Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Architecture for binary mathematical morphology reconfigurable by genetic programming

Mathematical morphology supplies powerful tools for low level image analysis, with applications in robotic vision, visual inspection, medicine, texture analysis and many other areas. Many of the mentioned applications require dedicated hardware for real time execution. In this paper, the development of a novel reconfigurable hardware using logical and morphological instructions generated automatically by a linear approach based on genetic programming is proposed. The hardware is capable of processing binary images at high speed. The developed system is based on high-capacity PLDs and has among the possible applications: automatic construction of image filters, intelligent pattern recognition, to name just a few. Some applications using the developed reconfigurable system are presented and the results are discussed and compared with other approaches.
The end of the “French grandeur policy”

The “policy of grandeur” was one of the main characteristics of French policy since Louis XIV. After World War II, France became a more modest State, but with de Gaulle and the Fifth Republic a new form of “policy of grandeur” was developed, based on nuclear deterrence, the importance of military expenditure, the independence of the national armament industry and arms exports. Since the mid-nineties, there has been a profound change of French defence policy, concerning the definition of means and the organization of armament production. European co-operation no longer appears as one option among others but as the only way out. For France, European co-operations is now placed at the centre of defence policy. The most important transformations in French arms production have yet to come.
The policy evolution of Bookstart

In this article, a holistic governance framework is used to investigate the policy evolution and diffusion of the Bookstart programme. Documentary analysis is used to uncover the evolution and processes of the Bookstart programme. The findings indicate that the development of the Bookstart programme followed a ‘bottom-up’ to ‘top-down’ process that can be broadly divided into four stages: popularization, horizontal diffusion, vertical integration and civil society response. The evolution of Bookstart in Taiwan began with relations between government agencies and enterprise organizations before transitioning to relationships between central and local governments and eventually to relations between government agencies and civil society. However, Bookstart in Taiwan has failed to develop resource integration and interaction between local governments, or a local government policy network.
Usability Methodologies for Real-Life Voice User Interfaces

This paper studies the usability methodologies for spoken dialogue web interfaces along with the appropriate designer-needs analysis. The work unfolds a theoretical perspective to the methods that are extensively used and provides a framework description for creating and testing usable content and applications for conversational interfaces. The main concerns include the design issues for usability testing and evaluation during the development lifecycle, the basic customer experience metrics and the problems that arise after the deployment of real-life systems. Through the discussion of the evaluation and testing methods, this paper argues on the importance and the potential of wizard-based functional assessment and usability testing for deployed systems, presenting an appropriate environment as part of an integrated development framework.
Market vs. Limit Orders: The SuperDOT Evidence on Order Submission Strategy

Abstract This paper discusses performance measures for market and limit orders. We suggest two measures: one for precommitted traders (who must trade) and another for passive traders (who are indifferent to trading). We compute these measures for a sample of NYSE SuperDOT orders. The results suggest that the limit order placement strategies most commonly used by NYSE SuperDOT traders do in fact perform best. Limit orders placed at or better than the prevailing quote perform better than do market orders, even after imputing a penalty for unexecuted orders, and after taking into account market order price improvement. Unconditional order submission strategies that use SuperDOT to offer liquidity in competition with the specialist do not appear to be profitable.
Complementary Relationships Between Corporate Philanthropy and Corporate Political Activity

Although an important feature of firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR), the strategic pressures behind firms’ corporate philanthropy (CP) are not well researched or understood. This research note argues that firms’ CP and firms’ corporate political activity (CPA) may share common strategic antecedents; forces in firms’ political environment may shape both CP and CPA. Using S&P 500 data in a longitudinal analysis (1997-2004), the authors find evidence suggesting that industry-level political uncertainty increases firm propensity for engaging in both CP and CPA, above and beyond the propensity to engage in either as a stand-alone strategy. The authors use this preliminary evidence to explore political marketplace contingencies for the relationship between CP and CPA. CSR literature indicates that CP can benefit firms by creating and enhancing their relational wealth and institutional legitimacy. Such benefits may also serve firm interactions with government policy makers—a dynamic largely ignored until recently. The authors’ findings may indicate that, due to its institutional signaling ability and impact on firms’ reputations, CP may allow firms to differentiate themselves or stand out from others when faced with political uncertainty, and that these outcomes should be considered when firms engage in CP.
Strategic Trading by Index Funds and Liquidity Provision Around S&P 500 Index Additions

