing market share of road transport) and two factors of decoupling (the decreasing share of the industry in the economic production and the decreasing weight of industrial production).
The outset of U-I R & D relationships: the specific case of biological sciences

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw insights from the actors-resources-activities (ARA) model and social capital literature to identify relevant activities shared by university-industry (U-I) actors prior to R & D cooperation. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a qualitative methodology, a series of interviews were carried out with researchers from the biological sciences domain. Findings – This study found that, at the outset of U-I links, companies’ motivations are strongly organizational, while academics are motivated at a personal level. The interactions grow from low-risk activities to partnerships on complex tasks, and depend on relational resources framed within the ARA and social capital theories. Results showed that shared interests are present at the outset of U-I links and grow thereafter. Trust and commitment were not ubiquitous at the outset, but rather at later stages of the cooperation, as a result of the developed interdependencies. Research limitations/implications – The co.
Virtualizing HPC applications using modern hypervisors

In this paper we explore the prospects of virtualization technologies being applied to high performance computing tasks. We use an extensive set of HPC benchmarks to evaluate virtualization overhead, including HPC Challenge, NAS Parallel Benchmarks and SPEC MPI2007. We assess KVM and Palacios hypervisors and, with proper tuning of hypervisor, we reduce the performance degradation from 10-60% to 1-5% in many cases with processor cores count up to 240. At the same time, a few tests provide overhead ranging from 20% to 45% even with our enhancements. We describe the techniques necessary to achieve sufficient performance. These include host OS tuning to decrease noise level, using nested paging with large pages for efficient guest memory allocation, and proper NUMA architecture emulation when running virtual machines on NUMA hosts. Comparing KVM/QEMU and Palacios hypervisors, we conclude that in general the results with proper tuning are similar, with KVM providing more stable and predictable results while Palacios being much better on fine-grained tests at a large scale, but showing abnormal performance degradation on a few tests.
Mouse Strain Differences in Opiate Reward Learning Are Explained by Differences in Anxiety, Not Reward or Learning

Gene-targeting techniques to produce null mutations provide a powerful method for evaluating the contribution of particular candidate genes involved in motivation. The embryonic stem cell lines in which homologous recombination is undertaken are derived from 129 mice, but because of the impoverished performance of 129 mice on a number of behavioral tasks, mice chimeric for the mutation are often bred with a C57BL/6 mouse strain. Thus, an examination of both parental strains is important in the study of the knock-out mice. Although the C57BL/6 behavioral phenotype is well documented, details of the 129 phenotype have not been the focus of study until recently. We investigated opiate motivation in both 129/SvJ and C57BL/6J mouse strains to determine whether, and under what circumstances, the 129/SvJ mouse exhibited motivated behavior toward opiates. 129/SvJ mice required both drug and contextual cues to demonstrate morphine conditioned place preferences on test day, whereas C57BL/6J mice required only contextual cues to express opiate place conditioning. Pentobarbital and diazepam but not saline, cocaine, or naloxone could substitute for morphine on test day in 129/SvJ mice, demonstrating that morphine indeed has rewarding motivational valence in the 129/SvJ mouse strain. This critical, interoceptive cue in 129/SvJ mice on test day may be the anxiolytic properties of the effective drugs. Therefore, some deficits observed in 129 mice and mice harboring this genetic background may be attributed to high levels of anxiety during the retrieval period rather than to sensory, learning, or motivational deficits.
From Corpus to lexicon: from contexts to semantic features

Several natural language applications need domain-dependent semantic lexicons. However, these lexicons are not available for every domain, and their buildings must therefore be (as much as possible) automated. In this paper, we present and experiment a corpus-based methodology to automatically build a componential representation of meaning in a lexicon (Rastier 1996), without any preliminary lexical resource.
Predicting tree mortality from diameter growth : a comparison of maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches

