Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Magnetic fluorescent ballasts: Market data, market imperfections, and policy success

Many economists have strongly questioned engineering-economic studies aimed at demonstrating anomalously slow diffusion of energy-efficient technology and the benefits of regulations to promote such technology. One argument against such studies is that standard techniques of engineering-economics are either inappropriate for or are routinely misapplied in assessing the performance of the market for energy efficiency. This paper presents engineering-economic evidence on the diffusion of energy efficiency improvements that takes account of such critiques. The authors examine the engineering and economic characteristics of standard and energy-efficient magnetic ballasts for fluorescent lighting. Efficient magnetic ballasts represented an excellent investment for 99% of the commercial building floor stock, and a moderately good investment for 0.7% of the commercial floor stock. Still, these ballasts were only being adopted in the 1980s at a rate commensurate with the enactment of appliance efficiency standards in various states. In this case, there is solid empirical evidence for skepticism about the effectiveness of the market mechanism in promoting cost-effective energy efficiency improvements as well as evidence of the benefits of regulation to counteract this shortcoming.
Location uncertainty in mobile networks: a theoretical framework

As users, services, databases, and computers become increasingly mobile, so fades the era of the fixed network. Modern networks are becoming mobile networks which must accommodate a broad range services with differing mobility characteristics. Consequently, there is an impetus to understand mobility and its effect on communications systems. Of particular interest are the unique stresses imposed by mobile computing and especially mobile computer programs (agents). As an aid to greater understanding, we propose a theoretical framework for the study of mobility tracking based on user/service/host location probability distributions. We show how this methodology, using stochastic ordering and information theory, can enable quantitative comparison of various mobility management schemes as well as insight into the mobility tracking problem over a wide range of mobility characteristics. This general approach should aid both applications and future research.
Adaptive interleaver based on rate-compatible punctured convolutional codes

This letter focuses on the design of an adaptive bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) scheme for frequency selective slow fading channels where the transmitter has certain knowledge of the channel response. In particular, we consider the design of the interleaver stage for a specific convolutional code operating with OFDM modulation. The adaptive interleaver uses the puncturing tables of the rate-compatible punctured convolutional codes (RCPC codes) to rearrange the bits as a function of the fading values and the specific constellation. The performance of different interleavers are compared, revealing that the adaptive RCPC-based interleaver produces larger Euclidean distances between the received codewords and reduces the packet error rate (PER), specially when the number of deep-faded subcarriers increases. Numerical results also evidence the importance of the interleaver choice when comparing the performance of different power allocation strategies.
Cooperation in Public Goods Experiments

Reproduction partielle permise avec citation du document source, incluant la notice ©. Short sections may be quoted without explicit permission, provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. Ce document est publié dans l'intention de rendre accessibles les résultats préliminaires de la recherche effectuée au CIRANO, afin de susciter des échanges et des suggestions. Les idées et les opinions émises sont sous l'unique responsabilité des auteurs, et ne représentent pas nécessairement les positions du CIRANO ou de ses partenaires. This paper presents preliminary research carried out at CIRANO and aims at encouraging discussion and comment. The observations and viewpoints expressed are the sole responsibility of the authors. They do not necessarily represent positions of CIRANO or its partners. Résumé / Abstract Ce texte (Keser) présente une revue et une discussion des écrits de la littérature en économie expérimentale sur la coopération dans la production de biens publics. Le texte est suivi d'un commentaire (Montmarquette) qui met l'accent sur les applications économiques que l'on peut tirer de ces études. This text (Keser) is a survey and a discussion of experimental studies on cooperation in public goods experiments. It is followed by a comment (Montmarquette) suggesting some economic applications from these experimental studies.
Nutritional Quality of Preparations Based on Döner Kebab Sold in Two Towns of Veneto Region, Italy: Preliminary Results

The sampling activity for this study was performed between September and October 2012. It involved seven shops in Verona, eleven in Vicenza and two in its province (Bassano del Grappa), northern Italy. The scope was to measure the values of energy and nutritional components and to identify the profile of fatty acids in a serving of ready to eat Döner Kebab. The samples were collected according to the usual proportions of this preparation, keeping all the components (bread, meat, vegetables and sauces) separated in different bags. In the laboratory, each component was weighed and, after pooling, processed for the analytical determination of humidity, crude protein, lipid content and fatty acid profile, ashes, sodium (salt), carbohydrate, collagen (measured only in meat) and fibre. The results showed a highly standardized recipe, while the comparison between the two towns showed a significant difference in carbohydrate concentration (mainly due to the quantity of bread used). By observing data on the serving sizes sampled (274 to 618 g) and the nutritional values obtained, Döner Kebab can be seen as a ready to eat dish providing much energy: on average a serving size covers 45 and 36% of the recommended daily intake of energy, 95.7 and 82.1% of protein, 42.5 and 33.4% of saturated fatty acids for females and males, respectively, and 85.5% of salt regardless of gender. Döner Kebab can be considered as an occasional substitute to one of the two main meals of the day.
Relaxed Functional Dependencies—A Survey of Approaches

