Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Legal Regimes, Audit Quality, and Investment

This paper presents an analytical model that explores the impact of auditors' legal liability on audit quality and investment. The model is particularly concerned with the impact of damage measures on investments. The threat of liability payments creates an incentive for the auditor to work hard; however the potential liability payments can also provide an "insurance" for investors in the event the state of nature is bad. Indeed, if damages are measured based on actual investments, investors can increase the liability payments by over-investing. Thus, the potential transfer of wealth from auditors to investors can lead to an over- investment in risky assets, relative to a socially optimal level, even with a high quality audit. A socially optimal level of investment can be induced by removing the association between actual investments and liability payments. In my model, a legal regime that can induce the socially optimal level of investment, while still motivating the auditors to exert the socially optimal effort level, consists of a strict liability rule with a damage measure that is independent of the actual investment.
Pharmacological and Safety Profile of Dexlansoprazole: A New Proton Pump Inhibitor – Implications for Treatment of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease in the Asia Pacific Region

Although gastroesophageal reflux disease is not as common in Asia as in western countries, the prevalence has increased substantially during the past decade. Gastroesophageal reflux disease is associated with considerable reductions in subjective well-being and work productivity, as well as increased healthcare use. Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are currently the most effective treatment for gastroesophageal reflux disease. However, there are limitations associated with these drugs in terms of partial and non-response. Dexlansoprazole is the first PPI with a dual delayed release formulation designed to provide 2 separate releases of medication to extend the duration of effective plasma drug concentration. Dexlansoprazole has been shown to be effective for healing of erosive esophagitis, and to improve subjective well-being by controlling 24-hour symptoms. Dexlansoprazole has also been shown to achieve good plasma concentration regardless of administration with food, providing flexible dosing. Studies in healthy volunteers showed no clinically important effects on exposure to the active metabolite of clopidogrel or clopidogrel-induced platelet inhibition, with no dose adjustment of clopidogrel necessary when coprescribed. This review discusses the role of the new generation PPI, dexlansoprazole, in the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease in Asia.
The Mathematics of Fivebranes

Fivebranes are non-perturbative objects in string theory that generalize two-dimensional conformal field theory and relate such diverse subjects as moduli spaces of vector bundles on surfaces, automorphic forms, elliptic genera, the geometry of Calabi-Yau threefolds, and generalized Kac-Moody algebras.
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Globalization and Monetary Policy Institute Monthly Pass-through Ratios Marlene Amstad Swiss National Bank

This paper estimates monthly pass-through ratios from import prices to consumer prices in real time. Conventional time series methods impose restrictions to generate exogenous shocks on exchange rates or import prices when estimating pass-through coefficients. Instead, a natural experiment based on data releases defines our shock to foreign prices. Our estimation strategy follows an event-study approach based on monthly releases in import prices. Projections from a dynamic common factor model with daily panels before and after monthly releases of import prices define the shock. This information shock allows us to recover a monthly pass-through ratio. We apply our identification procedure to Swiss prices and find strong evidence that the monthly pass-through ratio is around 0.3. Our real-time estimates yield higher pass-through ratios than time series estimates. Rich for helpful discussions and comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Tobias Grässli provided valuable assistance in data support. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Swiss National Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.
Generalized Multiport Waveguide Switches Based on Multiple Short-Circuit Loads in Power-Divider Junctions

This paper presents a new concept for multiport waveguide switches based on short-circuit loads integrated in power-divider ridge-waveguide junctions. The switching is achieved by means of actuating short and open circuit loads in the waveguide path of a ridge waveguide, eliminating the need of bulky rotors, which are typically used in conventional waveguide switches. A complete class of single-pole N -throw switches (N up to 4) is presented based on this concept. Furthermore, the concept is employed to demonstrate highly compact C-, R-, and T-type waveguide switches by integrating different power-divider junctions in a seamless manner. The T-type case involves three states that provide the maximum flexibility for realizing advanced switch matrices for signal routing. A T-type waveguide switch is built and measured for validating the concept. To our knowledge, this paper marks the first time R- and T-type waveguide switches are demonstrated without the need to use a bulky rotary junction.
Sequential Subspace Optimization Method for Large-Scale Unconstrained Problems

