Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Analysis of the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act and the Clinger-Cohen Act and Their Effect on Cost Overruns in Department of Defense Contracts

Abstract : This thesis examines the impact of the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA) of 1994 and the Clinger-Cohen Act on cost overruns in Department of Defense (DoD) contracts. Many officials believe that we must change the way we do business to meet the new post-Cold War national security challenges Changing the way we do business means reforming the acquisition process to deliver weapons systems faster and cheaper. The FASA and the Clinger-Cohen Act made more changes to the acquisition process than any other policy had in the ten years preceding. This research effort studied 220 contracts completed between December 31, 1993 and December 31, 2001 to determine if cost overruns on contracts completed before the implementation of the FASA and the Clinger-Cohen Act were different than cost overruns on contracts completed after the implementation of the FASA and the Clinger- Cohen Act. The contracts were also subdivided to determine if the results were sensitive to acquisition lifecycle phase, branch of service, or contract type, The results indicate that cost overruns decreased on completed contracts after the implementation of the legislation. The results were sensitive to the branch of service responsible, Air Force contracts experienced no change in cost overruns after the implementation of the FASA and the Clinger-Cohen Act, while cost overruns in Army and Navy contracts decreased. The results were not sensitive to lifecycle phase or contract type.
CALL FOR PAPERS Decision Making : Neural Mechanisms The importance of decision onset

Teichert T, Grinband J, Ferrera V. The importance of decision onset. J Neurophysiol 115: 643–661, 2016. First published November 25, 2015; doi:10.1152/jn.00274. 2015. —The neural mechanisms of decision making are thought to require the integration of evidence over time until a response threshold is reached. Much work suggests that response threshold can be adjusted via top-down control as a function of speed or accuracy requirements. In contrast, the time of integration onset has received less attention and is believed to be determined mostly by afferent or preprocessing delays. However, a number of influential studies over the past decade challenge this assumption and begin to paint a multifaceted view of the phenomenology of decision onset. This review highlights the challenges involved in initiating the integration of evidence at the optimal time and the potential benefits of adjusting integration onset to task demands. The review outlines behavioral and electrophysiolgical studies suggesting that the onset of the integration process may depend on properties of the stimulus, the task, attention, and response strategy. Most importantly, the aggregate findings in the literature suggest that integration onset may be amenable to top-down regulation, and may be adjusted much like response threshold to exert cognitive control and strategically optimize the decision process to fit immediate behavioral requirements.
Cooperative Investment, Uncertainty and Access

We investigate cooperative investment for the deployment of a new infrastructure, and how it interacts with access obligations and demand uncertainty. Co-investment increases total coverage only if service differentiation and/or cost savings from joint investment, in particular due to high uncertainty, are high. Mandated access reduces incentives for co-investment not only through lower returns but also by the existence of the access option itself. Voluntary access provision increases infrastructure coverage but reduces social welfare by softening competition.
Antiangiogenesis therapy in second line metastatic colorectal cancer: similar but different

Recent updates in the second-line treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) have indicated the benefit of adding aflibercept (plus FOLFIRI) after an oxaliplatin-containing regimen (with or without bevacizumab) or a bevacizumab-containing regimen after progression on a different bevacizumab-containing regimen. This has led some oncologists to compare the trials and equate the drugs, with the assumption that they confer equal efficacy, but the background of this must be adequately assessed before reaching this conclusion. In fact, the publication of these trial results has left oncologists with much to consider for their mCRC patients who will eventually progress on a first-line chemotherapy/bevacizumab regimen. The author comments on this issue and emphasizes the need for additional research into antiangiogenic biomarkers to identify patients who are likely to respond to one drug more than another.
Efficacy of alprazolam for essential tremor

The effect of alprazolam on essential tremor was examined by a double-blind, placebo-controlled parallel study of 24 patients. Results indicated that patients treated with alprazolam had significant improvement in tremor. Transient mild fatigue or sedation in 50% of patients was the primary side effect. Alprazolam may provide therapeutic benefit, especially in patients who require only intermittent therapy.
IDO expands human CD4+CD25high regulatory T cells by promoting maturation of LPS‐treated dendritic cells