Recently, there has been a renovated interest in functional dependencies due to the possibility of employing them in several advanced database operations, such as data cleaning, query relaxation, record matching, and so forth. In particular, the constraints defined for canonical functional dependencies have been relaxed to capture inconsistencies in real data, patterns of semantically related data, or semantic relationships in complex data types. In this paper, we have surveyed 35 of such functional dependencies, providing a classification criteria, motivating examples, and a systematic analysis of them.
Troubling Travels: Funding Myanmar's Junta

Ever since General Ne Win's coup d'etat in 1962, Myanmar's military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), has maintained an iron-fisted political doctrine while sending mixed signals about its economic agenda. Although initially opposed to capitalism, Myanmar dismantled its socialist economy with the Foreign Investment Law of 1989. Tourism became the leading beneficiary of deregulation, reaching a high of 287,394 foreign arrivals in 1998 to 1999. Behind the facade of a booming tourism industry, however, measures taken by the SPDC in the name of improving tourism have resulted in countless human rights violations. Tourism provides Myanmar's junta with an economic backbone to support oppression and resist political reform; thus, if Myanmar is to make progress towards democracy, international sanctions will need to apply not only to corporations and business capital, but to the Burmese tourism industry as well. Shortly after the passing of the Foreign Investment Law, the military junta held a parliamentary election in 1990 that gave opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) 82 percent of the seats. The junta, however, never allowed the elected parliament to convene. This affront to popular sovereignty led the United States, Japan, and the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Myanmar. In order to recover lost governmental revenue, the SPDC focused on expanding its tourism industry. However, there has not been much attention to the costs of expanding the tourism industry, nor to the direction of funds generated by the newly developing tourism industry, which are undoubtedly merited. Because of its lack of monetary stability, Myanmar relies on tourism for foreign exchange. Although the official exchange rate for Myanmar's currency is about 6 kyats to US$1, the actual rate of exchange can reach 1000 kyats to US$1. The high unofficial exchange rate coupled with steep inflation makes attracting foreign currency a top priority for the government. Each visitor to Myanmar must exchange US$300 for Foreign Exchange Certificates--a special monetary unit accepted by most hotels. Additionally, Myanmar's government profits from foreign investments in state-run hotels by exchanging state protection and infrastructure for foreign capital. In 2003 alone, tourism generated over US$116 million in investments and revenues for the economy. Despite declining foreign investment in other fields, the hotel industry has attracted investments totaling over US$1.06 billion since 1988. For a regime that spends over 50 percent of its income on the military, tourism income perpetuates its illegitimate military rule. The US$300 minimum spent by every tourist in Myanmar is enough to equip a Burmese soldier for a year. To attract more visitors, SPDC re-development campaigns build up tourist destinations at the cost of human rights. …
Music chords: Emotions and sonantometry: Through algebra of chord progressions to information theory of emotions

The paper offers a solution to the centuries-old puzzle — why the major chords are perceived as happy and the minor chords as sad. A theory and a formula of musical emotions were created. They define the sign and the amplitude of the utilitarian emotional coloration of separate major and minor chords through relative pitches of constituent sounds. The standard form of notation of the relative frequencies by rational quantities is accompanied by replacement of them with the sonant formulas. It gives a possibility of extraction of data about relative pitches from results of detail study of a notation of the musical scores by means of sonantometry.
The Effects of Jiang-Zhi-Ning and Its Main Components on Cholesterol Metabolism

To examine how Jiang-Zhi-Ning (JZN) regulates cholesterol metabolism and compare the role of its four main components. We established a beagle model of hyperlipidemia, fed with JZN extract and collected JZN-containing serum 0, 1, 2, 4, and 6 h later. Human liver cells Bel-7402 were stimulated with 10% JZN-containing serum as well as the four main components of JZN and Atorvastatin. The mRNA expression of LDL receptor (LDL-R), 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-CoA reductase (HMG-CoAR), cytochrome P450 7A1 (CYP7A1), and acetyl-Coenzyme A acetyltransferase 2 (ACAT2) was measured by real-time PCR. LDL-R surface expression and LDL-binding and internalization were examined by flow cytometry. The results showed that JZN-containing serum significantly increased the mRNA expression of LDL-R, HMG-CoAR, and CYP7A1 in Bel-7402 cells. All the four components significantly increased the mRNA and protein expression of LDL-R and HMG-CoAR and decreased the mRNA and protein expression of ACAT2 in Bel-7402 cells. Hyperinand chrysophanol also markedly increased the mRNA expression of CYP7A1. Stimulation with stilbene glycosidesignificantly increased the surface expression of LDL-R and the binding and internalization of LDL. In conclusion, JZN and its four components have close relationship with the process of cholesterol metabolism, emphasizing their promising application as new drug candidates in the treatment of hyperlipidemia.
Teacher-Level Value-Added Models on Trial: Empirical and Pragmatic Issues of Concern Across Five Court Cases

