Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Econometric Analysis of Export-led Growth in A Multivariate Var Framework

Empirical evidence on export-led growth hypothesis is inconclusive and mixed. This paper uses time series econometric techniques to re-investigate the relationship between exports and economic growth in India during the period 1971-2005. The insertion of three additional relevant variables omitted in previous studies help to clarify the conflicting results from earlier studies on the Indian economy. The empirical results suggest that there exists a unique long-run relationship between exports, export instability, imports, investment, terms of trade and gross domestic product. For example, ceteris paribus a 10 per cent increase in the exports raises GDP by an estimated 2.76 per cent in the long run. The short-term dynamic behaviour of income growth function has been investigated by estimating an error correction model in which the error correction term has been found to be correctly signed and statistically significant. However, there is no strong evidence for short-run causality flowing from export growth to economic growth. JEL classification: C32, F10, O11
Mouse oocytes and preimplantation embryos bear the two sub‐units of interferon‐gamma receptor

Cytokines and growth factors play important roles in implantation and maintenance of pregnancy, but also during early development. Among them interferon‐gamma (IFNγ) is highly expressed by mammalian trophoblast cells during implantation and seems to be involved in some cases of pregnancy loss. In the present study we investigated the possible presence of IFNγ receptors (IFNGR) on mouse oocytes and preimplantation embryos. The two receptor chains IFNγRα (IFNGR‐1) and IFNγRβ (IFNGR‐2) have been detected by indirect immunofluorescence at the surface of mouse oocytes (in germinal vesicle and metaphase II stages), as well as at all stages of in vitro embryo development from the one‐cell to blastocyst stage. IFNGR appeared to colocalize partly with ganglioside GM1 at the cell surface of oocytes and embryos, indicating a possible preferential localization of this receptor in “rafts” microdomains. This was analyzed in more detail using software developed in the laboratory. IFNγ was found to bind to its receptor at all stages analyzed. RT‐PCR and Southern blot experiments confirmed the presence of the transcriptionally regulated IFNGR‐2 chain mRNA, in mouse oocytes and preimplantation embryos. These results show, for the first time, that mouse oocytes and preimplantation embryos bear a complete and theoretically functional IFNGR, suggesting that this cytokine could play a role during early development.Mol. Reprod. Dev. 60: 319–330, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
CTE Teachers and the Process of CTE and Science Content Integration.

The integration of career and technical education (CTE) and academic curricular content represents a challenge for CTE professionals. Currently, little is known about the process of integrating science into secondary CTE programs. Grounded theory method was employed to create information about CTE teachers' perspectives of and experiences with the process of CTE and science content integration. From the perspective of the CTE teachers involved, integrating CTE and science content resulted in their programs of study being adapted into something very different than they were before the process of integration was begun. The CTE teachers revealed that evolutions in their programs of study and themselves were associated with three other categories within the grounded theory: connecting; enacting; and futuring. The findings indicate that the process of CTE and science content integration represents a deep and complex episode for CTE teachers. The findings also reveal that the process of CTE and science content integration requires connecting to others, putting ideas into action, and an orientation towards the future.
Quadratic hedging in finance and insurance

