Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Economic Replacement Model with Probabilistic Asset Utilization

Traditional economic replacement analysis provides asset purchase and sale decisions over a given horizon based on expected purchase, operating, maintenance and salvage costs. As these costs are dependent on asset utilization, a constant or predetermined usage is generally assumed. However, due to randomness in operations, such as customer demand, these expected utilization schedules may not be realized in practice, thus invalidating the replacement schedule. This paper examines the effect of probabilistic asset utilization on replacement decisions through the use of dynamic programming. The solution determines minimum expected cost decisions for each state defined by the asset's age and cumulative utilization in each period. These decisions generalize the definition of the economic life of an asset to include age and cumulative utilization. Assumptions common to replacement analysis allow the state space to grow linearly with time, avoiding dynamic programming's `curse of dimensionality'. Examples with time invariant and variant economics are presented and compared to traditional solution procedures.
Baseline HIV RNA and the when to start question: time to stop asking this question?

HIV specialists represent a rare example of clinicians who believe in medical miracles. For those who started working in this field in the mid-1980s, the introduction of HAART provided evidence that a patient’s prognosis could be changed in a single day [1]. Yet, even 10 years after this dramatic change to the management of patients, we are still trying to decide the optimum use of these drugs. As clinicians, we tend to view most of our present concerns, including the side-effects of therapy (even the most serious ones) and the ‘when to start’ question, as mere details that have to be addressed when fine-tuning an individual’s therapy. Certainly, these are minor issues compared with the dramatic reduction in mortality that we have seen since the introduction of HAART [2]. However, as most patients no longer live in fear of imminent death (as they would have done in the preHAART era), these minor issues often represent major hurdles that they must deal with on a daily basis. The direct correlation between antiretroviral exposure and the onset of major side-effects such as lipodystrophy or cardiovascular disease [3–5] means that ‘when to start’ remains a key question in the management of patients with HIV infection. As yet, no randomized clinical trials have addressed this question and, therefore, the optimal time to start HAART remains uncertain.
A fuzzy-based process mining approach for dynamic malware detection

Mobile systems have become essential for communication and productivity but are also becoming target of continuous malware attacks. New malware are often obtained as variants of existing malicious code. This work describes an approach for dynamic malware detection based on the combination of Process Mining (PM) and Fuzzy Logic (FL) techniques. The firsts are used to characterize the behavior of an application identifying some recurring execution expressed as a set of declarative constraints between the system calls. Fuzzy logic is used to classify the analyzed malware applications and verify their relations with the existing malware variants. The combination of the two techniques allows to obtain a fingerprint of an application that is used to verify its maliciousness/trustfulness, establish if it belongs from a known malware family and identify the differences between the detected malware behavior and the other variants of the some malware family. The approach is applied on a dataset of 3000 trusted and malicious applications across twelve malware families and has shown a very good discrimination ability that can be exploited for malware detection and family identification.
Is the US Consumer Credit Asymmetric?

We investigate the existence of any asymmetric effects in the US consumer credit. In doing so, we utilize the asymmetric cointegration methods proposed by Breitung (2001, 2002) and Enders and Siklos (2001). Furthermore, we tend to explore two additional dimensions in this literature. First, whether asymmetries (if any) are persistent over‐time in the credit demand model. Second, whether the Great recession contributed to any asymmetric impacts on the credit demand. Our results revealed that the long‐run relationship of consumer credit (credit, income, wealth and interest rate on personal loans) is asymmetric. While it is difficult to identify the direct sources of this asymmetric result, our intuition is that it is linked to the structural breaks in the rate of personal loans encountered in the early 1980s. Moreover, we find no strong evidence that much of the asymmetric impacts in consumer credit were experienced in the Great recession. Neither have we attained evidence that asymmetric impacts on credit demand are persistent over‐time.
Extended serial passaging of mammalian neural stem cells in suspension bioreactors.

Neural stem cells (NSCs) are primitive cells that are the "parent" cells of all the cells in the central nervous system (CNS). Their discovery in 1992 opened the door to a multitude of potential therapies and treatments to cure neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and Huntington's disease, which affect millions of people worldwide and cost billions of dollars in health care each year. This study proposes optimal serial passaging protocols so that mammalian neural stem cells can effectively be grown in suspension culture. We examined stationary culture passaging protocols and developed our own optimal procedure. Also examined was the effect of serially cultivating the neural stem cells in suspension culture for an extended period of time. The cells were grown for over 35 days in suspension with an overall multiplication ratio of over 10(7) with no decrease in growth rate, maximum cell density, or viability. The cells also remained karyotypically normal through 25 doublings and retained their ability to be differentiated into all the major cell types of the CNS-neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. For the first time, mammalian neural stem cells were grown on a larger scale in suspension culture and maintained their stem cell characteristics. A semicontinuous scheme for large-scale production is also presented.
The Capital Formation Problem in the United States

