Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cooperation of Science and Management for Harmful Algal Blooms: Domoic Acid and the Washington Coast Razor Clam Fishery

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) may be increasing in frequency and intensity worldwide. Coastal economies suffer significant income losses when fisheries or beaches are closed to protect human health and subsistence fishing communities are at risk. Despite these hardships, managers must often conservatively close harvests across a wide area or for long periods, because they lack scientific information that would allow them to predict HAB events. The outer coast of Washington State has experienced several closures of the razor clam (Siliqua patula) fishery starting in 1991, due to domoic acid (DA) contamination caused by toxic blooms of the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia. Improved science-based management was needed to minimize the impact of DA on this fishery and the coastal communities that relied on it for income, tourism, and subsistence. The Olympic Region Harmful Algal Bloom (ORHAB) Partnership, comprised of state and tribal managers, scientists, and local stakeholders, evolved in response to this need; it has been successful in its mission. Here we examine ORHAB through the lens of the Institutional Analysis and Development framework, in order to identify key factors contributing to its success. The relevance of our findings for other ORHAB-like institutions in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere is discussed.
Procurement Protocols for Public-Private Partnered Projects

Infrastructure megaprojects have often failed to meet original stakeholder expectations in both “pure” free markets and totally central-planned economies. Such failures provide the rationale for public-private partnerships (PPPs) that synergize both public and private strengths. Build-operate-transfer (BOT) type schemes are a popular type of PPP. They improve project procurement environments by changing traditionally adversarial scenarios to partnerships that integrate finance, design, construction, and operation. Many countries are still inexperienced in the complexities and implications of PPPs. The growing body of multicountry experiences in this domain needs to be tapped through comparison and benchmarking. Various kinds of BOT-type infrastructure developments in both developed and developing countries are compared in this paper to identify strengths from successful approaches and to draw lessons from less successful or abortive projects. Particular examples include toll roads in the United States, the Private Finance Initiative in the United Kingdom, and BOT and its variants in China. The experiences derived and lessons drawn are expected to improve the procurement protocols of public clients in future partnered infrastructure projects.
Estimating consumer preferences using market data—an application to us automobile demand

This paper explores the possibility of using market data to identify consumer preferences. A utility function composed of "homogeneous" characteristics and goods-specific effects is used as a basic link between the goods space and the characteristics space. The functional form for the hedonic price equation, the data requirements and issues of measurement errors for estimating demand and supply of characteristics are discussed. We illustrate the methodology by considering the US automobile demand using 1969-86 data compiled from Consumer Reports and Ward's Automotive Yearbook. Copyright 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Financial liberalization : how far, how fast?

List of contributors Preface Part I. Analytics: 1. Introduction and overview: the case for liberalization and some drawbacks Gerald Caprio, James A. Hanson and Patrick Honohan 2. Robust financial restraint Patrick Honohan and Joeseph E. Stiglitz Part II. Cross-Country Evidence: 3. How interest rates changed under liberalization: a statistical review Patrick Honohan 4. Financial liberalization and financial fragility Asli Demirguc-Kunt and Enrica Detragiache Part III. Liberalization Experience from Contrasting Starting Points: 5. Financial restraints and liberalization in postwar Europe Charles Wyplosz 6. The role of poorly phased liberalization in Korea's financial crisis Yoon Je Cho 7. Interest rate spreads in Mexico during liberalization Fernando Montes-Negret and Luis Landa 8. The financial sector in transition: tales of success and failure Fabrizio Coricelli 9. Indonesia and India: contrasting approaches to repression and liberalization James A. Hanson 10. Reforming finance in a low income country: Uganda Irfan Aleem and Louis Kasekande Index.
On the Measurement of Product Variety in Trade

Product variety plays an important role in the theoretical work on monopolistic competition and trade, and recent empirical work has begun to quantify this for aggregate and disaggregate import demands. The authors discuss the measurement of product variety in trade, using a broad cross-section of industrial and developing countries and disaggregating across sectors. The authors calculate the export variety of countries in their sales to the United States, and relate the export variety indexes to country productivities. They confirm that countries with greater product variety in exports also have higher productivity. This may be due to their development of and access to these products.
R2 Retrotransposons Encode a Self-Cleaving Ribozyme for Processing from an rRNA Cotranscript