Ongoing or recently completed across the United States are a series of lawsuits via which teacher plaintiffs are contesting how they are being evaluated using value-added models (VAMs) as part of states’/districts’ teacher accountability systems. To investigate the empirical and pragmatic matters addressed in court, researchers conducted a case study analysis of the documents submitted for five such cases. Researchers framed analyses using measurement concepts resident within the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, given issues with (a) reliability, (b) validity, (c) bias, (d) transparency, and (e) fairness, with emphases also on (f) whether VAMs are being used to make consequential decisions using concrete (e.g., not arbitrary) evidence, and (g) whether VAMs’ unintended consequences are also of legal pertinence and concern.
The Regulation of Cellular Responses to Mechanical Cues by Rho GTPases

The Rho GTPases regulate many cellular signaling cascades that modulate cell motility, migration, morphology and cell division. A large body of work has now delineated the biochemical cues and pathways, which stimulate the GTPases and their downstream effectors. However, cells also respond exquisitely to biophysical and mechanical cues such as stiffness and topography of the extracellular matrix that profoundly influence cell migration, proliferation and differentiation. As these cellular responses are mediated by the actin cytoskeleton, an involvement of Rho GTPases in the transduction of such cues is not unexpected. In this review, we discuss an emerging role of Rho GTPase proteins in the regulation of the responses elicited by biophysical and mechanical stimuli.
Urdu/Hindi modals

In this paper we survey the various ways of expressing modality in Urdu/Hindi and show that Urdu/Hindi modals provide interesting insights on current discussions of the semantics of modality. There are very few dedicated modals in Urdu/Hindi: most of which has been arrived at constructionally via a combination of a certain kind of verb with a certain kind of embedded verb form and a certain kind of case. Among the range of constructions yielded by such combinations, there is evidence for a two-place modal operator in addition to the one-place operator usually assumed in the literature. We also discuss instances of the Actuality Entailment, which had been shown to be sensitive to aspect, but in Urdu/Hindi appears to be sensitive to aspect only some of the time, depending on the type of modal verb. Indeed, following recent proposals by Ramchand (2011), we end up with a purely lexical account of modality and the Actuality Entailment, rather than the structural one put forward by Hacquard (2010).
Named entity network based on wikipedia

Named Entities (NEs) play an important role in many natural language and speech processing tasks. A resource that identifies relations between NEs could potentially be very useful. We present such automatically generated knowledge resource from Wikipedia, Named Entity Network (NE-NET), that provides a list of related Named Entities (NEs) and the degree of relation for any given NE. Unlike some manually built knowledge resource, NE-NET has a wide coverage consisting of 1.5 million NEs represented as nodes of a graph with 6.5 million arcs relating them. NE-NET also provides the ranks of the related NEs using a simple ranking function that we propose. In this paper, we present NE-NET and our experiments showing how NE-NET can be used to improve the retrieval of spoken (Broadcast News) and text documents.
The Analysis of Household Surveys (Reissue Edition with a New Preface): A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy

Two decades after its original publication, The Analysis of Household Surveys is reissued with a new preface by its author, Sir Angus Deaton, recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. This classic work remains relevant to anyone with a serious interest in using household survey data to shed light on policy issues. This book reviews the analysis of household survey data, including the construction of household surveys, the econometric tools useful for such analysis, and a range of problems in development policy for which this survey analysis can be applied. The author's approach remains close to the data, using transparent econometric and graphical techniques to present data in a way that can clearly inform policy and academic debates. Chapter 1 describes the features of survey design that need to be understood in order to undertake appropriate analysis. Chapter 2 discusses the general econometric and statistical issues that arise when using survey data for estimation and inference. Chapter 3 covers the use of survey data to measure welfare, poverty, and distribution. Chapter 4 focuses on the use of household budget data to explore patterns of household demand. Chapter 5 discusses price reform, its effects on equity and efficiency, and how to measure them. Chapter 6 addresses the role of household consumption and saving in economic development. The book includes an appendix providing code and programs using STATA, which can serve as a template for the users' own analysis.
Effective Integration of Mobile Applications in the Context of Education System