Ecologists and foresters have long noted a link between tree growth rate and mortality, and recent work suggests that interspecific differences in low growth tolerance is a key force shaping forest structure. Little information is available, however, on the growth-mortality relationship for most species. We present three methods for estimating growth-mortality functions from readily obtainable field data. All use annual mortality rates and the recent growth rates of living and dead individuals. Annual mortality rates are estimated using both survival analysis and a Bayesian approach. Growth rates are obtained from increment cores. Growth-mortality functions are fitted using two parametric approaches and a nonparametric approach. The three methods are compared using bootstrapped confidence intervals and likelihood ratio tests. For two example species, Acer rubrum L. and Cornus florida L. , growth-mortality functions indicate a substantial difference in the two species' abilities to withstand slow growth. Bo.
Monitoring the segment parameters during long term physical training from motion capture data

The segment parameters (SP) consisting of inertia and position of the center of mass of each segment, of the human body are crucial data when one wants investigate motion dynamics. The segment parameters vary with time according to immobilization, physical training, rehabilitation, muscular diseases. This knowledge provides valuable information to support medical diagnosis and to quantify the effect of medical treatment, rehabilitation or training. However they are usually difficult to measure in-vivo for these kinds of applications and thus are not specifically used. In this paper we propose to apply a previously developed identification method in order to monitor the evolutions of those parameters over 5 months, during which the candidate followed a 16-week marathon training before running the 2009 Tokyo Marathon. The motion data is recorded on a weekly basis and the parameters are computed after each session. The obtained results are presented and the changes in body SP are discussed in the light of typical results occurring to the body fitness.
Expression and Function of Endocannabinoid Receptors in the Human Adrenal Cortex

Endogenous cannabinoids are important signaling molecules in neuroendocrine control of homeostatic and reproductive functions including stress response and energy metabolism. The hypothalamic paraventricular and supraoptic nuclei have been shown to release endocannabinoids, which act as retrograde messengers to modulate the synaptic release of glutamate during stress response. This study endeavors to elucidate possible interaction of the endocannabinoid system with the regulation of adrenocortical function at the adrenal level. Human adrenocortical NCI-H295R cells and normal human adrenal glands were used to study the possible effects of anandamide and cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) antagonist SR141716A on aldosterone and cortisol secretion. Our data indicate the expression of CB1 in human adrenal cortex and adrenocortical NCI-H295R cells; CB2 was not expressed. Furthermore, anandamide inhibited basal release and stimulated release of adrenocortical steroids (corticosterone and aldosterone); this effect was reversed by CB1 antagonist (SR141716A). Therefore, the endocannabinoid system at the level of the adrenal, can directly influence adrenocortical steroidogenesis.
Conditioned Place Preference and Aversion 1 Conditioned Place Preference and Aversion for Music in a Virtual Reality Conditioned Place Preference and Aversion for Music in a Virtual Reality

The use of a virtual reality environment (VRE) enables behavioral scientists to create different spatial contexts in which human participants behave freely, while still confined to the laboratory. In this article, VRE was used to study conditioned place preference (CPP) and aversion (CPA). In Experiment 1, half of the participants were asked to visit a house for two minutes with consonant music and then they were asked to visit an alternate house with static noise for two minutes, whereas the remaining participants did the visits in reverse order. In Experiment 2, we used the same design as Experiment 1, except for replacing consonant music with dissonant music. After conditioning in both experiments, the participants were given a choice between spending time in the two houses. In Experiment 1, participants spent more time in the house associated with the consonant music, thus showing a CPP toward that house. In Experiment 2, participants spent less time in the house associated with the dissonant music, thus showing a CPA for that house. These results support VRE as a tool to extend research on CPP/CPA in humans.
Essential Role of Sna41/Cdc45 in Loading of DNA Polymerase α onto Minichromosome Maintenance Proteins in Fission Yeast*