We examine the trades of index funds and other institutions around S&P 500 index additions. We find index funds begin rebalancing their portfolios with the announcement of composition changes and do not fully establish their positions until weeks after the effective date. Trading away from the effective date is more prevalent for stocks with lower levels of liquidity and among large index funds, which is consistent with index funds accepting higher tracking error in order to reduce the price impact of their trades. Small and mid-cap funds provide liquidity to index funds around additions, and added stocks with a greater proportion of these natural liquidity providers experience lower inclusion returns.
Physics-Based Band Gap Model for Relaxed and Strained [100] Silicon Nanowires

In this paper, we propose a physics-based simplified analytical model of the energy band gap and electron effective mass in a relaxed and strained rectangular [100] silicon nanowires (SiNWs). Our proposed formulation is based on the effective mass approximation for the nondegenerate two-band model and 4 × 4 Lüttinger Hamiltonian for energy dispersion relation of conduction band electrons and the valence band heavy and light holes, respectively. Using this, we demonstrate the effect of the uniaxial strain applied along [100]-direction and a biaxial strain, which is assumed to be decomposed from a hydrostatic deformation along [001] followed by a uniaxial one along the [100]-direction, respectively, on both the band gap and the transport and subband electron effective masses in SiNW. Our analytical model is in good agreement with the extracted data using the extended-Hückel-method-based numerical simulations over a wide range of device dimensions and applied strain.
PROFESSIONALISM AS A CONSTRUCT IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR.

Professionalism is identified as a topic of increasing importance in organizational behavior. Three common forms are identified: local/cosmopolitanism, professionalism, and professional commitment. A review of these constructs and their operationalization indicates that local/cosmopolitanism should not be used and that use of the other two is contingent on the research questions.
When European integration becomes costly: the euro crisis and public support for European economic governance

ABSTRACT This article analyses preferences for European economic governance in the European sovereign debt crisis. We assess citizens' opinions on increased intergovernmental co-operation and supranational governance in the economic sphere. We argue that current efforts to tackle the euro crisis do not benefit the typical ‘winners of European integration’. Moreover, European economic governance constitutes an even greater perceived threat to national identity, especially in the member states that fare well economically. Hypotheses are tested using multilevel analysis of Eurobarometer survey wave EB 75.3 (2011).
Immersive and collaborative Taichi motion learning in various VR environments

Learning “motion” online or from video tutorials is usually inefficient since it is difficult to deliver “motion” information in traditional ways and in the ordinary PC platform. This paper presents ImmerTai, a system that can efficiently teach motion, in particular Chinese Taichi motion, in various immersive environments. ImmerTai captures the Taichi expert's motion and delivers to students the captured motion in multi-modal forms in immersive CAVE, HMD as well as ordinary PC environments. The students' motions are captured too for quality assessment and utilized to form a virtual collaborative learning atmosphere. We built up a Taichi motion dataset with 150 fundamental Taichi motions captured from 30 students, on which we evaluated the learning effectiveness and user experience of ImmerTai. The results show that ImmerTai can enhance the learning efficiency by up to 17.4% and the learning quality by up to 32.3%.
The Socio-Economic Value of Natural Riverbanks in the Netherlands

Ecologists and economists both use a different approach to determine the value of nature. Its ecological value can be measured using criteria like rarity and diversity of species in an ecosystem. The economic value can be determined using non-market valuation techniques. This paper focuses on an empirical application of the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to find out whether this valuation method is a suitable method to estimate the economic value of natural riverbanks in the Netherlands. Natural riverbanks will provide habitat for species that particularly depend on the land water transit area. Since common riverbanks do not provide this habitat, natural river banks increase biodiversity in the Netherlands. On the basis of technical and ecological characteristics nine different types of natural riverbanks were distinguished. For each type a laymen description was made. This description served as a basis for economic valuation by means of CVM. The results of the CVM study shows that the average willingness to pay for non-use of a natural riverbank varied between 16 and 25 Dutch guilders per household year. The willingness to pay for recreational use ranged from 1,07 to 2,50 guilders per visit. The generated outcomes proved to be consistent with results from other studies. At first sight, the economic value of natural riverbanks seemed to be higher than their construction and maintenance cost.
Uncertainty About the Persistence of Inflation

This paper offers several contributions to actual research and discussion on monetary policy. It clarifies the relationship between uncertainty of inflation persistence and optimal monetary policy and discusses the consequences of the recent Blanchard proposal to implement a higher inflation target in the light of parameter uncertainty. Furthermore, it provides insights of general interest on the methodological level by analyzing the interrelations between normalization of variables and their independence properties and by extending standard solution methods of dynamic programming problems to non-orthogonal parameter uncertainty.
The Resurgent American Voter, 1996-2012

