Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Are commodity prices mean reverting?

Are commodity prices mean reverting or do they follow a random walk? As traditional unit root tests lack power, this article proposes using the ability to hedge option contracts as a measure of the most appropriate stochastic process. A misspecified price process will, quite naturally, result in larger hedging errors. The hedging errors, therefore, give an economic as opposed to statistical measure of mean reversion. Market prices of almost 300 different commodities from 1970 and onwards are studied. In line with the low power of statistical unit root tests, we are only able to reject a unit root for some 15% of the commodity price series and mean reversion is accepted for even fewer series. Hedging errors are, however, smaller for the mean reverting process, supporting the intuition that commodity prices are mean reverting.
Descriptive figures for differences in parenting and infant night-time distress in the first three months of age

Aim To provide descriptive figures for infant distress and associated parenting at night in normal London home environments during the first three months of age. Background Most western infants develop long night-time sleep periods by four months of age. However, 30% of infants in many countries sleep for short periods and cry out on waking in the night: the most common type of infant sleep behaviour problem. Preventive interventions may help families and improve services. There is evidence that ‘limit-setting’ parenting, which is common in western cultures, supports the development of settled infant night-time behaviour. However, a recent review has challenged this and argued that this form of parenting risks distressing infants. This study describes limit-setting parenting as practiced in London, compares it with ‘infant-cued’ parenting and measures the associated infant distress. Methods Longitudinal infrared video, diary and questionnaire observations comparing a General-Community (n=101) group and subgroups with a Bed-Sharing (n=19) group on measures of infant and parenting behaviours at night. Findings General-Community parents took longer to detect and respond to infant waking and signalling, and to begin feeding, compared with the highly infant-cued care provided by Bed-Sharing parents. The average latency in General-Community parents’ responding to infant night-time waking was 3.5 min, during which infants fuss/cried for around 1 min. Compared with Bed-Sharing parenting, General-Community parenting was associated with increased infant distress of around 30 min/night at two weeks, reducing to 12 min/night by three months of age. However, differences in infant distress between General-Community subgroups adopting limit-setting versus infant-cued parenting were not large or statistically significant at any age. The figures provide descriptive evidence about limit-setting parenting which may counter some doubts about this form of parenting and help parents and professionals to make choices.
Power System Dynamic Simulations Using a Parallel Two-Level Schur-Complement Decomposition

As the need for faster power system dynamic simulations increases, it is essential to develop new algorithms that exploit parallel computing to accelerate those simulations. This paper proposes a parallel algorithm based on a two-level, Schur-complement-based, domain decomposition method. The two-level partitioning provides high parallelization potential (coarse- and fine-grained). In addition, due to the Schur-complement approach used to update the sub-domain interface variables, the algorithm exhibits high global convergence rate. Finally, it provides significant numerical and computational acceleration. The algorithm is implemented using the shared-memory parallel programming model, targeting inexpensive multi-core machines. Its performance is reported on a real system as well as on a large test system combining transmission and distribution networks.
Autism, Neurodiversity and the Welfare State: The Challenges of Accommodating Neurological Difference