Assembly of replication complexes at the replication origins is strictly regulated. Cdc45p is known to be a part of the active replication complexes. In Xenopus egg extracts, Cdc45p was shown to be required for loading of DNA polymerase α onto chromatin. The fission yeast cdc45 homologue was identified as a suppressor for nda4 and named sna41. Nevertheless, it is not known how Cdc45p facilitates loading of DNA polymerase α onto chromatin, particularly to prereplicative complexes. To gain novel insight into the function of this protein in fission yeast, we characterized the fission yeast Cdc45 homologue, Sna41p. We have constructed C-terminally epitope-tagged Sna41p and Polαp and replaced the endogenous genes with the corresponding tagged genes. Analyses of protein-protein interactions in vivo by the use of these tagged strains revealed the following: Sna41p interacts with Polαp throughout the cell cycle, whereas it interacts with Mis5p/Mcm6p in the chromatin fractions at the G1-S boundary through S phase. In an initiation-defective sna41 mutant,sna41 goa1 , interaction of Polαp with Mis5p is not observed, although Polαp loading onto the chromatin that occurs before G1 START is not affected. These results show that fission yeast Sna41p facilitates the loading of Polαp onto minichromosome maintenance proteins. Our results are consistent with a model in which loading of Polαp onto replication origins occurs through two steps, namely, loading onto chromatin at preSTART and association with prereplicative complexes at G1-S through Sna41p, which interacts with minichromosome maintenance proteins in a cell cycle-dependent manner.
Excess mortality in severe mental illness: 10-year population-based cohort study in rural Ethiopia

Background Evidence on mortality in severe mental illness (SMI) comes primarily from clinical samples in high-income countries. Aims To describe mortality in people with SMI among a population cohort from a low-income country. Method We followed-up 919 adults (from 68 378 screened) with SMI over 10 years. Standardised mortality ratios (SMR) and years of life lost (YLL) as a result of premature mortality were calculated. Results In total 121 patients (13.2%) died. The overall SMR was twice that of the general population; higher for men and people with schizophrenia. Patients died about three decades prematurely, mainly from infectious causes (49.6%). Suicide, accidents and homicide were also common causes of death. Conclusions Mortality is an important adverse outcome of SMI irrespective of setting. Addressing common natural and unnatural causes of mortality are urgent priorities. Premature death and mortality related to self-harm should be considered in the estimation of the global burden of disease for SMI.
Interactively Learning Visually Grounded Word Meanings from a Human Tutor

We present a multi-modal dialogue sys-tem for interactive learning of perceptually grounded word meanings from a human tutor. The system integrates an incremental, semantic parsing / generation framework - Dynamic Syntax and Type Theory with Records (DS-TTR) - with a set of visual classiﬁers that are learned throughout the interaction and which ground the meaning representations that it produces. We use this system in interaction with a simulated human tutor to study the e ﬀ ect of di ﬀ erent dialogue policies and capabilities on accuracy of learned meanings, learning rates, and e ﬀ orts / costs to the tutor. We show that the overall performance of the learning agent is a ﬀ ected by (1) who takes initiative in the dialogues; (2) the ability to express / use their conﬁdence level about visual attributes; and (3) the ability to process elliptical as well as incrementally constructed dialogue turns.
A closed loop welding controller for a rapid manufacturing process

The aim of this paper is to investigate on the closed loop welding controller of a rapid manufacturing shaped metal deposition (SMD) process. SMD was developed and patented by Rolls-Royce in order to produce mechanical parts directly from a CAD model. The paper describes a deep investigation upon the welding dynamics and parameters in order to develop an SMD automatic controller. An SMD plant has been set up as described in the paper, and some experimental work pieces have been produced. On the basis of the experiences acquired, some basic control laws have been carried out, and a closed loop controller has been implemented, using image processing and a video feedback control. The experimental results reported confirm the validity of the proposed strategy.
Unaccustomed Eccentric Contractions Impair Plasma K+ Regulation in the Absence of Changes in Muscle Na+,K+-ATPase Content