We have previously shown that human monocyte‐derived dendritic cells (DC) express indoleamine 2,3‐dioxygenase (IDO), as well as several other enzymes of the kynurenine pathway at the mRNA level upon maturation. The tolerogenic mechanisms of this pathway remain unclear. Here we show that LPS‐treated DC metabolize tryptophan as far as quinolinate. We found that IDO contributes to LPS and TNF‐α + poly(I:C)‐induced DC maturation since IDO inhibition using two different inhibitors impairs DC maturation. IDO knock‐down using short‐hairpin RNA also led to diminished LPS‐induced maturation. In line with these results, the tryptophan‐derived catabolites 3‐hydroxyanthranilic acid and 3‐hydroxykynurenine increased maturation of LPS‐treated DC. Concerning the molecular mechanisms of this effect, IDO acts as an intermediate pathway in LPS‐induced production of reactive oxygen species and NF‐κB activation, two processes that lead to DC maturation. Finally, we show that mature DC expand CD4+CD25high regulatory T cells in an IDO‐dependent manner. In conclusion, we show that IDO constitutes an intermediate pathway in DC maturation leading to expansion of CD4+CD25high regulatory T cells.
Efficacy evaluation of candle-like micro-needle electrode for EEG measurement on hairy scalp

This paper reports efficacy of candle-like array electrode for electroencephalography (EEG) measurement on hairy scalp. This electrode has 25 small pillars on the surface of the electrode. Each pillar has micro-needle on the top side. The pillars help the micro-needles to avoid hair and reach the scalp surface. We changed diameter of the pillars and experimentally found efficacy of candle-like array for avoiding hair. The presented candle-like micro-needle electrode appears to be a promising candidate for measuring EEG signals on hairy scalp with better quality and comfort for users than the conventional electrodes.
HIV infection and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis: the perfect storm.

BACKGROUND Multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) has emerged as a global epidemic, with ~425,000 new cases estimated to occur annually. The global human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection epidemic has caused explosive increases in TB incidence and may be contributing to increases in MDR-TB prevalence. METHODS We reviewed published studies and available surveillance data evaluating links between HIV infection and MDR-TB to quantify convergence of these 2 epidemics, evaluate the consequences, and determine essential steps to address these epidemics. RESULTS Institutional outbreaks of MDR-TB have primarily affected HIV-infected persons. Delayed diagnosis, inadequate initial treatment, and prolonged infectiousness led to extraordinary attack rates and case-fatality rates among HIV-infected persons. Whether this sequence occurs in communities is less clear. MDR-TB appears not to cause infection or disease more readily than drug-susceptible TB in HIV-infected persons. HIV infection may lead to malabsorption of anti-TB drugs and acquired rifamycin resistance. HIV-infected patients with MDR-TB have unacceptably high mortality; both antiretroviral and antimycobacterial treatment are necessary. Simultaneous treatment requires 6-10 different drugs. In HIV-prevalent countries, TB programs struggle with increased caseloads, which increase the risk of acquired MDR-TB. Surveillance data suggest that HIV infection and MDR-TB may converge in several countries. CONCLUSIONS Institutional outbreaks, overwhelmed public health programs, and complex clinical management issues may contribute to the convergence of the MDR-TB and HIV infection epidemics. To forestall disastrous consequences, infection control, rapid case detection, effective treatment, and expanded program capacity are needed urgently.
Carbapenem-hydrolyzing metallo-beta-lactamase from a nosocomial isolate of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in France.