ABSTRACT The non-long terminal repeat (non-LTR) retrotransposon R2 is inserted into the 28S rRNA genes of many animals. Expression of the element appears to be by cotranscription with the rRNA gene unit. We show here that processing of the rRNA cotranscript at the 5′ end of the R2 element in Drosophila simulans is rapid and utilizes an unexpected mechanism. Using RNA synthesized in vitro, the 5′ untranslated region of R2 was shown capable of rapid and efficient self-cleavage of the 28S-R2 cotranscript. The 5′ end generated in vitro by the R2 ribozyme was at the position identical to that found for in vivo R2 transcripts. The RNA segment corresponding to the R2 ribozyme could be folded into a double pseudoknot structure similar to that of the hepatitis delta virus (HDV) ribozyme. Remarkably, 21 of the nucleotide positions in and around the active site of the HDV ribozyme were identical in R2. R2 elements from other Drosophila species were also shown to encode HDV-like ribozymes capable of self-cleavage. Tracing their sequence evolution in the Drosophila lineage suggests that the extensive similarity of the R2 ribozyme from D. simulans to that of HDV was a result of convergent evolution, not common descent.
Video Synthesis with High Spatio-Temporal Resolution Using Motion Compensation and Spectral Fusion

We propose a novel strategy to obtain a high spatio-temporal resolution video. To this end, we introduce a dual sensor camera that can capture two video sequences with the same field of view simultaneously. These sequences record high resolution with low frame rate and low resolution with high frame rate. This paper presents an algorithm to synthesize a high spatio-temporal resolution video from these two video sequences by using motion compensation and spectral fusion. We confirm that the proposed method improves the resolution and frame rate of the synthesized video.
Die Arbeitsangebotseffekte der neuen Mini- und Midijobs: eine ex-ante Evaluation (The effects of the new mini- and midi-jobs on the suply of labour * an ex-ante evaluation)

"The legal provisions regarding marginal part-time employment relationships were fundamentally altered for the second time in four years on 1 April 2003. Key components of the 2003 reform are the increase in the limit of what constitutes a marginal part-time job from EURO 325 to EURO 400 (mini-jobs) and the introduction of a flexible zone between EURO 400 and EURO 800 (midi-jobs). This paper examines, in the form of an ex-ante evaluation, what maximum effects on the supply of labour can be expected from this reform of marginal part-time employment. Theoretical considerations on the effect on the supply of labour show that after the reform there is an incentive for people in regular employment without receipt of transfer payments to earn EURO 400 to EURO 800 instead of the previous EURO 325. In addition to that, mini-jobs become attractive for people already in employment as a second income possibility. For people who already have a marginal part-time job as a second job there is only reason to extend their activity up to the limit of EURO 400. Mini-jobs are also interesting for spouses who did not work previously. In the empirical part of the study, the labour supply response of people in regular employment is simulated with the aid of the tax-transfer-microsimulation model STSM. The data basis is the socio-economic panel (SOEP). First the net incomes that changed as a result of the reform are calculated (microsimulation). Then the supply effect resulting from this is predicted using a con-ditional logit model. The labour supply response in the case of people without benefit entitlement is weak. In addition, in accordance with the theoretical considerations, households in receipt of transfer payments show a clearly even weaker response. " (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))
Improved Neural Efficiency under Matching Condition for Gifted Children

To investigate the neural efficiency theory of intelligence, electroencephalograms (EEG) were recorded while 15 intellectually gifted children and 15 average children performed a 2-back working memory task. The amplitude of P2, N2, and LPC were analyzed. The results showed that intellectually gifted children performed more accurately and had larger LPC mean amplitudes than their intellectually average peers under the matching condition, suggesting that intellectually gifted individual can use their brain and allocate cognitive resources more efficiently.
Dispersion Engineered Metamaterial-Based Conformal Leaky-Wave Antennas

In this paper, novel dispersion engineered conformal metamaterial-based leaky-wave antennas (LWA) based on composite right/left-handed (CRLH) concept are being reviewed. As a planar CRLH LWA is conformed on a curved surface, the radiation characteristics of LWA is distorted. The effect of conformation on a CRLH LWA is investigated. A dispersion engineering method is presented to compensate for the conformation effect and obtain radiation characteristics comparable to the planar version for both convex and concave surfaces. Using the dispersion engineering technique an electronically controlled multifunctional CRLH transmission-line (TL)/LWA will be presented. The slow-wave and fast-wave characteristics of this CRLH device is electronically controlled by incorporating varactor diodes in the CRLH unit-cells. It will be shown that by using the developed dispersion engineering compensation technique along with applying the proper reversebias voltage to the varactor diodes of each unit-cells and tuning the capacitance of each unit-cell the effect of conformation is compensated. Furthermore, it will be shown that by having certain section of the CLRH device operating in the slow-wave mode and the remaining sections in the fast-wave mode, through applying the proper reverse-bias voltage to the varactor diodes, and by changing the location of the fast-wave section along the device a radiation aperture selective functionality is introduced. Thus, the radiation angle and the beamwidth of the LWA is electronically controlled at a fixed frequency. Index Terms — Composite right/left-handed (CRLH), metamaterials, conformal antenna, electronically controlled, leaky-wave (LW).
Employment Adjustment versus Hours Adjustment: Is Job Security Desirable?

