Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Plasticity-Centric Approach to Train the Non-Differential Spiking Neural Networks

Many efforts have been taken to train spiking neural networks (SNNs), but most of them still need improvements due to the discontinuous and non-differential characteristics of SNNs. While the mammalian brains solve these kinds of problems by integrating a series of biological plasticity learning rules. In this paper, we will focus on two biological plausible methodologies and try to solve these catastrophic training problems in SNNs. Firstly, the biological neural network will try to keep a balance between inputs and outputs on both the neuron and the network levels. Secondly, the biological synaptic weights will be passively updated by the changes of the membrane potentials of the neighbour-hood neurons, and the plasticity of synapses will not propagate back to other previous layers. With these biological inspirations, we propose Voltage-driven Plasticity-centric SNN (VPSNN), which includes four steps, namely: feed forward inference, unsupervised equilibrium state learning, supervised last layer learning and passively updating synaptic weights based on spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP). Finally we get the accuracy of 98.52% on the hand-written digits classification task on MNIST. In addition, with the help of a visualization tool, we try to analyze the black box of SNN and get better understanding of what benefits have been acquired by the proposed method.
Economic Development and the Structure of Production

Significant changes in economic structure take place during the process of development. In this paper we concentrate on changes in the nature of interdependence in production summarized in input–output tables. The analysis is based on a sample of 83 input–output tables from 30 countries over the period 1950–75. We first compare measures of sectoral interdependence across countries and over time, and then estimate the average pattern of change in the structure of intermediate use of output with the level of development. Changes in intermediate use are traced back to changes in technology and compositional effects.
Evidence that retroviruses integrate into post‐replication host DNA.

We have studied the question of whether a retrovirus integrates into the chromosomal DNA of the host cell before or after the DNA is replicated during the S phase of the cell cycle. We have infected single NIH‐3T3 cells with BAG, a replication‐incompetent retroviral vector which encodes the lacZ gene, then observed the clones derived from these cells to discover whether all the cells carry a copy of the proviral DNA. We have discovered that only half of the progeny of an infected cell carries a copy of the provirus. This indicates that the virus only integrates into post‐replication DNA. We discuss the implications of this result for applications of retroviruses, such as gene therapy and cell lineage, which use them as vehicles for gene transfer into stem cells.
HydRand: Practical Continuous Distributed Randomness

A reliable source of randomness is not only an essential building block in various cryptographic, security, and distributed systems protocols, but also plays an integral part in the design of many new blockchain proposals. Consequently, the topic of publicly-verifiable, bias-resistant and unpredictable randomness has recently enjoyed increased attention in a variety of scientific contributions, as well as projects from the industry. In particular random beacon protocols, which are aimed at continuous operation, can be a vital component for many current Proofof-Stake based distributed ledger proposals. We improve upon existing random beacon approaches by introducing HydRand, a novel distributed protocol based on publicly-verifiable secret sharing (PVSS) to ensure unpredictability, bias-resistance, and public-verifiability of a continuous sequence of random beacon values. Furthermore, HydRand is able to provide guaranteed output delivery of randomness at regular and predictable intervals in the presence of adversarial behavior and does not rely on a trusted dealer for the initial setup. In comparison to existing PVSS based approaches which achieve similar properties, our solution improves scalability by lowering the communication complexity from O(n) to O(n). Furthermore, we are the first to present a detailed comparison of recently described schemes and protocols that can be used for implementing random beacons.
CEO Compensation and the Responsibilities of the Business Scholar to Society