Abstract. In the last decade, autism has become one of the most hotly contested health policy issues in North America and beyond. From debates about the role of vaccines to the efficacy of therapeutic interventions, a range of civil society actors has been advocating for policy and societal change in the field, with mixed success. In Canada, this culminated in 2004 with a much-publicized Supreme Court decision—Auton v. British Columbia—that pitted parents of autistic children against the BC government, which was unwilling to cover the costs of behavioural treatment for autistic children. In contrast to parent-led advocacy groups, there has been a flurry of civil society activity waged by autistic self-advocates who decry the focus on curing autistic people and press instead for the recognition of neurological difference. Drawing on interviews with advocates in Canada and the US, this article highlights these contending perspectives and argues that both pose fundamental challenges to how we view the redistributive aims of the welfare state in Canada and beyond. Résumé. Au cours de la dernière décennie, l'autisme est devenu l'un des enjeux les plus controversés dans le domaine de la santé au Canada et à l'étranger. Que ce soit lors de débats sur le rôle des vaccins ou encore sur l'efficacité des interventions thérapeutiques, plusieurs acteurs de la société civile ont milité, avec un succès mitigé, en faveur de changements dans politiques et sociaux par rapport à l'autisme. Au Canada, cet activisme résultera en une décision fort controversée de la Cour Suprême en 2004, Auton v. Colombie-Brittanique, portant sur un conflit entre les parents d'enfants autistes et le gouvernement de la Colombie-Britannique, qui refusait de payer le coût des traitements pour les enfants autistes. En parallèle au militantisme des parents d'enfants autistes, des individus autistes se sont aussi mobilisés pour dénoncer cette fois l'objectif même de guérir les personnes autistes. Ces derniers exigent plutôt que soient reconnues leurs différences et, de manière plus large, le principe de la diversité neurologique. Se basant sur des entrevues avec des militants et des militantes, cet article présente ces différentes perspectives et démontre qu'elles remettent en question la façon dont nous conceptualisons le modèle de redistribution associé à l'État-providence.
Social Construction of International Politics: Identities & Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999

Constructivism at home: theory and method -- The Russian nation, new Soviet man, class and modernity: identity relations in Moscow, 1955 -- Identities as social structures: enabling and constraining Soviet alliance choices in 1955 -- Historical, internal, and external others: Russian identity in 1999 -- Re-centering a peripheral Russia in a unipolar world in 1999 -- Identity, foreign policy, and IR theory.
Three-week topical treatment with placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells hydrogel in a patient with diabetic foot ulcer

Rationale: Diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) is a chronic complication of diabetes characterized by continuity, repeatability, and nonhealing. In recent years, mesenchymal stem cells hydrogel complex has been a new emerging technique in the treatment of DFU. The placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells (PDMSCs) hydrogel is multipotent, and can secrete growth factors, cytokines, and immunomodulatory substances which could accelerate wound healing. Patient concerns: In this case report, we present a 57-year-old female with type 2 diabetes mellitus and a 20-day DFU.A wound bed located at the dorsalis pedis of the right foot, and conventional therapies had no effect on the foot. Diagnoses: The patient was confirmed a diagnosis of type 2 DM with diabetic foot (Wagner classification III). Interventions: To assess the efficacy and safety of PDMSCs hydrogel in wound repair and to improve the rate of wound healing, we administered PDMSCs hydrogel (cell number: 1 × 106/cells/cm2) topically into the wound with the patient's permission. Outcomes: The patient's foot ulcer was almost healed, and foot function in walking was well preserved. No complications were observed. No recurrence occurred in the subsequent 6 months. Lessons: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first patient globally to receive PDMSCs hydrogel to treat DFU. The present case study suggests that PDMSCs hydrogel may provide a new approach to DFU treatment. Clinical Trial Registration-URL: http://www.chictr. org.cn/searchproj.aspx:chiCRT-ONC-16008732.
MDP environments for the OpenAI Gym

The OpenAI Gym provides researchers and enthusiasts with simple to use environments for reinforcement learning. Even the simplest environment have a level of complexity that can obfuscate the inner workings of RL approaches and make debugging difficult. This whitepaper describes a Python framework that makes it very easy to create simple Markov-Decision-Process environments programmatically by specifying state transitions and rewards of deterministic and non-deterministic MDPs in a domain-specific language in Python. It then presents results and visualizations created with this MDP framework.
Hierarchical modelling applied to agriculture: wheat planting decisions in the Pacific Northwest