We present the Sequential Subspace Optimization (SESOP) method for largescale smooth unconstrained problems. At each iteration we search for a minimum of the objective function over a subspace spanned by the current gradient and by directions of few previous steps. We also include into this subspace the direction from the starting point to the current po int, and a weighted sum of all previous gradients, following [Nemirovski-1982]. This safeguard measure provides an optimal worst case convergence rate of order 1/N 2 (for convex problems), where N is the iteration count. In the case of quadratic objective, the method is equivalent to the conjugate gradients method. We identify an important class of problems, where subspace optimization can be implemented extremely fast. This happens when the objective function is a combination of expensive linear mappings with computationally cheap non-linear functions. This is a typical situatio n in many applications, like tomography, signal and image denoising with Basis Pursuit, pattern recognition with Support Vector Machine, and many others. We demonstrate highly competitive numerical results using examples from the mentioned areas.
Best-Buddies Similarity—Robust Template Matching Using Mutual Nearest Neighbors

We propose a novel method for template matching in unconstrained environments. Its essence is the Best-Buddies Similarity (BBS), a useful, robust, and parameter-free similarity measure between two sets of points. BBS is based on counting the number of Best-Buddies Pairs (BBPs)—pairs of points in source and target sets that are mutual nearest neighbours, i.e., each point is the nearest neighbour of the other. BBS has several key features that make it robust against complex geometric deformations and high levels of outliers, such as those arising from background clutter and occlusions. We study these properties, provide a statistical analysis that justifies them, and demonstrate the consistent success of BBS on a challenging real-world dataset while using different types of features.
Complexity-Augmented Triage: A Tool for Improving Patient Safety and Operational Efficiency

Hospital emergency departments (EDs) typically use triage systems that classify and prioritize patients almost exclusively in terms of their need for timely care. Using a combination of analytic and simulation models, we demonstrate that adding an up-front estimate of patient complexity to conventional urgency-based classification can substantially improve both patient safety (by reducing the risk of adverse events) and operational efficiency (by shortening the average length of stay). Moreover, we find that EDs with high resource (physician and/or examination room) utilization, high heterogeneity in the treatment time between simple and complex patients, and a relatively equal number of simple and complex patients benefit most from complexity-augmented triage. Finally, we find that (1) although misclassification of a complex patient as simple is slightly more harmful than vice versa, complexity-augmented triage is relatively robust to misclassification error rates as high as 25p; (2) streaming patients based on complexity information and prioritizing them based on urgency is better than doing the reverse; and (3) separating simple and complex patients via streaming facilitates the application of lean methods that can further amplify the benefit of complexity-augmented triage.
A load-balancing strategy for sort-first distributed rendering

In this paper we present a multi-threaded sort-first distributed rendering system. In order to achieve load balance among the rendering nodes, we propose a new partitioning scheme based on the rendering time of the previous frame. The proposed load-balancing algorithm is very simple to be implemented and works well for both geometry and rasterization-bound models. We also propose a strategy to assign tiles to rendering nodes that effectively uses the available graphics resources, thus improving rendering performance.
The NBA’s Maximum Player Salary and the Distribution of Player Rents

The NBA’s 1999 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) included provisions capping individual player pay in addition to team payrolls. This study examines the effect the NBA’s maximum player salary on player rents by comparing player pay from the 1997–1998 and 2003–2004 seasons while controlling for player productivity and other factors related to player pay. The results indicate a large increase in the pay received by teams’ second highest and, to a lesser extent, third highest paid players. We interpret this result as evidence that the adoption of the maximum player salary shifted rents from stars to complementary players. We also show that the 1999 CBA’s rookie contract provisions reduced salaries of early career players.
Evaluation of Voice Codecs of VoIP Applications for MANET

Over Internet (VOIP) is an emerging popular Internet application that provides good services through Mobile Adhoc Network(MANET). MANET provides a suitable platform for the deployment of voice and multimedia session over IP network in many application scenarios that range from safety to comfort related services. But this network also faces many challenges on QoS issues due to packet loss because of transmission errors, short battery life and dynamic changing topologies. WiMAX is a wireless 4G technology, currently using by various industries &institutions which provides many advantages due to its high speed and large coverage area. Combining these technology together, in this paper we estimated the performance of various VOIP codecs with WiMAX in different scenarios (sparse and dense) over MANET. Voice codecs are evaluated with some QoS metrics such as average MOS, average jitter, average throughput, average delay and signal received with error. The performance & quality of VOIP applications using H.323 signaling protocol in Qualnet 6.1 simulator are studied in order to determine their effect on QoS and find out most efficient network specific voice codec .
The use of reflectance confocal microscopy for examination of benign and malignant skin tumors

Reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) is a modern, non-invasive diagnostic method that enables real-time imaging of epidermis and upper layers of the dermis with a nearly histological precision and high contrast. The application of this technology in skin imaging in the last few years has resulted in the progress of dermatological diagnosis, providing virtual access to the living skin erasing the need for conventional histopathology. The RCM has a potential of wide application in the dermatological diagnostic process with a particular reference to benign and malignant skin tumors. This article provides a summary of the latest reports and previous achievements in the field of RCM application in the diagnostic process of skin neoplasms. A range of dermatological indications and general characteristics of confocal images in various types of tumors are presented.
Fast scalable optimization to configure service systems having cost and quality of service constraints

Large complex service centers must provide many services to many users with separate service contracts, while managing their overall costs. A scalable hybrid optimization procedure is described for a minimum-cost deployment of services on nodes, taking into account processing requirements and resource contention. This is a heuristic for a problem which is in general NP-hard. It iterates between a fast linear programming (LP) sub-problem, and a nonlinear performance model, both of which scale easily to thousands of services. The approach can be adapted to minimize cost subject to performance constraints, or to optimize a combined quality of service measure subject to cost constraints. It can be combined with tracked performance models to periodically re-optimize deployment for autonomic QOS management.
Facilitation or disengagement? Attention bias in facial affect processing after short-term violent video game exposure

Previous research has been inconsistent on whether violent video games exert positive and/or negative effects on cognition. In particular, attentional bias in facial affect processing after violent video game exposure continues to be controversial. The aim of the present study was to investigate attentional bias in facial recognition after short term exposure to violent video games and to characterize the neural correlates of this effect. In order to accomplish this, participants were exposed to either neutral or violent video games for 25 min and then event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during two emotional search tasks. The first search task assessed attentional facilitation, in which participants were required to identify an emotional face from a crowd of neutral faces. In contrast, the second task measured disengagement, in which participants were required to identify a neutral face from a crowd of emotional faces. Our results found a significant presence of the ERP component, N2pc, during the facilitation task; however, no differences were observed between the two video game groups. This finding does not support a link between attentional facilitation and violent video game exposure. Comparatively, during the disengagement task, N2pc responses were not observed when participants viewed happy faces following violent video game exposure; however, a weak N2pc response was observed after neutral video game exposure. These results provided only inconsistent support for the disengagement hypothesis, suggesting that participants found it difficult to separate a neutral face from a crowd of emotional faces.
Resource Management for Elastic Publish Subscribe Systems: A Performance Modeling-Based Approach

As more and more information systems are moving to the cloud, there have been efforts to deploy publish-subscribe (or pub/sub) systems in the cloud environment to take advantage of the elasticity of resources. As a result, there is a need to perform resource management for the cloud-based pub/sub systems that support various types of jobs, each consists of a series of tasks, or a workflow. Designing an efficient and effective resource management approach for the cloud-based pub/sub system is challenging because such an approach needs to be able to support flexible provisioning strategies, model the complex interactions between heterogeneous types of jobs, and provide dynamic resource allocation capability. In this paper, we formulate the resource management problem of elastic pub/sub system as optimization problems using different objectives functions. We model the elastic pub/sub system as a multiple-class open queuing network to derive system performance measures, and propose greedy algorithms to efficiently solve the optimization problems. Our evaluation based on simulation on real system show that our proposed solution outperforms the baseline and is robust in dealing with high-volume and fast-changing workload.
An implementation of reliable group communication based on the peer-to-peer network JXTA

Summary form only given. In this paper we propose a new peer-to-peer protocol for atomic reliable multicast based on view consistency. It is designed for nearly real-time collaborative applications which require consistency of data in a group of participants. A typical example for this is drawing on a shared whiteboard. Collaborations frequently arise in an ad-hoc way in which setting up and operating a dedicated server is not feasible. Thus, our protocol is intended to be used in server-less environments and avoids dependence on central components. We implemented our protocol using the peer-to-peer middleware JXTA for use in TCP/IP-connected networks. This implementation offers its service to other applications via a lean Java API.
Component-Based Architecture for Systems, Services and Data Integration in Support for Criminal Analysis

Criminal analysis processes is based on heterogeneous data processing. To support it, analysts utilize a large set of specialized tools, however they are usually designed to solve a particular problem are often incompatible with other existing tools and systems. Therefore, to fully leverage the existing supporting tools, their technological integration is required. In this paper we present original approach for integrating systems based on the component-driven paradigm. Firstly, a problem of supporting criminal analysis is described with a strong emphasis on the heterogeneity issues. Secondly, some theoretical information about integration is depicted followed by the details of the proposed architecture. Finally, the technological assumptions are discussed and prototype integration based on proposed concept is overviewed. om the experiments are discussed in the final part of the paper. Keywords—criminal analysis, component-based systems, soft-
Aggravation of cardiac myofibroblast arrhythmogeneicity by mechanical stress.