American CEOs make a great deal of money. The amounts must stagger people who are unfamiliar with contemporary business prac tice. The AFL-CIO's Executive PayWatch reports that the average CEO in the SP 214 Democrats and 55 Republicans supported what is known as the Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act (or more colloquially, the "Say on Pay" initiative). 4 That same day, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and seven of his colleagues introduced S. 1181.5 As of this writing, the Senate version of the bill is being considered by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Ur ban Affairs. Professor Kaplan's testimony serves as a wonderful stimulus to consider both the com plexities of CEO compensation and the proper role for a business scholar in society.6 Professor Kaplan vigorously defends U.S. cor porate governance practices. He argues that "there can be absolutely no doubt that the typical CEO in the United States is paid for performance" This article is in response to Steven N. Kaplan's Congressional testi mony on empowering shareholders on executive compensation and H.R. 1257, the Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act before the Committee on Financial Services of the United States House of Represen tatives, on March 8, 2007. The ideas expressed in Mr. Kaplan's article in this issue are based largely on this testimony. Due to timing issues, we asked Mr. Walsh to respond to Mr. Kaplan's testimony, not to the article that appears in this issue. To access the full testimony, visit www.house. gov/ apps/list/hearing/financialsvcs_dem/htkaplan030807.pdf. Mr. Walsh would like to thank Paul Adler, Peter Cappelli, Don Hausch, Joshua Margolis, Nejat Seyhun, Cathy Shakespeare, and Judith Walls for their conversations and comments on an earlier version of this
Predicting Depression Severity by Multi-Modal Feature Engineering and Fusion

We present our preliminary work to determine if patient's vocal acoustic, linguistic, and facial patterns could predict clinical ratings of depression severity, namely Patient Health Questionnaire depression scale (PHQ-8). We proposed a multi-modal fusion model that combines three different modalities: audio, video, and text features. By training over the AVEC2017 dataset, our proposed model outperforms each single-modality prediction model, and surpasses the dataset baseline with a nice margin.
Frequency of Early Predialysis Nephrology Care and Postdialysis Cardiovascular Events.

BACKGROUND Patients with kidney failure are at a high risk for cardiovascular events. Predialysis nephrology care has been reported to improve postdialysis survival, but its effects on postdialysis major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) have not been comprehensively studied. STUDY DESIGN Observational cohort study. SETTING & PARTICIPANTS We used data from the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. Adult patients who initiated maintenance dialysis therapy in 1999 to 2010 were enrolled. PREDICTOR We created 3 subtypes of predialysis nephrology care based on the time between the first nephrology visit and the initiation of dialysis therapy: early frequent (duration ≥ 6 months; at least 1 nephrology visit every 3 months), early infrequent (duration ≥ 6 months, <1 nephrology visit every 3 months), and late (duration < 6 months). OUTCOMES MACE was defined using the primary diagnosis in hospitalization records of acute myocardial infarction, acute heart failure, acute stroke, or sudden death. MEASUREMENTS We investigated the associations of different subtypes of nephrology care with postdialysis 1-year MACEs. RESULTS Among the 60,329 eligible patients, 24,477 (40.6%) had early frequent, 12,763 (21.2%) had early infrequent, and 23,089 (38.3%) had late nephrology care. Compared to the late-nephrology-care group, the early-frequent group was associated with an ∼10% lower risk for 1-year MACEs (HR of 0.89 [95% CI, 0.82-0.96] for first MACE and relative risk of 0.91 [95% CI, 0.84-0.98] for recurrent MACEs). However, the early-infrequent-care group had similar risks for MACEs as the late group (HR of 0.95 [95% CI, 0.86-1.05] for first MACE and relative risk of 0.94 [95% CI, 0.86-1.02] for recurrent MACEs). LIMITATIONS Lack of physical and biochemical information because of inherent limitations from administrative claims data. CONCLUSIONS Early frequent nephrology care for 6 or more months before the initiation of long-term dialysis therapy may improve 1-year postdialysis major cardiovascular outcomes.
Frequency-Division Bidirectional Communication Over Chip-to-Chip Channels