Quadratic hedging is a specific form of utility hedging, where the strategy minimizes the hedging error in mean square sense. Hence risk is in this case quantified as variance. One of the obvious drawbacks of quadratic hedging is that losses and gains are treated in the same way. On the other hand, this might be an advantage, in case you do not know whether you deal with a buyer or a seller. Another advantage is that quadratic strategies related to different options can simply be added up as is also the case for delta-hedging strategies. In other words, quadratic hedging is a sort of linear hedging strategy. The mean-variance hedging strategy is one of the two main quadratic hedging strategies we will discuss. The other one is the (locally) risk-minimizing hedging strategy. In the mean-variance hedging theory the goal is to minimize the difference between the claim H at maturity T and the portfolio at that time, using a self-financing strategy. In the risk-minimizing hedging strategy, the goal is to minimize the variance of the cost process at any time t subject to the condition that the value of the portfolio at time T equals the claim H. In the latter case, it is only possible to find a self-financing portfolio when the claim is attainable. The risk-minimizing hedging strategy only makes sense when the underlying is a martingale, the extension to semimartingales is called local risk-minimization. We focus mainly on quadratic hedging and especially on the locally risk-minimizing hedging strategy and related to it, the Follmer-Schweizer decomposition. We do not only look at the pure financial market, but we also determine hedging strategies for the insurance market, as well as for the interest rate derivatives market and the commodity market. At the end we also discuss the implementation of the quadratic hedging strategies and compare the total costs related to different hedging strategies.
Salvage radioimmunotherapy with murine iodine-131-labeled antitenascin monoclonal antibody 81C6 for patients with recurrent primary and metastatic malignant brain tumors: phase II study results.

PURPOSE To assess the efficacy and toxicity of intraresection cavity iodine-131-labeled murine antitenascin monoclonal antibody 81C6 (131I-m81C6) among recurrent malignant brain tumor patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS In this phase II trial, 100 mCi of 131I-m81C6 was injected directly into the surgically created resection cavity (SCRC) of 43 patients with recurrent malignant glioma (glioblastoma multiforme [GBM], n = 33; anaplastic astrocytoma [AA], n = 6; anaplastic oligodendroglioma [AO], n = 2; gliosarcoma [GS], n = 1; and metastatic adenocarcinoma, n = 1) followed by chemotherapy. RESULTS With a median follow-up of 172 weeks, 63% and 59% of patients with GBM/GS and AA/AO tumors were alive at 1 year. Median overall survival for patients with GBM/GS and AA/AO tumors was 64 and 99 weeks, respectively. Ten patients (23%) developed acute hematologic toxicity. Five patients (12%) developed acute reversible neurotoxicity. One patient (2%) developed irreversible neurotoxicity. No patients required reoperation for radionecrosis. CONCLUSION In this single-institution phase II study, administration of 100 mCi of 131I-m81C6 to recurrent malignant glioma patients followed by chemotherapy is associated with a median survival that is greater than that of historical controls treated with surgery plus iodine-125 brachytherapy. Furthermore, toxicity was acceptable. Administration of a fixed millicurie dose resulted in a wide range of absorbed radiation doses to the SCRC. We are now conducting a phase II trial, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, using patient-specific 131I-m81C6 dosing, to deliver 44 Gy to the SCRC followed by standardized chemotherapy. A phase III multicenter trial with patient-specific dosing is planned.
Genetically Modified Cotton and Farmers' Health in China

Abstract This study provides the first evidence of a direct link between the adoption of a genetically modified (GM) crop and improvements in human health. Estimation of the impact of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton adoption on pesticide use from data from a survey of cotton farmers in northern China, 1999–2001, showed that Bt cotton adoption reduced pesticide use. Assessment of a health-production function showed that predicted pesticide use had a positive impact on poisoning incidence. Taken together, these results indicate that the adoption of Bt cotton can substantially reduce the risk and the incidence of poisonings.
Population Effect of Differences in Cholesterol Guidelines in Eastern Europe and the United States.