References 1. Gubler DJ, Kuno G. Dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever. Center for Agriculture and Biosciences International; 1997; p. 10-25. 2. Henchal EA, Gentry M, McCown JM, Brandt WE. Dengue virus specific and flavivirus group determinants identified with monoclonal antibodies by indirect immunofluorescence. Am J Trop Med Hyg 1982;31:830-6. 3. Lanciotti RS, Calisher CH, Gubler DJ, Chang GJ, Vorndam AV. Rapid detection and typing of dengue viruses from clinical samples by using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. J Clin Microb 1992;30:545-51. 4. Deubel V, Nogueira RM, Drouet MT. Direct sequencing of genomic cDNA fragments amplified by the polymerase chain reaction for molecular epidemiology of dengue 2 virus. Arch Virol 1993;129:197-210. 5. Centre Collaborateur OMS de Reference et de Recherche pour les Arbovirus et les Fièvres Hémorragiques. Rapport Annuel 1995; Institut Pasteur de Dakar. 6. Monlun E, Zeller H, Le Guenno B, Traore-Lamizana M, Hervy JP, Ferrara L, et al. Surveillance of the circulation of arbovirus of medical interest in the region of eastern Senegal. Bull Soc Pathol Exot 1993;86:21-8. 7. Fagmani A. Epidemiological investigations on arbovirus infections at Igbo-Ora, Nigeria. Tropical and Geographical Medicine 1977;29:187-91. 8. Fagmani AH, Monath TP, Fabiyi A. Dengue virus infection in Nigeria: a survey for antibodies in monkeys and humans. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg 1977;71:60-5. 9. Sharp TW, Wallace MR, Hayes CG, Sanchez JL, DeFraites RF, Arthur RR, et al. Dengue fever in U.S. troops during Operation Restore Hope, Somalia, 19921993. Am J Trop Med Hyg 1995;53:89-94.
Angiotensin II stimulates hyperplasia but not hypertrophy in immature ovine cardiomyocytes

Rat and sheep cardiac myocytes become binucleate as they complete the ‘terminal differentiation’ process soon after birth and are not able to divide thereafter. Angiotensin II (Ang II) is known to stimulate hypertrophic changes in rodent cardiomyocytes under both in vivo and in vitro conditions via the AT1 receptor and intracellular extracellular regulated kinase (ERK) signalling cascade. We sought to develop culture methods for immature sheep cardiomyocytes in order to test the hypothesis that Ang II is a hypertrophic agent in the immature myocardium of the sheep. We isolated fetal sheep cardiomyocytes and cultured them for 96 h, added Ang II and phenylephrine (PE) for 48 h, and measured footprint area and proliferation (5‐bromo‐2′‐deoxyuridine (BrdU) uptake) separately in mono‐ vs. binucleate myocytes. We found that neither Ang II nor PE changed the footprint area of mononucleated cells. PE stimulated an increase in footprint area of binucleate cells but Ang II did not. Ang II increased myocyte BrdU uptake compared to serum free conditions, but PE did not affect BrdU uptake. The MAP kinase kinase (MEK) inhibitor UO126 prevented BrdU uptake in Ang II‐stimulated cells and prevented cell hypertrophy in PE‐stimulated cells. This paper establishes culture methods for immature sheep cardiomyocytes and reports that: (1) Ang II is not a hypertrophic agent; (2) Ang II stimulates hyperplastic growth among mononucleate myocytes; (3) PE is a hypertrophic agent in binucleate myocytes; and (4) the ERK cascade is required for the proliferation effect of Ang II and the hypertrophic effect of PE.
m-Profits: Making Money from 3G Services

Foreword. Acknowledgements. Intro to m-Profits: Show Me the Money. Characteristics of Mobile Services: What Makes Them Different. Mobile Phone the Most Personal Device: Cannot Live Without It. Micro-payments: The Magical Key to Content Revenues. The 5 M's of 3G Services: Recipe for Killer Cocktails. The Profits of Movement Services: Escaping the Fixed Place. The Profits of Mobile Services: Expanding the Concept of Time. The Profits of 'Me' Services. The Profits of Money Services: Expending Financial Resources. The Profits of Machine Services: Empowering Gadgets and Devices. Money Patterns in Cellular Networks: The 'Hockey Stick' Curves. Tariffing: Just Below the Pain Threshold. Marketing 3G Services. Competition in 3G Services: More Competitors. Revenue Sharing and Partnering: When You Cannot Do It Alone. Business Case of 3G for the Operator: Revenues, Cost and Profitability. Money Migration: Know the Streams. 4G: What Next? Postscript: Final Thoughts. m-Dictionary. Abbreviations. Bibliography. Websites. Services Index. Index.
Studying investment patterns in Russian agriculture