Frequency division multiple access is applied to bidirectional communication over chip-to-chip links. Frequency division is implemented by dividing the spectrum into low-frequency (dc) and high-frequency (ac) bands using a simple LC filter. The nonidealities that this filter introduces are compensated for with a transmitter/receiver pair that can recover signals in both bands. The receiver uses a dual-path topology that includes hysteresis to recover data from a signal with no dc content. The transmitter is a 6-tap (FIR) pre-emphasis equalizer with variable tap spacing. In simulation, the transmitter and receiver simultaneously communicate error-free at 8 Gb/s over the ac channel and at 500 Mb/s over the dc channel. Measurements shows that the ac and dc signals can be individually recovered and that the two signals occupy distinct frequency bands.
Effects of Concentrated Ambient Particles on Airway Responsiveness and Pulmonary Inflammation in Pulmonary Hypertensive Rats

Epidemiological studies have associated particulate air pollution with exacerbation of lung function in human populations. However, the relationship between ambient particles and lung function in animal studies has been inconsistent. In order to investigate the effects of concentrated ambient particles (CAPs) on airway responsiveness, we exposed pulmonary hypertensive rats to CAPs using particle concentrator at an EPA of Taiwan supersite, located at a traffic busy urban area nearing Taipei city. The exposure group (n = 5) was exposed to CAPs for 6 h each day for 3 consecutive days (mean mass concentration = 371.7 μ g/m3), while a control group (n = 6) was exposed to HEPA-filtered air. Whole-body barometric plethysmography was used to measure respiratory frequency, tidal volume, and airway responsiveness before and after exposure. Enhanced pause (Penh) was used as an indicator of airway responsiveness. To improve the accuracy of airway responsiveness measurement, we controlled temperature and humidity. Further, airway responsiveness was determined 5 h after particle exposure to overcome the stress effect in nose-only exposure chambers. After CAPs exposure, we found decreased respiratory frequency and increased tidal volume (p <. 05). Using the methacholine challenge test, a significant difference of Penh measured before and after experiment was observed in the CAPs group (p <. 05), but not in the filtered air group. Further analysis showed that the Penh difference before and after exposure in the CAPs group was significantly greater than that in the filtered air group (p <. 05). We conclude that CAPs could induce airway hyperresponsiveness in pulmonary hypertensive rats.
Human Exposure to Endocrine Disrupters and Semen Quality

Reproductive pathology in the male represents about 20% of infertility cases. Male infertility may be attributed to a number of causes, including genetic and congenital abnormalities, infection, multisystemic diseases, varicocele, and others; however, a significant number of cases are idiopathic. Global declines in semen quality were suggested to be associated with enhanced exposure to environmental chemicals that act as endocrine disrupters as a result of our increased use of pesticides, plastics, and other anthropogenic materials. A significant body of toxicology data based upon laboratory and wildlife animals studies suggests that exposure to certain endocrine disrupters is associated with reproductive toxicity, including (1) abnormalities of the male reproductive tract (cryptorchidism, hypospadias), (2) reduced semen quality, and (3) impaired fertility in the adult. There is, however, a relative paucity of studies designed to measure exposure to endocrine disrupters on semen quality parameters (sperm concentration, motility, morphology). An overview of the human semen quality literature is presented that examines the role of endocrine disrupters including organochlorines (OC), dioxins, phthalates, phytoestrogens, and chemical mixtures (pesticides and tobacco smoke).
Molecular determinants for activation and inactivation of HERG, a human inward rectifier potassium channel.

1. The human eag‐related potassium channel, HERG, gives rise to inwardly rectifying K+ currents when expressed in Xenopus oocytes. 2. The apparent inward rectification is caused by rapid inactivation. In extracellular Cs+ solutions, large outward currents can be recorded having an inactivation time constant at 0 mV of about 50 ms with an e‐fold change every 37 mV. 3. HERG channel inactivation is not caused by an amino‐terminal ball structure, as a deletion of the cytoplasmic amino terminus (HERG delta 2‐373) did not eliminate inactivation. However, channel deactivation was accelerated about 12‐fold at ‐80 mV. 4. Mutation of S631 to A, the homologous residue of eag channels, in the outer mouth of the HERG pore completely abolished channel inactivation. 5. Activity of HERG channels depended on extracellular cations, which are effective for channel activation, in the order Cs+ > K+ > > Li+ > Na+. The point mutation S631A strongly reduced this channel regulation. 6. By analogy to functional aspects of cloned voltage‐gated potassium channels, rectification of HERG, as well as its kinetic properties during the course of an action potential, are presumably governed by a mechanism reminiscent of C‐type inactivation.
Awareness about balanced food among unskilled human resource.