It is well known that the behavior of business fixed investment in the United States during the present expansion has been extremely sluggish. In the fourth quarter of 1977, real investment outlays were two percent below their level during the peak fourth quarter of 1973. At a comparable stage of four previous post-war business "cycles" (excluding the short 1957-1960 "cycle"), real business fixed investment was 14 percent above its level at the previous cyclical peak. ' When adjusted to exclude noncapacity-creating investment in pollution abatement equipment, the ratio of business fixed investment to GNP in 1977 was only 9.3 percent. During the decade 1965 through 1974, business fixed investment averaged 10.4 percent of GNP. Moreover, the investment that has taken place has been skewed toward equipment and relatively short-term projects and away from structures and relatively long-lived investments. Many observers have interpreted these data as implying an impending "shortage of capital" in the United States. Similar interpretations have been made for the major OECD countries, suggesting that the problem is worldwide in nature. The term "capital shortage" is always troublesome to an economist since if prices and interest rates are free to adjust, a market system will insure that shortfalls in industrial capacity do not persist. Given adequate lead time and an absence of impediments to the adjustment process, there is no reason to expect a chronic shortage of any type of productive facility. Is there then a reasonable case to be made for a national concern about capital adequacy? In my judgment, the legitimate arguments boil down to a perceived difference between the productive capacity investment we have or are likely to have and what we need in order to meet some national priorities. I would like to begin today by reviewing the thrust of these arguments.
Participative Management and Worker Control in China

While Chinese experiments with participative management practices in industry comprise perhaps the most radical and massive such effort in the modern world, they are still among the least understood in the West. The present article is an effort to define more clearly the boundaries of worker participation in China and the limits of worker control. Through brief, but strategic comparisons with forms of worker control in different political and economic settings, and through critical scrutiny of the various participative forms employed in China, this article attempts to sketch out the configuration of participation and control in Chinese collective forms, and to place them in a broader context of organizations exhibiting "collectivist-democratic" features. We offer (1) an examination of the political considerations which have shaped these experiments; (2) an account of Party organization and how its control is exercised; (3) an outline of the limits on worker control imposed by China's industrial planning system; and (4) a description and critical analysis of the major participative forms employed in Chinese industry from 1956 to the present.
Subjective evaluations on perceptual depth of stereo image and effective field of view of a wide-view head mounted projective display with a semi-transparent retro-reflective screen

We report two user studies on a wearable hyperboloidal head mounted projective display (HHMPD) with a semi-transparent retro-reflective screen. First experiment revealed that a virtual image is perceived at a similar distance as the real image only when the observation distance is within 2.5m with monocular vision, whereas its threshold is further than 3m with stereo (binocular) vision. Second experiment revealed that users are able to identify visual stimuli in the periphery of the visual field up to ±50 degrees in horizontal, while paying attention to a real object in frontal direction.
Energy Policy in Perspective: Today's Problems, Yesterday's Solutions