This paper presents a hierarchical decision model that predicted Alturas soft white spring wheat would be the best spring wheat variety to plant in the Pacific Northwest in 2006. Profitability depends on changing market demands and competition with other crops. The challenge of wheat farming is sustaining profitability. A four level hierarchical decision model approach was selected for this research. The top level or mission was to maximise profitability. Quality, yield and operating costs goals were placed at the next level of the hierarchy, and grain, milling, end-product quality, pest resistance and seed costs were placed at a third level. Wheat varieties were placed at the lowest level. The model predicted which wheat to plant from the lowest level would have the highest likelihood of achieving the mission, at the highest level, of maximising the profit. Pairwise comparisons were completed for each level of the model. Quantitative data was collected for three soft white spring wheat cultivars, two hard red spring wheat cultivars, and two hard white spring wheat cultivars.
Motion Compensated Temporal Image Signature Approach

Detecting salient regions in a temporal domain is indeed a challenging problem. The problem gets trickier when there is a moving object in a scene and becomes even more complex in the presence of camera motion. The camera motion can influence saliency detection as on one side, it can provide important information about the location of moving object. On the other side, camera motion can also lead to wrong estimation of salient regions. Therefore it is very important to handle this issue more sensible. This paper provides a solution to this issue by combining a saliency detection approach with motion estimation approach. This further extends the Temporal Image Signature (TIS) (Qureshi, 2013) approach to the more complex level where not only object motion is considered but also camera motion influence is compensated.
Mouse Receptor Interacting Protein 3 Does Not Contain a Caspase-Recruiting or a Death Domain but Induces Apoptosis and Activates NF-κB

ABSTRACT The death domain-containing receptor superfamily and their respective downstream mediators control whether or not cells initiate apoptosis or activate NF-κB, events critical for proper immune system function. A screen for upstream activators of NF-κB identified a novel serine-threonine kinase capable of activating NF-κB and inducing apoptosis. Based upon domain organization and sequence similarity, this novel kinase, named mRIP3 (mouse receptor interacting protein 3), appears to be a new RIP family member. RIP, RIP2, and mRIP3 contain an N-terminal kinase domain that share 30 to 40% homology. In contrast to the C-terminal death domain found in RIP or the C-terminal caspase-recruiting domain found in RIP2, the C-terminal tail of mRIP3 contains neither motif and is unique. Despite this feature, overexpression of the mRIP3 C terminus is sufficient to induce apoptosis, suggesting that mRIP3 uses a novel mechanism to induce death. mRIP3 also induced NF-κB activity which was inhibited by overexpression of either dominant-negative NIK or dominant-negative TRAF2. In vitro kinase assays demonstrate that mRIP3 is catalytically active and has autophosphorylation site(s) in the C-terminal domain, but the mRIP3 catalytic activity is not required for mRIP3 induced apoptosis and NF-κB activation. Unlike RIP and RIP2, mRIP3 mRNA is expressed in a subset of adult tissues and is thus likely to be a tissue-specific regulator of apoptosis and NF-κB activity. While the lack of a dominant-negative mutant precludes linking mRIP3 to a known upstream regulator, characterizing the expression pattern and the in vitro functions of mRIP3 provides insight into the mechanism(s) by which cells modulate the balance between survival and death in a cell-type-specific manner.
Development and Validation of RP-HPLC Method for Simultaneous Estimation of Picroside I, Plumbagin, and Z-guggulsterone in Tablet Formulation