IMPORTANCE The American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines for the management of blood cholesterol and the current European Society of Cardiology/European Atherosclerosis Society (ESC/EAS) guidelines differ in how they identify adults in need of statin therapy; furthermore, it is unclear how this difference translates into numbers and characteristics of patients recommended for treatment. OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of the ACC/AHA and ESC/EAS cholesterol guidelines when applied to a population-based sample. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS We used nationally representative data for 3055 adults aged 40 to 65 years from the 2007-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) for the United States and for 1060 adults aged 40 to 65 years from the 2011 Nadciśnięnie Tętnicze w Polsce survey for Poland. Data analysis was conducted from May 1, 2014, to December 31, 2015. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The number and characteristics of adults recommended for statin therapy according to the ACC/AHA and ESC/EAS guidelines were evaluated, and characteristics were compared between adults with discordant recommendations. RESULTS The 3136 US adults in NHANES (2007-2012) aged 40 to 65 years represented 100.1 million adults; after excluding the 81 patients with missing data, these population estimates translate to 97.9 million adults. Similarly, the 1060 Polish adults in NATPOL (2011) aged 40 to 65 years represent 13.5 million adults. Using weighted data, in the United States, 43.8% (95% CI, 40.9%-46.7%) of adults would be recommended for statin therapy according to ACC/AHA guidelines and 39.1% (95% CI, 36.4%-41.8%) according to ESC/EAS guidelines. In Poland, 49.9% (95% CI, 46.9%-52.9%) of adults would be recommended for statin therapy under ACC/AHA guidelines compared with 47.6% (95% CI, 44.6%-50.7%) under ESC/EAS guidelines. Among individuals without cardiovascular disease and not currently taking statins, 11.0% of US and 10.5% of Polish adults had discordant guideline recommendations. Compared with individuals recommended for statin therapy by the ESC/EAS guidelines but not the ACC/AHA guidelines, those recommended for statin therapy under the ACC/AHA guidelines only had less chronic kidney disease; however, these individuals were also more likely to smoke, have lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and have higher predicted 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Despite differences in the ACC/AHA and EAS/ESC guidelines, the numbers of adults aged 40 to 65 years recommended for cholesterol-lowering therapy under each guideline were similar when applied to nationwide representative samples from both the United States and Poland. Discordant recommendations were driven by differences in the risk equations used in the 2 guidelines and different recommendations for adults with chronic kidney disease.
Regulation of drug transporter mRNA expression by interferon‐γ in primary human hepatocytes

Interferon (IFN)‐γ is known to downregulate expression of drug detoxifying proteins such as cytochromes P‐450 (CYPs) in human hepatocytes. The present study was designed to determine whether IFN‐γ may also impair expression of influx and efflux drug transporters, which constitute important determinants of the liver detoxification pathway. Exposure of primary human hepatocytes to 10 ng/mL IFN‐γ was found to downregulate mRNA levels of sinusoidal influx transporters such as sodium‐taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide, organic anion transporting polypeptide (OATP) 2B1, OATP1B1, and OATP1B3. IFN‐γ concomitantly reduced mRNA expression of drug efflux pumps such as multidrug resistance gene 1, multidrug resistance protein (MRP) 2, MRP3, breast cancer resistance protein and bile salt export pump. Such IFN‐γ‐mediated repression of major hepatic drug transporters may contribute to impaired liver clearance of drugs administrated to patients suffering from inflammation or viral infections associated with increased secretion of IFN‐γ.
Fast image retrieval based on K-means clustering and multiresolution data structure for large image databases

This paper presents a fast search algorithm based on multi- resolution data structure for efficient image retrieval in large image databases. The proposed algorithm consists of two stages: a database-building stage and a searching stage. In the database-building stage, we partition the image data set into a pre-defined number of clusters by using the MacQueen K-means clustering algorithm. The searching stage has the two steps to choose proper clusters and to find the best match among all the images included in the chosen clusters. In order to reduce the heavy computational cost in the searching stage, we proposed two kinds of fast exhaustive searching algorithms based on the multi- resolution feature space, which guarantee a perfect retrieval accuracy of 100%. By applying these two algorithms to the searching stage, we can find the best match with very high search speed and accuracy. In addition, we consider a retrieval scheme producing multiple output images including the best match. Intensive simulation results show that the proposed schemes provide a prospective search performance.
DNA Encoded Elliptic Curve Cryptography System for IoT Security