This attempt to trace the history of US energy policy since World War II underscores the confusion and diffusion that have characterized American efforts to deal with energy questions. Despite the numerous presidential committees, commissions, and task forces, as well as the many special offices and agencies established during the postwar years, surprisingly little useful policy has been formulated. This failure has been especially costly during a four-decade era that has seen a drastic shift from abundant energy to acute shortage, from falling prices for producers to steep price rises for consumers, and from energy self-sufficiency to increasing dependency on foreign sources. It is a failure that has left Americans all the more unprepared to deal with the necessary and difficult transition from oil to a substitute form of energy. By exploring past approaches to energy policy, the authors hope to promote public understanding of an important subject and to help policymakers cope with increasingly complex energy problems. A separate abstract was prepared for each of the eleven chapters and the appendix.
The Essex-Lopresti reduction for calcaneal fractures revisited.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the reduction and outcome of selected intraarticular calcaneal fractures treated with percutaneous Essex-Lopresti reduction and fixation. DESIGN Prospective consecutive series. SETTING Level one trauma center and tertiary university hospital. PATIENTS/PARTICIPANTS Twenty-six consecutive patients with an Essex-Lopresti tongue-type, Sanders type 2C calcaneus fracture. INTERVENTION Modified percutaneous Essex-Lopresti type spike reduction and fixation of the posterior facet. OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS Clinical and radiographic analysis. METHODS Twenty-six consecutive patients with calcaneal fractures meeting the criteria had an attempted percutaneous reduction performed under fluoroscopic control with the patient in the lateral position. Twenty-three of the twenty-six feet had an acceptable reduction, and the remaining three were treated with open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF). The first seventeen cases were stabilized by two Steinmann pins, which were removed at ten to twelve weeks. The last six cases were fixed with two cannulated 6.5-millimeter screws, which were left in place. Early motion was encouraged in all cases RESULTS Of the twenty-three patients with an acceptable reduction, twenty had no angulation between the posterior facet of the talus and the calcaneus and three had <5 degrees. The tuberosity reduction was <5 degrees in seventeen cases and <10 degrees in all cases. The calcaneal height was restored to normal in twenty cases, and the width (axial view) averaged 119 percent of the contralateral side. Follow-up averaged 2.9 years. Using the Maryland foot score there were twelve (55 percent) excellent, seven (32 percent) good, and three (13 percent) fair results. CONCLUSIONS The Essex-Lopresti spike reduction is a useful method for the treatment of tongue-type Sanders type 2C fractures of the calcaneus. Results are superior to those in previous series of intraarticular fractures treated with ORIF.
DEMONSTRATION OF GLAUCOMATOUS OPTIC DISC CHANGES BY ELECTRONIC SUBTRACTION

We describe a new method, the electronic subtraction, for objective, two‐dimensional detection, demonstration and recording of glaucomatous optic disc changes. Siemens subtraction unit M 707 A, based on a double videochain and originally developed for the study of roentgenograms, was used. The results show that this technique is useful in demonstrating the progressive damage of neural tissue of the disc and associated alterations in the course of the vessels. Further development of the electronic subtraction method for glaucomatous optic disc evaluation is discussed.
The Effects of Monetary Policy in Japan

This article interprets time series facts regarding the sources of business fluctuations in Japan and attempts to uncover possible characteristics of the effects of monetary policy over the last two decades. It argues that given the institutional features of the Bank of Japan's operating procedures, a simple recursive vector autoregressive (VAR) model that consists of interest rates, money, stock prices, and output, all in first differences, may serve as a useful benchmark for Japan. The main finding is that monetary policy shocks in fact have a persistent effect on real output especially in the rise and fall of Japan's "bubble economy" in the late 1980s.
Concentration of international trade in high-technology products

International trade in high-technology products has been increasing at a rate faster than overall trade and world output. This paper examines whether trade in high-technology products has been associated with increased concentration of trade among a few countries. The paper explores market shares of leading exporters of high-technology products and concentration of trade in these products, measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman index. The main finding is that trade concentration in high-technology products has declined during the 1980–1996 period.
The NYU Ada translator and interpreter

The NYU-Ada project is engaged in the design and implementation of a translator-interpreter for the Ada language. The objectives of this project are twofold: a) to provide an executable semantic model for the full Ada language, that can be used for teaching, and serve as a starting point for the design of an efficient Ada compiler; b) to serve as a testing ground for the software methodology that has emerged from our experience with the very-high level language SETL. In accordance with these objectives, the NYU-Ada system is written in a particularly high-level, abstract SETL style that emphasizes clarity of design and user interface over speed and efficiency. A number of unusual design features of the translator and interpreter follow from this emphasis. Some of these features are described below. We also discuss the question of semantic specification of programming languages, and the general methodology of “Software Prototyping” of which the NYU-Ada system is a sizeable example.
Candid with YouTube: Adaptive Streaming Behavior and Implications on Data Consumption

YouTube has emerged as the largest player among video streaming services, serving video content for users using DASH. Research studies on various aspects of YouTube, especially its streaming service, abound in the literature. However, these works study YouTube streaming from the periphery, and report results based on their understanding of general DASH recommendations. In this study, we explore in depth YouTube's implementation of the DASH client. We identify important parameters in YouTube's rate adaptation algorithm, and study their roles. In a departure from existing literature, we observe that YouTube opportunistically adapts segment length, in addition to quality level, in response to bandwidth fluctuations. We report that this scheme results in a much lower average data wastage ratio (0.82x10-6), than reported earlier. We also propose an analytical model, augmented with a machine learning based classifier (with average accuracy of 85.75%), to predict data consumption for a playback session in advance.
Constitutive Expression of Arabidopsis SMALL AUXIN UP RNA19 (SAUR19) in Tomato Confers Auxin-Independent Hypocotyl Elongation1[OPEN]

