Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of Internal and External Imbalances within the Euro Area

The widening of global current account balances has been an important subject of academic debate in recent years. Several authors have pointed out that there has been a direct link between the world financial crisis in 2007/ 09 and the so called euro crisis since 2010. Structural imbalances, similar to the ones that caused the global financial crisis, might have also been the underlying cause for the events that finally triggered the euro crisis. The current state of literature focuses on the current account side of the problem rather than onto the financial accounts. The purpose of this paper is to show that the capital flows that were created by the particular structure of the EMU were not sustainable. Therefore we will conduct a simplified three country model that shows the capital flows into the EMU and inside the EMU. We find that the core EMU countries served as intermediaries for external investors. We show how this caused the imbalances in the according financial accounts and that a rebalancing of internal current accounts will not be sufficient to stop the Target2 balances from diverging. The EMU ended in an equilibrium in which a system that seemed to have come to a halt after the beginning of the euro crisis is still going on, and there is no mechanism for the core countries to stop the unbalanced capital flows. We will start by elaborating how the same trade shock that hit the US in a symmetrical way, hit the single EMU member statesi Balance-of-Payments asymmetrically. The current reforms only aim on the current account side of the problem and leave out the distortions in the financial accounts. A rebalancing of current accounts will not be sufficient, as long as the bilateral linkages with external trade partners are not balanced with the according financial accounts.
Neurons in the Ventral Spinal Cord Are More Depressed by Isoflurane, Halothane, and Propofol Than Are Neurons in the Dorsal Spinal Cord

BACKGROUND:Volatile anesthetics act primarily in the spinal cord to produce immobility but their exact site of action is unclear. Between 0.8 and 1.2 minimum alveolar anesthetic concentration (MAC), isoflurane does not depress neurons in the dorsal horn, suggesting that it acts at a more ventral site within the spinal cord such as in premotor interneurons and motoneurons. We hypothesized that isoflurane, halothane, and propofol would exert a greater depressant effect on nociceptive responses of ventral horn neurons when compared with dorsal horn neurons. METHODS:Rats were anesthetized with isoflurane or halothane and responses of dorsal (<1200 &mgr;m deep) and ventral (>1200 &mgr;m) lumbar neurons to noxious mechanical stimulation of the hindpaw were determined at 0.8 and 1.2 MAC. In a third group anesthetized with isoflurane at 0.8 MAC, we administered 5 mg/kg propofol while recording responses from dorsal horn or ventral horn neurons. RESULTS:Dorsal horn neuronal responses were not significantly affected when either isoflurane or halothane was increased from 0.8 to 1.2 MAC; propofol also had no significant effect. On the other hand, with increased isoflurane or halothane concentration, responses of ventral horn neurons were depressed by 60% and 45%, respectively. Propofol profoundly depressed (>90%) ventral horn neurons. CONCLUSIONS:These data suggest that, in the peri-MAC range, isoflurane, halothane, and propofol have little or no effect on neuronal responses to noxious mechanical stimulation in the spinal dorsal horn but depress such responses in the ventral horn. Immobility produced in the 0.8–1.2 MAC range by these anesthetics appears to result from a depressant action in the ventral horn.
Location-based multicast routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks

Wireless network offers freedom moving around the effective transmission area and the flexibility and easy to use function for Internet application. Many applications of computer network involve multiple users that will rely on the ability of the network to provide multicast services. Thus, multicasting will be concerned as an essential part of Ad Hoc networks. Some of the proposed routing algorithms require maintaining a global network state at each node, the imprecision of global state and the large amount of storage and communication overhead induce poor scalability. In this paper, we propose a distributed cluster-based QoS multicast routing algorithm which only requires maintaining a local state at each node. The location information provided by positioning device is aided in route discovery and route maintenance procedure. Our protocol partitions the network into square clusters. In each cluster, a cluster head and gateways are selected by a cluster head selection algorithm and a gateway selection algorithm respectively. After the construction of cluster heads and gateway nodes, a distributed computation collectively utilizes the local state information to construct multicast tree in a hop-by-hop basis. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of our algorithm. As it turns out, our protocol has better performance and lower routing overhead than the non-cluster based algorithm.
Energy Usage Attitudes of Urban India

Though rapid increase in energy consumption has become a global problem, most of the solutions developed to address it for residential consumers are based on qualitative studies conducted with small numbers of users, typically in the developed world. Recent work has begun to explore consumption practices, and motivations, barriers and other factors affecting energy consumption in urban India. However, the small numbers of participants in those studies limit their generality. Our work contributes to this picture through a survey of 1724 residents of urban India, exploring the motivations and barriers affecting energy conservation and their opinions about sharing energy consumption data and future technologies for conservation. We found that urban Indians practice conservation because it is a learned habit and to save money, while comfort and convenience are the major barriers in conserving energy. Contrary to previous findings, we did not find a major influence of tradition, spirituality or moral reasons for conservation. Moreover, participants have minimal privacy concerns regarding sharing energy data. Interestingly, participants were not only interested in energy monitoring solutions, but were also positive about automated energy controlling systems, which contrasts previous findings. We conclude with design opportunities for this demographic such as information-sharing opportunities, appliance level consumption disaggregation, and convenient manual controls. Index Terms—Energy, Sustainability, Survey, India.
Adolescent male hazardous drinking and participation in organised activities: involvement in team sports is associated with less hazardous drinking in young offenders.