BACKGROUND This study was carried out at Peshawar about the food habits of daily wages labourers working in the urban area. METHODS One to one interview was conducted with 50 randomly selected daily wages labourers, using structured questionnaire. At the same time specimen of capillary blood was obtained from their fingers tips for haemoglobin measurement. RESULTS The study revealed that due to lack of awareness and poor socio economic status the daily wages labourers are more prone to malnutrition and iron deficiency anaemia. CONCLUSION There is a need of comprehensive health education and a strategy should be designed to provide a food locally available that could fulfill the requirement that occurs due to the deficiency of animal protein in the food of daily wages labourers.
Growth Analysis of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Based on Interatomic Potentials by Molecular Dynamics Simulation

Molecular dynamics simulation was performed to understand the growth mechanism of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) by using the Brenner–Tersoff potential as the interaction among carbon atoms (C–C) and the Tersoff-type potential as the interaction between carbon and metal (C–M) and between metal and metal atoms (M–M). The potential functions for C–M and M–M bonds were established from the results of ab initio calculations. The growth of high-quality SWNTs was simulated at a suitable temperature and supply ratio of carbon atoms. The potential energy of carbon atoms was strongly dependent on the number of C–C and C–M bonds. The dependence explains the growth process, including cap formation, its lift-off, and the continuous SWNT growth.
A Probit Analysis of Aboriginal Employment Prospects in New South Wales

Using data from the 1986-87 Survey of Working Age Aborigines in New South Wales, this paper presents the results of a probit analysis to determine the characteristics that differentiate employed Aborigines from Aborigines not in employment. The results of the probit analysis show the importance of the acquisition of human capital to the employment success of Aborigines, at least in New South Wales. Increments in level of education, previous participation in formal labor market programs, and previous employment experience all have significant, positive impacts on the likelihood of individual Aborigines being in employment. Copyright 1993 by The Economic Society of Australia.
What business people need to know about IT: an accounting perspective

Strategic change within organizations is often enabled by technology, which changes at a rapid pace. This paper offers a solution to the frustrating problem faced by business managers and executives in keeping up with the fast-moving changes in computing, communications and associated technology. The paper is in three parts. First, it outlines the problems associated with the so-called business/IT divide, which is the communications gap that is blamed for many of the failures and difficulties associated with the management, development and use of information systems and technologies. Second, it reviews the literature on approaches for coping mechanisms and proposes a framework that business professionals can follow to keep abreast with emerging technology and its potential application. This provides a continuous monitoring process over the life cycle of the technology. Finally, the framework is tested by considering its potential for smaller accounting practices, as an example of a business community that is in urgent need of assistance in this area. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations made for ways in which accounting managers and staff can keep abreast of technology developments and minimize the risks associated with the deployment of technologies within their organizations. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Capital Controls and Foreign Exchange Policy

The empirical analysis of the paper suggests that an FX policy objective and concerns about an overheating of the domestic economy have been the two main motives for the (re-)introduction and persistence of capital controls over the past decade. Capital controls are strongly associated with countries having significantly undervalued exchange rates. Capital controls also appear to be less motivated by worries about financial market volatility or fickle capital flows per se, but rather by concerns about capital inflows triggering an overheating of the economy--in the form of high credit growth, rising inflation and output volatility. Moreover, countries with a high level of capital controls, and those actively implementing controls, tend to be those that have fixed exchange rate regimes, a non-IT monetary policy regime and shallow financial markets. This evidence is consistent with capital controls being used, at least in part, to compensate for the absence of autonomous macroeconomic and prudential policies and effective adjustment mechanisms for dealing with capital flows.
Comparing Coastal Planner Expectations of Change to Climate Science Projections