The aim of the present work was to develop and validate a reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method for the simultaneous estimation of picroside I, plumbagin, and Z-guggulsterone in a polyherbal formulation containing Picrorhiza kurroa, Plumbago zeylanica, and Commiphora wightii extracts. The analysis was performed on a C18 column using the mobile phase consisting of solvent A (acetonitrile) and solvent B (0.1% orthophosphoric acid in water) with the following gradient: 0-12 min, 25% A; 12-17 min, 25-80% A; 17-32 min, 80% A; and 32-37 min, 80-25% A at a flow rate of 1 ml/min. Ultraviolet detection was at 255 nm. The method was validated for accuracy, precision, linearity, specificity, and sensitivity as per the norms of the International Conference on Harmonization. From the validation study, it was found that the method is specific, accurate, precise, reliable, and reproducible. Good linear correlation coefficients (r2>0.900) were obtained for calibration plots in the ranges tested. Limits of detection were 2.700, 0.090 and 0.099 μg/ml and limits of quantification were 9.003, 0.310, and 0.330 μg/ml for picroside I, plumbagin, and Z-guggulsterone, respectively. Intra and interday relative standard deviation (RSD) of retention times and peak areas was less than 3.0%. Recovery was found to be 100.21% for picroside I, 102.5% for plumbagin, and 103.84% for Z-guggulsterone. The established method was appropriate and the three markers were well resolved, enabling efficient quantitative analysis of picroside I, plumbagin and Z-guggulsterone. The method is a rapid and cost-effective quality control tool for routine quantitative analysis of picroside I, plumbagin, and Z-guggulsterone in tablet dosage form.
Balancing desirable but conflicting objectives in the newsvendor problem

In this paper we study the problem of balancing two desirable but conflicting objectives in the newsvendor model. The standard objective in the newsvendor model is the expected profit maximization. Another objective (known as the "satisficing"--or, "aspiration-level"--objective) that has been studied in the literature is the probability of exceeding a prespecified and fixed target profit level. Since it may not always be obvious what the fixed target profit level should be, we introduce a more flexible satisficing objective where the target does not have to be prespecified. Our satisficing/aspiration-level objective is defined as the probability of exceeding the expected profit and it is a "moving" target that is a function of the order quantity. We provide a discussion of the properties of the newly introduced probability maximization objective. As a departure from previous work where the individual objectives were considered in isolation, in this paper we develop a model that unifies and integrates the two objectives. We use a scalarization method to combine the standard objective of expected profit maximization with the new objective of maximizing the probability of exceeding the moving target. A decision framework is developed within compromise programming that involves minimizing a generalized distance function measuring the "distance" from an ideal point to the efficient frontier. Several examples illustrate the results.
Indoor field measurements with a configurable multi-antenna testbed

This paper reports the development of a configurable, non-real-time, 2/spl times/2 multi-antenna testbed operating at 5.25 GHz with a bandwidth of 25 MHz. MIMO-OFDM modulation and demodulation are performed offline. The unit is fully calibrated and was used in extensive indoor wireless measurements at UCLA. The paper reports measurements for SISO, SIMO 1/spl times/2 and MIMO 2/spl times/2 setups in line of sight and nonline of sight channels. These measurements show that LOS channels are not necessarily detrimental for MIMO performance. Further experiments show that with -3 dBm of transmit power uncoded data rates of 140 Mbit/s are achievable.
Allocating Emergency Response Resources to Minimize Risk with Equity Considerations

SYNOPTIC ABSTRACT In this paper, we consider the problem of allocating certain available emergency response resources to mitigate risks that arise in the aftermath of a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or other unforeseen calamities. The resulting model formulation is a nonconvex program, for which we derive a tight linear programming relaxation. This relaxation is embedded within a specialized branch-and-bound procedure, and the proposed method is proven to converge to a global optimum. Various alternative partitioning strategies that could potentially be employed in the context of this branch-and-bound framework, while preserving the theoretical convergence property, are also explored. Computational results are reported for a hypothetical case scenario based on different parameter inputs and alternative branching strategies, and comparisons with the commercial software BARON as well as an ad-hoc intuitive method are presented.
False Negative and Positive Motor Evoked Potentials in One Patient: Is Single Motor Evoked Potential Monitoring Reliable Method?: A Case Report and Literature Review