Firms can adjust to shocks by laying off and hiring workers or by adjusting the hours worked by each worker. Adjustment of hours provides job security for employed workers. Adjustment of employment generates higher labor market turnover and, thus, better job prospects for the unemployed. Since high turnover lowers the expected cost of being laid off by reducing the expected duration of unemployment, there is a strategic complementarity between firms in the provision of job security. This gives the possibility of multiple equilibria with different amounts of turnover. Copyright 1995 by The London School of Economics and Political Science.
An efficient improved differential evolution algorithm

Differential evolution (DE) algorithm is a promising global optimization approach, but its control parameters are sensitive to some difficult problems, and they must be adjusted artificially for different problems some times, which is really a time consuming work. In this paper, we present a new version of DE with self-adaptive control parameters. We call the new version efficient improved differential evolution (EIDE). The EIDE modifies scale factor by using a uniform distribution, and modifies crossover rate by using a linear increasing strategy. Both strategies can avoid guessing the appropriate values for scale factor and crossover rate, and save the regulating time of the two parameters. Based on two groups of experiments, the EIDE has shown better convergence and stability than the other three DE algorithms in most cases.
Management of cholestatic disease in 2017

Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) are the most frequent chronic cholestatic liver diseases and serve as model diseases to discuss the management of cholestasis in 2017 in the lecture that is summarized in this report. PBC and PSC are characterized by inflammation and fibrosis of small intrahepatic (PBC) or larger intra‐ and/or extrahepatic (PSC) bile ducts. Bile duct damage leads to cholestasis and can progress to liver fibrosis and even cirrhosis. Various genetic, environmental and endogenous factors may contribute to the development of chronic cholestatic liver diseases, but the exact pathogenesis of PBC and PSC has not been clarified. Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) is the standard treatment of PBC and is used also for other cholestatic conditions including PSC, and it exerts anticholestatic effects at adequate doses. Novel anticholestatic therapeutic options for patients not adequately responding to UDCA are under development or have, like obeticholic acid, already been proven to have efficacy when combined with UDCA in the treatment of PBC. The future role of immunomodulating/immunosuppressive drug regimens must be critically reviewed.
Evolution of the dispersed SUC gene family of Saccharomyces by rearrangements of chromosome telomeres

The SUC gene family of Saccharomyces contains six structural genes for invertase (SUC1 through SUC5 and SUC7) which are located on different chromosomes. Most yeast strains do not carry all six SUC genes and instead carry natural negative (suc0) alleles at some or all SUC loci. We determined the physical structures of SUC and suc0 loci. Except for SUC2, which is an unusual member of the family, all of the SUC genes are located very close to telomeres and are flanked by homologous sequences. On the centromere-proximal side of the gene, the conserved region contains X sequences, which are sequences found adjacent to telomeres (C. S. M. Chan and B.-K. Tye, Cell 33:563-573, 1983). On the other side of the gene, the homology includes about 4 kilobases of flanking sequence and then extends into a Y' element, which is an element often found distal to the X sequence at telomeres (Chan and Tye, Cell 33:563-573, 1983). Thus, these SUC genes and flanking sequences are embedded in telomere-adjacent sequences. Chromosomes carrying suc0 alleles (except suc20) lack SUC structural genes and portions of the conserved flanking sequences. The results indicate that the dispersal of SUC genes to different chromosomes occurred by rearrangements of chromosome telomeres.
Informal Workers and Collective Action: A Global Perspective

Excerpt] Around the world, in countries as far flung as Cambodia and Brazil and in industries as diverse as transportation and hospitality, workers in informal employment, who labor every day with no legal or social protection, are organizing and negotiating for better conditions. Some of them are self-employed; others work for wages in either formal or informal enterprises. Some used to have jobs in the formal sector with a union contract; others have always worked informally. To achieve their goals they are mounting collective action campaigns that draw on the repertoire of past generations of workers, but they often recombine them or innovate to fit their unique contexts. Informal workers, their organizations and their campaigns, represent the leading edge of the most significant change in the global labor movement in more than a century. This book tells the story of nine such campaigns.
How does ecological responsibility affect manufacturing firms' environmental and economic performance?

