Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estimating Elasticities for U.S. Trade in Services

Explanations of the persistent deficit in U.S. net exports of goods rest on macroeconomic developments and an asymmetry in elasticities: the income elasticity for imports being larger than the income elasticity for exports. Such macroeconomic developments are not applicable to the equally persistent surplus in U.S. net exports of services unless the income elasticities for services exhibit the reversed asymmetry. There have been surprisingly few attempts to demonstrate the existence of this reversed asymmetry, a task that I undertake here. Specifically, I estimate income and price elasticities for U.S. trade in services and evaluate the importance of simultaneity and aggregation biases. The analysis reveals two findings. First, the income elasticity for U.S. exports of services is significantly greater than the income elasticity for U.S. imports of services. Second, disaggregation is the most important aspect of econometric design in this area.
Exploring accounting presence and absence: case studies from Bangladesh

This paper explores accounting presences and absences in the daily life of three Bangladeshi small traders. By exploring the margins of accounting it is possible to better understand why we do and do not do accounting. Two different ideas are explored. Based on the work of Boden it is suggested that the presence or absence of accounting can be explained by the influence of key social and state institutions. Some support was found for this idea, as there was no “external” demand for accounting. The second factor that was explored was the idea that the presence or absence of accounting could be explained by literacy. Again, there was some support for this as two of the cases studied started to keep debtors records once they learnt to read and write. However, we suggest that levels of social capital, defined as norms of reciprocity and trust, could also play an important role in understanding accounting absence in this case, an idea which might be applicable to a wider context.
Urbanization and anticoagulant poisons promote immune dysfunction in bobcats

Understanding how human activities influence immune response to environmental stressors can support biodiversity conservation across increasingly urbanizing landscapes. We studied a bobcat (Lynx rufus) population in urban southern California that experienced a rapid population decline from 2002–2005 due to notoedric mange. Because anticoagulant rodenticide (AR) exposure was an underlying complication in mange deaths, we aimed to understand sublethal contributions of urbanization and ARs on 65 biochemical markers of immune and organ function. Variance in immunological variables was primarily associated with AR exposure and secondarily with urbanization. Use of urban habitat and AR exposure has pervasive, complex and predictable effects on biochemical markers of immune and organ function in free-ranging bobcats that include impacts on neutrophil, lymphocyte and cytokine populations, total bilirubin and phosphorus. We find evidence of both inflammatory response and immune suppression associated with urban land use and rat poison exposure that could influence susceptibility to opportunistic infections. Consequently, AR exposure may influence mortality and has population-level effects, as previous work in the focal population has revealed substantial mortality caused by mange infection. The secondary effects of anticoagulant exposure may be a worldwide, largely unrecognized problem affecting a variety of vertebrate species in human-dominated environments.
Inter‐Temporal Changes in Analysts’ Forecast Properties Under the Australian Continuous Disclosure Regime

Corporate disclosure regulations are important mechanisms for investor protection. This study examines the inter-temporal changes in analysts’ forecast properties over the period 1988–2001 as Australia’s continuous disclosure regulation and enforcement intensity changed. The effectiveness of the continuous disclosure regime has been a question of interest since its inception, but research in this area is limited. Our results suggest that analysts’ forecast accuracy and dispersion improved for sample firms in response to the proposal and introduction of continuous disclosure regulations. However, following increased enforcement from 1998, analysts’ forecast dispersion deteriorated for small firms, possibly due to a decrease in private information received by financial analysts as regulators became more proactive in enforcing the ban on selective disclosure.
HT-FRTC: A fast radiative transfer code using kernel regression

The HT-FRTC is a principal component based fast radiative transfer code that can be used across the electromagnetic spectrum from the microwave through to the ultraviolet to calculate transmittance, radiance and flux spectra. The principal components cover the spectrum at a very high spectral resolution, which allows very fast line-by-line, hyperspectral and broadband simulations for satellite-based, airborne and ground-based sensors. The principal components are derived during a code training phase from line-by-line simulations for a diverse set of atmosphere and surface conditions. The derived principal components are sensor independent, i.e. no extra training is required to include additional sensors. During the training phase we also derive the predictors which are required by the fast radiative transfer code to determine the principal component scores from the monochromatic radiances (or fluxes, transmittances). These predictors are calculated for each training profile at a small number of frequencies, which are selected by a k-means cluster algorithm during the training phase. Until recently the predictors were calculated using a linear regression. However, during a recent rewrite of the code the linear regression was replaced by a kernel regression which resulted in a significant increase in accuracy when compared to the linear regression. The HT-FRTC has been trained with a large variety of gases, surface properties and scatteres. Rayleigh scattering as well as scattering by frozen/liquid clouds, hydrometeors and aerosols have all been included. The scattering phase function can be fully accounted for by an integrated line-by-line version of the Edwards-Slingo spherical harmonics radiation code or approximately by a modification to the extinction (Chou scaling). Typically the simulation of a whole clear-sky radiance spectrum (3600000 monochromatic frequencies) takes less than one millisecond.
A Real-Time Charging Scheme for Demand Response in Electric Vehicle Parking Station