Constitutive expression of SAUR genes increases cell wall extensibility and promotes auxin-independent elongation growth in Arabidopsis and tomato. The plant hormone indole-3-acetic acid (IAA or auxin) mediates the elongation growth of shoot tissues by promoting cell expansion. According to the acid growth theory proposed in the 1970s, auxin activates plasma membrane H+-ATPases (PM H+-ATPases) to facilitate cell expansion by both loosening the cell wall through acidification and promoting solute uptake. Mechanistically, however, this process is poorly understood. Recent findings in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) have demonstrated that auxin-induced SMALL AUXIN UP RNA (SAUR) genes promote elongation growth and play a key role in PM H+-ATPase activation by inhibiting PP2C.D family protein phosphatases. Here, we extend these findings by demonstrating that SAUR proteins also inhibit tomato PP2C.D family phosphatases and that AtSAUR19 overexpression in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) confers the same suite of phenotypes as previously reported for Arabidopsis. Furthermore, we employ a custom image-based method for measuring hypocotyl segment elongation with high resolution and a method for measuring cell wall mechanical properties, to add mechanistic details to the emerging description of auxin-mediated cell expansion. We find that constitutive expression of GFP-AtSAUR19 bypasses the normal requirement of auxin for elongation growth by increasing the mechanical extensibility of excised hypocotyl segments. In contrast, hypocotyl segments overexpressing a PP2C.D phosphatase are specifically impaired in auxin-mediated elongation. The time courses of auxin-induced SAUR expression and auxin-dependent elongation growth were closely correlated. These findings indicate that induction of SAUR expression is sufficient to elicit auxin-mediated expansion growth by activating PM H+-ATPases to facilitate apoplast acidification and mechanical wall loosening.
Managerial influence in the implementation of new technology

In the implementation of an organizational innovation, managers are usually presumed to influence the extent to which the innovation is adopted and used by their subordinates. However, the findings presented in this paper suggest that the managerial influence is not equally perceived by all subordinates. Rather, certain context-specific characteristics of individual employees mediate the managerial influence. Users of the expert system studied herein who were low in personal innovativeness toward this class of innovations, for whom the subjective importance of the task being computerized was low, whose task-related skills were low or who were low performers in their sales job-all these user groups perceived their management had encouraged them to adopt. In contrast, users who rated high on any of these measures did not perceive any management influence in their adoption decision. Moreover, although access to the innovation was in fact highly similar for all users, high performers also were inclined to perceive the system as more accessible than were low performers. These findings suggest that the diffusion of an innovation within an organization perhaps could be viewed as a two-step managerial process. Employees whose characteristics incline them to adopt an innovation will do so without management support or urging if it is simply made available. Employees low on these characteristics will await a managerial directive before adopting. Implications for future research are discussed.
Bilingualism, Biliteracy and Metalinguistic Awareness: Word Awareness in English and Japanese Users of Chinese as a Second Language

Cross-linguistic research shows that some aspects of metalinguistic awareness are affected by characteristics of different writing systems. Users of writing systems that mark word boundaries (such as English) develop word awareness, while users of unspaced writing systems (such as Chinese) do not. Previous research showed that English-speaking users of Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) have higher levels of Chinese word awareness than Chinese monolingual speakers. The present study aimed at disentangling the effects of bilingualism/biliteracy and the effects of L1 writing system characteristics by comparing users of Chinese whose L1 writing system does or does not mark word boundaries. Three groups (Chinese, English- Chinese and Japanese-Chinese) performed two Chinese word segmentation tasks. Results showed significant differences among the groups in mean word lengths and mean level of intra-group agreement. The English group had higher intragroup agreement rates and shorter word lengths than the other two groups; the Japanese group had higher agreement rates than the Chinese group. It is argued that Chinese word awareness as revealed by word segmentation tasks is mostly affected by literacy in a writing system that marks word boundaries, but bilingualism and biliteracy also play a role.
Compressed suffix trees: Efficient computation and storage of LCP-values

The suffix tree is a very important data structure in string processing, but typical implementations suffer from huge space consumption. In large-scale applications, compressed suffix trees (CSTs) are therefore used instead. A CST consists of three (compressed) components: the suffix array, the longest common prefix (LCP)-array and data structures for simulating navigational operations on the suffix tree. The LCP-array stores the lengths of the LCPs of lexicographically adjacent suffixes, and it can be computed in linear time. In this article, we present a new LCP-array construction algorithm that is fast and very space efficient. In practice, our algorithm outperforms alternative algorithms. Moreover, we introduce a new compressed representation of LCP-arrays.