Sparked both by normative concerns and a classic empirical puzzle, scholars developed and tested a variety of explanations for the turnout decline in the US between 1960 and 1988. More than a decade of research eventually showed that the sources of the decline in turnout were multifaceted: it stemmed in various degrees from declines in partisanship, political efficacy and newspaper reading, mobilization, and changes in the age distribution in the electorate with lower rates of participation in younger cohorts.Turnout slid to 52.8% of the voting eligible population in 1992, surged briefly in 1992 to 58.1%, then bottomed out at 51.7% in 1996. Since then, turnout increased in three consecutive presidential elections, reaching an estimated 61.4% in 2008, but dropped back to 58.2% in 2012. Using pooled cross-sectional data from the American National Election Studies, I find that demographic and electoral reform variables account for little of the increase in turnout since 1996, while perceptions of partisan differences and renewed importance of voter mobilization do account for substantial portions of the increase.
Private placements of common equity and the industry rival response

This study examines the intra-industry signalling effects of private equity issue announcements. The results show that the average industry reaction to a private equity announcement is negative. However, evidence of a contagion effect also exists. Specifically, the competitive response among industry rivals is significantly stronger for private equity issues during bear stock markets. In fact, the industry rival reaction for nonhigh-tech firms is significantly negative during bear markets only, while it is significantly positive during bull markets. These findings highlight the importance of stock market conditions in influencing the signals sent by private equity issues and the resulting shareholder wealth effects.
Addressing the misdiagnosis of asthma in adults: where does it go wrong?

ABSTRACT Introduction: Asthma is diagnosed based on patients’ respiratory symptoms of wheeze, cough, chest tightness and/or dyspnea together with physiologic evidence of variable and reversible expiratory airflow limitation. A high prevalence of overdiagnosis, underdiagnosis and misdiagnosis of adult asthma has been reported in the literature. Areas covered: Misdiagnosis of asthma in adults can occur in the community due to physicians’ failure to confirm airflow limitation using spirometry, the relatively poor sensitivity of spirometry to absolutely rule in asthma, the complexity of multiple asthma phenotypes and endotypes, and the inherent day to day variability of asthma symptoms and airflow limitation. Consequences of asthma misdiagnosis to the patient and to the healthcare system include increased medication costs, increased potential side effects related to unnecessary use of medications and lost opportunities to diagnose the true cause of patients’ respiratory symptoms. Expert commentary: Here we provide a review of the problem of misdiagnosis of adult asthma and suggestions for how to decrease the risk of misdiagnosis.
Private Observation, Communication and Collusion

The authors examine discounted repeated games where players privately observe different signals. A leading example is secret price cutting; a firm cannot directly observe rival firms' price cutting but its own sales can imperfectly indicate what is going on. The characterization of equilibria in this class of games has been an open question. The authors construct equilibria where players voluntarily communicate what they have observed and prove folk theorems. Their results thus provide a theoretical support for the conventional wisdom that communication facilitates collusion.
Short-term effect of aldosterone on Na-Cl transport across equine colon.

In ponies fed concentrated (pelleted) meals, postprandial increases of plasma aldosterone have been temporally associated with a decrease in colonic fluid volume that parallels the conclusion of postfeeding fermentation. To determine the significance of short-term increases of plasma aldosterone on the rate of colonic Na absorption, in vitro transport studies were conducted on the mucosae of three morphologically distinct colonic segments (i.e., ventral, dorsal, and small colons) from ponies infused with a high physiological concentration of aldosterone for an 8-h period. In control ponies, basal NaCl absorption across the proximal colon (ventral and dorsal colons) was amiloride-insensitive and electroneutral. In aldosterone-treated ponies, the rate of electroneutral Na absorption was doubled in both segments and a small, amiloride-sensitive current was detected in the dorsal colon. However, consistent with previous observations [Clarke and Argenzio. Am. J. Physiol. 259 (Gastrointest. Liver Physiol. 22): G62-G69, 1990], expression of electroneutral Na absorption in the ventral colon required pretreatment of the tissues with an inhibitor of prostaglandin synthesis, i.e., indomethacin. In the distal (small) colon, basal absorption was entirely electrogenic and amiloride-sensitive, and aldosterone treatment tripled the rate of absorption. The above findings are consistent with the notion that postprandial hyperaldosteronism can significantly increase colonic Na absorption and, thereby, may facilitate colonic fluid absorption during the concluding period of meal-induced fermentation (8-12 h postfeeding). However, in the ventral colon (i.e., the principal site of fermentation), mineralocorticoid action does not dominate control of electroneutral Na transport because accelerated absorption could be abolished by the antiabsorptive effect of local prostanoids.
Two track public services? Citizens' voice behaviour towards liberalized services in the EU15