The study analyzes the investment behavior of Russian farms during the period of economic stabilization that followed the financial crisis of 1998. While the literature primarily uses accelerator and adjustment costs models to describe farms investment behavior in the context of transition countries, our study reveals that error-correction formulation of the investment equation is more suited to analyzing Russian farms investment patterns. In addition, by distinguishing between different categories of farms, we reveal significant differences in the investment patterns, not only across farms both with and without access to external finance, but also across mature and newly-established farms, owner- and employee-managed farms, and farms with high and low managerial competence, respectively.
Long-Run Market Configurations in a Dynamic Quality-Ladder Model with Externalities

We analyze the type of market structures that arise in the long-run when quality externalities and asymmetric R&D capabilities exist in the context of a quality-ladder dynamic model. An example of such externalities is a patent release by the leading fi rm: an improvement of quality of this firm's good a ects the quality of the other fi rms' products. This externality can be thought of as an increase in compatibility in a network. We show that it is possible for this model to generate, in the long-run, multi-modal probability distributions over di fferent market structures from the same parameter values. In some cases, the lagging rm may even become the dominant fi rm depending on the degree of the externality. This may have implications for the estimation and simulation of this class of models.
Application of Finance Management Instruments in Business Entities for example of PGE and Tauron Companies

Abstract Running a business involves the risk borne by the owners. They are most often identified with failure to achieve expected rates of return by investors. The same mechanisms apply to business entities whose one of the main objectives is to maximize the profits level. Equally important task, and according to the larger group of professional literature authors the most important is the increase of the company’s market value. Both purposes have common ground, involving the selection of indicators and instruments for the assessment of the financial condition and the value added of analyzed business entity. The objective of this paper is to compare mechanisms used to assess the financial condition of enterprises and indicate imperfections of measures based solely on bookkeeping data derived from an annual financial report. Characteristic features and the more objective nature of economic measures, in particular such as the Economic Value Added (EVA), are presented.
Public-private partnerships: some lessons from Portugal

The Portuguese PPP experience demonstrates the effectiveness of PPPs in rapidly developing infrastructure and in improving the quality of public services. But the ultimate goal is economic efficiency, not just effectiveness. On this count, Portugal's PPPs may not have scored as high as they could have. To some extent, this has been inevitable, given that no well-tested blueprint to follow was available when Portugal embarked on the PPP route a decade ago. That said, recent changes to Portugal's institutional framework for PPPs - especially a more rigorous appraisal of PPPs, their long-term budgetary implications, and of the contractual arrangements supporting them - aim at ensuring efficiency in the provision of infrastructure services and, thus, value for money.
Rethinking the Sales Force: Redefining Selling to Create and Capture Customer Value

The New Selling: From Communicating Value to Creating Value. The New Purchasing World: How Value is Reshaping Purchasing Decisions. Responding to the New Buying Reality: The Three Emerging Selling Modes. The New Transactional Selling: From Fat and Happy to Lean and Mean. The New Consultative Selling: From Rock Stars to Institutional Value. The New Enterprise Selling: From Large Sales to Deep Relationships. Sales Process: Light in the Long Dark Tunnel. Rethinking Channels to Create and Capture Value. Changing the Sales Force.
SEMI-SUPERVISED INTERACTIVE UNMIXING FOR HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGE ANALYSIS

In the past several decades, hyperspectral imaging has drawn a lot of attention in the field of remote sensing. Yet, due to low spatial resolutions of hyperspectral imagers, often the response from more than one surface material can be found in some hyperspectral pixels. These pixels are called mixed pixels. Mixed pixels bring challenges to traditional pixel-level applications, such as identification and detection of ground targets [1, 2]. To address these challenges, hyperspectral unmixing is often an important step during analysis of hyperspectral imagery. Hyperspectral unmixing is the task of decomposing each pixel into a set of pure material signatures (called endmembers) with the corresponding proportions of each material found in each pixel. In this thesis, novel hyperspectral unmixing approaches are proposed that leverage interactive labeling and semi-supervised approaches to improve unmixing results. Hyperspectral unmixing is conducted using an unsupervised approach. Fully supervised hyperspectral unmixing approaches are generally infeasible as the number of pixels in a hyperspectral image is often in the tensor hundreds-of-thousands and obtaining accurate pixel-level labels is prohibitively expensive or simply impossible. Thus, many hyperspectral unmixing algorithms in literature only use the hyperspectral image. However, there are often other ancillary information regarding the image available that could be used to assist the unmixing process and do not add an infeasible amount of labeling tasks. Motivated by this, novel semi-supervised hyperspectral unmixing techniques are proposed. The proposed semi-supervised approaches allow supervision over hyperspectral unmixing to improve the unmixing performance but do not require complete pixel-level accurate labels for a training data set. For the
An overview of state-of-the-art partial discharge analysis techniques for condition monitoring