The Na+,K+-ATPase (NKA) plays a fundamental role in the regulation of skeletal muscle membrane Na+ and K+ gradients, excitability and fatigue during repeated intense contractions. Many studies have investigated the effects of acute concentric exercise on K+ regulation and skeletal muscle NKA, but almost nothing is known about the effects of repeated eccentric contractions. We therefore investigated the effects of unaccustomed maximal eccentric knee extensor contractions on K+ regulation during exercise, peak knee extensor muscle torque, and vastus lateralis muscle NKA content and 3-O-MFPase activity. Torque measurements, muscle biopsies, and venous blood samples were taken before, during and up to 7 days following the contractions in six healthy adults. Eccentric contractions reduced peak isometric muscle torque immediately post-exercise by 26±11% and serum creatine kinase concentration peaked 24 h post-exercise at 339±90 IU/L. During eccentric contractions, plasma [K+] rose during Set 1 and remained elevated at ∼4.9 mM during sets 4–10; this was despite a decline in work output by Set 4, which fell by 18.9% at set 10. The rise in plasma [K+]. work−1 ratio was elevated over Set 2 from Set 4– Set 10. Eccentric contractions had no effect on muscle NKA content or maximal in-vitro 3-O-MFPase activity immediately post- or up to 7 d post-exercise. The sustained elevation in plasma [K+] despite a decrease in work performed by the knee extensor muscles suggests an impairment in K+ regulation during maximal eccentric contractions, possibly due to increased plasma membrane permeability or to excitation-contraction uncoupling.
The Economics of Microfinance, Second Edition

The microfinance revolution has allowed more than 150 million poor people around the world to receive small loans without collateral, build up assets, and buy insurance. The idea that providing access to reliable and affordable financial services can have powerful economic and social effects has captured the imagination of policymakers, activists, bankers, and researchers around the world; the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize went to microfinance pioneer Muhammed Yunis and Grameen Bank of Bangladesh. This book offers an accessible and engaging analysis of the global expansion of financial markets in poor communities. It introduces readers to the key ideas driving microfinance, integrating theory with empirical data and addressing a range of issues, including savings and insurance, the role of women, impact measurement, and management incentives. This second edition has been updated throughout to reflect the latest data. A new chapter on commercialization describes the rapid growth in investment in microfinance institutions and the tensions inherent in the efforts to meet both social and financial objectives. The chapters on credit contracts, savings and insurance, and gender have been expanded substantially; a new section in the chapter on impact measurement describes the growing importance of randomized controlled trials; and the chapter on managing microfinance offers a new perspective on governance issues in transforming institutions. Appendixes and problem sets cover technical material.
An Effective Policy Relocation Scheme for VM Migration in Software-Defined Networks

To achieve the flexibility in resource optimization, fault tolerance and load balancing, virtual machines(VMs) should be effectively migrated in data center networks(DCN). VMs are regulated by security policies and also required to relocate the policy during VM migration, which is a challenge problem to maintain not only the isolation among different domains and tenants, but also the consistency of policy configuration. In this paper, we consider the problem of policy relocation in Software-defined Network(SDN) context since it provides flexible control. We introduce a formal model describing the problem and present a novel policy relocation scheme called VPRS(a Virtual Policy Relocation Scheme), which is based on policy-aware principle and space-optimized method. It can prevent fragmentation of policy and reduce the memory usage while accurately relocating influenced policies. On the other hand, it also simplifies the management of policy. Specifically, VPRS contains novel algorithms for policy relocation, an app-layer policy management, policy translator and component for controllers notification. We define three actions of policy relocation based on the policy abstraction, and then describe the advantage of our scheme about selecting an optimized network address as target address. Then we introduce the core space-optimized algorithms, and evaluate the effectiveness of our scheme by providing consumption on their running overhead and utilization of rule space. Our scheme performs well on real policy sets, and has dramatic reduction by even up to 90\% on rule space costs with high utilization.
A unified fitness calculation method for automatic modeling algorithms

As a branch of Evolutionary Computation (EC), Gene Expression Programming (GEP) and Multi Expression Programming (MEP) have been applied widely in Automatic Modeling. Based on the Gene Reading and Computing Machine, a unified and improved method named Improved Reading and Computing Machine (IGRCM) is presented to calculate the fitness of chromosome for two linear automatic modeling algorithms, which are GEP and MEP. The experimental results indicate that the unified IGRCM could save the CPU running time effectively.