Demand response (DR) is a vital part in smart grid to restore the balance between electricity demand and supply. In this paper, a real-time charging scheme is proposed to coordinate the electric vehicle (EV) charging and accommodate DR programs in the parking station. The charging scheduling is formulated as a binary optimization problem because the on-off strategy is leveraged to achieve faster charging speed of EV. Given the computationally expensive nature of exhaustive search in solving the optimal solution of binary optimization problem, a convex relaxation method is developed as an alternative to compute the near-optimal charging schedules. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed work is able to satisfy EV charging demand while accommodating both types of DR programs in the parking station. The proposed work is also able to simultaneously maximize the number of EVs for charging and minimize the monetary expenses.
A Typology of ‘Innovation Districts’: What it Means for Regional Resilience

In this article, we engage the question of regional resilience theoretically and empirically. Our theoretical approach merges discussions of regional development in evolutionary economic geography (primarily UK based) with regional resilience in urban planning (primarily US based) using Markusen's industrial districts as a framework for analysis (1996). We use data on ‘triadic’ patents (USA, Japan and Europe) to measure regional innovation, both per capita by region and categorized by firm size for regions in the USA. We then use this data to create a ‘typology of innovation districts’. Our analysis suggests that policies encouraging small-firm innovation have broad benefits for regional economies.
Stale in the pulpit? Leader tenure and the relationship between market growth strategy and church performance

Taking a strategic choice perspective, the current study examines leader tenure and the growth implications of pursuing a market penetration versus market development strategy in a church setting. Using cross-sectional time series regression analyses of 1415 church organizations over a period of 6 years, study findings demonstrate the influence of leader tenure on both financial and non-financial church performance, but provide minimal evidence supporting the argument that the selected market strategy matters to organizational performance outcomes in churches. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Composing Least-change Lenses

Non-trivial bidirectional transformations (BXs) are inherently ambiguous, as there are in general many different ways to consistently translate an update from one side to the other. Existing BX languages and frameworks typically satisfy fundamental first principles which ensure acceptable and stable (well-behaved) translation. Unfortunately, these give little insight about how a particular update translation is chosen among the myriad possible. From the user perspective, such unpredictability may hinder the adoption of BX frameworks. The problem can be remedied by imposing a “principle of least change” which, in a state-based framework, amounts to translating each update in a way such that its result is as close as possible to the original state, according to some distance measure. Starting by formalizing such BXs focusing on the particular framework of lenses, this paper discusses whether such least-change lenses can be defined by composition, an essential construct of BX frameworks. For sequential composition, two (dual) update translation alternatives are presented: a classical deterministic one and a nondeterministic. A key ingredient of the approach is the elegant formalization of the main concepts in relation algebra, which exposes several similarities and dualities.
ProSAAS‐derived peptides are regulated by cocaine and are required for sensitization to the locomotor effects of cocaine

To identify neuropeptides that are regulated by cocaine, we used a quantitative peptidomic technique to examine the relative levels of neuropeptides in several regions of mouse brain following daily intraperitoneal administration of 10 mg/kg cocaine or saline for 7 days. A total of 102 distinct peptides were identified in one or more of the following brain regions: nucleus accumbens, caudate putamen, frontal cortex, and ventral tegmental area. None of the peptides detected in the caudate putamen or frontal cortex were altered by cocaine administration. Three peptides in the nucleus accumbens and seven peptides in the ventral tegmental area were significantly decreased in cocaine‐treated mice. Five of these ten peptides are derived from proSAAS, a secretory pathway protein and neuropeptide precursor. To investigate whether proSAAS peptides contribute to the physiological effects of psychostimulants, we examined acute responses to cocaine and amphetamine in the open field with wild‐type (WT) and proSAAS knockout (KO) mice. Locomotion was stimulated more robustly in the WT compared to mutant mice for both psychostimulants. Behavioral sensitization to amphetamine was not maintained in proSAAS KO mice and these mutants failed to sensitize to cocaine. To determine whether the rewarding effects of cocaine were altered, mice were tested in conditioned place preference (CPP). Both WT and proSAAS KO mice showed dose‐dependent CPP to cocaine that was not distinguished by genotype. Taken together, these results suggest that proSAAS‐derived peptides contribute differentially to the behavioral sensitization to psychostimulants, while the rewarding effects of cocaine appear intact in mice lacking proSAAS.
Stochastic Stability in Macro Models