Study Design. A case report and literature review. Objective. To report a false negative and delayed positive motor-evoked potential (MEP) in 1 patient. Summary of Background Data. An unreliable MEP can result in fatal outcomes because surgeons have recently begun to depend on the MEP for intraoperative decision-making. Methods. We report a case of a false MEP during scoliosis surgery that showed false negative and positive MEPs during a series of operations. Results. A 23-year-old man with a history of spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia presented with severe kyphoscoliosis. The initial neurologic examination did not reveal any neurologic abnormalities. Surgical correction and fusion were performed with transcranial MEP monitoring. During the entire procedure, the MEP did not reveal any signs of cord injury. However, lower limb paralysis and paresthesia was observed when the patient awakened. After 2 additional surgical procedures to recover the neurologic deficit, the MEP did not show any signs of cord injury but the patient's neurologic status had recovered slightly. At postoperative day 8, the neurologic status recovered, and a third operation was performed to fix the long rods. However, there were abnormal amplitudes in both lower limbs but the patient's neurologic status was almost normal. Conclusion. From our experience of false negative and positive MEP in 1 patient, it is concluded that undesirable events can occur with use of MEP in scoliosis or other spinal surgery. Therefore, we warn the surgeons too heavily rely on the MEP monitoring, and propose a further prospective study as well as use of alternative method that can improve the reliability of single MEP.
Oral Gabapentin Versus Rectal Diclofenac for Postoperative Analgesia

Dear Editor, I read with interest the article by Mogadam et al. (1) in which the authors have compared the analgesic efficacy of gabapentin and diclofenac in patients undergoing tonsillectomy. They concluded that both gabapentin and diclofenac reduced postoperative pain and opioid consumption without side effects. Four additional points deserve commentary and clarification. Gabapentin is being increasingly used as a multimodal perioperative drug because of its ability to produce analgesia, anxiolysis and sedation. Pre-treatment with gabapentin has been shown to allay preoperative anxiety (2). In this study, patients received atropine and alfentanyl as premedication. It would benefit the readers to know if patients who received gabapentin preoperatively displayed greater anxiolysis compared with those who received placebo or rectal diclofenac. Gabapentin 800 mg administered 1 - 2 h preoperatively attenuates the increase in blood pressure in the first 10 min following laryngoscopy and intubation (3). Was there any significant difference in hemodynamic parameters between the three groups during laryngoscopy and intubation or during the intraoperative period? Gabapentin decreases analgesic consumption and opioid related adverse effects; however, this is at the expense of increased sedation and dizziness (4). Somnolence is a side effect observed in 15.2% of patients (5). It would be interesting to know whether there was any difference in the degree of sedation in their patients during the postoperative period. Also, was there any significant difference in intraoperative isoflurane requirement within the three groups? Diclofenac rectal suppository is absorbed in 30 - 60 min and achieves T max after 50 min of insertion. It offers a simple means to administer the drug, equalling the analgesic efficacy of the oral preparation (6). It bypasses the enteric system thus eliminating several gastrointestinal adverse effects of the drug. While Taj et al. (7) found that all children in their study accepted rectally administered drug, Tolksdorf et al. (8) found that oral midazolam was better accepted than rectal midazolam. Did the authors find the rectal administration of diclofenac during the preoperative period to be acceptable to patients or would the patients have preferred the oral route of premedication?
Recent Progress in the Genetics of Diabetes

Background: Nearly 21 million people in the United States, or 7% of the population, are estimated to have diabetes. The incidence and prevalence of diabetes differ by ethnicity; however, both type 1 diabetes (T1D) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) occur in all groups. The etiology of diabetes is multifactorial, involving both genetic and environmental factors. Advances in technology, leading to the identification of over a dozen candidate genes, have accelerated the search for genetic factors contributing to the risk of diabetes. To date, surprisingly little data exist to suggest there are common genetic pathways leading to development of T1D and T2D. These common forms of diabetes have complex genetic (and environmental) risk factors, making prediction and prevention difficult. Nonetheless, detection of diabetes susceptibility genes may facilitate identification of novel pathways that can serve as therapeutic targets and lead to disease prevention.