In the field of Computer Science and Information Technology Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the emerging technologies. In IoT environment several devices are interconnected and transmit data among them. There may be some security vulnerability arise within the IoT environment. Till date, IoT has not been widely accepted due to its security flaws. Hence to keep the IoT environment most robust, we propose a stable security framework of IoT with Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) using DNA Encoding. The ECC is most lightweight cryptography technique among other well known public key cryptography techniques. To increase encryption complexity, DNA encoding mechanism of DNA computing with ECC is preceded.
Teaching High School Students Computational Thinking with Hands-on Activities

In this study we developed three hands-on activities to teach high school students computational thinking (CT) and, specifically, the decomposition skills. The activities were designed to enable students to solve problems by using application tools. The computer science concepts utilized in the activities included binary search, quick sort and iteration. We evaluated the effect of the activities utilizing a post-activity questionnaire, a post-test, students' worksheets, and semi-structured interviews with the participating students. The results indicated that the hands-on activities developed in this study improved students' CT ability.
The Experience of Pay for Performance in English Family Practice: A Qualitative Study

PURPOSE We conducted an in-depth exploration of family physicians’ and nurses’ beliefs and concerns about changes to the family health care service as a result of the new pay-for-performance scheme in the United Kingdom (Quality and Outcomes Framework [QOF]). METHODS Using a semistructured interview format, we interviewed 21 family doctors and 20 nurses in 22 nationally representative practices across England between February and August 2007. RESULTS Participants believed the financial incentives had been sufficient to change behavior and to achieve targets. The findings suggest that it is not necessary to align targets to professional priorities and values to obtain behavior change, although doing so enhances enthusiasm and understanding. Participants agreed that the aims of the pay-for-performance scheme had been met in terms of improvements in disease-specific processes of patient care and physician income, as well as improved data capture. It also led to unintended effects, such as the emergence of a dual QOF-patient agenda within consultations, potential deskilling of doctors as a result of the enhanced role for nurses in managing long-term conditions, a decline in personal/relational continuity of care between doctors and patients, resentment by team members not benefiting financially from payments, and concerns about an ongoing culture of performance monitoring in the United Kingdom. CONCLUSIONS The QOF scheme may have achieved its declared objectives of improving disease-specific processes of patient care through the achievement of clinical and organizational targets and increased physician income, but our findings suggest that it has changed the dynamic between doctors and nurses and the nature of the practitioner-patient consultation.
A nonparametric kernel regression approach for pricing options on stock market index

ABSTRACT Previous options studies typically assume that the dynamics of the underlying asset price follow a geometric Brownian motion (GBM) when pricing options on stocks, stock indices, currencies or futures. However, there is mounting empirical evidence that the volatility of asset price or return is far from constant. This article, in contrast to studies that use parametric approach for option pricing, employs nonparametric kernel regression to deal with changing volatility and, accordingly, prices options on stock index. Specifically, we first estimate nonparametrically the volatility of asset return in the GBM based on the Nadaraya–Watson (N–W) kernel estimator. Then, based on the N–W estimates for the volatility, we use Monte Carlo simulation to compute option prices under different settings. Finally, we compare the index option prices under our nonparametric model with those under the Black–Scholes model and the Stein–Stein model.
Estimating the Cost of Children Through Engel Curves by Different Good Aggregates

Equivalence scales for the cost of children are estimated for one of the most developed Italian region (Lombardia) through the Engel approach. The data set is obtained from the survey on household consumption expenditures, which is hold by the Italian Central Institute for Statistics (ISTAT) in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000. The estimation of equivalence scales is not restricted to the share devoted to food. Besides the usual share of food and non-alcoholic beverages, we specify four further shares of necessities. Moreover the Box-Cox transformation for the dependent variable is adopted. The results, obtained in this research, show that, in estimating equivalence scales through Engel curves, it is very important to specify control variables that can take account for heterogeneity among families. Though the food share can still be a valid indicator to compare family welfare and then to estimate equivalence scales, in some situations it results to be misleading. The experiment of adopting broader good aggregates as indicators gives interesting results and more likely estimates in correspondence of some family typologies.
ANTIPYRETIC EFFECTS OF QURANI PLANTS’ MIXTURE (A NEW PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCT)