As one step toward the future smart grid, condition monitoring is important to facilitate the reliability of grid asset operation and to save on maintenance cost [1]. Most failures of the power grid are caused by electrical insulation failure, and a key indicator of such electrical failure is the occurrence of partial discharge (PD). Therefore, one focus of condition monitoring is to detect PD, especially in the early stages, to prevent a serious power failure or outage.
Career decisions of (highly-educated) employees in the hospitality : Perceptions of job– and industry characteristics

(max 100 words) This paper reports on the initial results of a case study on management-level turnover in the hospitality, on factors influencing the career decisions of highly-educated employees to stay or leave the hospitality. It looks from an interpretive paradigm at this issue and concludes that retaining these employees can not only be solved by HRM policy. Both personal and general career factors are important, strongly influenced by social aspects. In addition to this also (undeserved or deserved) perceptions of the actual job and industry characteristics are important in the choice to pursue a career within the hospitality industry, or outside this industry.
Air‐Sea exchange of biogenic volatile organic compounds and the impact on aerosol particle size distributions

We report simultaneous, underway eddy covariance measurements of the vertical flux of isoprene, total monoterpenes, and dimethyl sulfide (DMS) over the Northern Atlantic Ocean during fall. Mean isoprene and monoterpene sea‐to‐air vertical fluxes were significantly lower than mean DMS fluxes. While rare, intense monoterpene sea‐to‐air fluxes were observed, coincident with elevated monoterpene mixing ratios. A statistically significant correlation between isoprene vertical flux and short wave radiation was not observed, suggesting that photochemical processes in the surface microlayer did not enhance isoprene emissions in this study region. Calculations of secondary organic aerosol production rates (PSOA) for mean isoprene and monoterpene emission rates sampled here indicate that PSOA is on average <0.1 μg m−3 d−1. Despite modest PSOA, low particle number concentrations permit a sizable role for condensational growth of monoterpene oxidation products in altering particle size distributions and the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei during episodic monoterpene emission events from the ocean.
Primary motor and premotor cortex in implicit sequence learning – evidence for competition between implicit and explicit human motor memory systems

Implicit and explicit memory systems for motor skills compete with each other during and after motor practice. Primary motor cortex (M1) is known to be engaged during implicit motor learning, while dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) is critical for explicit learning. To elucidate the neural substrates underlying the interaction between implicit and explicit memory systems, adults underwent a randomized crossover experiment of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (AtDCS) applied over M1, PMd or sham stimulation during implicit motor sequence (serial reaction time task, SRTT) practice. We hypothesized that M1‐AtDCS during practice will enhance online performance and offline learning of the implicit motor sequence. In contrast, we also hypothesized that PMd‐AtDCS will attenuate performance and retention of the implicit motor sequence. Implicit sequence performance was assessed at baseline, at the end of acquisition (EoA), and 24 h after practice (retention test, RET). M1‐AtDCS during practice significantly improved practice performance and supported offline stabilization compared with Sham tDCS. Performance change from EoA to RET revealed that PMd‐AtDCS during practice attenuated offline stabilization compared with M1‐AtDCS and sham stimulation. The results support the role of M1 in implementing online performance gains and offline stabilization for implicit motor sequence learning. In contrast, enhancing the activity within explicit motor memory network nodes such as the PMd during practice may be detrimental to offline stabilization of the learned implicit motor sequence. These results support the notion of competition between implicit and explicit motor memory systems and identify underlying neural substrates that are engaged in this competition.