BACKGROUND There is a lack of research investigating organised activity participation and associated alcohol use in vulnerable groups. AIMS The purpose of this research was to test and compare associations between participation in organised activities and indicators of hazardous drinking between young offenders and young non-offenders. METHODS Two groups of 13-18 year-old males were recruited in Cardiff, UK: 93 young offenders and 53 non-offenders from secondary schools matched on estimated IQ, sex and socioeconomic status. Indicators of hazardous drinking were measured using the Fast Alcohol Screening Test (FAST). Organised activity participation and externalising behaviour was measured by the Youth Self Report. The Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence was also administered. RESULTS Young offenders participated in fewer organised activities and had higher FAST scores than non-offenders. Young offenders and non-offenders significantly differed on mean FAST scores if they participated in no organised activities but not if they participated in at least one team sport. Externalising behaviour problems were unrelated to participation in organised activities. CONCLUSIONS Although young offenders were less likely to have participated in organised activities, for them, participation in a team sport was associated with less hazardous drinking. Vulnerable youths who might benefit most from sporting activities actually access them the least. Future research should identify the different barriers to participation that they face.
An effective hybrid model for opinion mining and sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis and opinion mining is a task to analyze people's opinions or sentiments from textual data, which is very useful for the analysis of many NLP applications. The difficulty of this task is that there are a variety of sentiments inside documents, and these sentiments have variety expressions. Hence, it is hard to extract all sentiments using a dictionary that is commonly used. In this paper, we construct the domain sentiment dictionary using external textual data. Besides, many classification models can be used to classify documents according to their opinion. However, these single models have strengths and weaknesses. We propose a highly effective hybrid model combining different single models to overcome their weaknesses. The experimental results show that our hybrid model outperforms baseline single models.
Representing Non-Manifold Shapes in Arbitrary Dimensions

In this paper, we describe and analyze several representations for complex shapes, i.e., multi-dimensional, nonmanifold objects with parts of mixed dimensionality, based on simplicial complexes. We review our work on compact and scalable representations for 2D and 3D simplicial complexes embedded in 3D Euclidean space. We propose a dimension-independent representation for simplicial complexes in which all the simplexes are uniquely and explicitly encoded. Finally, we describe a decomposition approach to the representation of non-manifold objects in arbitrary dimensions based on their decomposition into nearly manifold components.
A Space-Time Coding Concept for a Multi-Element Transmitter

In this paper we propose a transmission concept that combines phase hopping and space-time coding to enable efficient multi-antenna transmission. The proposed space-time code can be considered as a non-orthogonal construction, a sibling of the ABBA code proposed in [7]. The transmission concept proposed here has the advantage that is can be utilized on top of the Alamouti code, essentially without any complexity increase in the terminal demodulator or decoder.
Sudden Stop of Capital Flows and the Consequences for the Banking Sector and the Real Economy

The paper develops a macro-prudential liquidity stress-testing tool in order to capture the possible consequences of a capital outflow (including a run of deposits). The tool includes a feedback from the banking sector to the real economy, incorporates a link between liquidity risk and solvency risk, and is tailored for emerging market features. The stress-testing tool aims to: (i) test the capacity of the banking sector to withstand the sudden stop of capital flows, and to gauge the consequences of the liquidity stress to the solvency ratio; (ii) quantify the liquidity deficit that a central bank should accommodate; (iii) assess the impact on credit supply when the sudden stop occurs; and (iv) support the implementation of an orderly disintermediation process. The macro-prudential tool is applied on the Romanian banking sector. JEL Classification: G21, F32
Non-BPS Dirac-Born-Infeld solitons

We show that n sigma model solitons solve the field equations of a Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) action and, furthermore, we prove that the non-BPS soliton/anti-soliton solutions of the sigma model also solve the DBI equations. Using the moduli space approximation we compare the dynamics of the BPS sigma model solitons with that of the associated DBI solitons. We find that for the 1 case the metric on the moduli space of sigma model solitons is identical to that of the moduli space of DBI solitons, but for n with n > 1 we show that the two metrics are not equal. We also consider the possibility of similar non-BPS solitons in other DBI theories.
Properties of Univariate Wavelet Functions with a Matrix Factorization