Objective: QURANI plants’ mixture is a new pharmaceutical product composed of some edible and medicinal plants (15 plants) mentioned in the Holy Quran (in a certain percentage, according to that is mentioned in Patent no. 1429/2013, presented to the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, Egypt in 11/9/2013). The main aim of this work is to determine antipyretic effects of this new mixture and to study side effects of this mixture on many important organs of the body, if present. Methods: In vivo studies of antipyretic effects of feeding adult female albino rats under investigation with 2, 4 and 8 g/kg of QURANI plants’ mixture was carried out after 0, 1, 2, 3 and 24 hours of the induction of fever by yeast extract. Important organs’ (Heart, Brain, Kidney, Liver, Lung, Spleen, Stomach and Colon) weights were checked, in addition to the investigation of their histopathological structures, in order to check any bad side effects of this new pharmaceutical product. Results: In vivo studies of the antipyretic effect of feeding adult female albino rats under investigation with 2, 4 and 8 g/kg of QURANI plants’ mixture showed that, the bodies’ temperatures degrees of investigated rats were decreased till reaching to 37 о C in case of feeding these rats with all investigated doses of QURANI plants’ mixture. The highest antipyretic effect was obtained by feeding rats with 8 g/kg of QURANI plants’ mixture. Based on weights’ estimation and histopathological investigations, it was found that, all investigated doses (2, 4 and 8 g/kg) of QURANI plants’ mixture have not any bad side effects on many important organs (Heart, Brain, Kidney, Liver, Lung, Spleen, Stomach and Colon) of all examined rats. Conclusion: Results of the antipyretic effect of QURANI plants’ mixture will lead us to more biological and chemical investigations of this new, cheap and safe pharmaceutical natural product.
Reply With: Proactive Recommendation of Email Attachments

Email responses often contain items---such as a file or a hyperlink to an external document---that are attached to or included inline in the body of the message. Analysis of an enterprise email corpus reveals that 35% of the time when users include these items as part of their response, the attachable item is already present in their inbox or sent folder. A modern email client can proactively retrieve relevant attachable items from the user's past emails based on the context of the current conversation, and recommend them for inclusion, to reduce the time and effort involved in composing the response. In this paper, we propose a weakly supervised learning framework for recommending attachable items to the user. As email search systems are commonly available, we constrain the recommendation task to formulating effective search queries from the context of the conversations. The query is submitted to an existing IR system to retrieve relevant items for attachment. We also present a novel strategy for generating labels from an email corpus---without the need for manual annotations---that can be used to train and evaluate the query formulation model. In addition, we describe a deep convolutional neural network that demonstrates satisfactory performance on this query formulation task when evaluated on the publicly available Avocado dataset and a proprietary dataset of internal emails obtained through an employee participation program.
Secure Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PEV) Charging in a Smart Grid Network

Charging of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) exposes smart grid systems and their users to different kinds of security and privacy attacks. Hence, a secure charging protocol is required for PEV charging. Existing PEV charging protocols are usually based on insufficiently represented and simplified charging models that do not consider the user’s charging modes (charging at a private location, charging as a guest user, roaming within one’s own supplier network or roaming within other suppliers’ networks). However, the requirement for charging protocols depends greatly on the user’s charging mode. Consequently, available solutions do not provide complete protocol specifications. Moreover, existing protocols do not support anonymous user authentication and payment simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive end-to-end charging protocol that addresses the security and privacy issues in PEV charging. The proposed protocol uses nested signatures to protect users’ privacy from external suppliers, their own suppliers and third parties. Our approach supports anonymous user authentication, anonymous payment, as well as anonymous message exchange between suppliers within a hierarchical smart grid architecture. We have verified our protocol using the AVISPA software verification tool and the results showed that our protocol is secure and works as desired.