AIMS Myofibroblasts (MFBs) as appearing in the myocardium during fibrotic remodelling induce slow conduction following heterocellular gap junctional coupling with cardiomyocytes (CMCs) in bioengineered tissue preparations kept under isometric conditions. In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that strain as developed during diastolic filling of the heart chambers may modulate MFB-dependent slow conduction. METHODS AND RESULTS Effects of defined levels of strain on single-cell electrophysiology (patch clamp) and impulse conduction in patterned growth cell strands (optical mapping) were investigated in neonatal rat ventricular cell cultures (Wistar) grown on flexible substrates. While 10.5% strain only minimally affected conduction times in control CMC strands (+3.2%, n.s.), it caused a significant slowing of conduction in the fibrosis model consisting of CMC strands coated with MFBs (conduction times +26.3%). Increased sensitivity to strain of the fibrosis model was due to activation of mechanosensitive channels (MSCs) in both CMCs and MFBs that aggravated the MFB-dependent baseline depolarization of CMCs. As found in non-strained preparations, baseline depolarization of CMCs was partly due to the presence of constitutively active MSCs in coupled MFBs. Constitutive activity of MSCs was not dependent on the contractile state of MFBs, because neither stimulation (thrombin) nor suppression (blebbistatin) thereof significantly affected conduction velocities in the non-strained fibrosis model. CONCLUSIONS The findings demonstrate that both constitutive and strain-induced activity of MSCs in MFBs significantly enhance their depolarizing effect on electrotonically coupled CMCs. Ensuing aggravation of slow conduction may contribute to the precipitation of strain-related arrhythmias in fibrotically remodelled hearts.
Phytate and phytase: consequences for protein utilisation

Abstract The excretion of large amounts of P in effluent from intensive pig and poultry units is indicative of the poor availability of phytate-bound P in plant-derived feed ingredients. This environmental problem prompted the development and acceptance of microbial phytase feed enzymes for single-stomached animals. Their introduction led to an increasing recognition that phytate may have adverse effects on protein utilisation in addition to P. Consequently, the nutritional relevance of protein–phytate interactions for pigs and poultry is considered in the present review. Since the current understanding of the effects of protein–phytate interactions comes mainly from responses obtained to added phytase, literature on the influence of microbial phytases on amino acid digestibility and utilisation is summarised, followed by a discussion of possible mechanisms contributing to the negative effects of phytate. However, the rationale for the protein responses to added phytase remains largely speculative, and several modes of action are probably involved. It may be that the release of protein from protein–phytate complexes occurring naturally in feed ingredients, the prevention of formation of binary and ternary protein–phytate complexes within the gut, the alleviation of the negative impact of phytate on digestive enzymes and the reduction in endogenous amino acid losses are all contributing factors. A better understanding of the mechanisms of protein–phytate interactions and the modes of action of exogenous phytase enzymes is clearly desirable. Studies are also needed to identify and quantify the factors that contribute to the variable amino acid responses to added phytase. It appears that the relative solubilities of phytate salts and proteins from different feed ingredients and their effects on the extent of protein–phytate complex formation, coupled with variations in the effectiveness of phytase in different dietary contexts, may be the major factors responsible.
User-Level Infrastructure for System Call Interposition: A Platform for Intrusion Detection and Confinement

Several new approaches for detecting malicious attacks on computer systems and/or confining untrusted or malicious applications have emerged over the past several years. These techniques often rely on the fact that when a system is attacked from a remote location over a network, damage can ultimately be inflicted only via system calls made by processes running on the target system. This factor has lead to a surge of interest in developing infrastructures that enable secure interception and modification of system calls made by processes running on the target system. Most known approaches for solving this problem have relied on an in-kernel approach, where the interception mechanisms as well as the intrusion detection/confinement systems are implemented within the operating system kernel. We explore an alternative approach that uses mechanisms provided by most variants of the UNIX operating system to implement system call interposition at user level, where the system calls made by one process are monitored by another process. Some of the key problems that need to solved in developing such an approach are: providing adequate set of capabilities in the infrastructure, portability of the security enhancements and the infrastructure itself across different operating systems, and minimizing performance overheads associated with interception for a wide range of applications. We present a solution that satisfactorily addresses these issues, and can thus lead to a platform for rapid development and deployment of robust intrusion detectors, confinement systems and other application-specific security en-