With the advancement of wireless communication and portable devices, mobile users not only access information ubiquitously, but also use mobile devices for business transactions. Users exchange location, preferences and purchase details for discounts and privileges, in commercial applications. Mobile applications for educational purposes have plausible prospects. Applications for an educational gaming purpose, a classroom management control, a reference tool and an online study group can be developed. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) aim to bring education to the entire world online, with access to university level courses, thereby promising a quality educational experience. This paper presents the concept applied in M-Commerce transactions, wherein a real time mobile application for an educational portal is developed, to enable e-learning in a wireless environment. It utilizes an Android platform for learners to access and refer online study materials, test themselves through mobile devices, and view their evaluation results. Consequently, intra and interdepartmental group analyses are generated, for assessment by academic heads. It also provides an opportunity to improve students’ performance, for enlightening themselves intellectually and for sharing the knowledge gained among peers. This proposed model could be implemented as a MOOC across groups of institutions, interactive study forums and networking communities. General Terms Mobile Computing, Wireless Networks, Online Course Content, Mobile Application, Result Analysis, Performance Analysis.
Analysis of Stub Loaded Circular Microstrip Antennas

Dual band circular microstrip antenna is realized by placing an open circuit stub on the edges of the patch. The stub is said to introduce capacitive and inductive impedance around the resonance frequency of the patch and realizes dual frequency response. The multi-band circular microstrip antenna is realized by placing two open circuit stubs on the opposite edges of the circular patch. In this paper, an open circuit stub loaded dual and triple band circular microstrip antennas are discussed. The analysis to study the dual and multi-band response of stub loaded circular microstrip antenna is presented. The resonance curve plots, surface current distributions and the radiation pattern plots over wide frequency range for different stub lengths were studied. It was observed that the placement of the stub modifies the fundamental and higher order mode resonance frequencies of the circular patch and realizes dual and multiple frequencies. The stub modifies the directions of surface currents on the patch and thereby gives broadside radiation pattern at first two frequencies.
Postmortem proteolysis in longissimus muscle from beef, lamb and pork carcasses.

Postmortem proteolysis in skeletal muscle and factors affecting this process were examined in pork, lamb and beef longissimus muscles (LM) to determine the cause of differences in meat tenderness among these species. Fat thickness differed among species in the following order: pork greater than beef greater than lamb. The following patterns were observed for rate of temperature and pH decline: lamb greater than pork greater than beef and pork greater than beef greater than lamb, respectively. At 1 d postmortem, pork was the most tender, followed by beef and lamb, respectively. Between 1 and 14 d of postmortem storage, lamb LM was the most improved in tenderness, followed by beef and pork, respectively. Species did not differ (P greater than .05) in LM collagen solubility. Pork LM from fed pigs had the highest (P less than .05) level of cathepsins B + L and cystatin(s) activities, whereas no differences (P greater than .05) were observed among the species for cathepsin B activity. The lowest (P less than .01) Ca2(+)-dependent protease (CDP)-II and CDP inhibitor activities were observed in pork LM. Beef LM had the highest CDP inhibitor activity (P less than .05) but was intermediate in CDP-II activity. No differences were observed among species for CDP-I activity. The sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) of myofibrils isolated at 0, 1 and 14 d postmortem indicated that by d 1, desmin hydrolysis was most extensive in pork muscle, followed by lamb and beef. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Study of efficacy and safety of pulsatile administration of high‐dose gefitinib or erlotinib for advanced non‐small cell lung cancer patients with secondary drug resistance: A single center, single arm, phase II clinical trial

The objective of the study was to observe the efficacy and safety of pulsatile administration of high‐dose gefitinib or erlotinib in patients with advanced non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with secondary drug resistance to standard doses of tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) treatment.
Target tracking technique in wireless sensor network

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) facilitate enormous applications in the field of habitat monitoring, disaster management, security, military, etc. Sensor Nodes are very tiny in size and that leads to limited processing power and battery capacity. Resource constrained nature of sensors makes them extremely vulnerable to failures. Moreover, mobility management is an important parameter that affects the performance and lifetime of the Mobile sensor networks. As a result, management of mobility in an efficient manner is very crucial in sensor network. Energy efficiency and optimized allocation of sensor nodes are the key areas to maximize the lifetime of sensor network. In order to handle the aforementioned issues, we propose and implement a new technique of multi target tracking using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). The basic idea behind this technique is to estimate the current target position values at each time step and then use these current positions to predict the next position values of targets. Simulation results clearly demonstrate the advantages of implemented method over the existing single tracking method.