Sustainability is emerging as an important approach that manufacturing companies employ to improve their economic profitability and competitive advantage by enhancing environmental performance. Consistent with the contemporary aspects of ecological responsibility, specific forms of coordination such as internal cross-functional coordination in a firm and external supply chain coordination mechanisms mediate the relationship between an environmental sustainability orientation and environmental performance. Despite the importance of coordination, empirical studies investigating the mediating roles of this coordination are relatively scarce. Our theoretical model therefore examines the mediating effects of coordination. The results show that the relationship between an environmental sustainability orientation and environmental performance is mediated by green manufacturing coordination and green supply chain coordination.
Design strategy of an adaptive full-order observer for speed-sensorless induction-motor Drives-tracking performance and stabilization

Design strategy of both feedback gains and adaptation gains for an adaptive full-order observer is a necessary issue to assure the stability and the tracking performance of the speed estimation in the sensorless drives. In this paper, novel design of feedback gains of the observer is proposed to achieve the stability over the whole operation especially in the low-speed region, including the regenerating mode. Stability improvement using the proposed feedback gains is rigorously proven by the method of Lyapunov. For the adaptation proportional-integral (PI) gains, the ramp response characteristic of the speed estimator is proposed as design guidelines. It is revealed that the integral adaptation gain determines the tracking error of the speed estimator during acceleration/deceleration while the sensitivity to current measurement noises depends on the proportional adaptation gain. It is also pointed out that a suitable corner frequency of the adaptation PI gains is required as a design tradeoff to avoid an oscillation. The validity of all theoretical results is verified by simulation and experiment.
Art Deaccessions and the Limits of Fiduciary Duty

Art deaccessions prompt lawsuits against museums, and some commentators advocate using the stricter trust standard of care, instead of the prevailing corporate standard (business judgment rule), to evaluate the conduct of non-profit museum boards. This Article explores the consequences of adopting the trust standard by applying it to previously unavailable deaccession policies of prominent art museums. It finds that so long as museum boards adhere to these policies, their decisions would satisfy the trust standard. This outcome illustrates an important limitation of fiduciary law: the trust standard evaluates procedural care but cannot assess deaccessions on their merits. Yet this limitation, far from undercutting the trust rule, balances judicial review with protecting boards’ management discretion. This article ventures beyond formalist analysis of fiduciary duty and examines the non-legal, substantive rules governing art deaccessions. It argues that complemented by non-legal rules, the trust standard provides the best framework for adjudicating deaccession lawsuits because it ensures judicial scrutiny of deaccession procedures while leaving appraisal of deaccessions’ merits to museum professionals and the public they serve.
Nephrin and podocin dissociate at the onset of proteinuria in experimental membranous nephropathy.

BACKGROUND The slit diaphragm plays a critical role in maintaining the barrier function of the glomerular capillary wall. The pathogenic mechanism of proteinuria in membranous nephropathy remains uncertain. This study was undertaken to analyze the pathogenic role of slit diaphragm in proteinuria in experimental membranous nephropathy. METHODS The expression and the localization of slit diaphragm-associated molecules (nephrin, podocin, and CD2AP) and other podocyte-associated molecules (podocalyxin and alpha(3) integrin) in passive and active Heymann nephritis were analyzed by immunofluorescence and Western blot analysis. The interaction of slit diaphragm-associated molecules was investigated by the dual-labeling immunofluorescence method. The mRNA expression of these molecules was also analyzed. RESULTS Shifts in nephrin and podocin staining patterns, from linear to granular, were detected in the early stages of passive Heymann nephritis. These shifts were not parallel, and the dissociation of these molecules was detected by the dual-labeling immunofluorescence method in passive and active Heymann nephritis. Western blot analyses with sequentially solubilized materials indicated that the nephrin-rich fraction changed from being partly detergent-resistant to being predominantly detergent-soluble. This change did not occur with podocin. Nephrin excreted into urine was already detected in the early stages of passive Heymann nephritis. Decreased mRNA expression of nephrin and podocin was observed before the onset of proteinuria. By contrast, no extensive change in the expression of alpha(3) integrin was observed in this study. CONCLUSION Nephrin is dissociated from podocin and excreted into urine in the early stages of Heymann nephritis. The reduced expression of nephrin and podocin, along with their dissociation, may contribute to the development of proteinuria in Heymann nephritis.
Exploiting nonholonomic redundancy of free-flying space robots

Nonholonomic redundancy is an intrinsic property of nonholonomic mechanical systems. A free-flying space robot is a nonholonomic mechanical system, and exhibits the presence of nonholonomic redundancy even in the absence of ordinary kinematic redundancy. Like ordinary kinematic redundancy, nonholonomic redundancy can also be utilized while planning trajectories for the system. In the paper, a trajectory planning scheme for a 6-DOF space robot is developed in which nonholonomic redundancy for avoiding joint limits and obstacles is utilized. >