This paper examines a class of univariate wavelet functions with a matrix factorization. Firstly, the property of an important function is surveyed. Secondly, the result is applied to demonstrate the properties of the filters as well as the scaling and wavelet functions. It is presented that two scaling functions are reflections of each other for some pair of parameters. Examples are developed to illustrate the proposed technique. Keywordsfilter bank; matrix factorization; reflection.
On the noisy feedback capacity of Gaussian broadcast channels

It is well known that, in general, feedback may enlarge the capacity region of Gaussian broadcast channels. This has been demonstrated even when the feedback is noisy (or partial-but-perfect) and only from one of the receivers. The only case known where feedback has been shown not to enlarge the capacity region is when the channel is physically degraded. In this paper, we show that for a class of two-user Gaussian broadcast channels (not necessarily physically degraded), passively feeding back the stronger user's signal over a link corrupted by Gaussian noise does not enlarge the capacity region if the variance of feedback noise is above a certain threshold.
COURTSHIP BEHAVIOUR OF THE WANDERING ALBATROSS DIOMEDEA EXULANS AT BIRD ISLAND, SOUTH GEORGIA

The behaviour postures and their sequences during courtship displays of the Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans at South Georgia are described. Females initiated most display bouts, which began with a series of greetings. The core of the display consisted of a rapid sequence of head movements, snaps, ritualized preening and vocalisations. Most display bouts ended when the female walked away, although in 25% of cases the birds sat together on the male’s nest site. An underlying basic sequence was common to both sexes although there were differences in responses to the partner’s behaviour. Courtship behaviour was very similar to that described for Wandering Albatrosses breeding in the Indian Ocean.
Inference from X-ray CT images of sheep

X-ray computed tomography (CT) is a non-invasive imaging technique which is ubiquitous in hospitals. It was originally developed for use in medical diagnosis, but its potential has recently been recognised in a totally di erent area: sheep breeding. This new area of application has generated challenging new problems in image analysis, because the objective of estimating tissue volumes is radically di erent from the medical purpose of detecting physiological abnormalities.
What Does Research Say About Teacher Induction and IHE/LEA Collaborative Programs?.

Unlike countries such as Japan and Germany, the United States has no consistent national induction model with guidelines for teacher induction (Fideler & Haselkorn, 1999). Although the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) has published standards for beginning teachers, INTASC standards have not been utilized uniformly across the United States to establish induction programs (Humphrey, Finnegan, & Shields, 1998). How one transitions from student of teaching to teacher is largely determined for each novice teacher by the state, district, and school in which she or he is employed. New teachers’ first teaching experiences vary enormously, and there is an inconsistent patchwork of induction programs across the U.S. Although the number of teacher induction programs fluctuates due to legislative initiatives and funding allocations, to date over 30 states have induction programs, six of which are tied to credentialing and/or employment requirements.
Biomarkers in Multiple Sclerosis: An Up-to-Date Overview

During the last decades, the effort of establishing satisfactory biomarkers for multiple sclerosis has been proven to be very difficult, due to the clinical and pathophysiological complexities of the disease. Recent knowledge acquired in the domains of genomics-immunogenetics and neuroimmunology, as well as the evolution in neuroimaging, has provided a whole new list of biomarkers. This variety, though, leads inevitably to confusion in the effort of decision making concerning strategic and individualized therapeutics. In this paper, our primary goal is to provide the reader with a list of the most important characteristics that a biomarker must possess in order to be considered as reliable. Additionally, up-to-date biomarkers are further divided into three subgroups, genetic-immunogenetic, laboratorial, and imaging. The most important representatives of each category are presented in the text and for the first time in a summarizing workable table, in a critical way, estimating their diagnostic potential and their efficacy to correlate with phenotypical expression, neuroinflammation, neurodegeneration, disability, and therapeutical response. Special attention is given to the “gold standards” of each category, like HLA-DRB1∗ polymorphisms, oligoclonal bands, vitamin D, and conventional and nonconventional imaging techniques. Moreover, not adequately established but quite promising, recently characterized biomarkers, like TOB-1 polymorphisms, are further discussed.
Neural Mechanisms of Global and Local Processing: A Combined PET and ERP Study