Stability in macro models may be attained by the addition of heteroskedastic shocks. This is illustrated by stabilizing the Harrod-Domar model in one dimension. In two dimensions, a saddle point is required and the method is applied to the Buiter-Miller model. Choosing broadly Keynesian and monetarist parameterizations, cyclical behavior is investigated on simulated data. The results indicate that Keynesian models are harder to stabilize. When stabilized, they possess cycles of four to five years and monetarist models with large shocks are comparable to the Keynesian model. Copyright 1989 by The London School of Economics and Political Science.
Microcredit Effect on Agricultural Productivity: A Comparative Analysis of Rural Farmers in Ogun State, Nigeria

This study examines the effect of access to credit on the productivity of rural farming households in Ogun State, Nigeria. Data were collected, with the use of well structured questionnaire, from 240 small-scale rural farmers, who were categorized into users and non-users of micro-credit based on their statement, through multi-stage sampling technique. Descriptive statistics, budgetary technique and multiple regression analysis, involving the use of ordinary least square (OLS) method of estimation, were employed in analyzing data for this study. The results revealed that total cost per hectare of credit user farmers is higher (N41,632.53) than that of non-credit user farmers (N32,667.79), indicating misallocation of resources by credit-user farmers. Again, profit per hectare of credit users farmer is greater (N44,466.59) than that of non-credit users (N27,833.03), suggesting that, access to credit could lead to improved farmers' productivity and higher income in form of revenue and profit. Regression analysis showed that only fertilizer and farm size, both being positive, affect credit users farmer's output, whereas, planting material, agrochemical, farm size and fixed inputs affects non-credit users farmer's output. R2 values suggested that variation in output by the two categories of farmers is explained by 57 and 52 percent of explanatory variables in their production functions, respectively. F-value of 9.84 and 10.11 recorded for the two categories of farmers respectively, and being significant at 1 percent each, led to the rejection of the hypothesis of inputs having no significant effect on output. It is thus concluded that credit could bring about higher productivity and profit in agricultural production, hence, this study recommends that existing banks should be encouraged to have more rural outlets, while there should be federal government policy of empowering rural farmers to have access to more agricultural lands. Keywords: Micro-credit, Productivity; Rural-farmers; Ogun State, Nigeria
ICA based PolSAR image denoising

A speckle denoising in polarimetric SAR images is proposed considering as filtering method the sparse code shrinkage algorithm based on ICA. Even thou the ICA method was widely used in audio signal processing, in combination with shrinkage function give good results for multiplicative noise reduction. The Extended Generalized Lambda Distribution (EGLD) algorithm was set to estimate the transform matrix before applying the sparse coding. The proposed method was tested on PolSAR datasets and compared with well-known speckle noise removal algorithms. The evaluation indexes gave good results for the ICA based method.
Clustering Patients with Tensor Decomposition

In this paper we present a method for the unsupervised clustering of high-dimensional binary data, with a special focus on electronic healthcare records. We present a robust and efficient heuristic to face this problem using tensor decomposition. We present the reasons why this approach is preferable for tasks such as clustering patient records, to more commonly used distance-based methods. We run the algorithm on two datasets of healthcare records, obtaining clinically meaningful results.
Working Sweden's Population Gold Mine

One of Hans Wigzell9s boldest scientific moves as head of the Karolinska Institute was to encourage a bright Swedish star in cancer epidemiology to uproot his entire department at Uppsala University and move to Stockholm. Since making the switch in 1997, Hans-Olov Adami9s team has grown from 40 to 150, consolidating its position among the top epidemiology departments in the world.
Participation and Political Competition in Committee Report Allocation

The paper models the consequences of committee report allocation for political representation in the European Parliament (EP). The range of legislators involved in each policy area affects the values, interests and constituencies that the Parliament represents. Thus, representation is defined as an MEP’s participation in salient policy areas. The allocation of salient reports follows inter-and intra-party group dynamics. First, party groups compete for salient reports in a context of open voting rules in committee and plenum. Second, group coordinators distribute these reports among their MEPs in an attempt to maximize the cohesion of the group. The model is tested on data from the fifth European Parliament (1999-2002). The results confirm the impact of selective participation on political representation. The EP has evolved into a ‘normal’ Parliament featuring coalitions and competition along a left-right cleavage across party groups and a hierarchical allocation of legislative spoils within parties.
Security analysis of robust perceptual hashing

In this paper we considered the problem of security analysis of robust perceptual hashing in authentication application. The main goal of our analysis was to estimate the amount of trial efforts of the attacker, who is acting within the Kerckhoffs security principle, to reveal a secret key. For this purpose, we proposed to use Shannon equivocation that provides an estimate of complexity of the key search performed based on all available prior information and presented its application to security evaluation of particular robust perceptual hashing algorithms.
Resource dependence and community well-being in rural Canada.