Abstract Coastal planners' expectations of climate change play an important role in their assessment of potential risks, vulnerabilities, and adaptation strategies. This paper assesses coastal planners' expectations of climate change and compares their estimates to widely referenced climate science projections. It focuses on assessing expectations of the magnitude and uncertainty of global temperature and sea-level change by 2030 and the likelihood of four climate change impacts by the mid-to-late twenty-first century. A web-based questionnaire (n = 137) was used to elicit coastal planner expectations of climate change in three coastal states (Alaska, Florida, and Maryland) across three levels of management (local, state, and non-government organizations). Findings indicate that over half of the planners were unsure of the magnitude of global temperature and sea-level rise (SLR). Among those who responded, planner estimates of the magnitude and uncertainty of global temperature and SLR are higher than climate science projections reviewed in this research. Roughly 80% of all participants believed that each of the four climate impacts were at least ‘more likely than not' to occur. We discuss the consequences of these expectations for how climate risk, vulnerability, and adaptation are managed and suggest pathways for aligning expectations and facilitating adaptation.
Financial sector development and the macrodynamics of ‘de facto’ dollarisation in developing countries: the case of Ghana

Following the massive economic policy restructuring and reforms since the early 1980s, currency substitution, asset substitution and de facto dollarisation have become common phenomena in nearly all transition and developing economies. High and persistent inflation which have been a perennial feature of developing and transition economies is now known to be highly responsible for currency substitution, asset substitution and de facto dollarisation. This paper presents evidence on the macrodynamics of de facto dollarisation, currency substitution and asset substitution during the era of the implementation of the Financial Sector Adjustment Programmes (FINSAPs) in developing and transition economies with special reference to Ghana. The study has found out that de facto dollarisation whether in the form of asset substitution or currency substitution is highly prevalent and poses a serious threat to fiscal and monetary policies effectiveness in developing and transition economies. In Ghana, the principal long-run mainspring of de facto dollarisation is the ad hoc implementation of financial sector development programme that was embarked upon about two decades ago which has resulted in high exchange rate depreciation and price fluctuations. It is, however, likely that as the financial sector develops over a long period a time will come when further development of the financial sector would no longer instigate de facto dollarisation.
Dibs Faiz Oranlarında Oynaklığın Koşulu Değişen Varyans Modeli İle Tahmini Ve Öngörülmesi

Finans kuraminin en onemli unsurlarindan biri risktir. Ilgilenilen serinin standart sapma ya da varyansiyla olculen oynaklik, ait oldugu finansal varligin riskinin yaklasik olcusu olarak kabul edilmektedir. Bu nedenledir ki, varyansin modellenmesi, sadece akademisyenlerin degil, finans alaninda calisanlarin da onemle uzerinde durdugu bir konudur. Geleneksel ekonometri ve zaman serisi metotlarinin sabit varyans varsayimi, finansal zaman serileri acisindan onemli bir sorun teskil etmektedir. Sabit varyans varsayiminin, serinin asil desenini taklit edebilecek bir model elde edilmesini onlemekle kalmayip, faiz oranlarinda birim kok olduguna iliskin sifir onsavinin da reddedilememesine neden olabildigi iddia edilmektedir. Bu calismada, 12 ay vadeli iskontolu DIBS faiz oranlari, geleneksel metotlarin aksine finansal zaman serilerinin hem donemler arasi bagimlilik, hem de kosullu degisen varyans ozelligini dikkate alan, Ardisik Baglanimli Kosullu Degisen Varyans modeli ve turevleri kullanilarak modellenmekte ve elde edilen hata terimleri serisinde birim kok olup olmadigi sinanmaktadir. Kosullu degisen varyans modellemesinden sonra faiz oranlarinin oynakliginda sadece asimetrinin degil fakat haberlerin onemli bir unsur oldugu bulunmakla birlikte birim kok sifir onsavinin reddi basarilamamaktadir. Yine de, kurulan KABKDV ve GJR modellerinin, bir-iki donem otesinin ongorulmesinde kullanilabilecegi gosterilmektedir.