Abstract Is there evidence for the emergence of ‘two-track’ public services, where the wealthiest, best-informed and most assertive customers get the best quality service? In this paper, we use public opinion data of citizen complaint behaviour from 2000 and 2004 towards services of general interest in 15 EU countries to provide a first examination of the ‘two-track’ public services hypothesis. The findings only partly support the expectation that socio-economic factors did have a negative impact over time on citizen complaints. While education did not have such an effect, age did. However, these results should be regarded as provisional for various reasons.
A unified approach to the measurement of international accounting harmony*

Abstract Many indices, including the Herfindahl H index, the C index, the I index, and variants of these, have been proposed to measure the level of harmony of accounting practices. These indices can be viewed as having different properties based on several criteria and in practice choosing an index because it has a desirable property by one criterion can require accepting an undesirable property by another criterion. This paper provides a unified treatment of possible indices, which includes the commonly used indices. This clarifies the relationship between the previously proposed indices by placing them in a unified framework and provides new indices that are superior to existing ones for some situations. It also allows the user to choose an index with the desired properties based on several criteria without sacrificing one desirable property in order to achieve another desirable property. It also shows how the generalisations of the I index for more than two countries are flawed and suggests an alternative index from within this unified framework. The main criteria used to arrive at a particular index within this unified framework are (1) the weighting given to companies/countries, (2) international focus (within country, between country, or overall), (3) the treatment of multiple accounting policies, and (4) the treatment of non-disclosure. Specifying the desired properties under these criteria provides more flexibility by allowing an index to be tailored to a particular problem and more clearly articulates the consequences of using a particular index. These consequences are discussed with the assistance of an example for the accounting policy choice for goodwill.
Disclosure and Litigation

Shareholder lawsuits are currently a hot issue. This article compares the characteristics and disclosure policies of companies that were targets of shareholder litigation with those of similarly at-risk companies that were not sued. In contrast to widely held beliefs, a sharp stock price decline does not automatically trigger a lawsuit. Litigation targets experience an abnormally good operating and stock market performance prior to litigation, where the non-sued companies are typically mediocre performers. The litigated companies communicated with investors more extensively than control companies, issuing more optimistic announcements but fewer warnings of forthcoming disappointments. Moreover, as a group, the litigated companies did not resume their high-flying performance after litigation. Shareholder litigation should be viewed as a potential cost of disclosure, however it does not overshadow the considerable benefits of an active disclosure policy.
Benefit-Cost Analysis of Residential and Outpatient Addiction Treatment in the State of Washington

A benefit-cost analysis of full continuum (FC) and partial continuum (PC) care was conducted on a sample of substance abusers from the State of Washington. Economic benefits were derived from client self-reported information at treatment entry and at 9 months postadmission using an augmented version of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI). Average (i.e., per client) economic benefits of treatment from baseline to follow-up for both FC and PC were statistically significant for most variables and in the aggregate. The overall difference in average economic benefit between FC and PC was positive ($8,053) and statistically significant, favoring FC over PC. The average cost of treatment amounted to $2,530 for FC and $1,138 for PC (p < .01). Average net benefits were estimated to be $17,833 (9.70) for FC and $11,173 (23.33) for PC, with values showing statistical significance (p < .05). Results strongly indicate that both treatment options generated positive and significant net benefits to society.
MAPfastR: Quantitative Trait Loci Mapping in Outbred Line Crosses

MAPfastR is a software package developed to analyze quantitative trait loci data from inbred and outbred line-crosses. The package includes a number of modules for fast and accurate quantitative trait loci analyses. It has been developed in the R language for fast and comprehensive analyses of large datasets. MAPfastR is freely available at: http://www.computationalgenetics. se/? page_id=7
Residents’ Satisfaction With Community Attributes and Support for Tourism

This study develops and tests a structural model of residents’ support tourism development, with the social exchange theory as its theoretical base. The model incorporates three exogenous latent variables, namely, community satisfaction with neighborhood conditions, community commitment, and satisfaction with community services. Perceived positive and negative impacts of tourism are proposed as the mediating variables between the exogenous latent variables and the ultimate dependent variable, given as support for tourism. Eight path hypotheses are proposed and tested using a sample of 363 residents. Perceptions of tourism impacts were found to influence support for tourism development. Findings also suggest that residents’ satisfaction with neighborhood conditions and community services are important determinants of perceived positive and negative impacts of tourism. Community commitment was found not to be an antecedent of attitudes to tourism. The practical implications of the study are discussed, together with its limitations and scope for future research.