Abstract The well-being of residents of resource dependent communities is a question of traditional interest to rural sociologists. The label “resource dependent” obscures how this relationship may vary between particular resource industries, regions, or indicators of well-being. Few analyses have compared the relationship between well-being and resource dependence across different industries, nor tested competing theories about the relationship between resource dependence and well-being. Our paper presents an overview of the relationship between resource dependence—agriculture, fisheries, mining, energy, forestry—and human well-being in Canada. Analysis of 1996 Statistics Canada data revealed a great deal of variation in the effect of “resource” dependence on indicators of well-being (e.g., human capital, unemployment, income): some industries exhibit fairly positive outcomes (e.g., agriculture), others more negative outcomes (e.g., fishing). Consistent with analyses conducted in the United States, these relationships vary by region, suggesting the need for models that incorporate the particulars of place and industry.
Immigration, Labour Markets and Employment Relations: Problems and Prospects

In this review essay, I argue that immigration presents employment researchers with a promising strategic research site because it raises a number of theoretically significant problems with mainstream economic approaches to labour and labour markets. Despite the tendency to view economic migrants as homo economicus personified, I argue that immigration brings the institutional nature of labour markets into sharp relief as it exposes, among other things, the influence of the state, processes of labour market segmentation, and the role of trade union policy and practice. Having identified a number of empirical anomalies that contradict neoclassical economic theory, I proceed to sketch out three areas where a more institutionally oriented approach should prove more fruitful.
Warpage and Thermal Characterization of Fan-Out Wafer-Level Packaging

In this paper, the warpage and thermal performances of fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP) are investigated. Emphasis is placed on the characterization of the effects of FOWLP important parameters, such as chip size, chip thickness, package/chip area ratio, epoxy molding compound (EMC), chip EMC cap, reconstituted carrier material and thickness, and die-attach film, on the warpage after postmold cure and backgrinding of the EMC. The simulation results are compared to the experimental measurements. Also, the thermal performance (junction-to-ambient thermal resistance) of FOWLP with various chip thicknesses is characterized. Finally, some FOWLP important parameters affecting the warpage and thermal performances are recommended.
Immunohistochemical expression of ERG in the molecular epidemiology of fatal prostate cancer study

Gene fusions between the ERG transcription factor and the androgen‐regulated gene TMPRSS2 occur in a subset of prostate cancers and contribute to transformation of prostatic epithelial cells. Prior reports have used fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) or quantitative PCR (QPCR) to determine the presence of TMPRSS2‐ERG fusions or ERG expression, respectively. Recently, several groups have reported on immunohistochemistry (IHC) to measure ERG expression, which is much more readily performed in clinical practice. However, the prior studies examining ERG expression by IHC had small sample sizes or they failed to clarify the association of ERG protein expression with important clinico‐pathological features or prostate cancer‐specific mortality. Methods: To address these deficits, we evaluated ERG expression by IHC in 208 radical prostatectomy samples from the Kaiser Permanente Molecular Epidemiology of Fatal Prostate Cancer (MEFPC) study, a case–control study of prostate cancer‐specific mortality.
The radio structure of ultra-high-energy synchrotron-peak BL Lacs

We present the results of European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network (EVN) and Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) 5-GHz observations of nine ultra-high-energy synchrotron-peak BL Lacs (UHBLs), consisting of all BL Lacs with log? (? peak/Hz) > 20 from the work of Nieppola et al. The radio structure was investigated for these sources, in combination with available Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) archive data. We found that a corejet structure is detected in five sources, while four sources only have a compact core at the pc scale. The cores of all sources show high brightness temperature (with mean and median values log? (Tb/K) 11), which implies that the beaming effect is likely present in all sources. When multi-epoch Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data are available, we find no significant variations for either core or total flux density in two sources (2E 0414+0057 and EXO 0706.1+5913) and no evident proper motion in 2E 0414+0057, while superluminal motion is likely detected in EXO 0706.1+5913. Our sources are found to be less compact than the typical high-frequency peaked BL Lac objects (HBLs) of Giroletti et al., by comparing the ratio of the VLBI total flux and the core flux at the arcsec scale. Combining all our results, we propose that the beaming effect might be present in the jets of UHBLs; however, it is likely weaker than that for typical HBLs. Moreover, we found by comparing the distributions of redshift and radio luminosity that UHBLs could be less Doppler-beamed versions of HBLs with similar jet power. These results are in good consistence with the expectations of our previous work.