The neural mechanisms of hierarchical stimulus processing were investigated using a combined event-related potentials (ERPs) and positron emission tomography (PET) approach. Healthy subjects were tested under two conditions that involved selective or divided attention between local and global levels of hierarchical letter stimuli in order to determine whether and where hemispheric differences might exist in the processing of local versus global information. When attention was divided between global and local levels, the N2 component of the ERPs (260- to 360-msec latency) elicited by the target stimuli showed asymmetries in amplitude over the two hemispheres. The N2 to local targets was larger over the left hemisphere, but the N2 to global targets tended to be slightly larger over the right hemisphere. However, the shorter-latency, sensory-evoked P1 component (90- to 150-msec latency) was not different for global versus local targets under conditions of divided attention. In contrast, during selective attention to either global or local targets, asymmetries in the N2 component were not observed. But under selective attention conditions, the sensory-evoked P1 components in the extrastriate cortex were enlarged for global versus local attention. In- creased regional cerebral blood flow in the posterior fusiform gyrus bilaterally was observed in the PET data during selective attention to either global or local targets, but neither these nor the P1 component showed any tendency toward hemispheric difference for global versus local attention. Neither were there any activations observed in the parietal lobe during selective attention to global versus local targets. Together these data indicate that early sensory inputs are not modulated to gate global versus local information differentially into the two hemi- spheres. Rather, later stages of processing that may be asym- metrically organized in the left and right hemispheres operate in parallel to process global and local aspects of complex stimuli (i.e., the N2 effect of the ERPs). This pattern of results supports models proposing that spatial frequency analysis is only asymmetric at higher stages of perceptual processing and not at the earliest stages of visual cortical analysis.
Applying the APG to measure Heart Rate Variability

The Acceleration Plethysmogram (APG) is used to calculate the heart rate (HR) and HRV. The APG is an optical technique that has been developed for experimental use in vascular diseases. It is considered a promising tool that may replace some of the current traditional cardiovascular diagnostic tools. The performance of the proposed algorithm when tested on 26 records measured at rest showed very promising results. Our results demonstrate that the HRV indices, SDNN and rMSSD can be calculated using APG signals collected at rest.
Peer-to-Peer Networks in Action

Sun Microsystems Peer-to-Peer Networks in Action Peer-to-peer networking is a hot buzzword (or as hot as it can be these days) that has been sweeping through the computing industry over the past year or so. Fortune crowned P2P as one of the four technologies that will shape the Internet’s future, and it continues to pop up in trade magazines and the mainstream press. Despite all the hype, there is a lot of substance to the topic as well. While it is futile to try to give a precise mathematical definition of the wide range of computing technologies that support P2P systems, it is safe to say that they adopt a network-based computing style that neither excludes nor inherently depends on centralized control points. In an instance of the idea that “the network is the computer,” P2P network nodes (computers, people, and so on) relate to each other “side by side” — juxtaposed physically and logically — within a global computing arena. In this sense, P2P is about awareness, of self and surroundings. It emphasizes the ability to reach out, discover, and connect with others, regardless of whether a prior relationship exists. P2P does not dictate predetermined or particular types of relationships that fall into well-known categories such as master-slave, client-server, or consumer-supplier. A year ago, the editorial board of IEEE Internet Computing predicted that by early 2002 the emerging P2P wave would become mature enough for a theme issue. Since then, development in the technology arena and the marketplace has enhanced our understanding of what P2P has to offer and how it might be used.
Maritime mammals: terrestrial mammals as consumers in marine intertidal communities

The phenomenon of terrestrial mammals as predators in marine intertidal communities, and thus as agents of energy transfer from sea to land, is poorly understood. We review here the evi- dence for terrestrial mammals intentionally entering the ocean shore at low tide in order to prey on living marine invertebrates, fish, algae, and seagrasses. We introduce the term 'maritime mammals', defined as coastal mammalian predators that utilize living intertidal energy resources and transfer these resources to the land. We document 135 records of predation among 45 species of terrestrial mammals in 8 orders feeding in marine intertidal zones. Most predation events are by carnivores (59%, mostly by raccoon, mink, black bear, and Arctic fox), followed by rodents (20%) and artio- dactyls (14%). Maritime mammals occur on all continental coastlines of the world except Antarctica. Most records are from the Eastern North Pacific Ocean, with 21 species of maritime mammals. Twelve maritime mammal species occur in the Western North Atlantic Ocean, and 8 maritime mam- mals are known for the Eastern South Pacific Ocean. These 3 regions account for 42% of the diver- sity of maritime mammals. A total of 228 different prey taxa are known to be consumed, representing 12 phyla of marine organisms; 2/3 of these taxa are bivalve and gastropod mollusks, crabs, and fish. Introduced populations of 17 species of mammals have been recorded as maritime predators; 15 of these are recorded on islands where endemic mammals were absent or rare. Maritime mammals are widespread globally, with often repeated cases of predation being observed for the same species. We suggest that predation by maritime mammals is a rarely studied, rather than rare, phenomenon, and maritime mammals are thus a largely overlooked guild of intertidal predators. Quantitative field observations (using techniques such as infrared night vision, radiotelemetry, and stable isotope analysis) and experimental studies (using exclosures, or by taking advantage of the removal of insular introduced mammal populations) are required. The importance of intertidal resources in supplying energy to terrestrial populations of many species of mammals world wide may have been underappreciated.